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/

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

[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

[Curtman]

As if blender wasn't complex enough

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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[be-fan]

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

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.

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.

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

[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

[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]

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

Reaching back

[metallikop]

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

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.

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...

Informative? Funny/troll!

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

[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: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: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]

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).

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. :(

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.

Great news

[BlightThePower]

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