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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."
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).
Maya = Closed Source software from Autodesk
Blender = Open Source software
You are comparing orange to apple, two different things...
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...
While that is true I think the Blender guys really don't get enough credit. Sure the UI is complex and some might say PITA but when you are dealing with 3D animation frankly its gonna be complex no matter how you slice it and Big Buck Bunny shows that Blender CAN make studio quality animation and at the end of the day its the product that people care about and Blender can obviously make compelling animation.
But you really can't compare something like Maya and Photoshop to a free tool like Blender or Gimp simply because of the difference in budget. I'm sure the Blender and Gimp devs would love to have every feature that their counterparts have but they don't have a fiftieth of the budget that the big boys so one really has to take that into consideration.All in all I think the Blender guys really deserve kudos, they have made a pretty nice tool that anybody can have for free that can make top notch animation if you are willing to put in the time.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I think they're doing just fine without your patronage.
And I think we're doing just fine without their product. So everyone's happy! Finally, a good ending to all this!
...but will it blend?
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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
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.
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.