How to Fix Lens Distortion in Blender 2.8

In this video, we will be fixing our shots that have Lens Distortion / Barrel or "Fish Eye" Distortion (as it's also known). 

Most Camera's will have some level of Lens Distortion and none more so than Action Cameras like the GoPro and so on, leaving your shots looking rather disappointing. 

If you would like to follow along, you can download the original video here. 

You can also download Blender 2.8 here. 

As we can see from this example, the Lens Distortion is really quite bad. 

If you notice the people on the left, they now seem to be part of the group. 

In the original footage, they look slightly disconnected from the others. 


Though thanks to Blender and only one Node, we can easily fix this problem. 

I should add that I have tried this many times and for the most part, it looks pretty good. If you have multiple shots together, you may need to adjust the settings for each shot. 


I hope you found this helpful and as always, Thanks for reading!.. 

River Rapids in Blender 2.8

In this video, we will be adding some visual interest to our shot with the help of the Niagara Falls, and if you have followed along a previous tutorial you may have already created some "Uber Nodes" or "Mega Nodes". 

By using these custom nodes, we can save a whole bunch of time!. I mean who wants to be creating the same group of nodes over and over again? (if you have not made any super nodes, don't worry!. We will composite this shot without them). 

 This is the original footage we will be starting with (you can download the video here). 

It's a nice shot as it is, but I would like to add some more visual interest by adding rapids. 

 For the "Rapids" we use a Video of the Niagara Falls (download the video here).

 Using the Masks we created and a few color nodes we can blend the water asset into the scene. 

When adding an asset to a scene like this, it's always great when we can bring something from the original footage and put it on top of our asset (like we did here with the Rock). 

I wanted to remove the Bridge and though it wasn't really causing a problem, I wanted the Rapids to pull the focus. 

Adding your final Color Grade will complete your shot. 

Make sure you are optimizing your workflow!.. 

I have spoke about optimizing your workflow in previous videos, creating the same group of nodes is tedious and if you find yourself doing it over and over, be sure to create and save your custom Nodes!.. 

Then you can append them into your future projects.

Not only does it save you time but it's also less of an "eyesore". 

Have you already created your own custom node groups? let us know in the comment below!.

I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial and if you create something awesome, be sure to share it with us in our Facebook Group!.. 

As always thanks for reading!.. 

Flight of the fireflies in Blender 2.8

In this video we will be creating more fireflies. With the help of the Boid Particle system and a bit of tracking we can easily create a surreal fantasy scene. 

We have done tracking and have used boids in the past, though there are some differences. 

I am using Blender 2.8 (release candidate 3) though this tutorial can be done in previous versions (there may be some differences). If you want to download blender 2.8 then click here.

Tracking the shot was not too difficult and considering the motion of the camera, I only added 10 tracking markers. 

If you are using your own background footage then be sure to remember the focal length that you shot in. 

The background footage I used was downloaded (download here) so I had to let blender work out what my focal length should be. 

Once we are happy with the Average solve error, we can then setup our 3d scene. 

With the click of a single button, Blender has set up our 3d view along with creating the necessary nodes that we need to compose the shot. 

In this example I remove the background layer (but you may want to keep it and have reflections). 

Then using a particle system, we change a few settings to get the effect that we are looking for. 

When it comes to rendering, you can render with either Cycles or Eevee. I decided to render with both. I'm not sure if it's a bug but when we activate motion blur in Eevee it doesn't seem to work. 

One of the benefits of rendering with Eevee is the Speed. It took me  about 1 hr and 15 mins for Cycles to render this whole animation. Whereas Eevee took only 20 mins. 

I also considered adding a light cast to the water but in the end I decided that the Glow from the flies probably wouldn't reach the water. 

If you did want a reflection in the water, you could add a mix node and connect the render layers to that mix node. Then add a translate node and move the position of the new fireflies to be below the original fireflies (I would also add a scale node and scale them on the Y axis a little). Then play around with the blend mode and factor to get something that you like.

You can then add your color grading and finalize your shot.

Hopefully you enjoyed this video and as always, 

Thanks for watching!.. 

Zombie Suzanne [3D Printing]

In this video, we will be doing another "Suzanne Print" where we take the Blender Mascot Suzanne and turn her into something else. 

Today, we turn Suzanne into a Zombie. 

As we did last time, we will start with a Basic Mesh. (Which you can download here). 

This is simply an edited version of the original Suzanne Model (The difference being; One has the Eyes connected and the other does not). 

You can use the original Suzanne Mesh (but, be sure to connect the eyes to the Head mesh).

I then removed and Eye, Changed the smile to something more fitting and then added an "Exposed Brain". 

In the process of creating the brain, I used a free image from Textures.com and you can find it here. 

Then I exported the model and sent it off to the printer. I used the "Dora" by Easythreed (you can check out the review we did here). 

After a couple of hours the print was ready to prime and paint. 

I admit, the paint job sucks and I really need to get better but I'm sure you guys could do a better job. 

If you want to download this Zombie Model as an STL file, you can download it here. 

As my collection grows I wonder what will come next?. 

If you guys have any suggestions be sure to let us know in the comments below!.

I hope you enjoyed this post and as always, 

Thanks for reading.. 

PowerDirector 17 - CyberLink [Review]

Today we look at the Video Editing software - PowerDirector 17 by CyberLink, and I should say thanks to the guys over at CyberLink for sending us this Program to review. 

You can check out the Video here. 

I found the PowerDirector 17 to be rather quite powerful and stocked full of features like Chroma Keying and even Motion Tracking. The Power Director 17 is a professional video editing software that's really simple to use.

It took me a few minuets to get my bearings but much like other programs, the PowerDirector has a nice and easy learning curve. 

I was pleasantly surprised with how many features it came with, and found many useful tools like "Precut", Title Designer and the Video Collage Designer. 

We only looked at a few pretty cool features and there are tons more to check out. you can download a Trial Version of the PowerDirector 17 and explore these awesome tools yourself or if you want to buy the full version you can use the link below. 

PowerDirector

The guys at CyberLink have also provided 10% off for you guys, just use the Code "Darkfall"

I think for £79.99 (or £71.99 with the discount) is pretty good for what you get in return. 

I have used many free programs in the past and many of them come with their own faults and anyone who wants to create and edit videos, as a hobby of professionally should invest in quality programs. 

Over all, I enjoyed using the PowerDirector 17 and will certainly be using it more on my projects. 

If you want to see more PowerDirector content, be sure to let us know in the comments below!. 

Did you try the free trial?, let us know what you thought in the comments below. 

Be sure to check out their youtube channel for full tutorials and more.

I hope you guys enjoyed this review or at least found it helpful. 

As always thanks for reading!. 


(Note: The links provided are NOT affiliate links. I am not being paid for this review and these are my thoughts and opinions)