The Flight Of The Purple Streak...

In the summer of 2009 Channel 4 ran a competition to find new idents, or stings, for their E4 channel. It had to be 10 seconds long and feature the logo, other than that it was completely open.

Having the Blue Streak model available I chose to try and create a pastiche of the classic Apollo launch sequences, employing Blender for CGI and editing. Like the Brunel project with Pro/Desktop it proved a wonderful way to learn the Blender with a specific aim. It was certainly a steep learning curve, but an enjoyable one. Blender is daunting to look at because of its unusual interface, but as soon as you have a go at the first tutorial it rapidly proves itself highly efficient and very user friendly.

As my first project with Blender it is a little basic, and I was aided by the stylised look of the E4 idiom, but I was pleased with the outcome and am continuing to develop my skill. For an indication of Blender's true power check out the online galleries...

Click below to see a low resolution version of the movie, sound bed provided for the competition by Channel 4.