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Blender 2.65 Released
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.'"
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.
2.65? My blender goes up to 9. I think that's puree.
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
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.
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!
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.