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Blender 2.3 Manual Available For Order

Posted by timothy on from the message-from-tom dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Blender, the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback, has been slowly improving towards the real professional solution level. Check out the current features and get wild about it! A new comprehensive manual version 2.3 has been under works and is shipping next week. Order one now and support the development of this great open source software! Pre-orders before December 31st get a discount."

2 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Things worth noting about the new Blender by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    First, the much maligned UI has undergone some fairly substantial redesign. It's retained most of the elements that freak the uniniated out ...

    But it still freaks out the uninitiated? Last time I looked, it really made me cry for help. I don't know how much the situation has improved since then (that was about a year ago). Back then, (IIRC) it didn't even have undo. I just hope it has some kind of support for it now, or better yet, something like the modifier stack in 3DSMAX.

    Blender sure has been accumulating a lot of features lately, but is the UI anywhere near usable now? IMO the singlemost hardest part in 3D modeling software is exactly the UI: how do you map 3D object editing onto a 2D canvas. I don't care whether or not it has reflection and raytracing -- hell, what use do I have for those features if the UI makes it impossible to create any content that uses them.

    (Besides, I wouldn't say raytracing as a technical feat is anything to cheer about. Every amateur 3D programmer can whip up a toy raytracer in 2 days. Once the fat really is in the fire re: content (let's say, for example, a scene consisting of two million triangles), can really Blender handle it gracefully -- instead of just choking completely like most toy raytracers do?)

  2. blender by tuggy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Kudos the the blender team!
    I use blender for some years now.. since version 1.x. Those were the days you need to buy a blender license to get access to some options like radiosity.

    Blender as improved in big steps til now... and the interface rocks! Just because its not the tradition 3/4 view like in 3DSMax it doesnt mean its bad. I love blender the way it is, and I love the blender community!

    Hope it will live much longer...