Blender 2.33 Re-enables Game Engine

fforw writes "One and a half year after becoming free software, the Blender Foundation has released a new version of Blender which finally enables the game engine again. When Blender became free software. the game engine had to be disabled because SOLID, the collision library was not free software. After SOLID's author Gino van den Bergen changed his mind, Blender has now restored all functionality from the closed-source period."

Comments

Some Blender Games

[c_oflynn]

A quick Google revealed a few examples of some games that use this engine, see http://www.spinheaddev.com/gameexpose0.html (NOT HTML clicking to help reduce load on server a tad...)

Re:Some Blender Games

[c_oflynn]

PS: In case of slashdotting, here is the links from the article on some games:

http://www.spinheaddev.com/?id=crescentdawn
htt p://www.shadeless.dk/3d/?site=darksquad.htm
http: //project-blender.onlinehome.de/
http://www.brain storm-studios.net
http://zerooneentertainment.org /blengine/sachi
http://project-blender.onlinehome .de/
http://www.tudbzd.com/

Re:Some Blender Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Done the right way:

http://www.spinheaddev.com/?id=crescentd
http://www.shadeless.dk/3d/?site=darksquad.htm
http://project-blender.onlinehome.de/
http://www.brainstorm-studios.net
http://zerooneentertainment.org/blengine/sachi
http://project-blender.onlinehome.de/
http://www.tudbzd.com/

Re:Some Blender Games

[Anonymous Coward]

And by dont the right way you mean making it easier for you lazy sobs to click directly on it slashdotting them even faster?? I hope you are willing to pay some of our hosting costs now ya jerk :P

and another thing for newbies to learn

[Goeland86]

that's nice to have the functionality again... but it's something more to learn for newbies in blender. As if blender wasn't complex enough... I appreciate the gesture though, but there's really going to be a need for a complete rewrite of the online doc... most of it dates from the 2.2 era. So get those renders and movies and now games coming along! It's time for it now...

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[zaphod_bee4]

Their is complete documentation for the 2.3x release available in several formats: http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Using_Blender.80.0.ht ml

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Goeland86]

yes, indeed, available for people who can afford $45 for the 2.3 paper book manual. It isn't available for download yet. And now with the game functions re-integrated they're going for yet another re-write of the docs. Read again, I'm not dumb, I've been using blender for the better part of 6 months.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not true, the 2.3 manual has been uploaded in html and pdf forms. I do find a paper manual (+- 800 pages and 1 kg) easier to use in most cases, but for quick searching the pdf is nice.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[zaphod_bee4]

I feel vindicated :-) I occasionally contribute to the Blender codebase and use it so I also know what I am talking about.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

As if blender wasn't complex enough

WTF? Compared to what? Softimage? Maya? 3D Studio?

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Goeland86]

then tell me where I can download the pdf version of the paper manual? It's not the same documentation. The manual is based on it, agreed, but it's not as exhaustive. And I use the open doc project alot, I just haven't found any screenshots showing a blender 2.3 interface: it's all based on 2.2, except perhaps the Python API section which has major differences. Minor differences in the interface are not mentioned, and that's the criticism I have for that documentation: it's a good source of knowledge for experienced users like you, who apparently code and have been with blender since 2.2, but not for people who start on 2.3. I didn't mean any offense, but I have looked hard for recent docs, and aside from new tutorials, nothing major really new outside the manual has been done since version 2.2x.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[afd8856]

Actually those comercial softwares are a lot easier to use by those knowledgeble but beginers in bleder. Blender takes quite a lot to get used to (interface and quirks).

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Goeland86]

All the various functions are there and everywhere else in blender, but it's just so complex to get to them... the mouse/keyboard system is good, but needs some practice, and the fact that I haven't found a complete listing of all keyboard shortcuts yet limits the ability to improve all that well. mostly it's just a matter of "looks", not feel. I did need 6 months to learn how to use blender through the keyboard/mouse system though!

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

I haven't found a complete listing of all keyboard shortcuts yet

This list looks pretty good.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

I read that 5 or 6 times, and it still doesn't make sense, so it can't be just my hangover. But what I think you meant was that the commercial packages are easy to use by people who know how to use them, but blender is geared toward beginners. I'd agree with that, but isn't that like saying string theory is easy to physicists? 3D modelling is just not an easy thing, and I think any attempt at dumbing down the interface past where Blender is at, is going to risk over simplification.

Blender is pretty easy to get going in. Having never touched 3D software until Blender, I found myself getting pretty familiar with it in the first hour or two. Since then, a friend of mine has tried to sell me on Softimage and only left me baffled and confused. Quite honestly, I'm amazed at the quality of Blender when put up against a $4000 package like Softimage. Its parallel to the GIMP/Photoshop thing, but the price gap is humongous.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

Despite my extensive experience using 3d studio, Lightwave, Softimage, and Houdini, Blender still makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. The interface is STILL horrible, only prettier with the more recent releases, and feels like a kludged together compsci project. It doesn't flow like a good 3d program should. Even though Houdini and Lightwave have really messed up workflows, they make sense once you use them long enough. I've been using Blender on and off for about 4 years now and I still can't do anything worth a damn with it.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Goeland86]

Thanks a bunch, I'll keep that in my bookmarks... I was looking all over for that. Maybe advertising that link a little better on the blender website would help ;)

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[bob_calder]

The newbies seemed split on it - I checked them last semester.
(That was a joke for those who wish to report me to the purity patrol.)

I needed to have interactive design students look at something they had never seen - so I gave them Blender. Half had used 3D Studio Max. The rest, just Adobe and typical high school student fare. There were 17 students. They had to write a tutorial on creating an object that wasn't just a primitive.

Half of the 3D Studio Max users loved it, the rest were irritated, but found it usable. There was only one student who copped out of the assignment and the rest *really newbies* were able to do a credible job.

The general consensus was that the interface was different but good if you are a macro stroke user and a pain if you use menuing. I think they were saying 'different' compared to things like Photoshop. Of course 3D is a different interface, so their expectations could not be met. As with anything else, everybody has an opinion! Mine is, as we all know, irrelevant and uninformed, so please, I have a headache. Curtman, I obviously have no idea about Soft Image and others. I can't even remember the name of the first one I used in the mid eighties. I am still amazed by meshes.

What I can't believe is that Photoshop users think that there have been these great leaps forward in bitmap editing programs because they no longer have to open Illustrator to make type flow on a path. Maybe Zanax would help.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

Thats what I meant by the parallel between the GIMP/Photoshop thing. People like me who have only used Photoshop once or twice, say exactly the same thing in reverse. I can get more done in 20 minutes with The GIMP, than I would in two hours with Photoshop. 20 minutes in, I'd still be searching for how to do layers.

I've been using Blender on and off for about 4 years now and I still can't do anything worth a damn with it

We have a saying around here that goes a little like this: RTFM.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

I'm pretty happy I found that too. :) FYI, I just typed 'blender keyboard shortcuts' into google. First link. Heh

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[FunkyChild]

I haven't found a complete listing of all keyboard shortcuts yet.
They're mentioned in the pulldown menus now

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

I was using Blender when it was a commercial package, about 4-5 years ago. I started with it before I started with 3ds max. In the time I've been TRYING to learn Blender I've become capable in 3ds max, Lightwave, Softimage, Houdini, and a couple of other modeling-specific packages. It takes me anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days to fully get into a new software enviroment but in FOUR YEARS I haven't made any progress on Blender's shitty interface. It's getting better, but it's still the worst I've seen by far. Fuck, HOUDINI is more intuitive than Blender.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

First off, quit yelling. We can all read just fine. I think your failure to grasp the interface in 4 years is testimony to your ignorance. Its got little to nothing to do with design flaws. Examples would be good, but then you're out to troll rather than have a sensible discussion.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

I've failed to grasp this interface while learning about five others. How is this in any way an indication of my ignorance? To me, this is an indication of how horrible the UI designers that work with Blender are at designing UI's.

You want examples? Let's go.

- Mesh editing is cumbersome and utterly counter-intuitive. This is caused mostly by the focus on hotkeys rather than menus, and also by the lack of a manipulator of any kind. Once you learn the hotkeys, it's STILL a chore to model because the way that most of the tools work is so far from the way they work in nearly every other package.

- Having separate panels for materials and textures is a joke. The two need to be combined and refined.

- I, like a lot of people, prefer to model in one large window as opposed to several smaller ones. This is almost impossible in Blender due, again, to a lack of manipulators.

- No real undo. This is fucking pathetic, really. There is no good reason whatsoever to not have an undo in a program like this. Inexcusable. The addition of a mesh editing undo is good, but it's not enough.

- What the hell is that stupid bullseye thing? It is completely useless. Get rid of it, and make the left mouse button usable for something other than clicking the damn buttons.

- Why aren't object created at either the origin or where I click and drag, like every other package ever made ever? Just to be different?

- Speaking of which, why the hell would I want to create an obect that's aligned with the screen? I don't want to have to change my damn screen position every time I need a new object.

I can't think of anything else at the moment, but those are some starting points. My ideas for fixing them (in order)...

- The mesh editing needs to either be like 3ds max or like Lightwave. Right now it's trying to be both. This does not work. Pick one and stick with it.

- A completely new materials panel is in order. If I thought anyone would listen to me, I'd design the damn thing myself. Implementation would have to be carried out by someone else, which is why I doubt anyone cares about my input.

- Add a manipulator. Simple enough.

- Implement a real undo, for fuck's sake. If it's proving difficult, give me some real technical reasons and not just "It's hard to do." Programming is tough, no matter what you're doing, and practically evey program ever devised has an undo of some kind. Fix it.

- Get rid of the bullseye so the left mouse button can use the manipulator.

- Give users the choice of either creating objects through click and drag, or at the origin.

- This point ties in with the previous one.

Is this sensible enough? Or are you going to bitch more because I said fuck a few times? I'm not ignorant, especially when it comes to 3d program interfaces. I can jump between programs with ease because they all subscribe to the same basic philosophy and it's all a matter of figuring out where the tools are stowed. Blender is trying too hard to be different, and it's hurting itself in the process.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

Another thing, and this is a huge one. PROGRAMMABLE HOTKEYS! Even in 3ds max (my package of choice, in case you couldn't tell) there are some hotkeys that I set up different than standard. Having the ability to map the keyboard and mouse the way I want would make most of my problems go away. As it stands, I'm about to dig through the Blender source hoping I can manage to redo the hotkeys. I can't program for shit, but modifying programs is simple enough.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Anonymous Coward]

Blender Book in html format.
It sure looks like the new interface to me...

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[LetterRip]

Hmmm...

Your hostility seems a bit undeserved. However, I'd like to respond if I may.

Have you worked through the tutorials in the standard manual (either the new one by Ton for 3.32 or the older one that is now free - [I think much of Tons newest has mostly been released under a free license as well])?

Doing all of your modeling in one big window is relatively straight forward. What particular 'manipulators' do you feel are missing? Are you familiar of the usage of the right and middle mouse button for manipulation? (Ie scaling, zooming, rotation, etc.)

I also desire full undo. It is non trivial, otherwise it would be done already. I recall seeing some work on enabling multi-level undo for everything but I'm not sure how far it has progressed.

[QUOTE] Blender is trying too hard to be different, and it's hurting itself in the process.[/QUOTE]

It isn't 'trying to be different'. The one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard is an extremely efficient method. Something being discussed is migrating all of the key and mousebindings to a user configureable method.(Yes should probably have been done from the beginning). Then you can set them up exactly as you like them from other environments.

"Give users the choice of either creating objects through click and drag, or at the origin."

That is a worthwhile suggestion, have you considered emailing the blender funboard (blender functionality board)

http://www.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-funbo ar d

discusses feature suggestions.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[afd8856]

> Having never touched 3D software until Blender That is the problem. Coming from another package, the Blender interface and workflow is very weird.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

Okay, this is exactly the kind of thing that I would consider constructive criticism. Thank you.

• Mesh editing is cumbersome and utterly counter-intuitive. This is caused mostly by the focus on hotkeys rather than menus, and also by the lack of a manipulator of any kind. Once you learn the hotkeys, it's STILL a chore to model because the way that most of the tools work is so far from the way they work in nearly every other package.

This is probably one of those things I don't find confusing mostly because I've never worked with the 'other pacakage's. What impovements do you think could be made? Any specific criticism of the tools?

• I, like a lot of people, prefer to model in one large window as opposed to several smaller ones

This one, I'm not too sure about. I like the ability to split windows, and arrange them in almost any conceivable fashion. The other packages I've seen, have a much more static view. I can't imagine how this might be improved.

• No real undo

There is an undo. It works, and its real.

• What the hell is that stupid bullseye thing? It is completely useless/Why aren't object created at either the origin or where I click and drag, like every other package ever made ever? Just to be different?

That would be your cursor, I believe. You can pivot around it, it sets the insertion point for new objects. LMB does other things besides set the 3D-Cursor position, its probably the keyboard shortcuts again that you're not familiar with. Again, I'm not familiar with the other packages, but are you complaining here that you can actually choose where new objects are created?

• why the hell would I want to create an obect that's aligned with the screen? I don't want to have to change my damn screen position every time I need a new object

I'm not sure what else you would align it to initially. You could always just create the object then align it however you like. Personally, I usually have 3 windows on my screen, besides the large one that I do most of my editing in, and I create the object on the one with the alignment I want. Like this It works very well.

As for the rest of it, you seem pretty preocupied with making Blender like the other software. I don't think that is a good motive for UI redesign, but I see your point that it definetly adds to the learning curve for people transitioning from them. I came across an excellent document with proposals for UI enhancements, perhaps some of its suggestions would placate you? Anything you'd like to expand, or expound?

The blender documentation addresses everything you've said here. I suppose I could be mistaken, but it seems pretty clear you haven't even skimmed it, lead alone read the thing.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

I really think that is going about things the wrong way. Get familiar with the keys as they are, if you go and remap them, you'll lose the ability to go look at the wonderful documentation that you are currently not using. Or at least it will make less sense anyhow.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

That is the problem. Coming from another package, the Blender interface and workflow is very weird.

I can accept that, but it's not a problem for me, becaue I don't have any hangups about how things 'should be'. Weird, is very different from bad.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Goeland86]

new interface compared to what? it's the 2.2x style. Have you looked at the part "Understanding the interface"? It's not the way the buttons are arranged anymore. Either part of it has been rewritten and the rest hasn't or else you're not using blender 2.3x yet. I'm sorry, but to me that documentation is not as useful as it could be. I don't mean to be insulting, but blender does lack up to date documentation.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[shbazjinkens]

Hi, the posted link was wrong. That is the 2.28 guide. The 3.32 guide can be found at http://download.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/. If you browse the root directory of that, you will find the PDF document in either zip or tar format. Right now the server load is very heavy though, access is limited.

Your best bet for help is the Blender community at elYsiun.com, but be appropriate about questions. There is a knowledge base linked from there that you should consult along with the manual before posting questions.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

What the hell makes you think that in the past four fucking years I haven't read the documentation? The documentation still doesn't change the fact that Blender has the most unintuitive, kludged together, shittiest interface I've ever seen on a 3d package. It's obvious that no matter how many viable points I bring up all you're going to do is tell me to RTFM (which I've BEEN DOING FOR FOUR FUCKING YEARS) so I'm done with this conversation.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

What the hell makes you think that in the past four fucking years I haven't read the documentation?

Because in 4 years you don't even know what the cursor is.

I'm done with this conversation.

Finally, something we can agree on. Go back to your warez'd 3DS and don't look back. Enjoy life in your bubble. It is possible to have a conversation without cursing in every sentance by the way. Its hard to take you seriously.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

So I take it you've never heard of Softimage|EXP, Maya PLE, Houdini learning edition, or g-max, the free 3ds max for games? Nice to see you have no clue what you're talking about.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

Hey, someone that at least sounds like they've used something other than Blender at some point. Let's talk, shall we?

Have you worked through the tutorials in the standard manual (either the new one by Ton for 3.32 or the older one that is now free - [I think much of Tons newest has mostly been released under a free license as well])?

I'm about to do so, but remember that I've been using Blender for over 4 years. I've read DOZENS of tutorials. It's not a question of just learning hotkeys. The interface feels like it was programmed as they went along instead of designed THEN programmed.

Doing all of your modeling in one big window is relatively straight forward. What particular 'manipulators' do you feel are missing? Are you familiar of the usage of the right and middle mouse button for manipulation? (Ie scaling, zooming, rotation, etc.)

Yes, and it's unbelievably counterintuitive. It's much easier to just grab a manipulator and move something. In case you're not familiar with them, a manipulator is basically a three axis arrow looking thing that allows you to restrict movements to one or two directions. Look at some 3ds max or Maya screenshots for the best examples. This isn't to say that a manipulator is the only way to work, Lightwave for example doesn't use them, but I think it would be perfect for Blender.

I also desire full undo. It is non trivial, otherwise it would be done already. I recall seeing some work on enabling multi-level undo for everything but I'm not sure how far it has progressed.

It's not trivial, but it can't be that difficult. Every graphics program I've ever used has one, EXCEPT for Blender. This is something I find completely inexcusable. The mesh editing undo is a good start, but even that is a horrible kludge. We'll see how it progresses.

It isn't 'trying to be different'. The one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard is an extremely efficient method. Something being discussed is migrating all of the key and mousebindings to a user configureable method.(Yes should probably have been done from the beginning). Then you can set them up exactly as you like them from other environments.

They might not try to be different but they're certainly not trying to do anything the way anyone else does. In some ways this is good. I LOVE the way the interface looks. It's by far the best looking interface out there, IMO, and other programs would do well to learn from it. Blender feels like it's trying to replicate Lightwave's mouse/keyboard setup more than 3ds max's, and that's fine. I like Lightwave, it works very well and has some damn fine modeling tools. But whereas Lightwave's tools get progressively easier to use, Blenders just get progressively frustrating to DEAL WITH. User configurable mouse/keyboard setups would be optimal and would go a LONG way towards helping Blender be a better program.

I'll check out the mailing list you linked to. Thanks for pointing me there.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

Nice to see you have no clue what you're talking about

I'm talking about Blender. You're the one who keeps bringing up non-free software.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

What the hell does that have to do with anything?

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[Curtman]

Exactly.

Re:and another thing for newbies to learn

[black mariah]

Touche, Costmart.

A welcome addition - not just for games

[JaF893]

This is good news - its not exactly a giant leap forwards but it is important all the same. Improved collison detection is not just good for games its good for modelling. For example a physics teacher could teach his students about the ideal gas law using a series of blender animations.

Re:A welcome addition - not just for games

[MidnightBrewer]

It's good for any kind of animation, if you actually do any. For example, complex actions, such as hitting pins with a bowling ball can be modeled, saving a lot of time setting keyframes and tweaking them to look right.

Great F/OSS

[mastergoon]

Blender has got to be right up there among the best of the F/OSS software. It may not have all the features of 3d studio max, but for beginner and intermediate modellers, or people with no artistic talent, it kicks ass!

The controls are a bit hard to learn, though the interface has been getting better recently. In the end, once you read through the tutorials and learn all the keyboard commands you will find them to be great.

Re:Great F/OSS

[3dr]

True, true. Blender provides a whopping surprise in the quality of the models, and the tools to make those models. The new rendering engine is nice, and an external renderer/ray tracer has been integrated. I've also combined 3D models with video streams for some really fun clips; the video editor isn't bad at all.

In my spare time, I've been utilizing Blender's Python bindings to write a mesh exporter, and do other things.

If one has an interest in 3D modeling and animation, Blender should be looked at.

Re:Great F/OSS

[vivian]

Which unfortunately highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of many OSS projects.

Blender can be used to do pretty much anything you want in 3d animation, and has a fantastic set of features and great potential - but it is simply painful to use. It takes days to learn the shortcut keys that are essential for basic editing, especially if you are also trying to use other 3d programs or 2d programs along side it that have their own shortcuts that the artist has to remember too, witout getting them crossed.

Ideally, there should be a visible navigable menu for every command, even if they are nested a few deep, with the shortcut Key written next to the command! Better yet, the shortcuts would be assignable to functions, so you could set up the key mapping to what works best for the artist.

Blender suffers from the same problem that the first CAD I wrote has - only the programmers know all the hotkeys and commands, and they make 100% sense to the programmer, but not neccesarily to the end user.
Eg. I like to work in 3d by basically selecting a point, and draging it in the screen's 2d plane, and rotating the object to a different view if I want to move the point outside the initial plane. Ideally, left dragging would move the point and right dragging would rotate the object. If it was possible to map the input interfaces (ie. mouse dragging/clicking,buttons and keystrokes) to program functions ( eg. rotate target, drag target , scale, rotate, zoom,copy, etc) then I could set it up the way that works best for me in the same way that Blender brilliantly allows you to completely customise multiple views and panels.

The lack of a full undo (ie. multiple steps, on all functions) really holds blender back. I hope this gets done before anything else. It really holds discourages experimentation and steepens the learning curve beause a mistake can screw your model, or cause problems for alignment (eg. no undo for having rotated the view)
Other than that, I think it's great and would be a much stronger challenger to 3d Studio Max if these things were implemented.

Re:Great F/OSS

[GooberToo]

Hopefully someone will mod you up. Great insight!

Re:Great F/OSS

[dcuny]

I agree. However, there's been a lot of work to redo the Blender interface, and that work is continuing. For example, the Blender Funboard newsgroup was put together for this purpose.

Unfortunately, this newsgroup hasn't proved entirely successful. One problem is that long-time users are loathe to have their beloved interface changed, since they feel that it's just "dumbing it down", and any changes will also slow them down.

Another issue is that coders would rather add new features (ambiant occlusion, new texture models, etc.) than work on the UI. Ton (the primary architect) has been working on the Blender Book, and the other major coder has been off on vacation.

I recently tried to learn RVKs. What's an RVK you might ask? They are Relative Vertex Keys, but the rest of the world calls them Morph Targets. And where the rest of the world allows you to actually select a named morph target and drag a slider, Blender insists that you create IPO curves (interpolation, not initial price offering) - somehow remembering that RVK curve #7 was a left blink, and RVK curve #8 was the phoneme "o" - and then ctrl+click on the IPO curve and drag to create a spline for the RVK ...

It's a freaking UI nightmare!

The refusal to use common nomenclature and standard UI tools here pretty wells sums up the problems with the Blender UI.

Still, William Reynish (aka Monkeyboi) has put together a great set of proposals to fix the UI, and many of his prior suggestions have been incorporated. So I'm hoping that Ton and others concentrate on getting the remainder of Blender UI out of the "dark ages" so the rest of us can use it.

Re:Great F/OSS

[black mariah]

I have a feeling the Blender team would sooner gouge out their own ass, goatse-style, than do anything like a REAL production-level 3d program does things. EVERYTHING seems like it's there only to be different, and that's not good. While the galleries on the Blender site make it clear that it can produce some damn fine work, it probably takes twice as long as it would in any other program.

I wish I had the skills to rewrite the interface my damn self. I like the direction they're going with it, but I KNOW they'll screw it up. The new UI looks amazing, but it feels horrible. Like it's pasted together from bits and pieces of other programs. Some Lightwave here, some 3ds there, some Softimage here... it's a clusterfuck of ideas instead of being its own, well thought out UI.

Re:Great F/OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that F/OSS needs startup help, to become something more than v0.001

Many projects that are now popular F/OSS were started or was supported by commercial companies

Blender Started as a commercial project? KDE Based on Trolltechs QT Mozilla Started by Netscape Eclipse Started by IBM Evolution Started by Ximian
Mono Started by Ximian
MySQL Commercial company PHP Isn't most of the core made by Zend?

Re:Great F/OSS

[agentk]

It takes days to learn the shortcut keys that are essential for basic editing, especially if you are also trying to use other 3d programs or 2d programs along side it that have their own shortcuts that the artist has to remember too,

This is true for every serious modeling & animation package there is. And any other highly specialized software with a million features and a very tight and fast workflow.

Re:Great F/OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

You can name your RVK poses, and have them appear as animatable, named sliders in the Actions window, where you do character animation. You do NOT have to mess with IPOs when you do RVKs.

Also, to the parent the RVK comment, more commands are being exposed to a menu system almost every week. It is an ongoing, valuable project.

Re:Great F/OSS

[dcuny]

The problem isn't that there are hotkeys. Hotkeys are a great thing, and are a necessity. For example, g to grab an object, and then x to constrain it to the x axis. Nice and fast.

The problem is that for many critical features in Blender, the UI offers no clue that a particular option might exist, or what hotkey/mouse combination you need to press if you knew it existed, but forgot which hotkey it was. Given Blender's roots - an in-house production tool - this sort of interface isn't unusual. But now that Blender's gone "open source", there's been agreement from Ton and others that the UI is broken and needs to be fixed.

Take a look at Art of Illusion or JPatch for examples of open source applications that are "user friendly" - they support hotkeys, but any important functionality can be reached through the UI. When you are in a particular mode, the status bar at the bottom of the window displays hotkey modifiers and mouse options that are available. (I don't include Wings3D because it's pretty much specialized for modelling).

I'll readily that the example programs are currently less capable than Blender (and Art of Illusion is due for a UI overhaul in a few releases), but they show how these sorts of things can be added to the UI, even for complex processes.

And while Blender's made a lot of progress in making the UI better, but it's stalled in the last couple months - especially in critical areas like RVKs. Hopefully, people will get back on track with overhauling the UI.

Re:Great F/OSS

[FooBarWidget]

Why do people keep blaming open source for this? Blender used to be closed source, but back in those days people didn't complain about it's user interface. Now that Blender is open source, people start complaining it, and start blaming open source for it's user interface. That's just rediculous.

Re:Great F/OSS

[be-fan]

People complained about blender's interface way before it was open source.

Re:Great F/OSS

[m1a1]

Wow, but wow, here comes the ignorance.

Blender's interface wasn't designed by open source developers. It was made commercially.

Re:Great F/OSS

[FunkyChild]

It takes days to learn the shortcut keys that are essential for basic editing, especially if you are also trying to use other 3d programs or 2d programs along side it that have their own shortcuts that the artist has to remember too, witout getting them crossed.

Ideally, there should be a visible navigable menu for every command, even if they are nested a few deep, with the shortcut Key written next to the command! Better yet, the shortcuts would be assignable to functions, so you could set up the key mapping to what works best for the artist.

Since Blender 2.32, just about every possible function accessible through a hotkey is accessible through a pull-down menu. I suggest you try a recent version before complaining about things that have already had a lot of hard work put in to them to fix.

And I don't see how having different hotkeys to other apps is a problem - do you criticise Maya because the hotkeys are different to those of XSI?

The lack of a full undo (ie. multiple steps, on all functions) really holds blender back. I hope this gets done before anything else. It really holds discourages experimentation and steepens the learning curve beause a mistake can screw your model, or cause problems for alignment (eg. no undo for having rotated the view)

Since 2.3, there is a full undo/redo system for mesh editing. Granted, it's not for the entire program, but it's certainly a very welcome improvement that many people are still unaware of.

Re:Great F/OSS

[FunkyChild]

Oh that's funny, I must be imagining this, then.

Please, there's enough disinformation about Blender's interface in this article already.

Re:Great F/OSS

[FunkyChild]

The problem is that for many critical features in Blender, the UI offers no clue that a particular option might exist, or what hotkey/mouse combination you need to press if you knew it existed, but forgot which hotkey it was.

Could you please give an example of some of these many 'critical features' that aren't already in the pulldown menus since Blender 2.32? Better yet, post them on the blender.org forums soo, so the oversight can be remedied.

Re:Great F/OSS

[black mariah]

Whoever modded this flamebait has either never used Blender, or only use Blender. The interface is a kludge, and not a very good one.

Re:Great F/OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually when you know the interface it isn't slow. But when you are new it may be harder.
The only thing slowing down is lack of features. Not interface...

Re:Great F/OSS

[JohnFluxx]

true. but everyone here was blissfully unaware of such complaints. Now that it's open source, we hear the complaints.

Just like I hear far far more complaints about linux than I do of windows, since I have a selective input.

Re:Great F/OSS

[JohnFluxx]

sure, and perl, linux kernel, apache, postgres?, kstars, kdevelop, quanta, .. well pretty much all kde apps actually.

Some apps are started my companies, sometimes a company helps later on, sometimes a company doesn't help at all.

I think it's great for companies to help - have people be paid to do free software.

But I think with a lot of apps, it isn't strictly needed. It just might take longer in some cases.

(There are some areas that will be very difficult for linux to penetrate. Anywhere where a large amount of research is needed, and lots of patents covering the way. E.g. 3D video drivers.)

Re:Great F/OSS

[dcuny]

I certainly wasn't posting any disinformation. I had tried this out five days ago, going to the Blender Community Documentation pages and looking for online RVK tutorials. It's not in the latest and greatest version of the Community Documentation, either.

As for your screenshot, what version of Blender are you running? These features aren't noted in the 2.3.3 changelog - heck, I can't find them documentated anywhere. So either:

• You're running a custom build, in which case it's not really a Blender feature yet, is it?
• Not being documented anywhere, they don't really exist?

So which is it? How can we mere mortals enjoy this wonderful feature?

Re:Great F/OSS

[dcuny]

Sigh. I owe FunkyChild an apology - these features do indeed exist in the current release of Blender. I was irritated because I had spent so much time struggling with the IPO curves, and hadn't seen anything about the sliders posted in the 2.3.3. changelog.

But he's right and I'm wrong about this: 2.3.3 allows IPO curves to be named, and the Action Editor has sliders.

You can't edit the names of the curves in the IPO Curve Editor. Instead, you have to go to the Action Editor and change them their. And yes, the sliders are there exactly as FunkyChild's screenshot shows.

So again, my apologies to FunkyChild and anyone else I've misinformed about the latest 2.3.3 Blender release.

Re:Great F/OSS

[be-fan]

Nope. Every time a story about Blender came up on Slashdot, people would complain constantly.

Re:Great F/OSS

[p80]

>Which unfortunately highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of many OSS projects. Remember that Blender used to be proprietary so it's not the OSS community to blame in this case. In the contrary the GUI and usability have kept getting better and better since blender got open source.

This is really good news

[SavedLinuXgeeK]

As a Highschool Student I did an entire project in Blender's 3D Engine. It essentially had the ability to navigate look around and view objects in all dimensions. While this may seem a little base, as it was, it was not too difficult for a 17 year old to pick up and run with.

It actually gets even deeper when you combine the python scripting with the game engine, as opposed to using the built in object functions. The games can get really complex, and with the inverse kinematic options for human body(mapping theh way the human joints move), it makes for some really interesting possibilities. Personally as I am learning python now, I may go back to the blender engine, and see what havoc I may be able to create.

Re:This is really good news

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, as a seventeen year old, you have a significant advantage in learning something complex, be it Blender or a new programming language. You have TIME.

Let this thirty-one year old help you: use that time wisely.

Re:This is really good news

[JohnFluxx]

I want to just pick up on the word "wisely".
I don't know if my interpretation is the same as anon. cowards is, but I see that in just muck about and learn everything. (as oppposed to watch tv.)

I don't see that to mean study on things you think will be necessarily important. At your age, you should be getting as wide a knowledge as you possibly can, tinkering with everything.

I'm 22, and have small contributions in everything from the linux kernel, to kde, to openoffice, kdevelop, worldforge and a few others that I forget.

My problem is that I get distracted too easily. I'm hoping that changes with age.
(Any old people want to comment on that?)

Re:This is really good news

[frAme57]

My problem is that I get distracted too easily. I'm hoping that changes with age. (Any old people want to comment on that?)

It can change, but you'll have to work at it. If you're 22, you basically are who you are going to be from now on. Unless you make a deliberate and persistant effort to learn how to focus, and to stick to drawn-out tasks, it will never change. I only say this because I am on the far side of my 30s, and I used to think of myself as easily distracted. But now that I'm older, I.....

Cool! The Blender installer just finished downloading. I gotta run - good luck on your dissertation... or whatever it was.

Collision detection

[Animats]

It's nice of Gino to make SOLID free software.

Good collision libraries are fun. I've written one, as part of Falling Bodies. I think I was the first, back in 1996-1997, to use axis-oriented bounding boxes with GJK, which is what SOLID, and everybody else, uses now.

Lin and Canny are the ones who really cracked this problem. Before Lin and Canny, algorithms for collisions in a space with N objects with M faces each were O(N^2) * O(M^2). They got that down to slightly worse than O(Nm), where Nm is the number of moving objects. Very clever.

I-Collide was the first generally available package for this. The original version was in LISP, which was translated to C, retaining much of the LISP style. They used axis-oriented bounding boxes with a linear programming package. This had some problems with numerical error, and the linear programming package was rather bulky. But it demonstrated, back in 1996, what was possible. Then everybody (well, the half dozen or so people into this stuff) went to work and built better systems.

Actually, collision detection is a pain to code, but well understood today. Collision response, the actual physics, is much harder.

The end result of all this is that games can now have really big worlds with working collision detection.

Re:Collision detection

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice to see ODE integrated into Blender instead of SOLID. ODE is a complete dynamics simulator, not just a collision detector.

SOLID is a nice library, but its license terms are still unfriendly to commercial products. The author wants a couple thousand dollars to license it for even a shareware game, which is just silly when ODE is free under a BSD-style license. ODE's collision subsystem isn't quite as, well, solid as SOLID, but it's good enough for many applications.

Re:Collision detection

[Animats]

ODE is still at version 0.039, and not improving much.

Reliable dynamics simulators are hard. If you want one for a commercial game, there's Havok 2. All the free stuff is very limited.

It takes years of hard work to write a physics engine. If you're competent, in six months you'll have something that sort of works. From "sort of works" to "works" is years of effort. And it's not patches. It's theory. So the open source process doesn't work very well.

Re:Collision detection

[Anonymous Coward]

ODE is still at version 0.039, and not improving much.

I wouldn't agree at all. There's an ongoing debate on the ODE list about what features to add, and the consensus is towards improving stability and collision quality rather than adding unnecessary frills. This is exactly the right approach, and Russ Smith, the original ODE author, is behind it one hundred percent.

ODE actually is undergoing substantial improvement and debugging, even if the feature list doesn't seem to be growing at its prior pace.

Re:Collision detection

[afd8856]

I hope you know about the great future ODE has :). Softimage has incorporated hard-body dynamics into the brand new version 4 of their flagship product Softimage XSI, by including ODE. One guy has worked on it and they are going to give back the changes. There was also talk about Softimage's customers (think ILM), who, having access to the source code, are going to modify and contribute to this library.

Re:Collision detection

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't agree at all. I've written 3 dynamics codes. But I studied Mechanical Engineering in Uni. Too many games programmers I see have _no_ mechanical knowledge - the classic "what path will the ball follow as it comes off this spiral ramp?" question gets them every time. That's the sort of stuff that SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. People come out of college these days unable to FUCKING ADD. That's sad, and is why India and Europe are overtaking us - they actually teach kids trivial skills!

Re:Collision detection

[fforw]

It would be nice to see ODE integrated into Blender instead of SOLID. ODE is a complete dynamics simulator, not just a collision detector.

ODE is mainly a rigid body physics engine. ODE offers built-in collision detection based on the geometric primitives (Ground, Cube, Sphere, Cylinder etc.) out of which the rigid bodies consist. Triangle collision is only avaible via plugin mechanisms. Currently there is an OPCODE plugin. It may be possible to write a plugin which drives SOLID.

Maybe SOLID should be replaced by a ODE/OPCODE combination - but that would be incompatible with the existing blender games.

Re:Collision detection

[Dr. Sp0ng]

Actually, collision detection is a pain to code, but well understood today. Collision response, the actual physics, is much harder.

Not really. Good, robust collision detection routines are a pain in the ass, but once you have them written (to the point where you can get accurate collision data, including exact time/location/vector of collision) the physics routines themselves are easy.

Re:Collision detection

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is really off topic but, sadly, I have to agree with this. Unfortunately, its not just math, but every subject.

My wife has a triple B of Arts degree and spent well over $100k on her education. I have a GED because I'm one of those "high school was just too boring" people. I love my wife to no end, but there are certain things that are trivial to me that she just doesn't get including Math, History and General Science.

The main problem is that people are more lazy today than yesterday. Parents don't want their children challenged because they just want their children to be happy. Parents had to go through hours of homework in the past and don't want their kids to have to go through the same thing. Parents care more about how their kids social life is than how much they're being challenged today.

On top of that, teachers are not challenging their students enough either. In the past, a Science teacher was allowed to show you something that blew up - now students are forced to work with "what color will this solution turn?" experiments. History teachers are forced to teach about the good things and run over the bad things (When was the last time you heard a teacher talk openly about slaves or the Holocaust for any length of time?). English teachers are forced to work with rules in the English language that are constantly changing "ain't, ain't in the dictionary" - it is now... Computer teachers are forced to teach typing and basic types of programming languages instead of challenging students to see how things work, how to break things and then fix them better. Heck, CNN has a story today that a Gun Safety teacher shot himself in while teaching a class.

Ok, I think I've gotten my point across. /rant

Re:Collision detection

[noselasd]

Rats. That means Half Life 2 will suck since it uses ODE ;)

Re:Collision detection

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe you. Do you have data to back this up? All of the arguments I have seen to support the claim that the USA is falling behind rely on faulty reasoning.

Re:Collision detection

[Anonymous Coward]

HL2 uses Havok. (You mean you haven't looked through the source?!?)

Re:Collision detection

[Phlipping]

I believe ODE is implemented, at least partially, in tuhopuu ("evil tree", the "testing grounds" version, where features are put and tested before being committed to the bf-blender tree), at least I saw it in the "Physics" selector last time I used it (which was a while ago, admittedly).

Check this thread on the test builds forum.

I haven't actaully tried it myself, maybe someone can back me up here?

Re:Collision detection

[Animats]

Collision detection for convex polyhedra is incredibly cheap when done right. Polygon soups are inherently more expensive, but there's been considerable progress in that area.

Re:Collision detection

[Animats]

Bouncing balls, yes. Bouncing humanoid figures with joints, friction, and multiple contacts, no.

I'm the inventor of "ragdoll physics". More of my physics videos. Those are from work done in 1996-1998. (The videos are overcompressed; everybody had less bandwidth back then.)

The difference between "sort of works" and "works as well as that" is non-trivial. That's why I collect royalties on the technology.

Re:Collision detection

[Dr. Sp0ng]

Bouncing balls, yes. Bouncing humanoid figures with joints, friction, and multiple contacts, no.

I hate to argue with you, especially since (if you are who you claim to be) you know what you're talking about. But I'm a game developer, and I'm responsible for the physics simulator in our engine, among other things, so I know what I'm talking about too - physics simulation is just not that hard. The collision detection is what gave me the most problems. Once the collision routines are giving accurate collision data, things become easier.

The difference between "sort of works" and "works as well as that" is non-trivial. That's why I collect royalties on the technology.

I agree, it's not an easy problem, but it's not a terribly difficult one, either. I know, because I've done it before, and I'm doing it now.

Re:Collision detection

[Animats]

I'm John Nagle, owner of Animats, and you can reach me through the addresses on the Animats web site.

If you have to handle the hard cases, like multiple simultaneous sliding contacts, the Baraff-type LCP solutions don't really work too well, or at least they didn't a few years ago. I realize there's been some progress. I prefer spring/damper simulators, because you can handle frictional contacts right and you don't have the zero-time bounces (the "boink problem") of impulse/constraint systems. The CPU load is higher, but that's less of a problem than it used to be.

A good test of a physics system is the spinning top. That's easy to set up. The base should roll around a little (it has a nonzero diameter), the top should precess, it should recover from small disturbing impacts, and over time, the speed of the top should slow. Just like a real top. If it doesn't behave like that, something is broken.

Re:Collision detection

[Dr. Sp0ng]

I'm John Nagle, owner of Animats, and you can reach me through the addresses on the Animats web site.

Very cool. I'm Matt Spong, lead developer/CTO of Elemental Productions. We're a game company, about 1.5 years into our first project (multiplayer RTS type, Win32/OS X/Linux, potentially Xbox). I'm in charge of coordinating development of the engine, as well as writing a majority of it.

Physics simulation is something that's really caught my interest over the course of writing this engine - I'm actually thinking of going back to school for a degree in Physics or Math (got about halfway through a CS degree then left to ride the bubble because I was tired of spending time and money to get a degree for something I had been teaching myself since I was 8) and going into computational physics research stuff afterwards. That way I can actually get a degree that will teach me something, instead of me teaching the professors the intricacies of C++ templates :\

I prefer spring/damper simulators, because you can handle frictional contacts right and you don't have the zero-time bounces (the "boink problem") of impulse/constraint systems. The CPU load is higher, but that's less of a problem than it used to be.

I've always had some stability issues with spring/damper systems - they seem to me to be a little sensitive to floating point errors when you create very stiff springs. The approach I took with our simulator was to treat contact points as a kind of joint that would be created when the objects touch and destroyed when enough force was applied to overcome the frictional forces holding the contact in place (with some specialized versions of the contact joint to handle things like sliding, etc). When they are in place they work like any other joint, constraining how the objects may move in relation to each other. And the zero-time bounce problem goes away, because the objects will be joined with a resting joint, which keeps them from moving at all unless enough force is applied to break the joint.

This has worked out pretty well in practice, because it allows the entire physics system to be build up into one hierarchy. That way we can cut down on the calculations quite a bit, also, since we can figure out solutions for bigger groups of objects at once. It seems to be a good way to structure the world that makes some things that would otherwise be a hassle a little easier.

I have to admit, I don't know the current state of the art in the physics simulation field, because I've only gone out and read up on things I couldn't figure out myself (and after re-learning calculus and matrices and some of that nastier math, I figured most of it out on my own). So it's very likely that a lot of what I've done in the simulator is not the best way of doing things, and also quite different than other engines may do them. But it seems to be working fairly well (it'll do basic rigid body physics, rotational/sliding/ball-and-socket joints, contact joints, springs/dampers (linear and rotational), pretty basic cloth stuff) and it doesn't really have stability or performance issues. I went to SIGGRAPH last summer and sat through a couple lectures about computational physics stuff (including a really good one by the Pixar guys), and I've got plans to work on fluid simulation in the near future (I want to get in-game explosions modelled as realistically as possible... actually simulating them would be cool).

So like I said, this is something that's caught my interest, and possibly something I may pursue in the future. I'd like to focus all my attention on this sort of thing, at least for awhile, instead of it being another side project, competing for time with the rendering engine and the AI and the rest of what makes a game.

A good test of a physics system is the spinning top. That's easy to set up. The base should roll around a little (it has a nonzero diameter), the top should precess, it should recover from small dist

Re:Collision detection

[Animats]

I've always had some stability issues with spring/damper systems - they seem to me to be a little sensitive to floating point errors when you create very stiff springs.

Yes, they are, and those errors must be detected and bounded. But it can all work. Not easily.

Treating contact points as a joint handles the easy cases rapidly. But sliding contact is a problem.

Doing spring/damper in real time for a complex world would probably take more CPU than is presently available, but if you were doing a two-person fighter and wanted really good physics, it could work.

I always wanted to do more in the control area for physically-based character animation, but assembling mocap segments works well enough for most game applications. Besides, if you have physically realistic characters, they have to have human-quality reflexes. Even controlling legged running is tough, let alone martial arts. Because legged locomotion is dominated by sliding contact problems, I've been interested in getting better physical simulation techniques in that area.

There's been some recent work reported at GDC on Verlet integration for implicit integration in a physics engine. That may lead to faster spring/damper systems. See the 2004 GDC proceedings. I tried several implicit integrators a few years ago, and they worked, but the convergence time for the nonlinear solver for a single big step was worse than the time to do many little steps with explicit RK4 integration. Recomputing the Jacobian by differencing is too expensive, and is needed too frequently. Maybe if you had analytical Jacobians... Somebody needs to crack that performance problem. But you don't want to tackle that one when you have a game to ship.

Games that use the Blender Engine

[JaF893]

For those who are interested here are six games that use the blender game engine:
Crescent Dawn
Dark Squad
Dracolith
Sachi Soup
Twilight Quest
Vertigo

Re:Games that use the Blender Engine

[Deraj DeZine]

I got 404s on all but the link for Twilight Quest

What a pack of loosers!

[Anonymous Coward]

I havwen't heard of any of them!!!!!!

Garbled menus

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know whether this release fixes the issues with garbled menus? Makes Blender kinda unusable :\

Re:Garbled menus

[Anonymous Coward]

It does not. But blender is still usable for those that know how to rtfm...

Re:Garbled menus

[ReyTFox]

In X11, this problem is usually caused by the cursor settings. Some people have to render it with software mode, others hardware.

I dunno about under other platforms. I never had trouble with it in Windows.

what about Undo?

[Kiro]

This is great news but when is UNDO gonna be implemented, if ever? This is a major feature for a software like that to be missing.

Re:what about Undo?

[Anonymous Coward]

FULL undo support is available for mesh editing. Other than that, make copies of things before you change them? It's actually possible to learn how to not need undo....strange but true.

Re:what about Undo?

[Kiro]

why learn how to live without a feature you take for granted? heck we can "learn" to live without electricity too, but that don't mean I wanna.

Re:what about Undo?

[DavidLeblond]

This is great news but when is UNDO gonna be implemented, if ever? This is a major feature for a software like that to be missing.

Its been there for awhile now. Press U in edit mode.

Re:what about Undo?

[MadChicken]

Heh with the all CAPS my first thought was that UNDO was another acronym.

Hey, it's got a SOLID collision engine already...

Re:what about Undo?

[Klowner]

It's not really learning to compensate for not having an undo feature, as much as learning how blender works..

The only time I ever really NEED an undo feature is in mesh editing mode. But when I'm in object mode, it's possible to clear the rotation/scale/transform of an object with a couple mouse clicks, then simply re-position your object however you like it..

The lack of undo was my biggest complaint at first, and now I really don't care about it.

Re:what about Undo?

[sahonen]

There is full undo capability (as many steps back as you have RAM for) in mesh edit mode. In the 5 years I've been using Blender, I've never needed any other undo.

Re:what about Undo?

[Anonymous Coward]

hm, i guess the docu should be updated then, as it tells something like that there is sort of undo but not really an undo without explaining it in a way a newbie like me could understand it. So far i also just tought blender had no undo.

Re:what about Undo?

[FunkyChild]

http://download.blender.org/documentation/htmlI/x2 434.html

Re:what about Undo?

[baxissimo]

And what if you're editing an armature?
Doesn't work there. What about when you're editing texture coordinates. Doesn't work there does it? Undo for meshes is great, but there are quite a few other places where it sure would be handy.

the next major step

[MozillaFireBird]

The next major step should be to include Blender in various GNU/Linux distro. Since most of the linux geeks play those games anyway, why not have Blender?

Re:the next major step

[StarfishOne]

Or 3D desktops so that we can fly through our files, just as in movies like Hackers ^_^

Re:the next major step

[Anonymous Coward]

Blender was included in SuSE Linux 9.0 Professional (which I use); however, I do not believe it was a default install. But there noneoftheless. It will also be included in SuSE Linux Professional 9.1. SuSE Linux Professional 9.1 Graphics Page.

Reaching back

[metallikop]

These games look like they came right off the store shelves back in 1998. You get what you pay for.

Re:Reaching back

[peeping_Thomist]

These games look like they came right off the store shelves back in 1998. You get what you pay for.

Well, since I stopped buying new games about 1998, when I moved to free software and stopped using unfree software, that sounds great to me! Onward and upward!!!

Blender doesn't need a game engine.

[JessLeah]

It needs GOOD DOCUMENTATION. I'm a pretty smart person, if my test scores are to be believed, but I find Blender's interface to be completely inscrutable. And I have managed to work with other 3D modelling programs before...

Re:Blender doesn't need a game engine.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can buy the blender manual...
Or read it online if you don't want to pay for it.
And if you have done, what was so bad about it?

Re:Blender doesn't need a game engine.

[sahonen]

It has plenty of good documentation online. Just open your eyes.

As for people who complain the docs aren't current, I haven't read any actual docs since I bought the 1.5 manual. After you get the hang of it, everything is self-explanatory.

Re:Blender doesn't need a game engine.

[Anonymous Coward]

The current documentation is even worse than just bad. It's sometimes plain wrong. It's probably easy when you used it for some time and know the keys. I wanted to learn how to use it and tried the recommended first tutorial (building an animated man - i think he was called gus) which was nice written, but some steps simply did not work (like wrong keys for mirroring an object). Searching some time in the web i managed to advance slightly in this tutorial, but i simply failed to finish it.

I still want to learn how to use Blender, but by now i tried a second tutorial with samples that didn't work and i just don't know HOW i can learn using it if i don't have correct documentation. I figured out some things by now - but it's really very, very annoying if you spend several hours on simple tutorials just trying to figure out how it really works instead of beeing able just to get it done.

Re:Blender doesn't need a game engine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, one thing i forgot: If anyone knows a beginner tutorial which does work with the current version of Blender, i'd really like to hear about it!

Re:Blender doesn't need a game engine.

[greay]

I haven't checked the documentation lately, so maybe things have gotten better...

But it was awful hard to get the hang of Blender in the first place, what with the documentation not being current. And a lot of the features just weren't documented. Not having up-to-date documentation /is/ a valid concern. It makes learning (especially something as complicated and confusing as blender) a lot harder than it needs to be.

Re:Blender doesn't need a game engine.

[Curtman]

It needs GOOD DOCUMENTATION

Try the gingerbread man tutorial. I had a lot of fun going through that. It explains the interface very well, as well as provides a brief intro to modelling in general.

Re:Blender doesn't need a game engine.

[CuteAlien]

Yes it really is a very good introduction. Unfortunatly last time i checked it, it wasn't up-to-date and it's not possible to follow the steps through as descriped with the current version of blender. Maybe someone did update it by now (some weeks ago since i tried it) - i really hope so.

Obligatory /.ing comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like his webserver was put in a Blender :P

Re:Obligatory /.ing comment

[m4ik]

At least they got humour.
www.blender.org says:

Hello Slashdot!

Our community services are suspended for now. Please visit www.blender3d.org.

Informative? Funny/troll!

[Anonymous Coward]

Only one of those links actually works. Gee mods, you could of clicked before you rated.

Is .3ds support still omitted?

[Anonymous Coward]

How long are the Blender guys going to continue overlooking this common file format? There are plenty of modelers who have looked at Blender (DESPITE the inferior interface), but the minute the find out it cannot import .3ds, they go back to 3D Studio max.

I mean, what's the point of using a 2nd rate app that can't even import a commonly used file format?

Re:Is .3ds support still omitted?

[Klowner]

[troll food]
Ever heard of a plug-in?

Blender has excellent support for import/export scripts written in python. If you do a little digging around on the blender sites I'm sure you'd find a variety of 3ds importer/exporters available.

[/troll food]

Re:Is .3ds support still omitted?

[greay]

it may have excellent support for plugins, but the plugins are often a pain to find, and a lot of them just don't work.

Just plug in a Python script

[ReyTFox]

http://bane.servebeer.com/programming/blender/

Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[sahonen]

I firmly believe that shifting the focus of Blender to the gaming engine at the expense of the rendering engine is what killed NaN in the first place. When Blender went OSS and the game engine had to be taken out, Blender took on new life as new features were added to the rendering engine including the much-requested raytracing. Now that the gaming engine is back in, I fear that Blender will soon fail again.

It was nice having it while it was around.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[zaphod_bee4]

Being a contributor and hanging out with the Primary Dev's I can reassure you that the Rendering engine is still a high priority. Not to mention the new emphasis on Yafray integration. I doubt you will have to worry about this being neglected.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[adrianbaugh]

That's the difference between the cathedral and the bazaar though, isn't it? In a small company certain aspects might get neglected at the expense of others. In an open development model, people can code what they want. I doubt there'll be a sudden shift of rendering engine developers to the game engine; rather, its becoming free just opens it up for extra developers who want to work on game engines to work on it. This sounds like good news (though I wouldn't really know as I'm another of those people who've never been able to get to grips with the UI).

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[sahonen]

Since I made that post I looked around the Blender site and checked out the new features. I take it back, the game engine is the least of what's been introduced in the latest version. I love the reworking of the material system. Given all the amazing stuff I've been able to do with just clouds I can't wait to try out the new texturing modes.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[t_allardyce]

Blenders internal rendering engine isnt great, i think they would be better off to do what they are currently doing - integrating with YafRay, and PovRay (PovRay is very mature)

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the problem with the integrated render?
They are not going to replace the internal render with yafray. Yafray is slow but realistic. The internal is fast but better suited for non-realistic images. Though it can do both radiosity and raytracing...

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[GooberToo]

I agree. Quick peeks vi YafRay work great. And PovRay is simply awesome!

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[t_allardyce]

AFAIK it lakes depth of field and motion blur and afew other things (photons/caustics?). The radiosity interface seemd cumbersome (last time i used it in 2.32) and destructive to the geometry if i remember correctly (reapplying things all the time is a hassle and doesnt make a good interface). You're right its an internal renderer thats best suited for somethings not others, i have no problem with it, and the good thing about these things being free/open is that they can use another projects renderer aswell.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[Anonymous Coward]

DOF is possible through a plugin.
Motion blur is not missing.
Otherwise you're right.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[Anonymous Coward]

DOF is possible with a sequencer plug-in, motion blur has been there for ages too (mblur button in scene buttons). Radiosity can be done at render time with the Radio button in the scene buttons.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[burns210]

since it IS opensource, the developers that wish to further improve the game engine can, and those that want to improve the other aspects of Blender(like the raytracind and other features you mentioneD) can aswell... It isn't a single company shifting focus, it is the adding of a new feature into an open program that now has room in new markets where it didn't use to.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[sahonen]

Replacing the built-in render with a raytracer would be the worst thing they could possibly do. Raytracing is SLOW. The built-in scanline renderer puts out great images in a minimum of time, which is necessary when an animation needs to be done by yesterday. (I make graphics for television).

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[black mariah]

Raytracing isn't always SLOW. It depends on what you're rendering and what you're rendering it on. To pull an example from a different program, in 3ds max there are some things I'd render in the default scanline renderer that would take a couple of hours. Under Brazil (the 3rd party renderer by Splutterfish) it would take a quarter the time. You can't really make the overall statement that raytracing is always slower.
But for the most part, you're right. ;-)

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[Cyno]

Yep, just like that Linux kernel, eh?

When they added IA64 support my x86 just wasn't fun to work on anymore and I fear the whole project is heading the way of the dodo. Oh well. *sigh*

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[agentk]

Um well they did add a ray tracer... as an alternative, not a replacement. Yafray is also an option. Sometimes carefully setting up a scene to work with radiosity and manual environment maps takes just as long as a raytraced rander :)

I have been told that Blender also works well with DrQueue, basic software to set up a multi-machine rendering farm.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[WWWWolf]

Yeah, but collision stuff isn't useful just for games. All sorts of animations could benefit from them. Thanks to game engine effort we now have things like Actions that make complex animations far easier.

Besides, it's strange to assume it was the game engine that kept innovation out. Are you suggesting all this stuff that has been added to Blender wouldn't have got added if people had had their game engine? You know, people actually use this program for other uses besides creating games - like, you know, 3D graphics modelling and rendering! Maybe they added the stuff because, you know, the source code was suddenly available?

I think Blender will keep growing better, with game engine or not.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[sahonen]

Raytracing is slower than scanline rendering. Period. No exceptions. If you can come up to an exception to this, I would love to see the renderer that can raytrace a scene faster than Blender could render it.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[sahonen]

Do you honestly think I didn't know that? Of course I knew Blender had added raytracing. The point of my post, since apparently you're illiterate, was that completely replacing the scanline techniques Blender uses with a 100% raytraced approach would be a bad thing.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[sahonen]

The more proper Linux Kernel metaphor would be more like, ever since they implemented IA64 support, x86 support was completely ignored for the next year. When Blender got the gaming features, the rendering side was completely ignored until NaN went bankrupt.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[sahonen]

When the game engine got implemented, the rendering side was completely ignored until NaN went bankrupt. I didn't say that it caused a lack of innovation, Blender went from 2.0 to 2.25 before NaN quit. I'm saying that the focus of development shifted away from its core functionality, rendering, and because of that the people who used it for rendering (i.e. everyone who used it before 2.0) got sick of being ignored and left, causing NaN's bankruptcy.

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[j1m 5n0w]

Raytracing is slower than scanline rendering. Period. No exceptions. If you can come up to an exception to this, I would love to see the renderer that can raytrace a scene faster than Blender could render it.

How about this?
~1 billion triangles, interactive framerates.

-jim

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[sahonen]

Hey, that's pretty cool. How's it work?

Re:Game engine = worst...idea...ever

[j1m 5n0w]

Beats me, but there's a paper if you're interested.

Note: raytracers can be slow, but doubling the complexity of the scene does not double the rendering time, as with scanline renderers, assuming the raytracer uses a reasonable bounding volume system.

-jim

Speaking of Collisions

[Anonymous Coward]

The best collisions in life are free. Like, for example, Porrasturvat and Rekkaturvat.

http://jet.ro/dismount/

Cursor issue

[r6144]

As another poster has pointed out, this is possibly caused by bad interactions between new pretty X cursors, video drivers (i845 for me) and Blender. Just try adding "Xcursor.core: true" to ~/.Xresources, reload it using xrdb (or restart X), and see if it gets better (the mouse cursor would return to the good-old black-and-white style though).

3d web plugin

[Gleapsite]

A little off topic, But as i was looking at their site, i found a "3d web plugin" which apparently has versions for IE explorer and netscape. Why ever isn't there a pheonix/firebird/firefox plugin? does anyone know of one?

Re:3d web plugin

[Anonymous Coward]

The web plugin isn't being developed.

Re:3d web plugin

[Anonymous Coward]

...firefox can use netscape plugins under linux, can't it under win32 as well? (same for konqueror, but I'm not asking about it under win32 ;)

Re:3d web plugin

[Curtman]

Mozilla/Netscape/Pheeonix/Firebird/Firefox all use the same plugins. Exploder used to support them as well.

Collision detection libs and Karl Sims' famous vid

[Szplug]

Great; it's probably possible now to implement Karl Sims' old evolving 3D creatures. Anyone know of other free libs besides SOLID?

jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of "NOT HTML clicking to help reduce load on server a tad" do you not understand?

Re:jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they are missing the part where someone thinks making a link copy and paste actually helps reduce load.

'Oh, I was going to visit that site, but it would take me an extra 3 seconds to copy and paste, darn, might as well go outside and play in traffic instead.'

FYI, It doesn't reduce traffic. In fact, it increases traffic thanks to the typos that have now been added to the mix.

Good job!

Re:jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

Well some people(like me I admit).
Have a tendency of clicking almost every link just to see what it is. Those probably add quite much to the serverload. When you have to copy and paste you sort out those clicking the link without thinking.

Re:jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting about the eighty billion people who cache Slashdot and its links for off-line viewing. Programs ignore URLs expressed without a link.

Jerk.

Re:jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of "NOT HTML clicking to help reduce load on server a tad" do you not understand?

In fact, I didn't understand it at all at first reading. It's total garbage. "NOT GOOD writing to help reduce understanding of text a tad". Sure. Perfect English.

Re:jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.goat.cx/

Sorry, had to do it =)

Re:jerk

[randomblast]

>>You're forgetting about the eighty billion people who cache Slashdot and its links for off-line viewing. Programs ignore URLs expressed without a link.

wow, Aliens read /.?
there being only about 6-7bn people on the planet, i think there must be some aliens cahching it to get that figure.

Re:jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

Why copy and paste? Just highlight + middle click.

Bring it on!

[t_allardyce]

Woohoooh!!! ive been checking the blender site almost everyday for the next point release. 2.32 seems to have a very annoying memory leak in win2k. This program is really showing great potential, if you start it up for the first time you'll be lost, but once you hit the learning curve its great. Theres layers and layers of functionality all inside that tiny binary, oh wait.. its slashdotted. :(

Plugin too??

[Curtman]

restored all functionality from the closed-source period

Does this mean the browser plugin is back too? Or does that not count because it never left beta?

Re:Plugin too??

[lambermo]

Yes, it's in the source (actually it never left ;-) only SOLID left). I just built the browser plugin (and the stand alone player) for FreeBSD (I'm the FreeBSD platform manager), but it won't be released as a binary yet; not tested.
I hope that changes soon, I liked the browser plugin. But it was very hard to get it working right at NaN, that's why we never released it. Netscape/Mozilla's plugin API is a mess, it works different on all platforms and such :(
So: new coding help is required ;-) Don't be shy !

Re:Plugin too??

[Curtman]

new coding help is required ;-) Don't be shy !

This is definitely something I'll be playing with. Where do blender developers hang out, Freenode?

Re:Plugin too??

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape/Mozilla's plugin API is a mess, it works different on all platforms

For obvious reasons explorer wont have that problem.

Re:Plugin too??

[Anonymous Coward]

#blendercoders @ Freenode
And the Developer forums

Re:Plugin too??

[Phlipping]

www.blender.org is the developer's site (as opposed to www.blender3d.org the user's site) but they also meet in #blendercoders on freenode on Sundays at 4-6pm (CEST) - but there's generally a bunch of people in there anyway if you just drop in.

We should thank this guy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering how nice this fellow who made his library F/OSS was, perhaps we should find some way to thank the guy who made the library?

Anyone know where to find him & maybe send him beer money or something nice? :) Or hell, even to email him a thank you...

Re:Collision detection libs and Karl Sims' famous

[dcuny]

If you want to implement Sims-esque life, you might have a look at breve. But you might need a Beowolf cluster:

• "In the aptly named Creature Evolver I attempted to reproduce a project originally conceived by Karl Sims, but which at the time that Sims implemented it required an expensive super computer. My goal was not necessarily to improve on Sims' work, at least not in the first iteration, but merely to demonstrate that it is possible to evolve novel physical morphologies and accompanying neural control in a three dimensional world with an accurate underlying physics. Ideally, I would like to explore the possibility of entire ecosystems of physically simulated organisms. At present it is only barely possible to evolve a single organism in a reasonable period of time however."

Still, it looks to be a very cool project.

Lightwave vs Blender vs Max

[Wizard Drongo]

OK, it's nice that blender has a game engine again, which is something I feel is lacking in Lightwave 7.5 (i know game sdk exists, but it would be nice if it was a little more intergrated). However, the point is, what is Blender trying to be? An open source alternative to the big hollywood rendering soloutions, capable of doing boradcast level animation and compositing? Or is it trying to be an open source alternative to 3d Studio Max, a sorta half-game, half-studio, totally lame program that does neither modelling nor rendering very well? If you look into a lot of production games, modelling these days is done increasingly in Maya or Lightwave. Not 3ds max. Surely basing it's development model a little on max is a road to distaster? At the end of the day, Mx is neither fish nor fowl, nor good red herring. It doesn't really do anything very well. For games development, it's fairly good, but rendering in it is horrible, and modelling in it's a joke. I sincerely hope that Blender, which as someone rightfully said is one of the gems of the OSS world, does not follow Max down that road now it's got it's game engine back.

Re:Lightwave vs Blender vs Max

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I spend a great deal of time with the developers I can say quite confidently that the game engine is one part of this software package that is NOT going to change the overall direction of the project. Its not going to follow anyone down any road but its own. The nature of the project is such that no part of it will dictate the progress of another.

Re:Lightwave vs Blender vs Max

[black mariah]

I'm not sure what the hell you're talking about. 3ds max has some of the best modelling tools this side of Mirai. I agree that its native rendering is usually craptacular, but you can't fault it in its modeling capabilities.

Blender isn't trying to be anything. It's trying to be everything, which is why it will always be practically nothing.

Re:Lightwave vs Blender vs Max

[Lord Omlette]

However, the point is, what is Blender trying to be?

It's just trying to be what its users want it to be. I know that sounds ridiculous, but sit behind someone who *really* knows how to use it and watch them in action. It's magical. I feel like less of a man because I don't understand it, and I keep telling myself that *this summer* I'm really going to sit down and learn it.

Awesome, thanks /nt

[Szplug]

Ok, t. Stupid slashcode :)

Re:Awesome, thanks /nt

[dcuny]

Your welcome. :-)

I ran across it cruising through Freshmeat to see if there were any good 3D animation programs that I had missed.

Really, there's not much out there. Blender is the best and most capable, but (despite many advances) it's UI has a steep learing curve. But if you stick with it, you can do amazing stuff, and to be fair, the UI is way better than it used to be, and promises to only get better.

Anim8or is an Windows program by Steven Glanville. (It works fine under WINE.) It's free, but closed source, because Steve doesn't want to deal with people bugging him about unofficial releases - I understand the sentiment! It's a great modeller, and I think the scanline renderer is underrated, but the animation features are a weak - for example, it doesn't yet have IK. However, the next release promises to include it, so it's definately something worth watching.

Art of Illusion is an open source Java program by Peter Eastman, and I suspect that most people - if they've heard of it at all - know that it's a full-featured raytracer, but don't realize that it supports animation. The bones based animation uses a 'pin and drag' interface based on Animanium, and it's very cool. Unfortunately, you can only do animation via pose morphs in the current release, but the next version promises support bones animation on a seperate IK track. By the time 2.0 comes out, I think it'll be an excellent program for doing character animation.

There have been rumors that some day Björn Gustavsson's Wings3D would support animation, but so far, that's only rumor. Wings3D started out as an open source version of IzWare's Nendo modeller, but has in many ways surpassed Nendo since then, so it's possible...

Finally, there's Sascha Ledinsky's Java based JPatch program, a successor to Mike Clifton's now abandoned sPatch program. Although it's currently only a modeller (the beta should be ready by the end of the month), it has designs to support animation - sort of an open source version of Animation:Master. It may not look like there's much going on at the site, but I've had a chance to play with some of the development versions - it's worth keeping an eye on.

If anyone knows of any open source/non-commercial programs capable of producing character animation, I'd love to know about them!

Re:Awesome, thanks /nt

[CreatorOfSmallTruths]

If anyone knows of any open source/non-commercial programs capable of producing character animation, I'd love to know about them!

cal3d?

Re:Awesome, thanks /nt

[JohnFluxx]

I second that cal3d. It is a spin off from worldforge, but we broke it off to a seperate project.
The animation stuff is pretty good. Although work is still ongoing at the meta data level - for example when a person wears a jacket, you want to hide the torso. Getting that kind of logic in still needs to be done.

Great news

[BlightThePower]

Now we can only produce our own Naughty Nurse spanking simulators! (no, really).

So you want Blender documentation?

[Qbertino]

It needs GOOD DOCUMENTATION

Here you go.

And here too.

I'm afraid documentation for blender won't get any more in-depth than that. Or documentation for any 3D program for that matter.

[OT] Re:Is .3ds support still omitted?

[Anonymous Coward]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason because of one never should answer to a troll: no matter what you say to them, there's still *just one more reason* of why are you wrong (at least on the troll's mindset).

When, oh when...

[cr0sh]

You know what Blender's Game engine has never had support for? Joysticks and other input devices. If they would just add a general serial port, parallel port, USB and game port interfaces, it would be a nearly perfect platform for VR and simulation uses.

I keep waiting, while looking at other possible solutions...

Get your spelling straight

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever been rediculed?
Is that being ridiculed for a second time?
Your mother was a hamster...

Re:fi8St

[Phlipping]

Is this meant to make any sense?

sweet

[t_allardyce]

I downloaded 6 of the demos on the site (yes including the nurse). I was impressed by the quality (lovely lighting on the walkthrough and nice hoverboard game) but i thought they were probably pretty clunky and not very effiecient like java, so i thought id run all of them at the same time to see if the performance took a hit.. it didnt :P (on a 1.6ghz)