Video Tutorial Random Material Generator - Gyes - Introduction

Just uploaded a tutorial about my Random Material Generator - Gyes which I described in my previous post, hope it clears up any confusion.

Gyes (Random Material Generator) for Blender 2.5

There is little doubt that we live in the golden age of computers, with massive power, flexibility , adaptability.

I look back to my old rusty Amstrad CPC 6128 (1988) with its green monitor, its 6mhz cpu. Yeah you heard correctly not 6 ghz , 6 mhz. Thats 3000 times weaker than a Core 2 Duo at 3 ghz. 3000 times, wow , imagine that.

And of course with hardware comes software evolution, as its software that pushes hardware up in the food chain. Yet , I am always suprised to see how more difficult things have become. With my Amstrad it was a question of inserting the disk , typing the run command and i was set to go, nowdays we got just about a million things to remember to get our computers running.

This applies with making 3d graphics as well, extremely powerful but with a gazillion of options enough to make your head explode to a gazillion pieces.

So I thought instead of being one of those guys bringing another new feature why not just make things easier for the tormented user. And thus i started a Blender script.

Gyes is intended to be a collection of scripts not just one, but for the time being the first one is the random material generator. It does what it says on the box, generates random materials. Of course the goal here is to give a meaning to randomisation cause no user likes completely random stuff. Every user has a goal, a dream , a desire. And gyes tries to put that into the equation.

I released earlier a massive update that started giving options to the user to limit randomisation in the way that user defines. As always simplicity is the goal here. Remember when your mother told you that "there is no magic wand" and you have to do things the hard way. Gyes goes against this rule. If the user wants to make a random "oak tree" material , or maybe the surface of the planet , he does need to understand every single detail on the process of making such materials, all he needs is a magic button and maybe some options. Gyes does not care about the "how" or the "why" it is its role to figure those out, it cares only for the "what". What the user wants ?

I wont explain every single detail about this script you can find loads of information together with a link for download in the thread i started in blenderartists. Click the following link.

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?218110-Gyes-(Random-Material-Generator)

Now many people have asked what "Gyes" means. Well if you knew a couple of things about me, then you would know I am Greek and that I love ancient greek mythology.

Gyes was one of the three brother , a mythical deity , extremely powerful, capable of even slaying gods and titans. He and his brothers united with greek gods in the epic battle of the TITAN WAR , where greek gods and titans among other deities batlle in a huge civil war. Those 3 brother were called "ecatocheires" , which in greek means , the one with 100 hands. Because as you might have guessed they had 100 hands. Latter the 3 brother were assigned as keepers of the TITANS when the titans were imprisoned in Tarturus , a prison of the underworld where none , no man , god or any extremely powerful creature could go in or out.

For me 100 hands has the the meaning for 100 scripts , that will make life easier for the Blender user and even 2d artists . I know 100 sounds alot , but not all scripts will be as ambitious as random material generator. Sometimes even simple ideas can help alot. Maybe Gyes will be never finished and frankly I dont care. Its a great excuse to code in python, I am having loads of fun with it and I will keep doing it slowly but steadly.

I hope you enjoy using the script as much I enjoyed coding it. Its far from finished but its already very useful.