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Blender 2.65 Released

Posted by samzenpus on from the check-it-out dept.

skade88 writes "Blender 2.65 has been released. Here is a quote from the Blender team: 'The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.65. We focused on making this the most stable release in the 2.6 cycle yet, fixing over 200 bugs. Fire simulation was added along with many improvements in smoke simulation. In Cycles, motion blur, open shading language and anisotropic shading support was added. For mesh modeling, the bevel tool was much improved, a new symmetrize mesh tool was added, and new Laplacian smooth, decimate, and triangulate modifiers are available.'"

10 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. 3D Comp[uter Graphics Software by stepdown · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those wondering what Blender is, according to Wikipedia it's "a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games" with a built-in game engine.

    1. Re:3D Comp[uter Graphics Software by gman003 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Or in fewer words, Blender is to Maya what GIMP is to Photoshop.

    2. Re:3D Comp[uter Graphics Software by robthebloke · · Score: 4, Informative

      Or more accurately, Blender is to 3DS Max what GIMP is to Photoshop.

      Blender is based around the modifier-stack philosophy present in 3DS Max, which is probably my biggest complaint about it tbh. Max is, and always has been, very inflexible compared to Maya. It's great for getting some stuff done quickly, but if you're not careful, you can easily run up against the boundaries of what's possible with the software. Maya is a very different beast in this regard (along with XSI & Houdini). It's organised around a node/attr dependency graph which can easily be reconfigured to solve whatever problem needs solving. If you hit a problem in Maya, there is always a way around it (which may be horribly hacky, but at least there is a workaround). That's the main reason Maya/Houdini/XSI are used extensivley within the VFX world, and why you'll never find anyone using Blender or Max.

      That's not to say Blender isn't good at what it does, but it's not something that can really compete with Maya. It's great in the games arena (especially indy games), but it's core level architecture is not an approach that would work nicely in VFX world sadly....

    3. Re:3D Comp[uter Graphics Software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I use Maya professionally and Blender personally. I love that there 's powerful and free 3D software, and for my own creative uses I like how Blender has odd little features that can turn wonderfully abstract in a flash (array modifier I'm looking at you, lovingly).

      However, when doing work that other people are telling me to do, it's Maya all the way because you're going to get to the point where you need, *need*, NEED to hack it to get it out the door and Maya never lets me down there.

      (The one exception is text. I used Blender once in actual production to create text objects which were exported to Maya. Anyone who's tried to use Maya's text will know why.)

  2. Re:Old News by HexaByte · · Score: 5, Funny

    2.65? My blender goes up to 9. I think that's puree.

    --
    HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
  3. Re:Great Renderer, Lousy UI... by grumbel · · Score: 5, Informative

    confusing UI that should be re-engineered from scratch.

    They have done exactly that while going from 2.4 to 2.5 (or something, don't remember the exact version numbers). The GUI of current Blender is completely new and reorganized and has very little resemblance with what was there before.

  4. Re:Good, but still for hobbyists by oGMo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not sure this is the best argument (as I am sure there are others), since a multi-thousand-dollar seat cost is probably easily outweighed by investing in more render nodes, which you'd probably end up wanting anyway.

    With as far as Blender has come from its early days, though, I'm guessing the day is coming when it will simply be the best. The Free(tm) nature and easy extensibility could make it the preferred target for academic and other research.

    --

    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage

  5. Re:N-gons? by camperdave · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blender is not a CAD/CAM software. It is a 3D animation software. Use the right tool for the job.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  6. Re:Good, but still for hobbyists by goruka · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have worked with plenty of small animation and videogame studios that use and love Blender (in fact Blender is so well integrated to Unity that it's the modelling package of choice). They do so because of the love for the software and the productivity advantages it provides.
    The problem with Blender in business is not so much the features. At this point, Blender is superior to most other 3D packages in tasks such as poly modelling, rigging or uv mapping and the Cycles renderer is awesome. The ability to model while, at the same time, having GLSL and Cycles viewports is also far beyond what is available in other packages, and the integrated sculpting tools are very mature.
    The real reason why Blender is not adopted in large studios is because of the support contracts provided by Autodesk. When you sign with them, they provide from software licenses to render farms, all covered with phone support. There is no way the Blender Foundation can compete with that unless they become more like RedHat.

  7. Re: Old News by dylan_- · · Score: 4, Informative

    With 99% of software packages you can indeed just "mess around with it" and pick up the basic usage. Not with 3D packages. Install Blender and then do the Complete Newbie tutorial. You'll be glad you did!

    --
    Igor Presnyakov stole my hat