Slashdot Mirror
Blender 2.66 Released
First time accepted submitter hochl writes "The Blender Foundation has announced a new release of the popular, free 3D design program Blender. From the release page: The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.66. This release contains long awaited features like rigid body physics simulation, dynamic topology sculpting and matcap display. Other new features include Cycles hair rendering, support for high pixel density displays, much better handling of premultiplied and straight alpha transparency, a vertex bevel tool, a mesh cache modifier and a new SPH particle fluid dynamics solver."
Lots of nice new little features!
Good on the Blender crew for plugging away at it. When I saw "UI and Usability" my heart leapt, until I saw that was about Retina. The UI in Blender is pretty much the best example of how not to design a UI. The UI has grown by evolution and not by sensible design. Every time I have to use Blender I wish for something better - not in terms of features (although improved reliability of import and export formats would be nice), but in terms of usability. Navigation is loathsome and I find to be troublesome as UI panels don't seem logically arranged to me (its hard to get from import to 3D view and back using menus, so you have to remember the accelerators instead). I hope that someone takes the bull by the horns and rationalizes the Blender UI (sorry, my development time is on another project).
Since 2.5 came out Blender's UI has improved incredibly. I now prefer it to tools like 3ds Max and Maya, which feel clunky by comparison. And anyone who says Blender is a toy and can't be used for serious projects clearly doesn't know what they are talking about. Blender can read/write most formats, has excellent rigging and animation tools, an incredible compositor, integrated video editing, UV editing, sculpting, remeshing tools, motion tracking, soft and hard body simulation, hair, network rendering, several renderers available, including the new (excellent) cycles renderer, the list goes on and on. It has improved FBX support now, which means it integrates with most game engine asset pipelines seamlessly. Plus it has fairly easy-to-pick-up python scripting built-in, which means whatever you need that isn't there you can hack in without too much work.
Unlike many OSS projects, the blender foundation does a really good job of accepting patches, and creating branches for what seem at first to be random ideas, that quickly develop into can't-live-without features. And yes, that does lead to some bloat, but so what -- it's still a fraction of the size of 3dsMax, and far more functional in most areas.
Seriously, if you haven't tried Blender since 2.49, you haven't used blender at all.
Heh, captcha "approval"
How about linking to the changelog instead of directly to the download page? Or even better, both?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
putting the 3d cursor move on left click where it gets constantly clicked accidentally
Swapping left and right mouse buttons so that select is on LMB and move cursor is on RMB is the first thing I do when I set up Blender.
...but will it blend?
/* No Comment */
There have already been several posts about Blender's UI, and the topic of its UI always seems to come up every time a story about Blender appears.
The problem seems to be an assumption about modern software being easy enough to pick up and use without requiring a manual or even a basic tutorial. This might suffice for some software, maybe most, but for a complex 3D development package with thousands of different features and functions, there's a limit as to how far that "dive-in-and-use" approach works. I'm not suggesting there aren't ways the UI could be improved further; of course there are. It's just that sometimes you need to read and study in order to learn, and you can't just click buttons and expect to pick things up from a cursory approach.
3D modelling and development is hard. There are a ton of different things that are expected in modern 3D packages and if Blender is to support them, then that means more buttons, more options, and more complexity. Some of it can be redesigned to provide novice users a less intimidating experience, but it's the nature of the beast, and it's unfair to harp on about it when it's been shown that you CAN use Blender to do good work.
Raenex is a dickhead
One is open source, which mean if you don't like it you can improve it.
The Blender manual claims it has been usable since 1994. If it is still inferior after everyone has had the source code for nearly 20 years then your argument has failed.
The other is close source, which mean if you don't like, tough luck, you lost your hard earned money.
Which fails to address the specific point in this argument. That the closed source app is considered superior in numerous ways by its target audience. You are merely offering a straw man.
So he is comparing apples to oranges.
No. The two software products address the same audience and the same tasks. The method of organization and funding is irrelevant. It is an apples to apples comparison, merely the case where one apple is preferred over the other, admittedly the preferred product being unaffordable by hobbyists.
While the desktop is always a bit broken, at least the open source graphics tools for Linux are excellent.
- Blender
- Inkscape
- Gimp
There might be some certain enterprise features missing, but the tools are not "broken" in any way. The pack is completely usable for semi-professional work right now.
This works, and should be improved even further.
Please specify why the Maya UI (or any other 3D package) is easier to use than the Blender UI. I've never used Maya and would like to get some idea what are the differences.
Please be specific.
The Blender manual claims it has been usable since 1994. If it is still inferior after everyone has had the source code for nearly 20 years then your argument has failed.
The only failure here is your total lack of any research.
Blender was a closed source program for roughly the first ten years of its life. The company, NaN (Not a Number), inc. was one of those profitable small businesses that got caught in the fallout from the dotcom collapse, and went under. They had begun Blender as an in-house tool for their own artists, but began selling it in the latter years; the folks who bought Blender and loved it managed to raise the cash to purchase the source code and copyrights from the now-defunct NaN, and released it as open source.
It was a small community working on it until the past few years.
Blender is an awesome tool that just gets better by the day. Defeatists won't like it because it takes effort to learn how to use it. However once you do, you'll be addicted and basically only be limited by your imagination and your willingness to learn more. It is such a powerful tool that even after using it for almost 4 years now I still learn new abilities and hack gems outside of the new stuff that is added all the time.
I can't thank the blender devs enough. Keep up the good work and don't let the haters get you down. Our community is better off without people who don't contribute more than insults and complaints. Which reminds me, time to make another donation. I now make a living doing something I actually enjoy because of blender.
What part of free do you not understand? Stop complaining about it. You have no reason at all. I switched from 3Dsmax to Blender and have never looked back. Seamless integration with the Unity made it superior as a development tool for graphics and animations. Whenever I see people complain about a free product like Blender for petty reasons remember that jumping off a bridge is free too.
Hah, 2.66a will be out in a day or so. :)
People who have $3k to spend on a 3D package != people who don't have $3k to spend on a 3D package.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
People who have $3k to spend on a 3D package != people who don't have $3k to spend on a 3D package.
That's a stupid argument and you know it. Now go away before I taunt you a second time.
Ezekiel 23:20
Maya = Closed Source software from Autodesk Blender = Open Source software You are comparing orange to apple, two different things...
No. He is comparing two similar pieces of software. The fact that their respective developers are organized and funded differently does not change the fact that these are similar pieces of software. Open source is not some panacea, there is no law of nature that says it will deliver the better product, it will at times suffer from a lack of *capable* volunteers and/or a lack of subsidies/donations to hire paid professionals.
No, again, and a thousand times no.
Maya is being developed by programmer-artists to make money for the Autodesk stockholders by selling artsy tools to commercial artists. Blender is being developed by artist-programmers to make better artsy tools for their own use. There is a world of difference in the results.
From my POV as an artist, Maya is crippled by the security features and database management methodology that it needs to be useful to a commercial art business employing dozens of artists, any of whom could quit at any time and carry away the family jewels in a thumb drive, save for Maya's ways of limiting that. I don't need that kind of protection, and I am not interested in taking on the limitations that Maya has to impose. I don't need a database that is implemented in subdirectory structures where persons with an access to one mesh can be prevented from accessing any textures, rigging, other meshes, etc. But I recognize that some commercial art projects do need that kind of control.
Maya is good if you are running a commercial art business or if you want to work for such a business. (If you are willing to limit your creative development to the confines of your assigned cubicle.) Blender is better for the person who wants to do CG art and is not directly concerned with paying the rent through that activity.
Will
You don't have any of the needed skills do you???
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Why are you pretending to be stupid? Also why are you pretending to lack the social skills to understand when you are being quite obviously intentionally insulting? I'm simply pointing out that it's not the "best example of how not to design a UI" (did you really expect such juvenile bullshit to remain unquestioned?) and you haven't come up with a concrete suggestion to improve it that hasn't already been tried and failed before in other applications before. If it's so bad as you suggest it should be easy shouldn't it?
Your accusation of a lack of imagination when we are still discussing your suggestions is an especially misleading insult. How would you even know?
I worked for quite a while as an engineer using CAD and FEA but have also written some software, which is why I can laugh at your misguided suggestion in another post that a 3D modelling package should have an interface like an IDE. Sorry, the workflows are just so wildly different that it's even less like a usable environment than desktop publishing would be. The closest thing would be like labview and even that sort of interface would translate very badly (also that's a far worse interface then blender even for what it's intended purpose). The hammer of an IDE is a poor fit even if you think 3D solid modelling and everything else blender does (which I know less about) looks like a nail.