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The online documentation was no help, either, namely because there is none.

Did you bother to check out the quickstart part of the blender3d.org? You don't like the tutorials there? Checking out the oldsite tutorials won't harm you either.. I remember learning tons of stuff from the community written ones, this was something like 1.6 version at that time.

By the way, your post sounds a bit too much like troll.. There's no way you couldn't see that bar in the top of the window where you've got "File" etc.. Or then you just stared at it and screamed "fuck this doesn't look like 3dsmax at all!" and killed it through task manager..

Thanks for your time,
-rzei

The online documentation was no help, either, namely because there is none.

Did you bother to check out the quickstart part of the blender3d.org? You don't like the tutorials there? Checking out the oldsite tutorials won't harm you either.. I remember learning tons of stuff from the community written ones, this was something like 1.6 version at that time.

By the way, your post sounds a bit too much like troll.. There's no way you couldn't see that bar in the top of the window where you've got "File" etc.. Or then you just stared at it and screamed "fuck this doesn't look like 3dsmax at all!" and killed it through task manager..

Thanks for your time,
-rzei

but it did make me go DAMN!.

Windows
Mac OS X
Linux 386
Linux PPC
FreeBSD
Irix
Solaris
NetBSD

Developer site: www.blender.org

Glad to hear a friendly voice.

Although Blender was always available zero-cost, it only became Free Software in September 2002. Since then, the new developer community have improved the documentation along with the code.

The interface is indeed quite unusual, but when you get used to it, it's very efficient with key bindings for most tasks.

You'll what you're looking for at:
http://www.blender3d.org/Education/

And there's more tutorials, articles, and docs linked from:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name =documentation&file=index

Ciaran O'Riordan

And of both of Blender's main sites, too for what it's worth.

Ardour is a multichannel hard disk recorder (HDR) and digital audio workstation (DAW).

Audacity is a free audio editor. You can record sounds, play sounds, import and export WAV, AIFF, and MP3 files, and more.

JACK Rack is an effects "rack" for the JACK low latency audio API. The rack can be filled with LADSPA effects plugins and can be controlled using the ALSA sequencer. It's phat; it turns your computer into an effects box.

Kino is a non-linear DV editor for GNU/Linux. It features excellent integration with IEEE 1394 for capture, VTR control, and recording back to the camera. It captures video to disk in AVI format in both type-1 DV and type-2 DV (separate audio stream) encodings.

Cinerella combines most of the basic functions needed to produce motion pictures with a capable compositing system. Advanced editing, YUV compositing, and realtime effects are some of the things Cinelerra does. Cinelerra's 16 bit YUV compositing engine has been optimized for multiple CPU's, reduces generation loss, and significantly reduces compression time. Capturing from IEEE1394, Video4Linux, Motion JPEG, and screenshots is supported.

Third, animation:

Blender is an open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback.

Fourth, post-processing:

CinePaint(formerly Film Gimp) CinePaint is a free open source painting and image retouching program designed to work best with 35mm film and other high resolution high dynamic range images.

That I'll do, if you weren't exaggerating. Which book should I read?

Just go through some of the tutorials. The Castle tutorial explains how to do most basic things you will need for modelling, as well as texturing and lighting. Just play around and keep your finger on the undo.

As a disclaimer, I suck at 3d modelling. It's not a software issue. I've used everything from TruSpace to Maya. I always suck. But I measure my ability as being able to render something that is recognizable as what I'm trying to render from a separate person. I built a crappy little space ship after 30 minutes in Blender, and someone said, "Hey, neat space ship." That's how I measure proficiency :)

Altogether, I think that Blender is a very attractive choice for the 3D hobbyist--someone who enjoys 3D and graphics but is never going to make a living from it. After all, why shell out $1000+ when a little extra effort can get 95% of the features for free? If you plan to have a career in 3D, or have lots of money, it's probably worth it, but as one who's just in it for the fun, the eye candy, and the challenge of making things work, open source offers me four very decent tools to use together: Blender, Wings3D, Yafray, and The Gimp. All of these work to some degree on Windows, Mac, and Linux, sometimes more. There's never been a better time to get into 3D. And aspiring graphic artists shouldn't turn up their noses at such free tools either. Although you could be more immediately useful to a studio by knowing Maya/Max/Softimage/etc, simply using 3D and graphics programs of any kind will teach you tons that can easily extend to whatever programs you use later.

It's a single keystroke command: U

Schwab
Who read the Quickstart tutorial.

This should get you started. There's a good community site at www.elysiun.com - they can help answer questions in the forums if you get stuck.

Maybe it's just me, but they seem to be rather confused between the "About Blender" pages, the Changelog, etc...2.2.7 specifically says cartoon shading doesn't work. "About Blender" says it does. Which is it, guys?

My son and I have been capturing analog video and producing short digital videos and movies for past few months. We have made a goal to do this entirely in Linux and have learned a bit along the way that may be of use to others. My son has recently made some videos for his high school classes that have been voted best in the class. Here's what worked for us:

1. Start with a reasonably recent model PC, such as an Athlon 1700+ or better built on a decent motherboard. Give it at least 512Mb of RAM and make sure you have at least 20Mb or more of free disk space.

2. Use a relatively recent version of Linux with at least a 2.4.18 kernel. Most distributions which use this kernel (e.g., Red Hat 7.3) include drivers which support the capture cards listed below.

3. We've been using two types of PCI capture cards: an Iomega Buz, and a Linux Media Labs LML33. The Buz is out of production, but it can regularly be had on ebay for $20-$40. It is based on the Zoran MJPEG chipset and Phillips video encoder chips. As a side benefit, it also contains an ultra SCSI controller that is supposedly supported in Linux, though I haven't tried it yet. The LML33 was designed spefically with Linux in mind, and is also based on the Zoran MJPEG chipset, but it uses a BrookTree video encoder. It is also a bit more expensive; we paid $125 for a used one on ebay. Both cards are well supported in Linux, and produce high quality DVD-resolution 720x480 video at 30 frames/second.

4. Install a recent version of mjpegtools. The most important piece of mjpegtools is the lavrec utility, which supports recording from the Zoran cards to either AVI or Quicktime formatted MJPEG files. mjpegtools also includes several other useful utilities.

5. Install a recent distribution of Transcode. Transcode is a very useful suite of command line utilities for transcoding and processing videos and supports just about every video codec available on Linux.

6. Install Cinelerra and Blender. Cinelerra is a bit quirky, still tends to crash a lot, and is butt-ugly, but it has some awesome editing and compositing abilities including multiple layer editing and compositing, and keyframe-based effects control. The most recent version also contains a nice adaptive de-interlace filter. Cinelerra also contains a very nice translate filter that can be used to trim edge artifacts that often appear in captured video. Blender is gread for things like generating 3-D titles and short 3-D blurbs and transition animations if you like to do those kinds of things. Gimp is also quite useful for generating titles and editing individual frames if that is required.

With the above combination of hardware and software, you can achive very close to DVD quality results with very little outlay of cash in a completely Linux environment, and the results can be quite satisfying. My son has been making videos for his high school classes and I have been digitizing old home videos and it's been quite fun.

Not a Number (NaN) was the name of the company that produced Blender before it went belly-up.

Info here: http://www.blender3d.org/Foundation/?sub=History

Try looking here:

http://www.blender3d.org/Education

I highly recommend trueSpace (any version) from Caligari.
They've got a few Holiday Specials (for 3 more days), one of which is trueSpace4 for $99!

Another application that I recommend is Blender. It's free and runs on several Operating Systems.

IMHO this is very cool, I didn't care much about Half-Life but spent many hours messing with it's level editor :)

For "creative gamers" on nearly any computer platform there is Blender, which is licenced under the GPL. You can find both standalone and browser plugin based games at www.blender3d.org

IMHO this is very cool, I didn't care much about Half-Life but spent many hours messing with it's level editor :)

For "creative gamers" on nearly any computer platform there is Blender, which is licenced under the GPL. You can find both standalone and browser plugin based games at www.blender3d.org

IMHO this is very cool, I didn't care much about Half-Life but spent many hours messing with it's level editor :)

For "creative gamers" on nearly any computer platform there is Blender, which is licenced under the GPL. You can find both standalone and browser plugin based games at www.blender3d.org