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Blender Gets Audio Sequencing
Qbertino writes "The universal GPLd 3D tool
Blender that was
bought free by the Blender community not so long ago, has gotten
audio sequencing added to its feature set. This has
been missing ever since the integrated Video NL (Non-Linear)
Editor/Sequencer was introduced. The only other 3D package
known for its integrated Video NLE is the proprietary
Houdini, which also
runs under Linux but comes at something like $3000 for its small featureset. This finally gives
the OSS community a lightweight alternative to
this and eases syncing 3D animation and audio a great deal. Audio sequencing will be integrated in the upcoming 2.28 release of Blender. Early
adopters can
download here."
Sorry for the nitpick, but for the sake of not propogating mis-information, Houdini has anything but a small feature set, modeling/rendering/compositing very powerfull scripting, CHOPS/SOPS very powerfull particle systems, its been around quite a bit longer then blender as well. More along the lines of Maya Unlimited and Softimage XSI featureset wise.
http://www.sidefx.com/
Unless you're a graphics design professional (in which case, $500 is a business expense and can be written off on your taxes, and is a small price to pay to have the industry-standard tool), you probably don't need most of what Photoshop does. However, Photoshop's interface is one of its greatest assets, and you can get that and all the functionality most enthusiasts need in Adobe's Photoshop Elements product. It's $99 and available for Mac and Windows. If you're too lazy to go to the store, you can pay online and download it.
If $99 is still too much for you, then I can't help you.
By the way, everyone who modded this jerk-off up should take a look at his posting history, in which he's claimed to be an employee for several different companies, lied, trolled, and generally made an ass of himself.
I wish you moderators would put down the crack-pipe long enough to make sure this guy doesn't keep worming his way back.
Blender may be crap, but at 2 megs it is hardly bloated.
Photos.
One of the new volunteers, Cessen, has been working on an updated shading system which adds on an Oren-nayar blinn shading and a toon shading method to the current phong shading. Cessen's new work is a much easier and more accurate way of toon shading (works based on light sources, specularity etc), not to mention the obvious improvements in adding blinn shading too. Unfortuately there wasn't enough time to integrate Cessen's changes for the 2.27 release, but it should be in the next.
Also keep in mind that Blender has only been open source for a relatively short time, and want' originally developed in an open source context (a la netscape->mozilla). It will take some time for developers to properly familiarise themselves with the huge amount of code in there, and start to re-organise it into something that facilitates an open-source model rather than the previous.
I started a page here. I'm preparing a section on shaders and animation that should be ready in a couple weeks.
Blender has more buttons then a 747 Jet Airliner. While its amazing to see that Blender raised enough money, I wish that they would rework the entire GUI.
I also use Windows (please dont kill me), and seem to experience some annoying problems with blender (like the window not resizing correctly to my resolution, and just annoying GUI bugs)
Unless I need something complex, I'll stick with milkshape.
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.
Damn.. That link should be www.elysiun.com not elyiun.
There is a version of Maya for linux as well..... (pixar is using it that way)
Keep this in mind:
The focus of the mouse pointer determines what each key sequence does. This can be confusing at first but makes it easier later. In other words, if your pointer is in the modeling window then keys will have a different effect than if you're in the controls pane. The alternative may have been to assing a modifier sequence, but you could argue that this forces you to put two hands on the keyboard. As it is, you keep one hand always on the mouse and the other always on the keyboard.
You want to make music in linux?
Ever heard of audour?
Or audacity?
You want an audio sequencer? Check out soundtracker.
Or if you like to mess with oscillators and stuff, spiralsynthmodular.
don't you DARE tell me we have no sound apps in linux.
if you're STILL unconvinced, check out http://linux-sound.org/
The May 2003 issue of Linux Journal features Linux and sound. Check out Linux Journal then navigate to the May 2003 issue in the archive section. The ones they mention are still in beta or development stages but some are useful, according to the articles.
I suspect that they will have to compromise on quality, lest they end up with some bloated software product.
I'd much rather have separate best-of-breed software packages, than an integrated one that does everything OK, but not great.
I disagree with the myth that addition of features necessarily compromises quality or causes bloat. If you're talking about a highly monolithic application, then yes, that *can* be an issue. However, proper modular design entirely dispenses of the drawbacks of feature 'bloat'. Furthermore, memory is a non-issue with modern hardware, so that argument falls flat. What's left is something along the lines of: "will adding this feature compromise the integrity of other features?" If the answer is no and the feature will add to the program's usefulness, there is no reason not to add it. Granted, if someone tried to integrate a word processor into Blender, *that* would be useless bloat. But trying to be the ultimate integrated 3D modeling / NLE package is a worthy goal. There are a lot of advantages to combining the two tasks, such as being able to do all rendering and compositing in one pass and without having to constantly switch back and forth between applications, doing renders / re-importing results back and forth, etc.