Blender Conference Closes, Version 2.3 Released

Qbertino writes "The 3-day Blender Conference 2003 has closed as of last Sunday. It was a successful one, with the front line of open source 3D people attending, such as Eskil Steenberg introducing his Verse Virtual Collaboration Server and giving talks and insights into the low-level details of Verse and programs accompanying it, such as his high-end full-range color-correction tool Nil, Loq Airou, the 3D Sketchpad and Connector, a Server monitor/server-app-debugger for Verse. All with over the top OpenGL-accelerated user interfaces. An impressive set of avant garde software engineering indeed. GPLd, of course. Almost one and a half hours of exceptional blender artwork and animations were presented, along with the nominated Suzanne Awards 2003 entries. Results can be seen here." Read on for some more details from the conference.

Qbertino continues: "The cool stuff and cool people I've met are so numerous I get dizzy even trying to sum them up. Notable for all should be the conference release of Blender, Version 2.3. A major release with, among other improvements and updates, a serious redo on essential parts of the interface. At last: No more cliff-wall learning 'curve.' Blender n00bs rejoice! An interesting piece of conference buzz was the entire development team of Newtek/Lightwave defecting and founding their own company with a flagship 3D Subsurf modeler called 'modo'. It sports an interface arguably influenced by Blender and advertised as the hottest GUI-thing since sliced bread. Talk about ripping of the OSS community and not giving credit where credit due ... We were ranting about this, but Ton Roosendahl of Blender fame himself was pleased to see his baby inspiring the industry. We'll beat them all with 3.0 anyway. :-) Get the new original here. And go easy on those servers ... err ... forget it."

Comments

About these Suzanne awards...

[Bagels]

What exactly are they about, and are there any pictures or other downloads available?

Re:About these Suzanne awards...

[zambuka]

Here are a couple of animations
Stuff by EnV
and
Mindfields by @ndy
Would have been real nice if the Blender guys had put links in the news page. Check out the forums at elysiun for the quality of work that some of the Blender artists are producing. Also check out what Landis is doing.

Cheers from a happy but untalented Blenderhead.
Zambuka

Re:About these Suzanne awards...

[Anonymous Coward]

the biggest problem with blender is its learning cycle. you can not just find it out by trying it, you have to read the documentation. and since most people don't, the use maya or 3d studio max.

Finally.

[aardvarkjoe]

At last: No more cliff-wall learning 'curve.'

I tried Blender long ago, and was consistently frustrated by the unneccesarily obtuse and convoluted interface. Can't wait to see if they have made some real progress.

Now, since every Blender story had dozens of people who immediately said that "changing Blender's interface will make it useless!" whenever somebody brought up how difficult it was to use: are you sticking with your old version?

Re:Finally.

[t0qer]

I use truespace, I hear a lot of people say that has a "unneccesarily obtuse and convoluted interface." For some reason it just sat right with me.

Same thing when it came to blender. After understanding the keyboard shortcuts I was able to create objects, animate them, and add in particle effects.

UI design is wholy dependant on the programmers abilities and their knowledge of UI design. I don't think 3D manipulation and rendering of objects in realtime has any real "defined" widget set yet. Because there is no "Law" for designing UI for the 3D we usually end up with all these whacky interfaces. You just have to hope your userbase's minds can hum along with it.

Re:Finally.

[t0qer]

Sorry to reply to me own post but just wanted to add.

WADS. I believe that should be a standard widget in any 3D application is scene walkthrough using the WADS keys, which are standard walk keys in most FPS games.

Ok so there's 1 standard everyone should be using.

Re:Finally.

[inode_buddha]

Same experience here, tho I did make it partway through the tutorial and demos. I'm definitely not a CG pro, despite 3+ years of art school (traditional media).

I'm a strong believer in open systems and software tho; I was one of the original contributors to the Blender Foundation when they had to buy their code base. So, I'm just thrilled that the OSS community was able to save this project, and now its taking off.

Definitely, I'll have to try the new version ASAP.

Re:Finally.

[Tyler Eaves]

I don't think Blender's biggest learning curve issue ISN'T the interface. It's the last of a proper UNDO function, which makes it very hard to 'play with' parameters, as you have to go through a save / load cycle. Plus, it can be really frustrating for a errant key press to really fudge things up, and have to revert to an older save.

Re:Finally.

[sahonen]

I find that the most efficient interfaces are never intuitive. Blender makes itself efficient by moving actions onto the keyboard where your hand-eye coordination can hit the buttons with your fingers intead of trying to hit 8x8 pixel buttons with a clunky mouse. Plus side: It doesn't crowd your window with a thousand useless icons. Downside: You gotta learn all the hotkeys.

Believe me when I say that spending an hour REALLY LEARNING Blender will reveal to you an amazingly efficient interface.

Re:Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

I gotta agree... Maya and 3DSMax are snails when compared to Blender when it comes to speed and efficiency. Ever seen a Blender speed modelling sessions? man....

I actually found Maya less intuitive to use for some reason... it took me the better part of an hour to find out how to zoom and pan (crtl-alt-LMB/RMB/MMB or something like that... very convoluted finger positions). With Blender it somehow seemed simpler and easier...

The biggest debate in the Blender community was usability over efficiency. Usability brings users, but runs a rather high risk of dragging down the entire workflow. I wonder if the newly designed UI still retains most of the hotkeys... haven't had a chance to d/l it yet.

Re:Finally.

[grantsellis]

I downloaded it, and though I'm still clueless, the interface does seem a lot better than when I tried it ~6 mos. back.

My only complaint is that it still has the "subdivisions of one big window" interface that reeks for multi-monitor setups. I wish you could split the palette window from the view windows.

Of course, that might be one reason the download is only 2.9 megs for a mac :). That's incredible.

Re:Finally.

[dasunt]

The parent poster writes
At last: No more cliff-wall learning 'curve.'

I tried Blender long ago, and was consistently frustrated by the unneccesarily obtuse and convoluted interface. Can't wait to see if they have made some real progress.

Now, since every Blender story had dozens of people who immediately said that "changing Blender's interface will make it useless!" whenever somebody brought up how difficult it was to use: are you sticking with your old version?

Nope. In fact, I'm so inspired that Blender made their interface user friendly, that I'm going to fix vi and Emacs, and finally Linux. (Yegads, a command line. How untuitive is that!)

Re:Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

obtuse and convoluted? It is much more intuitive for 3D than Emacs is for editing text files. /Someone

Re:Finally.

[JollyFinn]

All you guys who wan't blender become userfriendly think again do you really want Erwin.

Re:Finally.

[black mariah]

Quite frustrating. It's so insanely fucking stupid not to have an UNDO function. I can't believe nobody is even TRYING to implement one.

If every shitty text editor in the world has an undo, why doesn't a piece of software that NEEDS it have one?

Re:Finally.

[Cthefuture]

UI design is wholy dependant on the programmers abilities and their knowledge of UI design. I don't think 3D manipulation and rendering of objects in realtime has any real "defined" widget set yet.

I disagree. Give Mirai, Nendo, or Wings 3D (free) a try. I've never met anyone who couldn't figure out how to use it right away and they are very powerful modelers. It's all in the UI and the context sensitive nature of the menus makes it simple for anyone.

I've had people who've never done 3D modeling or even used a computer up and working within 5 minutes in Wings.

Mirai was used to create a lot of the stuff in LOTR. Although there isn't much press to that effect. The official modeler is Maya but the best artists are actually using Mirai for the more difficult modeling.

Blender's UI, well, it sucks. It is possible to have an extremely powerful and fast modeler with an easy to use UI (for anyone).

Re:Finally.

[WWWWolf]

Now, since every Blender story had dozens of people who immediately said that "changing Blender's interface will make it useless!" whenever somebody brought up how difficult it was to use: are you sticking with your old version?

I've been toying with Blender since the first Linux releases and been an active user since 1.5 days.

And I will not be sticking to the old versions. I don't hold Blender's interface that "sacred". The interface had its great strengths, but it had its weaknesses as well.

The goal of the UI project, as I have understood it, has been to keep the good parts in and improve the bad parts. And so far, I have been pleased with Blender 2.30, even when I've only used it briefly. I've mostly been able to work as usual in Blender 2.30, it isn't that different - and some things are definitely changes for the better, for newbies and old users alike.

The goal has been to improve, and they're doing it.

And I can't wait until they do what they promised earlier and allow the scripts to be bound to UI (so that scripts would be invokable via menus or button palettes), GIMP and other proggies have had that for years... *drool*

Re:Finally.

[FunkyChild]

It's implemented in this release for mesh editing so far. Read the release notes:

http://www.blender.org/docs/2.30_release/UndoDoc/U ndoDoc.html

Re:Finally.

[DrCode]

What really frustrated me was the 'file' dialog, where the only way to accept your choice was to click the middle mouse button. The "Enter" key did nothing, and there were no "Save" or "OK" buttons. I believe they improved this a while ago, but I've always wondered what genius designed that in the first place.

Re:Finally.

[aardvarkjoe]

The problem, really, is that the interface was designed by the programmers. Programmers aren't necessarily UI experts (and in this case, they obviously weren't.) Most of the Blender users who defend the interface seem to fall back on "we want keyboard shortcuts, not a mouse-driven interface." So? You can have keyboard shortcuts in a program with a well-designed GUI. There's no reason why the speed-saving features could not be retained while improving the interface. (Hopefully, that's what they did.)

Fortunately, it looks like the programmers working on Blender didn't form the same blindly religious attachment to the interface that some of the vocal users did.

(The most amusing comment of this thread: "Blender makes itself efficient by moving actions onto the keyboard where your hand-eye coordination can hit the buttons with your fingers intead of trying to hit 8x8 pixel buttons with a clunky mouse." (link) This, defending an interface that was absolutely overloaded with tiny icons, and my personal favorite, two-dimensional arrays of tiny unlabeled buttons.)

Re:Finally.

[tprox]

They've released the "manual" for blender on their FTP site.

This book used to be sold, but I suspect with the new interface there will be a new book out for sale at some point. The differences between the old interface and the new interface are, of course, not in this version of the book but the basic interface and keyboard commands are pretty much the same. It's a good start anyhow.

Re:Finally.

[firewrought]

I find that the most efficient interfaces are never intuitive.

True, but blender does some really tasteless stuff... like dialog boxes where you must click on the left side to decrement the number and on the right side to increment it, all with zero graphical hints. Contrast with interfaces that clearly have an up/down spin button by the number and also allow you to edit it with the keyboard.

Re:Finally.

[sahonen]

Shift-click the box to enter a number manually.

Re:Finally.

[lucasw]

I hate those keys - I use the numpad 4,6,8, & 2 for that, where they are lined up and easy to use with the right hand if I want to aim with the mouse left handed.

I wish there were some standardized config file that could be setup once that every fps would recognize, and only game specific actions would have to be changed.

Re:Finally.

[t0qer]

Yah you're left handed... I'm actually ambi if I want to be, and i've been looking for an experiment to try.

I think i'll try remapping my keys, and going left for a few months. I'd like too see if using the right side of my brain would have an effect on my counterstrike scores.

Re:Finally.

[lucasw]

I'm not really left handed, but there was a stretch in college where I would be on the computer so much I'd have to switch mouse between left and right to relieve strain. It's fun trying to play with the left, makes the games really challenging for a while- it's not as hard learning to use the mouse on the other hand as drawing or writing.

Talk about ripping of the OSS community?

[DAldredge]

Yea! Give em hell!!!

After all it's not like the OSS community ever copies others ideas!

</sigh>

Re:Talk about ripping of the OSS community?

[black mariah]

That line is total bullshit anyway. Modo's interface has been designed from the ground up to work however the user wants it to. You can make it have a 3ds max layout, a Maya layout, a Lightwave layout... how is that anything like Blender's shitty interface?

I tell you what I need

[Qweezle]

Someone needs to create some 3d software which is INCREDIBLY simple...I mean, something even I could use(I am a web designer). If I could create quick 3d objects for use in images on the fly, that would be awesome.

So why can't the 3d software development companies create something for a guy like me, who just needs basic features and simplicity? I use a Mac, so I expect simplicity from my software anyway...

Re:I tell you what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

I always found Milkshape3D to be simple. I don't have a link -- google for it.

Re:I tell you what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

This is always a tradeoff between simple and good-enough. Things like CorelDream that do simple extrudes, textures and lighting on a 2D shape might be good enough for what you want. For guys wanting to model a Vorplon Prison Planet Death Ray Projector, it just won't do.

Re:I tell you what I need

[hotgazpacho]

Coming from a fellow web designer and former 3D computer graphic art student, the simple answer is that 3D is far more complicated than 2D web pages. That 3rd dimension adds so much more to work with and think about. Add to that the fact that you are working with 3 dimensions (4, if you animate) on a 2 dimensional display, and the situation becomes even more convoluted. It is not like sculpting, where you can hold the object and intuitively work with it.

That said, the simplist 3D package I have found is Bryce. Mostly geared towards landscapes, but you can create simple objects. This would probably be your best bet for an "INCREDIBLY simple" 3D package. However, be forwarned that there is still a bit of a learning curve to 3D in general...

Re:I tell you what I need

[Qweezle]

I have seen Bryce before, and even demo'ed it a few times. It's a great program. I could learn 3d, and it wouldn't kill me to, because I'm interested in learning it eventually anyway. However, for the time being, I just want a bare bones package that can let me put together simple 3d objects like spheres and cubes, to make custom buttons and looks for the advanced needs of some of my different clients.

Learning 3d is on my list of things to do, though, and I will at some point in the future, for sure.

Re:I tell you what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

"Learning 3d?" You live in a fucking 3d world, what is there to know about the 3 dimensions? Oh, I suppose you mean 3d modelling.

Re:I tell you what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot make an "incredibly simple" 3d modelling application. By saying this crap, you're undermining the incredibly huge amount of work that goes into any 3d work. It's a very large task to learn and there's no way of dumming it down without limiting your abilities.

Re:I tell you what I need

[FrenZon]

If you're wanting non-curved shapes (architectural models especially) I do believe sketchup might be what you're after. The interface is even better than they say it is.

Re:I tell you what I need

[mabhatter654]

A three year old with a box of lego bricks can 3D model very close repicas...Why can't millons of dollars to developers make things that simple on a computer? Granted, 3D requires different hardware than we have now, but years of learning some program are just crazy...we already KNOW how to 3D model, we just can't put it in a computer easily!

Re:I tell you what I need

[archiDORK]

You could try design workshop - free, functional demo. Simple fast to learn and is cheap.

Re:I tell you what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

dumming?

Re:I tell you what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it would. We'd need a 3D monitor, keyboard and mouse, for a start.

I know, we can make the interface from keyed, reusable rectangular shapes.

We could call it "iLego!"

Re:I tell you what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

Ye,ye. There're a lot of wackos out there who think they can drive a car just because the interface is dead simple.
Man, not before we are cyborgs will it come true that just anybody can do anything. If ye' too bloody foolish, you'll never grasp it. Got it ?

Re:I tell you what I need

[The Almighty Dave]

Crystal 3D Impact Pro might be worth looking at. I've used it, and it seems to have what you are looking for.

Re:I tell you what I need

[The Almighty Dave]

You can make an incredibly simple 3D modelling application if all you want is incredibly simple 3D models.

Re:I tell you what I need

[DrCode]

I'd just be happy to see one that uses a standard toolkit like GTK or QT. The keyboard shortcuts in Blender are great once you know what you're doing, but I hate trying to figure out the home-grown (and totally nonstandard) GUI.

Re:I tell you what I need

[ultranova]

You're too late.

slashdotted

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the site is slahdotted...but I snaped a mirror of the first url here

Yes, but....

[Anonymous Coward]

....can it run Linux?

Typical

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, there is a huge PDC covering Microsoft technologies making big news all week, and all Slashdot can talk about is yet another pointless bunch of garbage from open source weenies living in their parents basements

Re:Typical

[mabhatter654]

We let them advertize up top from time to time...they can put their news there if they want!

Oh, that and when MSN posts front page links to Linux news!

one more thing...THIS IS SLASHDOT SILLY RABBIT!

Blender has a GForge installation....

[tcopeland]

...to manage its projects - right here.

Seems like GForge is all over the place... here is a list of some known sites, and of course - shameless plug - RubyForge.

How about more importing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to use Blender as a 3D preview engine for PCB design. Exporting DXF from Allegro doesn't seem to work, I always end up with a flat image in Blender, or Blender crashes on those 5M DXF files.
The mechanical CAD guys use ProEng to model the final PCB into its enclosure. This requires the engineer to be free when I'm free.
If Blender could import .emn files, it would be nice. I'm far too tired right now to even RTFA, but I have Blender at work, tried it a few times then i had to get back to 'real' work...
Oh well.

blender...

[mantera]

blender is open source at its best; highly polished, cross-platform.

Re:blender...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really...? Where is the undo button?

Re:blender...

[Deusy]

Blender is open source at its best; highly polished, cross-platform.

Yes, it is.

It's a pity that this slashdot news story was not properly verified by the editors as Blender 2.3 is not yet released. The submitter was really referring to the recently released preview of Blender 2.3 which people will be finding it slightly buggy whilst now expecting it to be a final release.

This would be a shame because since Blender was bought by the community and became open source, it's development has accelerated and moved in a direction that, as with all open source software, is highly influenced by the needs of it's community.

One of the main criticisms of Blender was that it's power was masked by an unintuitive interface that was very inconsistent. Most features were designed to be activated by the keyboard, as opposed to through the GUI, and that confused most people new to Blender who were unfamiliar with the keyboard shortcuts.

So the Blender community set about a rethink of the user interface. The proposal is well thought out, well planned, and well documented. And from what I have seen of the 2.3 preview release, the final 2.3 release will be a brilliant piece of software.

Really, the commercial 3d development studio vendors should start getting worried.

Re:blender...

[Deusy]

Argh why is it that I rely on www.blender.org for updates when they bloodey well announce it on www.blender3d.org... talk about bad synchronisation!

Re:blender...

[black mariah]

Oh please. Blender is a great application for hobbyists, but there is no way in hell that you're going to see it replacing Softimage or Maya in ILM's workshop anytime soon.

It simply does not have the featureset. The materials are downright laughable, the particles are crap... the interface isn't an issue actually as anyone that's used Houdini knows what a REALLY bad interface is about.

I don't doubt that in the due course of time Blender will reach a certain level of acceptance in movie houses such as ILM, Pixar, and PDI, but it will be as a niche tool, like most other open source projects that have found use in the motion picture industry (see Cinepaint).

Speaking of Blenders for the flash enabled...

[Dareth]

http://www.joecartoon.com/pages/home/

Check out the frog in the blender

Be nicer if it was Bill in a blender.. but frog works for now. *wink*

Re:Speaking of Blenders for the flash enabled...

[Anonymous Coward]

someone mod this idiot down.

Blender Info

[NoNine]

BitPuree bits here

John Marriott

[Anonymous Coward]

domain: ACKBAR.ORG
owner-address: John Marriott
owner-address: 506 E Sherman St.
owner-address: 61873
owner-address: St. Joseph
owner-address: Illinois
owner-address: United States of America
admin-c: JM963-GANDI
tech-c: JM963-GANDI
bill-c: JM963-GANDI
nserver: ns218.csoft.net 63.111.28.142
nserver: ns116.csoft.net 63.111.27.102
reg_created: 2001-07-27 19:47:48
expires: 2005-07-27 23:47:48
created: 2002-07-19 06:55:50
changed: 2003-06-11 03:30:53

person: John Marriott
nic-hdl: JM963-GANDI
address: 506 E Sherman St
address: 61873
address: St. Joseph
address: Illinois
address: United States of America
phone: 2174697080
e-mail: marriott@uiuc.edu
lastupdated: 2003-09-23 16:50:49

Re:John Marriott

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahha. Some luser thinks he is gonna stop the mirror troll by posting his WHOIS.

Wow, smart. Not.

Luxology has been around for at least a year now..

[Quarters]

An interesting piece of conference buzz was the entire development team of Newtek/Lightwave defecting and founding their own company with a flagship 3D Subsurf modeler called 'modo'.

Alan Hastings and Stuart Ferguson, the two people behind Lightwave (all the way back to when it was called Aegis Animator 3D and ran on the Amiga) founded Luxology in 2002. They've not been a part of NewTek for at least a year now.

Yes, Modo is a new program, but the "defection" you mention isn't anything new. Or, was the buzz at the conference about the people NewTek brought into keep Lightwave going also leaving to go work with Hastings and Ferguson?

Game Blender

[Jack William Bell]

Any information from the conference on Game Blender? Apparently a lot of the parts are in place to make it work, but there is barely any documentation at all. Every new Blender release I check to see if it is working and documented...

Hi, I'm sort of new here

[Anonymous Coward]

But could someone explain exactly how the hell you're supposed to use Blender? I wanted to give a truly free 3D application a try, since I felt bad about pirating commercial modellers. But when I installed it and fired it up, I couldn't do anything. The online documentation was no help, either, namely because there is none. At least with 3D Studio Max, I could create basic shapes and such without buying a goddamn 300 lb. reference manual. How does anybody get anything accomplished when the interface is so arcane that nobody can use it?

Re:Hi, I'm sort of new here

[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

Re:Hi, I'm sort of new here

[ahaning]

I had a similar experience. The UI felt slow. Probably due to not using native Windows widgets. I pointed and clicked and 15 minutes later, still hadn't found Nemo.

Some people are just really good at picking up these interfaces. Some people actually code in vi!

Re:Hi, I'm sort of new here

[Anonymous Coward]

The interface might seem slow since its based on OpenGL; many graphics card are OK at 3d openGL but actually slower on the 2d portion. (for example, the ui is terrible on my g200 and g400 cards)
not using native widgets and depending on openGL is key to the app's portability; it runs on roughly 8 different OS's.

No, I'm New Here

[New Here]

No, I'm New Here

Minor update

[shibbydude]

Having used Blender since something like 1.8 I would say that everything past 2.26 has been a minor update, but this is a very good step in the right direction. I love Blender. Open source projects often fail, but Blender will still rule the amature 3d market. The cool thing is, though, that recent Blender work is rivaling the Big Boys (3ds Max, Maya). For some great artwork and examples visit elysiun.com and check out the forums.

Re:Minor update

[Quarters]

Given enough time and talent with a 128 color box of Crayola crayons I can replicate any picture in the Louvre.

The quality of the final output is directly dependant on the skill of the person working on it and the time they spend on it. That Blender has a renderer that produces images on par with Max and/or Maya is nice. But, is the toolset as robust? Does it allow the artist to create the same imagery in the same (or less) time than it would take to do it in Maya or Max?

Generally, right now, I'd say the answer to both of those question is "no". Blender is nice, and there is some good looking stuff made with it. Of course, there a lot of really good looking stuff that was made by passing text files into a POVRay renderer too. That doesn't make POVay stand as an equal to Max or Maya, though.

Re:Minor update

[Anonymous Coward]

Given enough time and talent with a 128 color box of Crayola crayons I can replicate any picture in the Louvre.

I'm sorry, but I would seriously have to disagree with you on that.

Blender is an incredible piece of software.

[nuance9]

I know I was initially over-whelmed by the interface when I first checked it out too. The trick that makes it all come together, and incredibly fast to work in to boot, is hotkeys. Keep one hand on the keyboard and one on the mouse.

If you haven't checked out Blender in a while, now is the time to do so. It has changed alot, and is advancing QUICKLY.

Wow.

[subk]

Blender3d.org lasted a lot less time than I expected...

This Can't Be Possible!

[FFFish]

Why, Mr. Howard Strauss, the [koff] "esteemed" manager of technology strategy and outreach at Princeton University, says that open-source software is gunk!

File Formats...

[voice of unreason]

I'd really like to see Blender support a wider variety of file formats for exporting objects. Particularly .X files. I know that Microsoft fromats don't really sit well with many in the Open Source community, but I'd be nice if there was a nice, free, open source way of creating .X files. (and it goes with Blender's game making focus)

Re:File Formats...

[DetectiveThorn]

If the format spec is available, Blender can do it (If you can find someone to write a script). Import/Export is handled by Python plugins.

Re:File Formats...

[toofanx]

The problem is not with the open source community, but it is with the closed source community, like Microsoft. Initially, Microsoft used to publish their formats. There was a time when the MS Word format was available from MSDN web site (you can still find old copies by searching for "Microsoft Word 97 Binary File Format"). Today, Microsoft keeps the format secret, and discloses it only if people sign a tight non-disclosure agreement that prevents anyone from writing open source software.

I searched the web for "Microsoft DirectX File Format Specification" (which is what you are talking about, I presume). I found links only in third party developer sites to a document that is 6 years old - possibly out dated. No links in MSDN or any Microsoft site. Ofcourse, MSDN gives excellent details on how to create the file in C#, etc. But does not seem to reveal the file format (which is absolutely crucial, to write open source software).

There is such poor support for Microsoft formats because Microsoft does not want open source to be able to support its file formats.

Re:File Formats...

[voice of unreason]

Actually, there are copies of the format available. In fact, many DirectX game programming books actually teach you how to write a loader. I think it's just that MSDN is horrible for actually finding the info you want.

Re:File Formats...

[toofanx]

Could you please post the links or names of the books ? Better still, would be to post the format from the book, if possible. I would be happy to write the relevant python scripts.

"arguably influenced"? No way.

[Anonymous Coward]

O.K. I'll argue. Pre-2.3 Blender UI = SUCK. Modo announced a few months ago along with screenshots. "arguably influenced"? No way. When I used to create plug-ins for Lightwave (4.0 - 5.5 era LW), I used to bitch about the UI considerably. I was hardly the only one. Those fine programmers are now free to break away from the LW conventions.
The images you linked to show Modo sporting UI organization along the lines of 3ds max and Maya and Lightwave. Where is the Blender-like UI organization? It's not there. No one bothered to mock-up Blender's UI because it simply isn't worth it.
The Luxology crowd is NOT ripping off the OSS community. In fact, one could argue that Blender is ripping off the innovations of YEARS and YEARS of commercial 3D application development. Of course, I wouldn't go so far as to say that (since god knows the commercial 3D app companies rip each other off).
Get off the party whine. Oops, I meant Line.

Re:"arguably influenced"? No way.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you see Modo resembling Max and Maya? Max and maya's interfaces are a mess. The Modo screens are showing how you can configure the windows any way you want, not something that you can do in MAX for sure. This is something that Blender has been doing for years. The only thing that Blender is doing different now is holding the hands of noobs and people who can't model their way our of a paper bag.

Re:"arguably influenced"? No way.

[vaccum pony]

If you will reread my post you will note that I did not say that Max or Maya can do this. I was pointing out that Modo was designed to have a UI that can be made to resemble other 3D applications and was not "lifted" from Blender. Please reread my post.

Too Many Trolls

[newshooze]

Since this thread is a total bust, will someone tell me how to install the java vm to work with Firebird. I just want to play fscking Word Whomp at pogo.com

Cleanse your soul

Silly me...

[rune2]

The first time I read that I thought it said Bender conference.... I was thinking "Whoa, that must be one hell of a conference!..." :-)

Re:Silly me...

[Anonymous Coward]

++ gj

Verse finaly on slashdot

[[verse]Eskil]

Wow verse finally hit slashdot...

So what is verse?

Verse is a network protocol that is designed to let any apps talk to each other in real-time over a IP network. So if one app changes the data all other apps gets the changes sent to them in real-time. This means that multiple apps, people and developers can collaborate. its all Free BSD and portable.

Verse support can be given both existing and new applications.

It has been around for quite some time. I and i friend was hired to write verse a few years back. (at II) it is one of few apps written from the ground up as open source and the people who wrote it got funded to do it.

Verse used to be on source forge but is now living on at blender.org

Loq Airou, Nil salentinn, and connector are very recently added apps and you can find some screen shots here and here

Ton (head of the blender foundation) wants to base Blender 3 on verse technology.

E

Re:Verse finaly on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like Blender.org is down.

So to help any one who wants more info i cut this out of the verse spec:

Verse is a network protocol lets multiple applications act together as one large application by sharing data over a network. If one application makes a change to the data the change is distributed instantly to all the other interested clients. This simple network protocol allows any one to write components and applications that are compatible. The protocol is built to be point to point, but is usually configured in a server client solution where the server acts as a hub to allow several clients to share the same data. In this case the hub also stores a local copy of the data to allow the users to subscribe to data changes and to keep the data persistent. Clients no longer needs to access data through import/export features since all communication is done instantly using the protocol. The data format used by the protocol is an easy-to-use, non application specific format, but with advanced features as subdivision surfaces geometry, shader trees, high dynamic range and 3D textures. The protocol can be used for collaborative applications, for existing 2D/3D applications, design/review, games, mobile computing and computational steering. The protocol is accessed by a simple API and any application written for this API will automatically work together with any application written for the same API.

The 3D graphics data is designed around the philosophy of "perfect data", it means that the data doesn't describe how to render the graphics, but more how the graphics should look. Then it is up to client to do a "best effort render" of the data. The idea is to create a data set that is as easy as possible to use independently of the application. The data is divided in seven different node types: Object, Geometry, Material, Bitmap, Text, Physic and Curve. The 3D geometry data is based around a single primitive: subdivided polygons. A subdivided polygon is basically a normal polygon, but it can be subdivided to create a 3rd degree curved surface. This means that you may display the graphics as simple, planar, polygons, but you can also subdivide them to increase the smoothness of the surfaces. It is also compatible with a lot of existing 3D software, since you can convert polygons, B-splines, patches and NURBs into subdivision surfaces without loss of precision. The data set has many features such as an advanced shader tree for surface properties such as color, texture, lighting and displacement, High dynamic range textures, animation curves, generic surface properties for storing UV, color, selection and other data. A system wide tag system lets users store additional custom data in nodes. The physic node allows clients to do client side simulation of things such as cloth, hair, smoke and fire. The text node lets each object be associated with scripts; these scripts can be read and executed by a client, which run on the server side. This is a very flexible way of doing scripting since scripting engines can be written by any one for any language making Verse language independent. In addition to the text node and tags the object node can have generic method calls that can be passed between clients.

And here is a text i found with some examples of what it can be used for:

To truly appreciate the new possibilities of this approach let us explore some examples of how such a system could be used:

Imagine an architectural office being able to run a project where multiple architects can use plug-ins to their 3D software to connect to a server and being able to modify the model simultaneously. Since the data on the server is stored in a common data format each architect can use his or her 3D application of choice. An on-site manger or customer can at any time use a secure login to connect to the server to review the work and give feed back. And as they do they can see the model change instantly in real-time as the architects responds to the feedback. The manager

Re:Verse finaly on slashdot

[emj]

Hey Congrats, at last on slashdot. It's really cool technology I really hope that some of you will be luck enough to see it in action..

I Loved the Gimp plugin, is it still working?

Re:Verse finaly on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a new plugin. I showed a demo of it working together with Blender, at the conference. You can see it here.

Re:Verse finaly on slashdot

[black mariah]

It sounds similar to Lightwave's hub, although on a grande scale. Lightwave is broken into two parts, Layout and Modeler. If you make changes in one the hub automatically updates the other if neccesary. That could get very interesting as far as collaborative modeling goes.

Re:Verse finaly on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this different from other schemes, such as CORBA and .NET?

Re:Verse finaly on slashdot

[[verse]Eskil]

Corba And .NET are using TCP making them fairly useless for real time applications, Verse is using UDP that have lower latency. Second of all verse has a built in format that controls how data is transferred. Since no one has a standardized data format no one could use .NET or Corba for the same thing. (And even if they did agree on a format it would just be very slow and have lots of overhead)

For games and similar applications the requirements of low latency really change the hole way you are designing your system.

E

Preview Only

[wthynot]

First off, Blender's awesome. It took me quite a bit of learning to get the hang of the basics, but it was easily worth it. And I'm in awe of how much work these guys get done for each release.

Anyway, looks like the site's /.ed now, but I believe 2.3 is just a preview release and doesn't include all the features found in the previous release. I think it's basically just a showcase for the new GUI improvements to come. I tried 2.30 and noticed right off that the sound sequencing wasn't working, so I went back to 2.28. The new GUI looks awesome, but there will be a small learning curve for previous users. But if it gets more people using Blender, it'll be well worth it!

Kudos to Ton & the gang.

Nice Troll

[iplayfast]

That's ok, gforge looks like it has some potention, (I like the gant charts). But it only has 2 projects. If it starts getting busy I wonder how it will do.

Re:Nice Troll

[tcopeland]

> gforge looks like it has some potention

Yup, Tim's done a great job with it.

> it only has 2 projects.

Yup, that's because gforge.org just hosts the GForge project itself - it doesn't host other folks' projects. Check out that "list of GForge sites" link in the parent post; lots of people and lots of projects are out there using GForge.

Preview Only-Blurry GUI.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice but one thing I noticed with the Windows version is that the parts of the GUI that aren't selected are out of focus. That actually makes the interface hard to use. Do you click on this smear, or that smear?

Re:Preview Only-Blurry GUI.

[some guy I know]

The thing that I noticed about the GUI in the MS-Windows version of 3.20 was that it seems to think that all of the characters have width 0.
That is, it places all of the characters on top of each other.
This is true for buttons, captions, balloon help ("tool tips"), etc.
Also, if I type text into a text box, it doesn't appear at all.
This is on MS-Windows 95; I also downloaded the Linux version, but haven't tested it yet.

Wow

[Spy Hunter]

Wow, Blender3d.org wins the award for "coolest non-flash website pop-up menus". Those menus are awesome, and they even work in Mozilla and Konqueror! I may have to steal them for my site.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that brother, I've already stolen em, they are teh kool3zt!

Re:Wow

[FunkyChild]

Glad you like them, but credit where credit is due, They originally were made by youngpup - www.youngpup.net and are free to use by all.

Cheers

Blender is a crown jewel

[ducomputergeek]

Off all the OSS software out there, this is the one that is gaining a lot of attention out there in industry land. Its learning curve is extremely steep, but I have found it to be an extremely good program for basic 3D animation. With some of the tools to use POV-RAY for ray-tracing, one can get the same results as with Lightwave with a little practice.

I'll be glad to see the game engine back into the platform. I know of several indie gaming companies that could save a lot of time and money by using blender to help create their works.

Re:Blender is a crown jewel

[happyfrogcow]

I like blender, but POV-rays texturing system is just so good it's silly. i need more practice exporting to pov with blender, then using pov textures and raytracer.

Pov-ray is also a crown jewel of OSS. It's not GPL, but it's still free (more restrictive than GPL though). www.povray.org

Re:Blender is a crown jewel

[GooberToo]

Would love to hear move about the tools you use in conjunction with POV...

Please share...

Re:Blender is a crown jewel

[happyfrogcow]

well, you can use Moray for modelling in windows. Moray also has a great interface to the texturing system. Blender has python scripts that you can use to export as meshes to render in povray. Or, you can hand code povrays scene description language using a text editor. the scene description language is very powerfull, and pretty intuitive if you have some programming background.

hundrends of people have made "include files" and "macros" for doing things like creating grass and fur, or placing such objects on other objects, to generating beautiful outer space scenes.

hamapatch is also a povray compatible modeller, good for organic type shapes (moray is easier for composition of shapes generated from other programs like hamapatch, or very good for creating scenes based on primitive shapes.

here is a good place to start: http://www.povray.org/resources/links/

also the povray newsgroups: http://www.povray.org/resources/newsgroups/

there are also terrain editors/generators which output povray usable files. The newsgroup community is very helpfull and polite to curious newcommers. i'd recommend the newusers newsgroup at http://news.povray.org/povray.newusers/

there are also linux tools for povray (besides blender) if thats your flavor. i can't recall the names of them.

check out the povray.binaries.images or povray.binaries.animations newsgroups on the povray server. good good stuff.

Re:Blender is a crown jewel

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE has a tool "KPovmodeler" (imaginative name in the usual KDE fashion...).

If you already know povray, it's very nice, since it doesn't try to "hide" the complexity of a pov ray file's node tree or anything, it's represent as a giant tree view. Otherwise you might find it a bit quirky.

The verse link is wrong

[[verse]Eskil]

The link is to a 2 year old verse site. The new releases can be found at: http://www.blender.org/modules/verse/

Re:The verse link is wrong

[Emil Brink]

Actually, the link in the article seems to have been updated, but I nevertheless made the old site a meta-redirect to the new one. I'm the other half of the original Verse development team mentioned in Eskil's post above, and still have SSH access to SourceForge of course. :^)

This was a great program

[spoco2]

Oh yes there was... in fact I still have it on disk somewhere... it was called Web 3D and it was made by a company called Asymetrix. It was really easy to create 3D objects and light and texture them... it really was... I'm tempted to try and find the disk and see if it works under XP... Problem is that it is discontinued, and Asymetrix have changed their name and corporate image to Click2Learn.

When I bought it many years ago it was only about $15 and it came with HEAPS of models already supplied.

Here is a site which has some shots of what it could do.
Although... EEP! these guys seem to still sell it, and for a sizable chunk of money.

Happy days... :)

"arguably influenced"? No way.

[vaccum pony]

O.K. I'll argue. Pre-2.3 Blender UI = SUCK. Modo announced a few months ago along with screenshots. "arguably influenced"? No way. When I used to create plug-ins for Lightwave (4.0 - 5.5 era LW), I used to bitch about the UI considerably. I was hardly the only one. Those fine programmers are now free to break away from the LW conventions. The images you linked to show Modo sporting UI organization along the lines of 3ds max and Maya and Lightwave. Where is the Blender-like UI organization? It's not there. No one bothered to mock-up Blender's UI because it simply isn't worth it. The Luxology crowd is NOT ripping off the OSS community. In fact, one could argue that Blender is ripping off the innovations of YEARS and YEARS of commercial 3D application development. Of course, I wouldn't go so far as to say that (since god knows the commercial 3D app companies rip each other off). Get off the party whine. Oops, I meant Line.

poop

[ronaldyang]

I don't know what the hell blender is, but whoever is using "blender" will be making "veggie tales"/"anusfagtrix" while the talented geniuses who are bettering humanity are making "toy story 666"/"finding hideo nomo"

3D Design applications UIs and 'immersion'

[John Allsup]

I'll begin by confessing that I'm not an expert in the field of graphic design or 3D design or any real kind of design. Now...

A quick glance at the current array of 3D applications and one thing tends to strike you: hardly any of the interfaces of the major applications work all that much like the environment in which the application is being run.
(That is, Lightwave is quite unlike Truespace is quite unlike Maya is quite unlike Blender. Ok, this may be an exaggeration, but you get the picture.)

Is this good? Is it bad? There is UI design article after article that says that consistency across applications is key to a good UI. So what's up with all these fancy looking 3D applications that work completely differently?

The answer IMO is all to do with how these applications are used. The question of consistency should be thought of in context of 'consistency with what?' In practice all the various components (e.g. modeller, animator, etc.) are consistent with each other within a given application and that is enough.

I'll refer to the 3D design applcation as the 'main application' in what follows.

Think about it: major design studios tend to almost specify and 'build' a computer/workstation around the one main application (at least it seems that way.) A designer has his workstation, and spends most of his time in one particular application, and far less time outside it. For running M$ Word or whatever, there is little difference between running it on the workstation and sticking it on a PC next door. It is quite possibly more cost effective to have a PC sitting next to the workstation for doing 'everything else' (is this what happens in the real world? The reasoning goes that there is little to interfere with the main application, and the less the better here.)

When doing 3D work, interoperating with M$ Word and friends is hardly important. An easy to pick up system that a casual user can play with is not really all that important either. Any serious 3D designer can be assumed to have worked past the learning curve of the application so far as how it is used is concerned.

In short: you 'immerse' yourself in one single application for a large part of the time and the application is designed with the assumption that this is the case. You don't need to take intuitive concepts you learned from Word or IE or whatever into your main application, nor do you really need to take them back out.

There are many other examples I could use to illustrate this point, but 3D applications do the job nicely.

Re:3D Design applications UIs and 'immersion'

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case, the traditional argument in HCI of consistency/familiarity/standardarisation/etc is not that important as the focus is the for designer to get the job done. The design of the interface is optimise for the tasks, and for newbies. Most usability experts will tell you that interfaces are bad 'cos are not standard and consistent (dont look like word or excel). They are optimised for the task and not for the average user. For 3D in most cases you need to know what you are doing.

Re:3D Design applications UIs and 'immersion'

[black mariah]

The answer is in the application's histories.

Lightwave began life on the relatively low powered Amiga. It was split into two different parts in order to conserve memory and processor usage. It remains split for those same reasons. The UI has simply grown from the old Amiga days, and can actually be quite nice if you put in the effort to learn it.

Softimage was designed around high-end SGI workstations and as a result looks and feels more like an Irix app because, well, it IS. Softimage|XSI is a bit different, but works in roughly the same way with the same layout conventions.

3d artists at a certain level move past the UI limitations. 3d software in general has the same features from one app to another, and it's all a matter of learning new conventions. It is not a very difficult process. I've managed to become proficient in 3ds max, Lightwave, and Cinema 4d. I can also work my way through Softimage and Houdini a bit, but Maya hurts my brain. It's like the difference in driving one car, then another. Some things aren't in the exact same place, maybe the seats aren't as comfortable as your car, or maybe the turn signals make a clicking noise that annoys you... but it's still a car.

Re:3D Design applications UIs and 'immersion'

[John Allsup]

Exactly. (I'm usually terrible at getting to the point.)

You got to be kidding...

[dmouritsendk]

An interesting piece of conference buzz was the entire development team of Newtek/Lightwave defecting and founding their own company with a flagship 3D Subsurf modeler called 'modo'. It sports an interface arguably influenced by Blender and advertised as the hottest GUI-thing since sliced bread

Influenced by Blender?? Influenced by blender??(Love , apperntly, really DO make people blind :)

Seriously, You got to be kidding me. The layouts on those screenshots are ALL ligtwave inspired baby(with different icons to mimic lightwave, Max and Maya looks if im not mistaken). The fact that blender TRIES to be ligthwave'ish in its design might have been the point of confusion here. But even though Blender tries to mimic LW, its still not 10^-3 the 3D app lightwave is.

Main differences? Lightwave have allways been created to be as simple/intuitive as possible, because they target artist. Not techtypes.
I think the blender teams definition of a artist is pretty is pretty clear if you look over the the Blender confrence schedule, especially this one stands out:


15:00-17:30
Python scripting for artists

I know a few professional artists, primarily from a job i had at Denmarks national TV channel DR(Who had a bunch of hardcore Pixelwizards, to make special effect etc). I think its safe to say that none of them have scriptet a darn thing in their life, heck.. the most talented FX guy there had his SGI workstation start Softimage automatically because he is so afraid of the desktop. To us geeks this is hard to understand, but the guy was a artist. Not a computer buff, he saw the computer as a tool to assist him in producing art. And there was'nt really anything he could'nt draw/model/create with a computer (or with a simple pencil for that matter), but belive me, he wound'nt be able(nor interested) to script ANYTHING.

I've tried lobbying Blender to a few of these guys and lets just say, i haven't gotten all that positive feedback. One described it as "a dated lightwave with a post-apocalypse interface". I actually found that pretty funny :D

Re:You got to be kidding...

[FunkyChild]

What he was getting at is not the look and layout of the interface, but the functionality. From the beginning, Blender's interface has been a single window, that can be divided up into tiles however the user likes. Those tiles can contain various different 'window spaces', for example, the 3D view, an animation curve editor, button panels, pose editors, and so on. Modo uses a very similar approach, using a tiled, configurable single window, whose sub-window tiles can be switched between various different window spaces as well.

It may or may not have been inspired by Blender, but it's very similar. Good to see, because I've always loved the configurabilty of these types of interfaces and hope they can be used more :)

Re:You got to be kidding...

[ducomputergeek]

Funny, where have you been in the world of CGI arts the last couple years. Scripting in animation programs is becomming a rather big deal. You still have your modellers/texture arts out there, but then when it comes time to add thousands of models into a scene, lets say a large battle, it becomes rather tedious and not very time effiecent to place and animate all the objects.

In starwars Episode I, all the grass on the hills were animated. Sure there were some basic "motions" defined, but then the coders came along and wrote a mathatical model so that the computer could calculate each indivdual blade's movment.

I worked as a systems admin at a local architechture/Graphics design firm and they actually hired a civil engineer that had his BS in Physics along with a newly gradute in mathatics & computer science who wrote some nice AI programs for an undergrad to program scripts for modelling buidling and anaylize stress patterns. They actually chose Blender 2.23 because Python was pretty damn easy to use.

In LOTR: TTT, the battle scence was constructed by using a "learning" computer program that calculated the battle. There were indivudal actions model, then they used a mathmatical script/program to have the computer AI simulate the battle. Each time they ran it, the elven arcahers got more accurate, etc. The one scene where it looks like they used just "store actions" was if you look closely, the last two riders when aragon and Theadon are riding down the path, they are swinging at nothing and doing the same actions as the two in front of them.

Scripting and the use of Computer AI in animation is becomming a large part of the CGI industry. The artist just make things look good for close ups with modelling and texturing. Most of the actual animating is being done with scripts.

The money in CGI is also on the math end. Starting out, our guy with a BS in math & comp sci was making more than the senior GA that had been there 10 years. I learned how to use some of the 3D applications (two were special software they had created that ran on Alpha's). They also had some Lightwave and several 3D studio stations to take their Autocad specs from the architects and have the GA's make cool 3D virtual walk throughs.

When I left to take a job at a consulting company, they were taking a serious look at blender for replacing their Lightwave system. Why? Yes, Blender lacks a raytracing engine, however you go use third party applications if you need to, but modelling buildings and its intergated game engine (on older version) and at least the python scripting language ment that mathmatical programs can quickly be written to simulate various aspects.

And then there is Blender's ablity to read and write .dxf and the fact that blender does do a damn good job for rendering buidlings if you have a good GA with some talent.

Blender was hurt by that year of non development with NAN was in bankruptcy. However, Blender is worth a good look.

Re:You got to be kidding...

[Trogre]

And there was'nt really anything he could'nt draw/model/create with a computer (or with a simple pencil for that matter), but belive me, he wound'nt be able(nor interested) to script ANYTHING.

Really? So how did he make things move?

Re:You got to be kidding...

[Anonymous Coward]

Both Lightwave and Blender's interfaces are vaguely Amiga-ish actually, in which the typical application interface paradigm was not "one-size fits-all" but "domain-specific where it makes sense" with applications having their own screens (you could flick between the screens, of course, and drag them up and down like in the desktops in "Enlightment" window manager. Gee, another similarity with blender...).

Lightwave goes back a LONG way in raytracing history and started out as an amiga program. It may be that blender was inspired by lightwave, but lots of other amiga-origin raytracers had vaguely similar interfaces.

Given that amiga stuff goes WAY back to the late 80s and early 90s, I think it's fair to say that lightwave didn't "rip off" anyone, it was just how Amiga apps were. The later blender copied that combination of amiga-builtin UI features and lightwave/imagine style things that was the then de-facto standard for 3D raytacers.

Though personally, I always preferred a 3d-CAD style interface, even for raytracing work.

Re:You got to be kidding...

[dmouritsendk]

Eighter by animating the stuff "basic" animation tools, like keyframers and such.

If the wanted animation was really complicated and scripting was required, he would probertly include the department programmer(who's job bacially is to write shaders and scripts for the artists) in the project.

Re:You got to be kidding...

[dmouritsendk]

Well.. i haven't really been that involved with the CG world ever since i left that job(im back in school to do a M.Sc in Applied Math atm).

To answer your post, I dont really get what it is you are trying to tell me... I argued that scripting was not for A-R-T-I-S-T-S.. and you start telling me about various CS/Math types and how important their scripting can be.. Yes, im aware that scripting is widely used in the industry. But the people making the scripts, are not artist. They're science types, not artistic types.

Too bad the UI is still buggy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one that gets the UI all messed up while hovering the mouse cursor above buttons? Context popups with no text; etc... And it has been like that each time I tried a release on Windows 2000 and 98se... Why nobody else has these bugs?

Re:Too bad the UI is still buggy...

[pixelite]

I've had those problems too. I've also had a problem with cascading menus that won't go away, are improper refreshes.

what you need is a little education

[nurb432]

you cant have a simple yet powerful 3D application.

There is inherent complexity.

Just spend some time learning 3D, and you will find out what I mean, and in the process learn enough not to need 'simple'..

Story Submitter Score -1 Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

"Talk about ripping of the OSS community and not giving credit where credit due"

Uh huh. Why is it the OSS shills think that if an OSS product has a feature, it must have invented it?

Houdini does this and quite frankly wouldnt surprise me if it as doing it BEFORE anyone knew Blender was more than a kitchen appliance.

As an amature blender head...

[fishlet]

I can testify that Blender has been making steady but good progress since 2.23. The last release I have tried (2.28) added some really nice enhancements when it comes to selecting faces and edges. I too feel inclined to defend the user interface in Blender. Sure it can use improvement but it's not as bad as some people say it is. 3D modelling is by nature a difficult task, so it's not possible to dumb down the interface as much as some people would like. Blender has excellent mouse navigation and shortcut key commands. Some of the tools (like perportional vertex editing) work very intuitively. The buttons need alot of work though, more work should be put into organizing the buttons into logical groups (perhaps by using tabs). Built in help would also be nice.

I've posted a little of the work I've done in Blender... visit my website below

So is this good or bad for Linux Lightwave?

[DG]

Of all the programs I really miss from my Amiga days, Lightwave is the last one (now that PageStream has a Linux port - http://www.grasshopperllc.com - that I really jones for.

But oddly, it's like Linux doesn't exist over at NewTek. I've never understood why they didn't port Lightwave over.

Any ideas on if we'll ever see this?

DG

For what it's worth, I agree

[DG]

I started 3D work using Sculpt 3D in 1988. Then moved to Turbo Silver, and Imagine. Around 1996, I picked up Lightwave.

All these products were reasonably easy to figure out, and Lightwave just kicked ass. My productivity in Lightwave was just off the charts.

I've tried Blender a couple of times, but have never made any signifigant headway with it - the interface is just too obscure.

Lightwave for Linux - or Blender adoping a Lightwave-ish interface - would rock my world.

DG

Needs Yafray

[Picass0]

I still think the internal rendering engine is not on par with current commercial software. Yafray (Yet Another Free Raytracer) provides better looking results than GI, and I'd really like to see Ton merge it into Blender. Half the serious blender users are using Yable to export to Yafray, so it make sense to give the users what they want.

There are some other good python projects that should be considered for incorporation - makehuman (Poser clone) comes to mind.

I wish they would break the window panes and allow tools to float freely (more like Gimp) so I may drag tools to a 2nd monitor and have the 3d view on the primary monitor. 2.3 introduces buttons in a pallettes, but you can drag them out of a window view. What's the point in that?

I loathe the "Unit" as a term of measure. I want to define a standard or metric scale. I want the grid to conform to that unit of measure. I see this as a major headache when tring to build anything to scale, and then import objects from another project.

I'm not a game builder and would like to see the game engine spun off to it's own project.

I say all of this as a blender foundation member who ponied up $50 to free the code. I'm a blender fan and was just using it last night. I think Blender has many more strengths than weaknesses. I only point out where I think we need some work.

Re:Needs Yafray

[Anonymous Coward]

"...so I may drag tools to a 2nd monitor and have the 3d view on the primary monitor."

You may not be able to drag pallettes like the GIMP (thank GOD! :)) but you sure as heck can break your workspace up anyway you want! Right now at work I have a dual monitor setup that works great. I have just a 3d window on one Monitor no menu bar at all. On the other monitor I have a second smaller 3d window with all of my menus.

'tis a shame that...

[interactive_civilian]

Infini-D is dead. That was the simplest 3D modeler/animator/renderer that I have ever used. It wasn't full featured by any means, but it would have been perfect for what you need, I think...

Who was that made by, anyway? (I think Meta-Tools bought it at some point) Whatever became of it? That is a program that I wouldn't mind seeing resurface. It was soooo easy to use and you could pull off some pretty impressive and complex texture maps with minimal experience and effort.

IMHO and all that... :-)

2.3

[phirzcol]

I am so glad i got it yesterday!!!!

Matrix

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone has to post a Matrix Revolutions Torrent or somthing. Because of the big demand it should go plenty fast and I believe it has hit the net in a cam form !!

POST IT !!

A long way from easy

[heroine]

It's still a long way from where I can write a 3D email on it in an hour. There's still nothing in the simplified user interface that says "animate human face", no record button for capturing 3D from a 3D TV. The characters in the screenshots still look like computer graphics and not the lifelike characters you see in a photograph.

Blender was influenced by 3D apps..

[rofthorax]

Blender was influenced by Lightwave for sure, recognize the layer buttons from some place? Also notice that the hotbox uses the space bar, where did this come from (Maya?). And the tiled interface, well Lightwave, Maya and 3dsMax.. But the things that weren't stollen are things like the concept of linking objects, materials, textures.. This is one of the strongest things blender has brought to the table. Also there is an amazing amount of modelling simplicity in it, that has a lot in common with the old amiga applications for doing 3D. I've used Sculpt 3D, Imagine, Alias 8, Wavefront TAV 4.5, etc.. The new version of Blender is much better than it was, I agree, but its got a long way to go internally. What is tremendously wrong with blender, and why there is all these mixed feelings, is that blender is coded entirely in C by a number of programmers without a formal education in software development.. Its like designing websites with PHP, your interface design is embedded with the code, so if you want to add a interface element, you have to copy/paste the code across the source, this creates more bugs and things break.. But then again isn't that the case for all open source development.. Ton said to me if you want to do something useful, write code.. But for hacked source, blender is incredibly tight and focused, from years of refinement.. I bet some of you didn't know the software was originally written in the late 80s on amigas, then was rewritten in int he mid-90s for the SGI platform.. So technically speaking it wasn't born yesterday.. What makes it unique from any other 3D package on the market, it was designed in-house first, rather than being designed to be used inhouse or off the shelf.. So its been used to make real stuff with, its not a bloated app with hundreds of features that will get deprecated tommorow.. Every feature in blender exists for a reason.. And otehr thigns are possible from the combinations of tools that exist.. If that wasn't enough its the only 3D app to use a common freeware programming language for scripting (python).. Now as for speed, if you want fast renders, don't use alpha-blending in your surfaces, and try to reduce the use of OSA.. Blender only anti-aliases the edges of the object anyhow, not the textures.. Blender is not a ray-tracer.. A virtue of blender is if you can do it in blender, you can do it in a realtime game emgine.. Which makes me wonder, what ever happened to GameBlender in the source development? You can still get GameBlender, and make games with it, that's what I'm doing now.. But what is the wait for?

Re:Blender was influenced by 3D apps..

[Anonymous Coward]

The wait is because some closed-source libs. used on the Game Engine for calculating Fisical forces... the author of the lib promised he would open-source them after a book he is writting is relased... is a matter of waiting.

However, there is a sub-team searching for a replacement of the offending lib.

Oh another thing

[rofthorax]

A major difference, and the primary reason I use blender outside of it being a good and dependable 3D application.. You will never lose anything, you never lose features in old versions of blender, you can always get access to every version of blender, from the beginning..

Go ask Alias/Wavefront if you can obtain a copy of Wavefront TAV 4.5 with Kinemation. This is the application I trained myself on for 3 years, A/W no longer offers it.. How do they enforce this? License servers.. You don't buy an application, you buy a license to use the application. If they decide an older application might compete with their current application, they only have to not sell licenses for the old package..

And licenses are non-transferrable, so
even if I wanted it I could not obtain a copy of Wavefront TAV.. This is why I feel eventually the software industry will be replaced by open source developments.. Including the 3D software industry.. And Blender is a good start toward having tools that never fail you when you need them.. But I can side with some of the professionals, blender is not there yet, but
its realizing features that would not have been developed in commercial application development, because some ideas are soo simple that anyoen could implement them, had they had the source.. In the business of software development the aim is to make money and this often gets in the way of making the software useful..

If you ask the maker of your 3D software, why they don't sell you a copy of software.. They will use the obvious "pirating complaint".. But then you might ask them what proof they have of loss of sales to pirating.. Its a hard issue to dispute, but I believe its being used as an excuse to leverage consumers into software leasing arrangements.. With blender in
open source, there may be less leveraging practices practiced in order to regain lost market share to blender.. Either way because of blender you are getting better quality products, and isn't that improving the economy anyhow?

I think its important whether you like blender or not to support it, because its the tool you have to fall back on when you have no other options..

Blender rules!

[A2597]

I've been using Blender since 1.7, thats along time ago, LONG before maya. (In responce to Blender copying maya, not true) The interface is quite easy, the new one is actually alot more congested, don't really like it myself. The old one was very simple, once you learned what the main buttons were. (E.G. read one tutorial and your set) oh, and yes, this release is a preview release, and more bugs are being fixed. With luck, they will repair the start menu, and scale things so those wishing to use the old style interface (like me) can. its just so much faster. I could create some pretty amazing stuff in a matter of minutes, it takes longer with the new interface. more buttons to press to get to where you want to be. Great program, and rapidly catching up to some industry level programs. I can't wait to see what the future holds for this program.