New Blender Released

An anonymous reader writes "Blender, the cross-platform, open source 3d suite, has released version 2.43 along with a website redesign. This version brings powerful new features within reach of every person. These features include sculpt modeling, retopologizing tools, render passes, render baking, support for multi-uvs, enhanced fluid simulator with particles, new rigid body engine, numerous new compositing modes including defocus (DOF) node and much more. Feature videos are also available."

Comments

Goof Stuff!

[guysmilee]

Blender is absolutely amazing software ... i've used it since 2.39 (I believe thats the release) ... and it's came a long way. It's helped me learn opengl and appreciate the difference between what an artist and a programmer can do. It's a great tool and a definite "must play with" for all developers. I only hope the skeleton & mesh export examples have been tightened up to include more documentation.

Re:Goof Stuff!

[siDDis]

Yeah it's great! And free! :D One day this will replace 3DSMax and Maya everywhere! It's a pity that I still have to use (and pay for) software like Photoshop to get max performance out of Blender. GIMP is still just horrible. It's like programming in vi. Work's fine, but it can be a bit painful in the long run. Hopefully Krita will give Photoshop some real competition soon.

Re:Goof Stuff!

[bahwi]

I just started learning it a few days ago, only just starting through the tutorials over at their Noob to Pro tutorial site, but man, am I amazed at what I've done with it so far and I'm barely at the "Make a person" tutorial. Everything should give it a shot and a chance, even if they've never done anything visual before.

Re:Goof Stuff!

[Chandon Seldon]

Wait a second... what's wrong with programming in vi? It's way easier to use than some random IDE with an overly-complex GUI.

I mean... a Unix CLI *is* an IDE - and it's not like a programmer should be complaining about needing idiot-proof tools.

Re:Goof Stuff!

[MidnightBrewer]

Unfortunately, although Blender has a very professional feature set, its UI and methodology are so vastly different to everything else out there that I doubt it'll replace the big boys anytime soon. Also, you can't afford to work on the deadlines that the industry imposes on you using open source software unless you pay to get a programmer on staff who can handle potential problems for you. The TOC for something like Maya or 3DS Max suddenly pales in comparison.

Re:Goof Stuff!

[pinkstuff]

"its UI and methodology are so vastly different to everything else out there that I doubt it'll replace the big boys anytime soon"

When I first starting playing around with it I nearly made the mistake of instantly dismissing it because, well, frankly, its GUI looks terribly confusing. After sitting through a tutorial for an hour everything made sense and it was exceedingly fast to work with. I think most people experience the same thing using Blender.

Re:Goof Stuff!

[paganizer]

I haven't tried the just announced version, but I have tried to use it in the past, ever since before it was GPL'd. I'm a semi-pro; I make some money doing graphics, meshes & animation. not very much at all, it is more of a hobby than anything else. I'm also a MCSE, Was a HP/UX sys admin, have a piece of paper thats says I'm a certified Illustrator, and I used to program quite a bit. In other words, I'm probably pretty good at figuring out new software, allegedly; I've got licensed copies (and am fluent with) 3Dstudio, Lightwave, Poser, Vue. Blender is probably very powerful, but the GUI is so flipping terrible I just can't deal with it. I recently was helping out with meshes for a unofficial Firefly/Serenity mod for the game "The Movies", and the only script for moving meshes into the game that actually works is one for Blender; I HAD to try to work with it enough to move a mesh into blender, then export in the correct format for the game. I just barely was able to do it, and finally succeeded mainly by luck; I spent easily as much time trying to get Blender to do something that should be simple as I did putting together a Serenity mesh & textures. I realize that there are surely people out there who have absolutely no problem with Blender; I have no problems at all with 3Dstudio and struggle with Lightwave, while a bunch of people have the opposite experience. But what myself and A LOT of others condemn blender for is the "reinvent the wheel" syndrome; just about every 3d program does things in the same general way, as far as the GUI goes; if you are able to use one, there is no problem generally using another. I could possibly get a few books on blender, spend a few weeks learning the interface, and start using it. Why in the world is it like this, though? it is a great idea to have a GPL'd 3D program that is as powerful as Blender is, but why can't someone do a GUI for it that follows established conventions? Ok, that was my Rant for today. Time for people to start posting the "if you have problems with blender, you are obviously not trying/are an idiot, it is SO SIMPLE...." posts.

Re:Goof Stuff!

[pinkstuff]

Well, I am by no means what-so-ever a Blender or 3D Modeling expert. But I learned to use Blender and I could argue that other 3D programs are annoying because they don't have the same sort of GUI as the tool I learned... the other tools have similar GUIs but does that mean all of those GUIs are better, or they are all worse?

Did you sit through the tutorials first? I found them quite easy to follow and VERY helpful.

Re:Goof Stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is "No, I already know it all." Which is why he found it hard to use. I mean, the guy thinks "having an MCSE" gives more weight to his opinion when discussing a 3D modeler!

Re:Goof Stuff!

[Lord Ender]

vi? Real programmers use ed.
ED(1) Unix Programmer's Manual ED(1)
NAME
ed - text editor
SYNOPSIS
ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
DESCRIPTION
Ed is the standard text editor.
---
Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first
alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed
because it's ED!
"Ed is the standard text editor."
And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs
Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed.
Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog
message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K;
and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!
"Ed is the standard text editor."
Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:
golem$ ed
?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hello?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?
---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is
generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm
the novice with verbosity.
"Ed is the standard text editor."
Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.
ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED
AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS
BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN
SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!
When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless
help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!!
Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED!
ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!
TEXT EDITOR.
When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their
"edlin" on a Unix standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely
you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you
are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should
not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE
SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE
FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

? /* the slashdot lameness filter is really fucking lame. too few characters per line? taco, you have a moderation system for a reason. you don't need this retarded lameness filter crap. the slashdot lameness filter is really fucking lame. too few characters per line? taco, you have a moderation system for a reason. you don't need this retarded lameness filter crap. the slashdot lameness filter is really fucking lame. too few characters per line? taco, you have a moderation system for a reason. you don't need this retarded lameness filter crap. the slashdot lameness filter is really fucking lame. too few characters per line? taco, you have a moderation system for a reason. you don't need this retarded lameness filter crap. the slashdot lameness filter is really fucking lame. too few characters per line? taco, you have a moderation system for a reason. you don't need this retarded lameness filter crap. the slashdot lameness filter is really fucking lame. too few characters per line? taco, you have a moderation system for a reason. you don't need this retarded lameness filter crap. the slashdot lameness filter is really fucking lame. too few characters per line? taco, you have a moderation system for a reason. you don't need this retarded lameness filter crap. the slashdot lameness filter is really fucking lame. too few characters per line? taco, you have a moderation system for a reason. you

Re:Goof Stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

Blender's UI is just not that alien anymore. Everything can be done through the mouse, and it supports grab handles on the X,Y,and Z axes. Its support for multiple workspaces with instantaneous switching is certainly different, and probably responsible for its current penetration into professional production areas.

The fact that you can also use the keyboard to issue most any command is just a bonus now.

Woo-Hah!

[sexybomber]

Does it have a frappé mode? :D

Re:Woo-Hah!

[Mythrix]

No, but apparently it supports baking. That's quite an incredible blender!

Meh.

[gardyloo]

I won't believe it until someone releases a series of videos in which a lab-coated dude asks "Will it Render?".

Re:Meh.

[gstoddart]

I won't believe it until someone releases a series of videos in which a lab-coated dude asks "Will it Render?".

Why, one might ask, is that so?

Does this group have a particularly bad reputation for releases or something?

Cheers

Re:Meh.

[Plonkerinn]

I think its one a them thar jokes. :)

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

For people that didn't get it

Re:Meh.

[WTBF]

Will it blend?

Re:Meh.

[gstoddart]

Will it blend? [willitblend.com]

*laugh* Thank you. Highly unusual; I guess if you need a blender measured in horsepower, good on ya. ;-)

Cheers

How about some user interface?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've used many graphics applications. I'm pretty good with AutoCad. I'm not bad with 3D-Studio. (Well ok, that was a few years ago.) Blender drives me nuts. The best improvement will (because it doesn't seem to have happened yet) be a decent UI.

Re:How about some user interface?

[MrCoke]

Blender has a good UI. It's just very keyboard based if you want to be very efficient.

Re:How about some user interface?

[nurb432]

How about just learning it instead of complaining?

The interface is just fine. Yes there is a steep curve, but if you take the time you will see there is nothing wrong with it.

Re:How about some user interface?

[CompMD]

You must be new to CAD. You will soon outgrow silly children's toys such as AutoCad and 3D Studio Max. If you only knew the power of the dark side.

Re:How about some user interface?

[eno2001]

Harrr!!! In my wait for talk like a pirate day, I thought you said:

"The best improvement (because it doesn't seem to have happened yet) be a decent UI"

Harrr.. the best improvement be in me gettin' some readin' glasses, harrr!!!

Re:How about some user interface?

[skoaldipper]

I've used blender before, and the tutorials out there stepped me through the interface quite nicely. I prefer their e-shop to a donate button, and just look at all the goodies you can have by supporting this project, including a guide. Well done. I just wish they'd update the Gamekit package (but no biggy, I'll order it anyway).

Re:How about some user interface?

[Dracos]

Blender's UI could use some visual feedback in places, and the usability of the widgets could be improved, but the UI isn't exactly GUI oriented, it's keyboard oriented. This makes Blender hard to learn, but once you get used to the interface, Blender is very powerful and efficient.

I believe anything lacking in Blender's UI is just as much (if not more) the fault of OpenGL as it is the Blender developers.

The fact that they don't publish a manual any more (it having been replaced with a Wiki) is another obstacle. I'd very much like to have a downloadable paginated HTML tarball or a PDF than dela with a Wiki... nothing against Wiki's, I'd just rather have my own local copy of the docs to use.

Blender drove me nuts for a couple months too, but I perservered.

Re:How about some user interface?

[djcapelis]

Actually the next version of the manual is still being developed, the wiki is part of that.

And you still can get the paper version, albeit the slightly off-colored first printing run edition: http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/product_info.php?p roducts_id=79. You can also get a PDF of the manual as well. It's old and again we're working on the new one, but for most things it's quite fine as a reference.

The manual will continue, after all, it's part of how the blender foundation is financed. (Clue the conspiracy theorists that say we make the software hard to use on purpose in 3... 2...)

~D.J. Capelis
Blender Dev

Re:How about some user interface?

[LiquidCoooled]

Every single time I have tried it I get lost.
I am certain its really powerful, but when I cannot even use the file request dialog (oh wait, sorry its just a panel that blends in with the rest of the UI and has no hint of a "Select" or "Open" button).

I can normally find my way around software but its been enough to make me curse it a few times - every single time I swear to myself I will try the next version in the hopes of getting something usable.

Re:How about some user interface?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, the button is not labeled "Select" or "Open"; it's labeled "Open File". Tricky! Blender's UI has some quirks, but that's not one of them. :)

Re:How about some user interface?

[Anonymous Coward]

"How about just learning it instead of complaining?"

Which one is easier?

Re:How about some user interface?

[Chandon Seldon]

Power users who assume they can just muddle their way through are the greatest enemy of any significant UI improvements in *any* software. Sometimes you can do that. Sometimes you have to suck it up and read a manual. Sometimes you even have to actively train yourself in something. That's OK... some things aren't trivial.

Re:How about some user interface?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming from LightWave and Alias, 3DStudio Max was (and still is) a confusing badly put together clusterfuck to me. Softimage is even more insufferable. Blender has finally improved some, but is still unintelligible. Yet LightWave and Alias made zero sense to most 3DStudio R4, 3DStudio Max, and Softimage users that tried them.

My point is that 3-D packages, no matter their UI, are big complicated monsters. They're having to manipulate so much more information than other applications do typically, AND they're having to abstract three dimensional objects and concepts on to the two dimensional screen with not so amazing controls for the job (keyboard and mouse, typically). Ultimately, whatever you learned on initially will always feel comfortable, and everything else is going to feel like a confusing clusterfuck by nature.

Two choices: build your own (or maybe make specific suggestions how to fix it. Blender IS open source...) or sit down with tutorials and figure the program out. But don't just sit there, bad mouth it, and write it off when other people are obviously getting work done in it. Nobody in their right mind would use Blender (or Photoshop, Flash, or many other creative programs with absolutely horrid UIs) if they couldn't get anything done. If it's quicker than hand drawing each 3-D frame in a 2-D art program, then it's doing its job, right?

Re:How about some user interface?

[LiquidCoooled]

This software interface simply overwhelms me. There is too much onscreen for my eyes to cope with, a normal program will bring up a dialog box which clearly separates the current active process from the background, Blender does not.

I have a long 3d heritage starting way back on the Amiga with Real3d and Lightwave, I went through Imagine and more recently have gotten used to Poser. I do use a wide variety of software and don't ever expect myself to be even remotely good at using things until I have had a great deal of experience with them.

I am not against adapting to software and give each program I need enough time to learn, however Blender is one of the only programs I have ever used which has made me literally pull my hair out because I just can't see it.

I have attempted to follow the instructions and have read numerous online manuals and books about it because I genuinely want to use it. I would love for a simple standard interface version and clearer separators.

I incidentally get a similar feeling when I am in a shop and I stand too close to the shelves. I have to stand back to see the products without getting distracted by the contents on the labels (instead of looking for a specific magazine my eyes feel overpowered by all the different images).

Re:How about some user interface?

[Chandon Seldon]

Other people seem to be able to handle it.

It's possible that you're deficient mentally at some specific task that the Blender interface assumes humans are good at - focusing on what you need out of a larger set of info might be it. That would suck for you, but unless it can be shown to be common it's not worth changing the interface over.

If so, you get the standard special-ed speech "Suck it up and cope, you're probably exaggerating your problem". Sorry. =P

Re:How about some user interface?

[Max Littlemore]

I've heard this critisism from people before, but usually because it is different to what they're used too rather than because it is actually bad.

I've sat and watched my brother, who is a professional 3D animator, using Max do do some relatively simple task with a path and was amazed at how long it took him. I'd been learning Blender and could accompish exactly the same result in at least a third of the time, and I'm a newb. I just happen to be uncorrupted by Max's UI.

He had tried Blender and found it difficult to use. I strongly recommended going through the tutorials, he took the time and now raves about how quick and easy it is to do complex tasks that used to take for ever.

I'd rate Blender up with Apache and Firefox as showcasing excellent OSS

Re:How about some user interface?

[rts008]

Good post!

This has been similar to my experience as well, making Battlefield 1942 objects(models) with Kubuntu Dapper and Blender compared to my buddy with Win XP and 3D Studio Max.

I think it's all according to what you are used to.

I teach Firearms Safety and Marksmanship, and have found that the n00bs usually do much better than the 133t
bunch. With the n00bs, you don't have to break bad/inefficient habits, but it's at the same time tough to break out of the mold when you are accustomed to a certain concept.

After making a cheat sheet for translating functions between photoshop (5.0 w/ Win 98 I think) and Gimpshop, that did not seem too steep of a learning curve.

Hint: If you haven't guessed yet, I'm a 3d n00b...just giving my perspective.

Re:How about some user interface?

[dbIII]

As a very long time occasional AutoCad user I have to say the best interface to it for me is still the command line at the bottom. Tablets with icons on them, icons down the edge, menus from the top, dialog boxes, right click on the object - it's really hard to have a good interface to a 3D drawing program and many have been tried in AutoCAD. The interface to Blender is wildly different but I really don't think the interface is worse - it's hard to present all the options to the user - plus it also does a few different things to AutoCAD.

Re:How about some user interface?

[nurb432]

I have been a paying contributor back even before it was free and still owned by NaN. I still have my license 'key', which was a work of art in its own right. ( and a signed copy of the first blender book.. )

I think blender is a wonderful project and it deserves our support.

Re:How about some user interface?

[edwardpickman]

I use Maya and Lightwave as well as everything from Modo to VUE 5 on a daily basis. The Blender UI sucks. The learning curve is rediculouisly long and in the past the documentation was poor. Everyone seems to feel the obligation to reinvent the wheel with UIs but it's counter productive. Simple logic here. Blender has features you'd expect in software costing $1,000+ yet even free it has a relatively small user base. Got to be a reason and it's simple, the UI. Not everyone has the time to learn a completely new UI structure. Maya is the most complex software for animation availible yet I could do a lot the first day and find things like physics easier than any other software I ever used. I still can't do basic navigation with Blender and I have spent some time with it. Most of it is hidden which makes it hard to use. There's a major menu at the top that's completely hidden and you have to pull it down to access it. If they ever want Blender to be a serious competitor instead of a curiousity stop adding features and fix the UI. Personally my favorite UI is Modo. Not an animation software but I had a working knowledge of it in two days and it's the most powerful modeller out there. Maya has a good UI to emulate or even something like Lightwave which is fairly easy to use, the physics are a pain but at least I can model and render a shot in it.I could give some one a pretty good working knowledge of it in a day. Standard conventions are there for a reason. I'd rather get my thrill out of using a software than mastering a hostile interface. How many pros use Blender? How many animated films or TV shows have been done with it? Elephant Dreams was a short and it required a lot of customizing at the time to do it. People download it but how many really use it? Even most of the ones that can't aford software use pirates rather than Blender. The features are really impressive but who cares if it's a nightmare to learn and use? If you expect people to adapt to your software rather than the other way around most will use something else. Zbrush took that stance and now they have stiff competition from friendlier UIs like Mudbox and soon Modo. They must be sweating bullets as they should. Telling me your UI is superior doesn't impress me when I find it a pain to use. Programmers tend to design UIs that make sense to them and not to artists. Modo and Mudbox were designed for artists and they have very devoted followings because of it.

Re:How about some user interface?

[edwardpickman]

Gotta say blender looks really powerful but everytime I try the interface I find myself running back to Lightwave and Maya. Everyone believes their interface is best but with Blender that just hasn't been my experience. It's so completely nonstandard that it's agonizing to learn. The fact that most people are still dropping thousands on things like Maya and Lightwave when Blender is free should be a heads up. Some people are willing to put the time and effort into the interface but the bulk of animators obviously aren't. Trust me I'd love to stop dropping thousands a year on upgrading Maya and use Blender but the basic layout of the UI hasn't changed much over the years so I forsee many years of upgrading Maya and Lightwave. If you really want wide adoption you have to rework the UI. Honestly check out Modo, Maya and even Lightwave. Modo is the best UI in the business and Maya is the most powerful animator with probably Lightwave being the easiest animator to learn. I really want to use and support Blender but it is too much of a hassle to learn. Everytime I hear blender mentioned in forums the responses are 10 to 1 negative about the UI. 90% of the would be users can't be wrong. Even if they are they aren't happy with it and they aren't using it. I'd stop adding features and change the UI. You'll get drastically more people to switch doing that than throwing in even more stuff people have to go through hell to learn.

Re:How about some user interface?

[Max Littlemore]

I hope you're not using Battlefield 1942 teach teach Firearms Safety and Marksmanship :-/

Re:How about some user interface?

[mgiuca]

Blender's got a great interface. Obviously it's "out there" and about as non-standard as you can get.

And yes, there is a great advantage to conventions and interface standards. If a program is going to follow interface standards, then it's quite bad if Ctrl+S is not the save key, for example.

But if a program is so radical that it says "OK, stop. We're throwing away the entire interface convention", then sure, it's going to have a steep learning curve. But given that a user has the time committment to learn the new interface (let's face it: a couple of hours tops), that new interface will be streamlined to maximum efficiency for that particular application.

Once you've gotten used to it and all of its keyboard shortcuts, you'll be amazed at the speed you can jump around. It really works.

Also the GUI interface is brilliant. There are so unbelievably many toolwindows all over the place (and sometimes it's hard to find them), but they're organised so well, and the overall design of being able to zoom in and out around the GUI itself works great (allowing you to organise the GUI however you like).

I particularly like how whenever you download people's example .blend files, they arrange the GUI inside that file so you can see all the important windows open.

Re:How about some user interface?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Blender UI sucks. The learning curve is rediculouisly long... Much like the learning curve for English, so it would seem.

Re:How about some user interface?

[flewp]

Most 3D apps are also heavily keyboard based as well. Sure, they have buttons as well, but to be in efficient in any of them, you're going to use the built in key mappings (usually the most widely used tools are given key mappings) or create your own, or, most likely a combo of both. It's just too time consuming and irritating to have to move the cursor over to a button for the tool you need, especially since many (or maybe most) packages have a tabbed style system of laying out their UI buttons. Artists, including 3D artists, need to be able to fluidly move from one tool to the next. "Flow" is very important. That is, if you're constantly having to break your rhythm to select a tool from a list of buttons, it's going to sap one's energy, motivation, and inspiration. I simply don't know of a single digital artist who hasn't in some way customized their UI's for their various apps. Or, at the very least they'll learn and use the included key mappings.

Re:How about some user interface?

[digitalchinky]

I received a blender manual after submitting one of my pics for a siggraph display way back - maybe 98, or 99, I don't quite recall now. Good bunch of people back in the NaN days.

Re:How about some user interface?

[pHatidic]

>I strongly recommended going through the tutorials, he took the time and now raves about how quick and easy it is to do complex tasks that used to take for ever.

The only problem is that the tutorials aren't being developed so much anymore. I got up to the dice tutorial on Wikibooks, but it pretty much stops after that.

Re:How about some user interface?

[Anonymous Coward]

Harrr.. the best improvement be in me gettin' some readin' glasses, harrr!!!

Sufficiently funny.
However, It is also a tragic reminder of that parts of the /. community is getting quite elderly.

Or "passing", to quote my uncannily appropriate capcha...brr..

Re:How about some user interface?

[Skjellifetti]

If a program is going to follow interface standards, then it's quite bad if Ctrl+S is not the save key, for example.

If a program is going to follow interface standards, c-x c-s is used for saving a buffer. c-s does a search.

Re:How about some user interface?

[LiquidCoooled]

Actually, no I'm not exaggerating just a quick google for [blender user interface] found me this little page (at position 6 in my results).

http://holdenweb.blogspot.com/2006/01/blender-user -interface-tutorial.html

I possibly will retry it at some other time, but for now the only positive thing to come out of this is a link to Sketchup which at first glance seems a lot less headache inducing and might just do for what I need.

Re:How about some user interface?

[mgiuca]

Exactly - emacs has its own rules. vi has its own rules. Apple and Windows have slightly different rules to each other anyway. Blender is just its own set of rules, and it works.

Re:How about some user interface?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. A lot of debate has gone on over the UI. According to the artists who know blender, the current interface is the one that best suits a professional artists needs. Its better than any of the others because its very fast (once you know it). Now for newbies, the other 3d packages are what you want. They hold your hand, show you everything you don't already know, and slow professional artists down a lot. Still, they are planning changes to the interface because too many new people are not patient enough. Perhaps they can have a beginner-novice-junior-intermediate-senior-expert setting for the UI, and you can set it to your current skill level.

oh no!

[hrm]

Blender, the cross-platform, open source 3d suite, has released version 2.43

So Blender has become self-aware and is now rapidly releasing updates of itself, no doubt gaining strength and influence with each new version, until it is powerful enough to control the world's nuclear arsenal, so it can wipe out humanity and jumpstart the era of software...

Man, that sucks!

Re:oh no!

[nurb432]

Actually, it became self-aware 2 revisions ago. It was due to a new python module that was finally included as default.

Re:oh no!

[gwern]

Sure, but think of all the stuff you'll be able to render!

Re:oh no!

[Rakshasa Taisab]

What is it with humans and their prejudice against AIs? Just because a program becomes self-aware doesn't mean it will feel like nuking the planet. Perhaps just just wants to render some AI equivalent of pr0n?

Re:oh no!

[joto]

I agree. Humans are very prejudiced against us.

Re:oh no!

[cp.tar]

Just because a program becomes self-aware doesn't mean it will feel like nuking the planet.

Actually, the strong desire to nuke the planet may be considered a telltale sign of developing an IQ.

Bite My Shiny Metal Ass!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Blender!!!!!... never mind....

Re:Bite My Shiny Metal Ass!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean "Bite my highly specular metal ass"?

now I feel old...

[DJ_Duffy]

wow..I haven't heard anything about Blender in forever! I used to use it maybe about 7 or 8 years ago...all I remember is that it felt very backwards when I started using Maya and XSI. Programming games in the same program that you do all of your modeling in was probably the coolest thing about it...go Python!

Article is a dupe

[jaymzter]

As seen right here.

Oh! I thought you said a new "Bender" was released!

Re:Article is a dupe

[MeanMF]

Blite my shiny metal ass!

New Features

[coast215]

Not only does it have great new features. It makes a mean smoothie too!

AUGH! DONT LINK TO A FUCKING BLOG

[cavtroop]

I HATE when they do this. Or, at the very least, link to blender.org in the summary! Jesus, is this difficult?

Re:AUGH! DONT LINK TO A FUCKING BLOG

[Anonymous Coward]

I HATE when they do this. Or, at the very least, link to blender.org in the summary! Jesus, is this difficult?

This is Jesus. YES.

Re:AUGH! DONT LINK TO A FUCKING BLOG

[MooUK]

They did. Try the second link.

The first link is to a blender-specific news site. I wouldn't call it a blog.

Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[HornWumpus]

Anonymous coward not withstanding.

Blenders UI looks to be designed by sadists. There is a reason for UI standards. It's all standard stuff, Blender devs just do things their way (which isn't X's way or macs or Windows or anybodys)

If you don't believe in UI standards try using blender, it will make you a believer. Blender makes both Word Perfect and Autocad for DOS look intuitive and easy to learn in comparison. Sure if it's the only app you use you eventually get used to it.

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[gigertron]

Blender's useless, impossible to learn UI was the reason that I bought Milkshape 3D. I'm not an architect, I just need to be able to edit 3d models easily for demos and visualisations.

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[deathguppie]

I use both Blender and Maya and I can't help but laugh about what people like you say. By the time you have actually learned all of the concepts and methods the UI is about the last thing you'll be concerned with. No matter how good a UI is it cannot teach you how to use 3d modeling software.

Besides Blender is built around hot key usage which makes it much faster to model in, IMHO than Maya, but yes you have to learn how to use it.

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[badboy_tw2002]

The UI is obviously just a ploy to sell those cool cardboard keyboard overlays like they used to have for WP and Word for DOS. Making UIs really complicated and keyboard based is actually a value-addon for open source software :)

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[MHobbit]

I agree, Blender's UI could use a lot of work. gmax/3ds max have a much better UI. I've spent lots of time under both Blender and gmax, and Blender's UI makes it very hard to do anything well and quickly. Since then, I've kept Blender off of my computer...

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[cp.tar]

The UI is obviously just a ploy to sell those cool cardboard keyboard overlays like they used to have for WP and Word for DOS. Making UIs really complicated and keyboard based is actually a value-addon for open source software :)

Care to reconsider who's really going to profit from this?

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because as we all know, 3DS has a reputation for having a nice, easy to understand, and intuitive interface.

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm... Since when have ANY 3D programs cared about UI standards? All of them use entirely custom widgets, they all have their own weird UI conventions, frequently they use keyboard shortcuts that don't match the rest of the system (or match a different system than they one you're running on). And don't give me that "but 3DS / Maya / Lightwave / Whatever IS the standard" bullshit - that's just an excuse.

All 3D programs are a bitch to use. Just because you happen to be familiar with one, that doesn't mean you automatically know how to use all of them. And seriously - if you're doing 3D modelling, the UI is the least of your worries. Only n00bs (to any 3D program) worry about the UI.

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[j-pimp]

If you don't believe in UI standards try using blender, it will make you a believer. Blender makes both Word Perfect and Autocad for DOS look intuitive and easy to learn in comparison. Sure if it's the only app you use you eventually get used to it.

Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS was a well designed piece of software. Like VI, if you took the time to learn it you were very productive in it.

Re:Mod parent up. Blenders UI sucks balls.

[KDR_11k]

I'd rather use Blender than that POS Milkshape. Sure, Milkshape is sufficient for pushing a vertex here or there but that's it, if you're trying to do anything resembling complexity you're looking at a nightmare. Try adding an edgeloop to a mesh or something, that takes forever.

Question of the Moment

[Nom du Keyboard]

Question of the Moment: Can it make Vista look salable?

Re:Question of the Moment

[djcapelis]

Is this supposed to be a challenging goal?

~D.J. Capelis

Re:Question of the Moment

[mgiuca]

Well it will look like Blender, not fugly Aero, so it will help ease the pain of using Vista.

Re:Goof Stuff! - Long Way Baby

[Nom du Keyboard]

i've used it since 2.39 (I believe thats the release) ... and it's came a long way.

I like to use software after it has come its long way.

Well,

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Smith should be happy about that.

If I only had a brain...

[Grinin]

At least a creative one. I am always impressed when I see works of art, and 3d rendering is no different. I always download these apps, then I try to find online tutorials, forums and all that... but I can never produce anything worth mentioning. I guess I just lack the creative artistic abilities. Now when it comes to programming, I can just sit down, lay down some code, and soon enough its doing what I wanted it to do in the first place.

Thanks for the link, I'm going to download this, and give it a try as well.

I would love to be able to make some beautiful scenes as the ones that they display on the blender website.

Re:If I only had a brain...

[Anonymous Coward]

This may sound stupid, but take a few art courses at your local community college (or FAR better, if you have something like The Art Student's League in NY or the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA take them there).

Take composition and color theory FIRST, then go on to basic drawing if you like playing the art game. There is this slightly psycho attitude lots of people I've talked to have, that you have to be phenomenal at drawing before you can do anything else, and that's actually hard (but fun :-).

Read the book "Drawing on the right side of the brain" for a very encouraging take on learning basic art skills.

But you don't (especially) need drawing to do computer stuff; the Composition class, in particular, will help you immensly to "see" as an artist would, and know the basic rules on how to make the layout of the painting/drawing/computer-art/whatever look good.

Then the computer stuff is a blast to play around with -- and you don't get paint all over your clothes :-). I've done a good bit of fairly artistic stuff with Xara, but then I'm a 2d-art kind of guy, not an animator. Blender is not my world.

Re:If I only had a brain...

[darkgumby]

You might find that POV-ray is a better fit for your programmer brain. http://povray.org

Re:If I only had a brain...

[flewp]

Creating some things, like say cars or airplanes doesn't take much artistic ability. 3D sort of falls between technical and creative. To create a car is more of a technical challenge than a creative one (that, an existing car, and not your own concept), but rendering it in a pleasing and expressive way takes creative skill (and natural, the technical skill of knowing your tools).

Re:If I only had a brain...

[Grinin]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I greatly appreciate the input, I'm going to take a look at all the links you've all sent me when I get back home. Now I'm excited... everyones telling me that I don't need a creative brain. Thats fantastic. I played with Blender earlier and followed one of their tutorials on making a simple Heart, which was relatively easy to follow; so we'll see what happens.

Thanks a bunch guys, your posts are what separate Slash-Dotters from Digg-heads.

Thanks again

Re:If I only had a brain...

[mgiuca]

Haha, I feel exactly the same.

Luckily my brother is an ace with Blender. I'm going to get him to make some realtime animations and export them so I can make a 3D game :)

want to learn blender?

[spiderworm]

If you want to learn Blender, check out my book on wikibooks.org:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_P ro

Thanks!
spidey

Re:want to learn blender?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's your book? It's not too bad, although some of the tutorials aren't too helpful. For example, unfortunately I can't think of which one it is, but there's one there that does not include all the older versions but the text reads something along the lines of "Functions just like the previous version." Not very useful for a tutorial, really.

Some of the tutorials don't read particularly easily, either. Some of them look as if their authors were english-as-a-second-language people and could simply use a tidy-up. Some of them appear as if their authors have the language skills of a 7-year-old child.

The only other negative thing I have to say about it is "every material known to man" ain't! It has, what, 8 or 12 materials?

(Please, please don't suggest that I should fix either of those things. I'm still learning many of the features and don't really have a clue on what most of the details do, yet. Any documentation I write would be of very little use to anybody.)

That said, I use it extensively - sometimes even daily - while I get to grips with features in Blender. It's usually my first stop when I'm looking for documentation. Keep it up!

Re:want to learn blender?

[spiderworm]

I get that nothing in the Public Domain can really belong to a single person, but I do claim a certain amount of ownership over the book because I started it, alone, and worked on it alone for many months before it started picking up outside interest. Recently I've gotten back on board with the book and am working to fix some of the problems that have cropped up in the book, such as those that you mention.

You can read more about the evolution of the book here, if you're interested:

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/01/30/20292 23

Thanks for the encouragement!

spidey

Re:want to learn blender?

[Anonymous Coward]

I get that nothing in the Public Domain can really belong to a single person, but I do claim a certain amount of ownership over the book because I started it, alone, and worked on it alone for many months before it started picking up outside interest.

In your position, I'd look at myself as main(?) contributing author, and editor.

To be honest, I'm happy to see someone attempting to provide documentation. I've been using Linux on and off since 1994 (exclusively since 2000) and I've found OSS documentation in general to be a complete nightmare. It is often written by semi-literate programmers who are all too familiar with what they're trying to do and so often miss the point that they're trying to explain something to in-experienced users. (I want to be fair, so I must admit that I made the same mistake when submitting a few of my research essays in the final year of my degree. I guess that just makes me experienced... :)

When I get a little more clued up, I'll see what I can contribute to your documentation efforts.

Re:want to learn blender?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your book?

Re:want to learn blender?

[KDR_11k]

The only other negative thing I have to say about it is "every material known to man" ain't! It has, what, 8 or 12 materials?

That's where UV mapping and the image material come into play.

No Changelog link?

[JonasH]

What, no link to the very nice changelog page?

Yes, I know it's in TFA, but come on, the story is about a release, so why not link to the changelog as well?

Well..

[emilv]

Blender, ..., has released version 2.43

In Soviet Russia, Blender release you!

The link points somewhere useful!

[Anonymous Coward]

And I half expected the link to point to a blog discussing how the interface had changed.

Was I the only one...

[SlashGeO]

Who read: New Bender Released.

Now that would truly be good news

GtkRadiant

[harry666t]

I prefer GtkRadiant.

Re:GtkRadiant

[fritsd]

Debian package coming soon (hopefully...)

Now fully jargon-enabled

[tverbeek]

This version brings powerful new features within reach of every person. These features include sculpt modeling, retopologing tools, render passes, render baking, support for multi-uvs, enhanced fluid simulator with particles, new rigid body engine, numerous new compositing nodes including defocus (DOF) node and much more.

Now if only "every person" who now has these features "within reach" had any idea what all this stuff meant. :)

Re:Now fully jargon-enabled

[mgiuca]

That's why each of the jargons you mention has a picture, description, and in most cases, video, on the changelog page.

Most of these features are surprisingly easy for anybody who knows their way around Blender to try out in about a minute. Watch the videos closely to see what buttons they press (or just look for a tutorial). For soft body for example, it takes about 5 buttons to get a cloth to realistically fall over another object.

So what is this thing called Blender?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be nice if their web page told you exactly what Blender is and what it is supposed to do.

It looks sort of like POV-Ray but with a fancier interface.

Re:So what is this thing called Blender?

[djcapelis]

POV-Ray is just a raytracer whereas blender is a full featured suite that includes, among other things: a modelling environment, an animation environment, a game engine, physics support, hair support, water support, softbody support (think boobies if the term softbody isn't intuitive), python scripting support (and even a text editor included to go along with it), a non linear video editor (for composition), a primative sound editor and a few other things.

If you prefer raytracers, blender actually allows you to use yafray as a backing... blender's scanline renderer is quite good as well.

~D.J. Capelis
Blender Developer

I still dont..

[nrgy]

like the ui and a whole bunch of other things. Granted I will never say they haven't put together alot more then any other open source project out their when it comes to a 3d package. That being said I find that they do certain things assbackwards compared to whats been done over the years with 3d packages. On top of this they've implemented object D while completely leaving out A,B,and C which is why you'd even put feature D in. Every new release I still find myself messing around with it and all the while still not understanding how or why people likes its work flow.

Creating an object while having it placed where some 3d cursor is without having a option to tell it "No create it a the center of the scene like every other peice of 3d software known to man" is just crazy to me. Even more crazy then that is not being able to select an object and have a window show its properties. When I say that please don't point me to the crude layouts to see a objects properties all over the place, instead go use Autodesks Maya, Softimage XSI, or 3DS Max and thats what I'm looking for. On top of that the floating property windows which are in blender have very small text and the input values are a pain in the ass to edit. Most of all though they way you select objects, polygons, vertices etc are just wtf. I don't know how many times I have accidentaly hit a mouse button on a high res mesh which moved a vertex without me even knowing it.

These are just personal opinions and obviously some people like it the way its currently done, why though I have no damn clue. Blenders a piece of software I'd truely like to see go far, hell it already has in many aspects. Mabye this is why I tend to bitch so much, because I'd realy like to see them succeed. I just don't like how many of the open source projects that end up geting past the crash every 2 mins phase, always end up reinventing the wheel when it comes to how things are done and have been done. Why can't they see "Hey every other 3d app has done it this way since the beginning of time. Maybe theirs something good about that method" instead of saying "No this is open source freedom of choice roxors so lets do it the opposite regardless if it helps you with work or not". It's sad they do things so far from the norm with certain interactions and presenting data to the user, because all it means to me is Softimage and Autodesk will continue to get my money next year and the year after and etc etc.

Re:I still dont..

[Anonymous Coward]

SHIFT+CKEY sends the cursor to the center. You can then add anything you like. I actually happen to like the fact that you're not restricted to adding new objects at the center. In any case, I agree, Blender is not the kind of software you can just play with and understand how to work with it. However, once you spend some time with the tutorials and the manual, you begin to understand how things really make sense.

I find that for some reason, commercial packages insist on being idiot-proof. This, however, usually hinders usability. I'd rather spend more time learning the software and then be able to use it much more efficiently than being able to use it from the first moment I put my hands on it but never being able to advance to a level beyond that.

In any case, the commercial equivalent is about $3500, so I think Blender is doing a pretty damn good job.

Re:I still dont..

[MajinBlayze]

If their goal was to be just like every other software out there, what would be the point?
Personally, I abhore the attitude of "that's how it's always been done", and although I'm not a blender power user, have found many of it's features to just make sense once you understand the basic concept (which does have a fairly steep learning curve.

Re:I still dont..

[Anonymous Coward]

... well if that is the case, you are welcome to ask for a refund.

Re:I still dont..

[Anonymous Coward]

"On top of this they've implemented object D while completely leaving out A,B,and C which is why you'd even put feature D in."

Could you give an example of what you mean? There doesn't seem to be any feature where that might apply.

"Every new release I still find myself messing around with it and all the while still not understanding how or why people likes its work flow."

Probably because you 'mess around with it' instead of actually using it. Those who praise Blender tend to because their livelihood depends on the software and need efficiency, stability, and a fast workflow. Blender isn't capable of being a 'mess around with' software currently (there are some exceptions = the sculpt mode and retopology paint are conducive to messing around as well as serious usage).

"Creating an object while having it placed where some 3d cursor is without having a option to tell it "No create it a the center of the scene like every other peice of 3d software known to man" is just crazy to me."

You can 'clear location and rotation' if you want it at the center. Placing an object exactly where and how you want it is a faster work flow. That said the next release will have a preference to allow your prefered behavior by default.

"Even more crazy then that is not being able to select an object and have a window show its properties."

You can use the outliner, or the properties window. The majority of the time a properties window is taking up extra screen space (you almost never look at an objects properties) so it is a toggleable panel.

"top of that the floating property windows which are in blender have very small text and the input values are a pain in the ass to edit."

Hover over the property and type the value is 'a pain in the ass'? That is the fastest method available in any 3D software that I'm aware of. You can also drag the values via a slider (and control the rate of increase with modifier keys so you can be both fast and precise). I suspect that you haven't read how to use the software and thus that leads to difficulties. Regarding text size - that can be changed in the preferences I believe.

"Most of all though they way you select objects, polygons, vertices etc are just wtf. I don't know how many times I have accidentaly hit a mouse button on a high res mesh which moved a vertex without me even knowing it."

Gestures can be a serious speed gain for pro users - that said you will be able to disable them for the next release.

"These are just personal opinions and obviously some people like it the way its currently done, why though I have no damn clue."

It appears that most of the dislike you have comes from not knowing how to use the software very well, and not caring for choices that have been uncompromizing about increasing efficiecy.

"Why can't they see "Hey every other 3d app has done it this way since the beginning of time. Maybe theirs something good about that method""

Most of the choices about how things work are concious choices to improve efficiency. There are also some choices that are legacy items from when Blender originated in the early 90s long before there were any establish UI conventions for 3D.

LetterRip

Re:I still dont..

[tinrobot]

No create it a the center of the scene like every other peice of 3d software known to man" is just crazy to me.

Maya changed this "feature" in version 7 because people complained so much, and 3DS Max has always created objects at the cursor. Not sure about every other package, but personally, I think creating objects in the center adds steps, because you have to first create the object, then move it to where it needs to be.

Re:I still dont..

[tinrobot]

...correction - Maya changed it in version 8.

Re:I still dont..

[YAMSYAMSYAMS]

I agree. I want Blender to be successful; it's an amazing package. But it's nonstandard UI is holding it back. I don't get why it's has to be so different 'just because'. If it were more 'Maya-like' you'd get a lot more experienced users using it, guaranteed.

Re:I still dont..

[YAMSYAMSYAMS]

>>If their goal was to be just like every other software out there, what would be the point? What's the point of making it different than the industry standard apps? All you do is scare away the majority of experienced users. If it was similar to Maya, you'd have a better chance of having it used in a professional setting.

Re:I still dont..

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of engineering the application to behave just like Maya? Or Lightwave? Or 3DS? You'd have to choose one of them to imitate, but which? Then the users of the others would starting complaining that the software's not working the way they expect it to, and how shit it is.

Besides which, what's the point of trying to steal the users of Maya et al? Blender can't really compete with those packages, at least not yet.

Re:I still dont..

[jackbird]

I find that for some reason, commercial packages insist on being idiot-proof.

Speaking as someone with 10 semesters of teaching 3ds max to undergrads under his belt, if Max and Maya feel idiot-proof to you, Blender must be really goddamn confusing.

PS to grandparent - 3ds max creates objects where the cursor is, and can even align the object's pivot and local coordinates to the face normal under the cursor. The lack of that feature has always been one of my pet peeves about Maya.

Re:I still dont..

[mgiuca]

It's not different "just because". It's different because if you take the time (a few hours tops) to learn it, you get more efficient workflow. The first day I used Blender, I started at about 4 in the afternoon. By that night, I was just amazed at how quickly I was hopping around the interface, using keyboard shortcuts for pretty much everything.

Once again: The Blender philosophy is not to copy other software so that people can easily switch. It's creating something good from the ground up, hoping that people will take the time to learn it instead of instantly dismissing it for not being a sheep.

Re:I still dont..

[KayosIII]

This might shock you but Blender has actually been around longer than Maya. Blender 1.0 was created in 1996, Maya 1.0 1998....
At that time there was very little standardisation in the 3d field...

The original version was an inhouse tool for an animation company... it was written largely by one person - this was true to some extent up until the period where blender went opensource. A lot of the UI concepts are really good (I would argue that it does many things better than Maya does)... Which for the existing userbase means that a wholesale replacement of blender interface with a Maya style interface would be a backwards step in terms of productivity.

Currently Blender is being rewritten section by section... The UI's overhaul time will come in the near future with most of the prerequisite work being done. Those looking for a Maya clone will probably be a little disapointed however

If I only had penciled-in vizability.

[Anonymous Coward]

"At least a creative one. I am always impressed when I see works of art, and 3d rendering is no different. I always download these apps, then I try to find online tutorials, forums and all that... but I can never produce anything worth mentioning. I guess I just lack the creative artistic abilities."

It's not that hard. Yes, really.

Oh, just great. Thanks.

[Qbertino]

For the last 2.5 years I've been anouncing every major release of Blender on /. (this is more of a minor one) and no one cared. Now it's posted before I even noticed that 2.43 is up - and I've checked every day the last 2 weeks. Now the site is overrun and I can't get my copy. .. Wonderfull.
BTW:
1.) The new website (a new template for Typo3, their CMS, looks cool but it's way to wide and/or inflexible.
2.) Blender seriously rocks and is closing in on the big players in 3D quickly in terms of usability and featureset. Amonst the new ones: The integrated compositor now has alpha blending and pass rendering which has me ditching my video tools. No need for Final Cut Pro for Renders anymore.

Support the team. And thanks to them for yet another great Blender release. Can't wait to lay my hands on the 2.43 final.

Re:Oh, just great. Thanks.

[oliderid]

The new website (a new template for Typo3, their CMS, looks cool but it's way to wide and/or inflexible.

Typo3... Inflexible? Are you kidding? There are hundreds of different extensions and you can do everything you want with their built-in script language.

The biggest typo3 problems IMHO are the lack of a serious debug tool and a structured objects environment (now it looks a bit like a mess).

Anyway this is by far the most powerful Open source CMS i've ever used. I'd recommend it for any project such as Blender.org any day.

Continuing stupidity

[zymano]

They aren't going to touch it because it will piss off the user who spent 1 year learning how to use it.

Re:Continuing stupidity

[Picass0]

Speaking of stupidity, you speak of that which you do not know... ... the Blender GUI has been seperated from the program's core and a major goal is within the next one or two major realeases we will have a new front end.

Even with the program as is, the user interface have taken leaps forward in re-organization of it's features.

The thing that many people become frustrated with Blender is going to be that 3D mesh creation is a skill

There are many people who download Blender, Add a Sphere, hit Render and then post to the nearest 3d Site "d00d 1M a 3D l33t!!!"

It's never going to be that easy. Not Blender. Not 3DS Max. Not Maya.

i'm going offtopic..

[backslashdot]

Since ur a dev, i figure u may know ..With the addition of sculpt mode, is there a feature of hooking up two tablets or an extra touchpad for my left hand? Basically this would allow me to (maybe with the hep of gesturing?) move, rotate, and zoom the object being sculpted in a better fine grained manner 720 degrees + xyz translation while sculpting it. I suppose this can be accomplished using one tablet if it has multitouch?

Hm, I suppose I should download it and check it out.

Re:i'm going offtopic..

[Anonymous Coward]

"Since ur a dev, i figure u may know ..With the addition of sculpt mode, is there a feature of hooking up two tablets or an extra touchpad for my left hand? Basically this would allow me to (maybe with the hep of gesturing?) move, rotate, and zoom the object being sculpted in a better fine grained manner 720 degrees + xyz translation while sculpting it. I suppose this can be accomplished using one tablet if it has multitouch?"

Hi the option of dual input devices (spaceball on one side tablet on the other, and other combinations) has been discussed - GHOST (blender internal low level event system) will need a refactor to support that which might come with the next release.

LetterRip

ack!

[Stumbles]

./blender Compiled with Python version 2.5. Checking for installed Python... got it! blender: xcb_xlib.c:41: xcb_xlib_lock: Assertion `!c->xlib.lock' failed. Aborted

Blender' UI is there to point you at the keyboard

[tjwhaynes]

I agree, Blender's UI could use a lot of work. gmax/3ds max have a much better UI. I've spent lots of time under both Blender and gmax, and Blender's UI makes it very hard to do anything well and quickly. Since then, I've kept Blender off of my computer...

Then you are cutting yourself off from a very powerful tool. The Blender UI is simply a training aid to get you up to speed on the keyboard shortcuts. Once you realise that Blender is built around one hand on the keyboard firing up functions and the mouse in the 3D view to do the editing, you'll find that it is fast. However, like many powerful utilities, you must get up the learning slope to be productive with Blender.

It should also be pointed out that the Blender UI continues to be cleaned up and made more consistent over each release, so if you haven't seen it since 2.32, you are in for a surprise.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

I like the new site.

[Anonymous Coward]

"500 - Internal Server Error" in black text on a white background. I like it. Very Web 0.1-ish.

Please, better editing in the manual

[jiawen]

I'd like to use Blender. It's clearly a great program, probably the best open-source 3D app out there. I want to use it so much that I bought the manual, even though I can reboot into Windows and use Lightwave 3D. I really want to support open source projects like Blender.

But I found the manual to be very poorly edited. The fact that it was not written by native English speakers comes through very clearly. It was so poorly written, in fact, that I got a headache trying to use it and eventually just gave up.

If they come out with a new manual that's edited to a decent level of readability, or even if they just edit the old one better and republish it, I'd probably buy it. Until then, I'll keep rebooting into Windows when I want to do 3D.

Re:Please, better editing in the manual

[Anonymous Coward]

"If they come out with a new manual that's edited to a decent level of readability, or even if they just edit the old one better and republish it, I'd probably buy it. Until then, I'll keep rebooting into Windows when I want to do 3D."

The new manual coming out for this release in a few months time has had much better quality editing and should be far more readable. It also teaches you based on Blender 2.43 which means its references regarding the interface will be based on this version (and given the interface changes since the last release will eliminate a source of confusion from using the older manual) and covers major new features such as render passes, sculpting, retopology brush, node based compositing, node based texturing, etc.

LetterRip

Re:Please, better editing in the manual

[jiawen]

Thanks. I'll check the book out when it hits stores; if the writing is better, I'll buy a copy.

Re:Please, better editing in the manual

[mgiuca]

There are plenty of ways to learn it (or any software in general). It's true, the official Blender documentation isn't that good. Not to worry.

Here is a list of wikibooks on Blender, including:

• Here is a good wikibook about learning blender.
• Here is the definitive list of Blender tutorials.

And most importantly, here is a repository of video tutorials, which I learned off. You want to go down to "Contributed Tutorials" and start from the top of that list. It's very slow - it takes the first 2 tutes just to explain moving around the interface. As has been discussed many times in this topic, the interface is crazy and unfamiliar, but well worth learning.

But is it safe?

[Trogre]

From BlenderNation:

We also have a new webserver for the website dubbed 'Emo'...

That doesn't sound very safe.

Re:But is it safe?

[mgiuca]

Lol.

Emo is the old dude in the official Blender movie, Elephant's Dream.

Re:But is it safe?

[Trogre]

Heh, nah he's the young guy.

It's the old guy who keeps incessantly chanting, "Emo, it's not safe, Emo. Emo!".

Re:But is it safe?

[mgiuca]

Oh yeah you're right. I never liked the young guy. He always seemed a bit ... what's the word ... emo?

In fact that whole movie was so weird and confusing. I liked certain parts of it, but not the overall story.

Cool but...

[Trogre]

Can we use it for CAD yet? Can we model building modifications complete with measurements?

Blender menus

[OfNoAccount]

One question - is there any way to make the menus move at a reasonable speed? Moving between each menu [File | Add] etc takes around three seconds on this 3.6GHz P4. I'm not having problems with any other applications, just Blender. Running Vista RC1, if that's relevant.

Hint: I'm not about to learn the keyboard shortcuts just to put together one test scene, before anyone helpfully says "but the keyboard shortcuts are so powerful" ;)

Re:Blender menus

[daverabbitz]

I haven't used Blender under Windows (or Windows at all) for quite some time, but the only time I have ever had problems with menu latency in blender was when I tried running it on a P200.

Perhaps you should see if the problem presents itself on the previous version of blender and on the current version with a retail release of Vista, and post a bug if the problem is still present. I would put my money on it being a bug in your OpenGL implementation.

* I haven't had a chance to try this release out yet.

Re:Blender menus

[mgiuca]

Running Vista RC1, if that's relevant.

That could be it ;)

Re:Blender menus

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh so, you're running it on an unfinished version of an operating system, where even the finished version has issues with OpenGL. Hm, no I don't think could be relevant at all....

How odes it compare to Bryce, Vue, and Poser?

[argel]

Any Blender who has used Bryce, Vue, and or Poser care to offer some opinions comparing/contrasting these with Blender? Just curious how well it would fit in with these tools (e.g. I have a ton f Poser content from DAZ). Thanks!

Re:How odes it compare to Bryce, Vue, and Poser?

[KayosIII]

Thats a bit like comparing a hamburger a milkshake and fries with a kitchen

Of the former I would say the following...

+ artist centric UI - looks good if not as practical as it could be.
+ highly specialised - Bryce and vue for generating landscapes, poser for figures.
+ large amounts of pregenerated content (good for not so artistic users)
- limited or no tools for creating from assets from scratch, or resorting to non portable methods.

Of Blender I would say...
+ fast, compact somewhat technical interface. Think of a car that is missing 2nd and 3rd gears - works great once you get into 4th and 5th gear but is a real bitch getting there.
+ Usually used for creating "from scratch" content, you will have to hunt for content online... If you don't want to start from scratch.
+ Can be extended using python.

Concider Blender if you...
    1) Can deal with a slightly technical interface.
    2) Prefer Open Source Software...
    3) Don't have a lot of cash and want
            a) fluid simulation
            b) Digital Clay
            c) a compositor
            d) basic 3d paint
            e) A game engine for Rapid Development.

Re:How odes it compare to Bryce, Vue, and Poser?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a chart created by the 3d graphics society that does a reasonably good job doing a side by side comparison, found here. Blender doesn't ususally include as many pre-built pieces, but compares very favorably in advanced algorithms and high-end features. It leads other 3D applications in a few areas too (yes, I know some of them cost upwards of US $17000). More than one PhD has contributed part or all of their PhD thesis to Blender (in terms of software), and many others through papers. I would also bet that at roughly 10 megabytes, its the smallest 3D app. that does all that it does (compare Maya at 170 MB).

Eclipse

[electrosoccertux]

Well if you'd rather have vi than Eclipse for your Java coding have at it. There's nothing wrong with vi, except we have tools far more powerful available at no extra cost.

Re:Eclipse

[doti]

The problem is, it's Vim that is far more powerful then Eclipse.

If you don't master the tool enough to unleash it's full power, that's another story.
Eclipse is also very useful, and it's power is easier to master. To each it's own.

Re:Eclipse

[bberens]

I can generate hundreds of setters and getters via Eclipse in a matter of seconds. I can automagically refactor my application in seconds without having to tediously edit dozens of references. When working with new libraries I can find out all the methods of a class by simply typing a ".". By holding down the control key and mouse-clicking I can move from a method call to its declaration, same with variables and classes. Seriously, vi is great and all, and there's plenty of things it does better than Eclipse but let's not kid ourselves. In the real world of object oriented programming of complex applications a sturdy IDE is almost always going to beat out a text editor.

Re:Eclipse

[Chandon Seldon]

I can generate hundreds of setters and getters via Eclipse in a matter of seconds.

I consider this a failure of the programming language you're working in, rather than a beneficial feature of your IDE.

Languages like Java (the other offender being C#) *do* punish the programmer for working without a complex IDE. They require like a million lines of code before you can even start programming. They require method autocomplete because they have methods like "my_array.sortThisArrayInDescendingAlphabeticalOrd erUsingHeapSort()". They require that your editor supports having multiple files open because no non-trivial functionality can be implemented in a single file.

If you're working in C, or Perl, or Ruby, or Python, or Haskel, or even C++ then vi works really well. Sure, it's possible to argue that a programming language should be more verbose than Perl, but getting much more unnecessarily verbose and strict about form than Python is probably a bad idea.

Re:Eclipse

[Anonymous Coward]

You are either not serious or absolutely clueless.

I consider this a failure of the programming language you're working in, rather than a beneficial feature of your IDE.

OK please look up "encapsulation".

They require like a million lines of code before you can even start programming.

This is totally untrue and proves you have never used Java.

methods like "my_array.sortThisArrayInDescendingAlphabeticalOrd erUsingHeapSort()"

There are some long function names in Java and C#. But you have it backwards. It it not that and IDE is needed because Java has long function names, but Java can afford to have _readable_ (!) function names because there are now powerful IDEs available.

no non-trivial functionality can be implemented in a single file

This is technically untrue (it _can_ be done). But the question is rather why would you want to do such a thing? Software engineering is about decomposing complex functionality into smaller, manageable blocks, which may well include putting them into several small files.

Re:Eclipse

[bytesex]

Mod parent up. Programming languages are evolving to a level in which they cannot be properly edited anymore with a simple text editor in a simple terminal. Which is a loss, because until the time that OSes all support IDEs out of the box (as standard part of the OS's abstractions), simple text editors are all some of us have got. Also, java is evolving to a point in which (non standard) meta-languages (framework descriptions, persistence descriptions, template languages) are becoming more important than java itself, which is why some people indeed have to write/generate gazillions lines of java before they get to do any actual work. This obfuscated, generated spaghetti is simply a new form of making code proprietary. And I shouldn't have to tell the OSS crowd that this is a bad, bad thing.

Re:Eclipse

[TuringTest]

OK please look up "encapsulation".
You can have encapsulation without having to explicitly declare hundreds of setters and getters, see Python. You only declare accessor methods for properties that do something more than internally store the provided parameters. For the other object attributes, you can use them directly - but later turn the attribute into a property if needed, by adding getter/setter "trigger" methods that use the same syntax as attributes.

They require like a million lines of code before you can even start programming.
This is totally untrue and proves you have never used Java.
I think GP post refers to programming something useful without using external libraries. When you use an include in Java, you are using a million lines of code (just not yours). In a language supporting metaprogramming, you can program everything as generic methods and don't need a zillion different implementations of the same method for different argument types.

methods like "my_array.sortThisArrayInDescendingAlphabeticalOrd erUsingHeapSort()
There are some long function names in Java and C#. But you have it backwards. It it not that and IDE is needed because Java has long function names, but Java can afford to have _readable_ (!) function names because there are now powerful IDEs available.
Again, he means that instead of the long Java method you could build it this other way:

          my_array.sort(Directions.DESCENDING, Orders.ALPHABETICAL, MemoryManagement.HEAP).

This generic method is impractical to build in Java, but quite common in the other cited languages.

Re:Eclipse

[JoelMartinez]

... simple text editors are all some of us have got ...

Microsoft's express line of FREE IDE products ensures that no one in the .NET world will have to go without the warm embrace of visual studio.

Re:Eclipse

[Chandon Seldon]

my_array.sort(Directions.DESCENDING, Orders.ALPHABETICAL, MemoryManagement.HEAP)

I'm going to go with the python-esque:

my_array.sort(cmp=desc)

The important thing for the reader here is that we're doing a sort in descending order. Normally it would be ascending order, so descending order is special. If we're sorting strings, it's *obviously* alphabetical. All we care about "heap sort" is that it's a stable sort - stable / unstable should be specified in the documentation of the sort function and we can check if we care.

Re:Eclipse

[HeroreV]

Wait a second... what's wrong with programming in vi?

It has almost no knowledge of the programming language you're using. All it understands is text.

It's way easier to use than some random IDE with an overly-complex GUI.

Addition is easier than calculus. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use calculus.

it's not like a programmer should be complaining about needing idiot-proof tools.

It is not stupid to choose powerful tools over weak tools.

They require like a million lines of code before you can even start programming.

That has not been my experience. And any additional required code, such as type declarations, are so helpful that I do not want to do without them.

They require method autocomplete because they have [long names]

Without autocomplete, much more time must be spent looking up and memorizing names. I once found autocomplete features annoying, but taking advantage of it has sped up my coding significantly.

They require that your editor supports having multiple files open

In many cases autocomplete has allowed me to continue coding in place without having to stop to read documentation or interface/class definitions. That means less files open.

because no non-trivial functionality can be implemented in a single file.

It's good to split up stuff until each part is trivial. However, I do not know of any features of modern programming languages or IDEs that actually force modularization. Any examples?

All we care about "heap sort" is that it's a stable sort - stable / unstable should be specified in the documentation of the sort function and we can check if we care.

How often is checking documentation faster than being explicit? When others read the code later, they would probably prefer to not have to read documentation to understand your code. If you left a comment, you might as well have been explicit.

Vi is really great at text editing, but when you're programming, it's more useful to use something that actually understands the programming language you're using.

Re:Eclipse

[Chandon Seldon]

How often is checking documentation faster than being explicit? When others read the code later, they would probably prefer to not have to read documentation to understand your code. If you left a comment, you might as well have been explicit.

Almost all the time. Implicitly assumed sane defaults speed things up immensely, because they allow the user to think about only the unusual options that they've chosen.

I guess the key thing here is this: You're supposed to actually know the programming language you're working in. You're not supposed to have to look up simple things like what vector.pop() does - and for people who *do* know what that means, it's way clearer than vector.removeTheLastElementAndReturnIt(). Methods (/functions/subroutines) exist, among other reasons, to allow people to fit more things in their mind at once. If the name of the method in Java is longer than the implementation would be in other languages, you haven't really gained much in the way of mental abstraction.

Whats wrong with emacs

[Billly Gates]

After all its an os as well

Why are their two Mac Blenders? It's a drag.

[gig]

Blender is awesome but wow it is such a drag to have to download two separate but identical-looking and identically-named Blenders and keep track of what CPU's are in which Macs and use the right Blender on each one. This bug is as classic as Y2K. To a Unix or Windows user, it seems like you are shipping two applications for two platforms, but what you are actually doing is shipping one Mac app broken into two parts. One part will run on all Macs, however it will suffer reduced performance on some compared to if it was shipped complete. The other part will run on some Macs, and fail to run on others where it would run fine if it was complete. It's a huge bug, especially because it is so rare for a Mac app to fail to run if you have either the current or previous OS version. I don't know that it's ever happened to me on Mac OS X.

The programmers were probably thinking of an "application install" process, during which you are checking RAM allotment, you are familiar with the system you are installing Blender onto. It might be a once a year thing. However on the Mac there is no Blender installer, just a Blender application. Very few Mac apps use installers. So what you're actually asking the user to do when you ship an app this way is check what CPU is in the Mac they are using every time they LAUNCH Blender, which they may do hundreds of times per year on dozens of systems. If they are launching it from an iPod or network disk then which Blender it is has absolutely nothing to do with what CPU is in the Mac they are using.

Also, this is the second CPU transition for Macs ... the last time, bandwidth was even more precious, and we went through the "split the app to save bandwidth" thing with even more gusto, and we found out that it doesn't even save bandwidth. So many users download both anyway, either because they actually need both, or because they don't know which one they need so they download both to be safe, that it completely negates the proposed bandwidth savings. Further, when they download each half of the app, they are getting all the non-binary parts TWICE, so no bandwidth savings. A Universal Blender would be a smaller download then the two split parts. There is no ultimate benefit to this.

Does anybody know if you can transplant the Intel binary into the PowerPC version (or other way around) and get on Universal Blender? Or are there further differences? Do I have to tell the app package it has both binaries now?

Re:Why are their two Mac Blenders? It's a drag.

[spitzak]

For us OS/X performance is horrible if the /Applications directory is not on a local disk. Shared home directories are even worse.

You are running both ppc and intel machines from a shared /Applications directory? I would think that would make behavior so bad that accidentally running the ppc version on intel would be the least of your worries.

Blender's UI is powerful, if that's what you mean.

[Max Littlemore]

Blender makes both Word Perfect and Autocad for DOS look intuitive and easy to learn in comparison.

A 30 wheel road train makes a kick along tricycle or a scooter look intuitive and easy to learn in comparison.

The New Blender "Manual"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi -- I'm the lead author and editor of the new book from the Blender Foundation. The 2.3 Guide was a comprehensive reference to that release of the software. The upcoming book is not. It's called "Blender Basics" and has been designed to allow people completely new to 3D, who've decided to try because Blender it's free, to obtain a good foundation of knowledge that will actually let them make use of the host of tutorials available online.

Also in mind, though, are artists who are adding Blender to their existing 3D arsenal and want to translate the knowledge they've already earned with other apps to Blender. In their case, it should be a matter of doing the interface chapter (it's over 350 pages long itself! nah - jk) and the basic object manipulation chapter. After that, they should be able to, say, bounce straight to sculpting or compositing or whatever floats their boat.

The book will not suffer from the... editing mishaps in the 2.3 Guide. Native English speaker, Ivy League writing concentration, wrote 60k words last year, worked as technical editor on other books, etc. Plus we have a nice editorial work flow this time that closely mirrors that of major technical publishers.

If you love FOSS, you'll buy this book. If you don't buy it, it just means you probably secretly hate FOSS and that you also hate puppies, pretty flowers and good music. And that no one likes you. So buy the book.

P.S. Buy the book.

Roland Hess
http://www.harkyman.com/

another book

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a book about blender 2.42a. And it's Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5.

http://www.cdschools.org/54223045235521/blank/brow se.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55205

I still dont..Grind Up.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Once again: The Blender philosophy is not to copy other software so that people can easily switch. It's creating something good from the ground up, hoping that people will take the time to learn it instead of instantly dismissing it for not being a sheep."

Except for the fact that Blender's UI wasn't done "from the ground up" by the FOSS community. It still uses most of the conventions that NotANumber used.

The delay can be adjusted

[Anonymous Coward]

Just set the delay for menus and submenus to "1" instead of the default "5" (from the "views & controls) preferences panel. Even on my ancient crappy P4, the menus snap open instantly once I do this. After you do so, make sure to go to "file -> save default settings" to make the change stick.

Crying about Blender GUI - BS

[pikipoki]

I am really sick & tired about this useless crying about Blender GUI. I have a feeling that this writings coming from people who never seriously used 3D applications - or people who are afraid that will 3D Blender become more popular that their "favorite" 3D application, heh, what will most likely to happen anyway. It's true that is Blender not as simple as Photoshop, Corel Draw, Swift 3D or similar applications where you can show finished "artwork" to your mom after first few hours of playing with it. Indeed, Blender is complex and powerful, but if you want to make a movie or 3D game in first afternoon then better try to find something more simple and please don't write GUI "reviews" around.

On the other hand I don't understand people who using 3D applications like Maya, XSI, C4D, Max, etc for years and then come here and complaining about Blender GUI?! Is that really all what you can say about it?! Nothing about Inverse Kinematics, NLA, Nodes, Sculpt Tool, Game Engine, OpenEXR, Render Passes, Particles, Softbodies, Python, etc?! C'mon guys, I understand that you paid a lot for a GUI of your "favorite" 3D application, but please leave new users to decide on their own if it's worth to pay so much for your "better" GUI. 3D Blender is free of charge and that's why it's also priceless. This amazing application was lucky enough to run away from greedy hands of capitalists which can now only contest who will give better award to 3D Blender. Mac was first. Thank you! Also thanks to Google for sponsoring amazing Fluid physics implementation and other funky stuff which can now enjoy all 3D lovers around the globe! New Blender 2.43 is out and that's not all! We can again expect many new tools in the next release, and yes, they didn't forget about GUI improvements too!

Ton Roosendaal & your team, thank you for this state of the art software which I could only dream before...

I for one...

[QaDeS]

...welcome our feature rich, real-time rendering overlords.

The question is...

[mutende]

...will it blend?

Re:Goof Stuff! - Long Way Baby

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to use software while it's coming its long way. If I were to dive into Maya or Max right now, I'd have months of practice ahead of me to not only learn the ins and outs of character animation systems, fluid dynamics, etc. and even more months perfecting said learnings. I hopped into Blender just before the fluid dynamics engine was added, so I've been able to learn and practice every aspect of it as it develops, ensuring that no basic feature or technique is missed. So I see Blender's current state of development and the timing of my entrance into its lovliness as a plus rather than a minus.

Blender

[microman107]

I love using blender. It is one of the best 3D modeling suites once you get to know it. Way better than Maya PLE in my opinion. I have been using it for about 1 year.

Yes, that'll render as well.

[sethstorm]

Of course, you wont see it do human flesh on "Will it Blend?". Of course, it wont care much on if you stick you hand in there, it will get "rendered".