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Blender Demo Reel Released

James Cho writes "The Blender demo reel has been released, showcasing some of the best artwork made with what has become the most powerful open source 3d content creation software. It will be later shown at SIGGRAPH 2004, the premier international computer graphics exhibiton and conference."

24 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Interface by Television+Set · · Score: 3, Informative

    Blender is one tough program to master. I've meddled with it a bit, but I found the interface cumbersome.

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    1. Re:Interface by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's kinda like GIMP/Cinepaint that way. Personally, I think blender's interface sucks for different reasons to most people - I grew up with Imagine and other Amiga raytracers, and blender's interface feels like a bad imitation of them. It's like they got the Amiga spirit of full-screen apps that "fit the UI to the task, not the task to the UI" but they failed to actually finish the UI, stopping once they'd got every function accessible via some button, somewhere, or maybe instead of thinking about where the buttons should be, they decided to shift that burden to the user, then tout that configurability as an advantage while making it _necessary_ rather than optional to reconfigure to do anything useful.

      Realsoft 3D, the descendant of Amiga Real3D also has such configurability - but out-of-box, the default layout is okay (at least on windows, the linux version apparently was written by people who think "Unix==Motif" and it therefore sucks in the buggy,slow Motif way.).

    2. Re:Interface by Deusy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Blender is one tough program to master. I've meddled with it a bit, but I found the interface cumbersome.

      Ergo, a large focus of the development since becoming open source has been to make the UI more intuitive and consistent.

      The Blender UI is no longer that difficult, just different to 3DS or your other favourite 3D editor. I'd be surprised if your comment applies to the most recent version unless by "a bit" you mean 5 minutes.

      If you go through the the blender3d.org tutorials then get back on the "cumbersome" UI.

      --

      Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary

    3. Re:Interface by baxissimo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't think the interface is that bad, and they are working on making it better. And also documenting it better -- the new blender guide is a great thing. Besides, aren't you willing to put up with a little quirkiness for a free 3D modleing and animation program? Any 3D program is going to take some serious time to learn well, and the core modeling operations in Blender really are pretty efficent once you get used to them.

      But the number one thing that annoys me with the blender UI, which will probably never be fixed, is that, flying in the face of 20 years of WIMP software conventions, they chose to use the LEFT mouse button for selecting things, and the RIGHT mouse button for positioning the cursor. I used it for several weeks and never did get the hang of that. Kept moving the cursor around when I meant to select something. I can't count how many times I carefully placed the cursor exactly where I wanted it only to turn around and carelessly right-click on some object to select it and -- DOH! I just moved the cursor. And there's no undo of cursor repositioning. Very annoying. So you just have to go back and redo your careful cursor placement manually.

      Oh, and the lack of global undo is another major annoyance, but that'll probably be fixed someday. Undo has been added for certain sub-modes already. But I think the main Blender developers are too attached to the whole RMB for cursor positioning/LMB for selection thing to ever change that.

    4. Re:Interface by FunkyChild · · Score: 4, Informative

      But I think the main Blender developers are too attached to the whole RMB for cursor positioning/LMB for selection thing to ever change that.

      Blender 2.34, due to be released in the next week or so, contains a user preference to choose between LMB or RMB for selection.

      --> http://mke3.net/blender/interface/interaction/mous esel_pref.png

    5. Re:Interface by Shinobi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've been using Blender to and from since 1996, when it was only available for Irix. Even looking at this latest release, it's not that much that has changed UI wise, it's still an enormous kludge. It always ends up with me giving up and going back to Maya so I can get things done, with a proper 1 hand on mouse, 1 hand on keyboard UI that works superb.

    6. Re:Interface by Mr.Zong · · Score: 3, Informative

      For 3d modeling (not animating mind you), might i recommend http://www.wings3d.com/. Wings 3d has pretty much the best GUI i've ever had the pleasure of using. It's learning curve is really only about a half hour, and you can do some amazing modeling with it. Also open source.

  2. boom by Wuffle · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not even 10 comments and the link already seems dead.

    Impressive to say the least...

  3. Let's not use BitTorrent by eddy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Because if you do, you might survive a slashdotting, cut down on bandwidth costs and, finally, actually reach your intended audience.

    We wouldn't want that, now would we?

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    Belief is the currency of delusion.
  4. bittorrent mirror.. by Harald+Paulsen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    .. here

    Karma-whoring since 1976

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    Harald
  5. Re:mirror by caino59 · · Score: 4, Informative

    siggraph_movie.avi

    someone want to set it up as a torrent?

  6. direct link and mirror by yruf · · Score: 5, Informative

    use the direct link which is mentioned on the blender.org page.

    if this doesn't work, try my very own mirror (which hopefully doesn't die within the next seconds...)

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    [adv]
    schoene Klamotten fuer Ilmenauer und andere nette Leute

  7. oh.. Blender.. with an L by njcoder · · Score: 3, Funny

    Damn I misread it. I got my hopes up thinking there was a futurama movie coming out

  8. Blender has surpassed lightwave a long time ago. by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was an avid lightwave 3d user. I have a copy sitting right here in front of me. The dongle and disks have not left their box for almost a year now cince I doscovered blender.

    It's faster, easier to use (yes, after the initial learning curve that is there with every single piece of software ever made.) and produces massively better output when coupled with yafray.. Hell I am able to render on a renderfarm of older computers for only the price of hardware!

    Blender is going to steal the show. It certianly outshines lightwave already.

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    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  9. Your Opinions Please? by ThisIsFred · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So this is slightly off the topic (but I've seen a lot of blender demo work as rendered scenes already - nice stuff). Anyway, has anyone else used some of these OSS modelling tools for game modding? The biggest problem seems to be the lack of converters to the industry defacto standard of 3DS Max binary format.

    --
    Fred

    "A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
    -RMS
    1. Re:Your Opinions Please? by TheQwe · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thanks to blender's python interface, you can write import/export scripts for just about any format. This guy has written the exporter you're looking for... along with an OBJ exporter, quake2 md2, quake3 md3, and doom3.

  10. The really interesting thing... by FyRE666 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...for me was not so much the graphics as the soundtrack. I followed the link to Magnatune to see what else the artist has produced and I was surprised by how good the other artists were on there too! You can play/download almost all the tracks by the artists (that I've tried) for free, although they also sell the music. I took a loot at the info page, and there's an interesting piece by the site's owner about why he started the site (after his wife went throught the grinder of the music industry).

    Overall, I'm impressed, and if anyone else is on the lookout for something new, it could be worth a look (no I don't work for them, or have anything to do with the site!)

  11. This is probably the right time to ask by carlmenezes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Among all you people out there who have worked on a wide variety of 3D graphics packages out there including 3DSMax, Maya, LightWave, Blender, etc...can you guys shed some light on how well Blender stacks up against the competition? Any links to some great tutorials would be really appreciated too, because, since it's free, I'm thinking of setting it up for a poor orphanage here in India that just had some pretty decent computers donated so the kids can start messing around on them.
    So, let's say I just install it there on the school computers and kids from 3rd to the 10th grade mess with blender. What chance do you think they have of developing some decent 3D graphics skills that they could use in the real world? Let's take willingness to learn as a given - in fact, it's so much, it's WAY past enthusiasm. The barrier is literacy - therefore, the tutorials will just be there, but the fact that they will be used cannot be taken as a given.
    In short, what do you think the chances are that a kid, with very little knowledge of a computer can start using blender and learn it in a few years to the point where the 3D skills developed give him/her a pretty decent chance of an entry level job in the graphics industry? The reason I ask is because I have seen some of the kids there and they are true artists. You should see what they can do with MS Paint.

    --
    Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
    1. Re:This is probably the right time to ask by Rxke · · Score: 2, Informative

      I just started dabbling(sp?) with Blender, and the tutorials are a great help to get you up to speed real quick.
      If they have basic understandig about how to work with a computer (saving files, using the mouse etc.) I think, if you can get them over the initial learning curve, it might be very rewarding.
      Download the blender tutorials, they're esp. made to use in a classroom enviro (but you can do it on your own, of course) they cover the very basics, and get more complex during following 'sittings' you advance from basic things to stunning stuff (for kids, at least)

      I suggest you take the 'course' yourself first, the basics take less than an hour.
      Then make something simple in Blender, to show the kids. Like the house example in the tutorial for instance... Then you ask them if they'd like to give it a try, etc etc...

      A scanner or cheap digital camera could come in handy, for digitizing their hand-drawn artwork, so they can use it as textures, backgrounds etc.

      Kids have an amazing fantasy, and if they'd be able to put their ideas into 3D, you may be quite impressed. And other people might be too.
      Originality is a big asset. And if they learn the skills young, they may grow up as real virtuoso's in their area.

      Try it. It's free. You can't lose, that's the beauty of open sourse. Even kids in poor orphanages can use it, to make a better future for themselves. That's one good reason to make the fine people that contribute to this project happy.

  12. ed2k and Slashdot by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Incidently, FWIW, the Slashdot editors have chosen to disallow ed2k links. I've posted about it before on Slashdot, and there have even been filed bugs on it.

    Jamie has a point -- that ed2k URLs launch external programs, and that he doesn't want to help trolls -- but man, I wish that we were able to use them, even if we lost the ability to use gopher, mailto, etc. Every time Slashdot links to a large file, we end up with some random reader having to set up a bittorrent entry (which is great for the immediate link, and keeps the server from being killed). However, inevitably that user kills the link after a couple of days, and then all the links to large files in old stories are dead. If we could just embed ed2k links, we could maintain links that would be useful months later. Adding ed2k wouldn't mean having to add any other protocols -- Gnutella and most P2P networks lack an URL format, and the only competitor, Kazaa, has a broken non-unique URL format that shouldn't be included.

    It'd be especially nice if users that wanted to allow ed2k links could enable them in their preferences, and then see them (though I guess that wouldn't work well with the pre-generation approach of Slashcode -- sigh).

  13. Re:Blender has surpassed lightwave a long time ago by underpar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    try ctrl-n... you can recalculate normals to the outside and it normally fixes those kinds of quirks.

  14. Re:Amazing by barista · · Score: 2, Informative

    A good place to start would be to look at the Elysiun forums. It's a great place to learn the ropes. A lot of the works in the demo reel were created by people who regularly hang out there, and some of the works were first displayed there. Check it out.

  15. 403 by chocolatetrumpet · · Score: 2, Informative

    Forbidden

    You don't have permission to access /siggraph_movie.avi.torrent on this server. :-(

    Just me?

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    Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
  16. OT: P2P Mirrors by nurb432 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This would be a good example to send to your state and federal representitives, showing one of the many LEGAL uses of P2P networks..

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    ---- Booth was a patriot ----