Slashdot Mirror
Blender v1.5 Manual
I have always been interested in 3D modeling and rendering but never took the time to learn the interface for any of the popular modellers. I wanted to play around with animation without spending a bundle on software. And most importantly, I wanted a sophisticated product that ran on my Linux box. So I was thrilled when I first came across Blender. Blender is a professional modelling and animation environment. As with any sophisticated 3D program, the interface can at first seem rather complex. This book was the key to unlocking the power of the Blender interface for me.
Ton really gives you what you need to get started. In Part 1 he describes how to install Blender for Linux, FreeBSD or SGI and then jumps right in to a description of the Object Hierarchy of the data structures and then a hands on tutorial of basic editing commands. Luckily he has made the install very easy, so all you need to do is download, uncompress and set one environment variable. You have to love that.
In the Basic Editing section you will find information on all the standard 3D operations. You'll learn how to move, rotate and scale objects within your scene. How to apply materials and textures to your objects. You'll also be taught how to save and load your data files. If you're already an experienced 3D artist then this will be a handy chapter for learning how to translate these basic functions into the Blender way of doing things. Blender's interface is definately unique in many ways and might take a small amount of getting used to. Once you familiarize yourself with the basic functions, though, I think you'll find it to be a very efficient interface for design work. If you're a newbie like me, then this section also serves as a nice introduction to these basic modelling concepts as well.
The second section of the book is called "Do it yourself" and is where the real power of Blender starts to become apparent to the reader. Topics covered inlude things such as View Modes and Presets working with Layers, 3D View Maipulation and many other useful items. This section also contains a Coffeecup Tutorial and a Flying Logo Tutorial that gave me a true sense of accomplishment when I finished. For an experienced artist, these might be laughable but I really enjoyed doing them and it taught me alot about Blender and 3D in general.
Flying Logo Tutorial Results ~ 69K
In part three you really start to get into the guts of the application and you can really tell that Ton was involved heavily in the development of this application. He conveys an understanding of not only design of the application but also why it was designed that way. He goes into detail about the data structure that Blender uses and explains the relationships between Objects, ObData and Materials. He also goes into a much more complete discussion of the interface of the program and the structure of the many available menus. This is a section that makes you glad that this book was written by someone who understands what goes on under Blender's hood.
Part four goes into a higher level of detail in discussing diferent types of objects including The Mesh, Curves and Surfaces, including Bezier, Nurbs and how to model with curves. He also covers Metaballs, Font usage, Lattice usage. I really enjoyed this section because it allowed me to start creating scenes that didn't look like diagrams out of a geometry textbook. (Spheres and cubes get old real quick!). Again, this section will be a valuable reference for experienced artist, and it also serves as a great introduction to these concepts to us newbies.
In the next few sections of the book there are chapters on Animation and using Ika's to create skeletons for your objects, enabling complicated motion in animation sequences. He also covers some Special Animation Techniques including the use of Motion Paths, and Object Tracking. This section allows you to bring your objects to life. After reading these sections I was able to create this humble creation. I thought it was pretty good for someone with literally three evenings reading this manual and no previous 3D experience at all. Please keep the flames to a minimum. :-)
Del's Flower Fly-by- Small version (200x150) ~ 344K
- Large version (400x300) ~ 1MB
The rest of the book is an incredible Reference to every option, every menu and every button in Blender. I can't see any rock that Ton has left unturned when documenting Blender's interface. Since he was so heavily involved in the development, he definately knows what features are available.
The last thing I want to make sure you know about this book is that it is a work of art itself. It is beatifully decorated with artwork on almost every page and the design of the book is such that reading it is really a pleasure. I commend Ton and his team on a job well done and I highly recommed this title for anyone interested in Blender specifically or for someone who would like to get started with 3D design.
Purchase this book at the Blender Shop and help support the continued development of this incredible program.
I purchased it a few weeks ago.
Including freight my CC was hit for $48 or $59, offhand I can't remember which.
It is a BEAUTIFUL manual. An Object de Art.
It has an odd smell, though.
Why dont you get a life and stop being so anal? Go climb a mountain or something and chill! The point was made so forget about it!
logo1.mpeg
flower200x150.mpeg
flower400x300.mpeg
-jeremie
XF86Setup?
Flying Logo Tutorial Results ~ 69K
Del's Flower Fly-by
Small Version(200X150) ~ 344k
Large Version(400X300) ~ 1MB
try The 3 Button Serial Mouse mini-HOWTO
Is it possible to use Blender (or at least render the results) under 3DFX?
I think Blender uses the OpenGL API, so you should be able to run it using the Mesa library's Glide drivers for acceleration. Assuming you don't use the static version, of course; you have to link it to the accelerated Mesa that already lives on your system.
:-[ So I don't have this working myself yet. Is anybody out there using Blender with Mesa/Glide?
I would be doing this myself, except that I have a VooDoo Banshee and the Glide drivers aren't ready yet.
-posting anonymously because I forgot who I am
after shipping & handling. :)
and it's well worth it.
-ElCabron, not an AC
(at work, don't know the password by heart)
Why is it that most people seem to accept that fact that books on how to use 'free' software cost a lot of money. Do you think that writing software is simple, and writing a book on how to use that software is so much work that you should chare money for it?
I'm not against charging money for a book. I'll pay plenty of cash for a good manual, but it pisses me off when I see folks whining and bitching about someone having the nerve to -sell- software instead of giving it away for free!
Thanks for setting me straight! I should know better to talk with my brain empty...
-posting anonymously because I forgot who I am
Coming from Win32 and MacOS (Mac's not quite as bad) where Bill and Steve would be happy having their victims limited to pointing and clicking, Blender was a little bit of a challenge. I'm still refering back to my printout for the numerous keyboard commands. However, SoftImage users should be used to this, and even Lightwave 3D users. If you can't get the book (if you're a poor serf like myself), then print out the tutorials and reference sites - they will prove invaluable as you unlock the vast capabilities of this program. For those of you smirking at the small size of Blender (how can a 2meg app compete with the big guys?), Lightwave 3D's modeler is around 800K and scene editor is not much bigger. I'm still being surprised by Blender's sophistication. I can't wait until the plugin API is finished to see all the new toys that will come of that. :)
a. locate XF86Config //XF86Config
b. vi
c. change Microsoft protocol...
a. locate XF86Config (in /etc/XF86Config?)
b. edit { slash path slash XF86Config } (vi?)
c. comment protocol microsoft (change to MouseSystems?)
Is Blender source dependency modular? What is the source portability with regard of MesaGL, Xlib?, libc? I know it is not so important what the binaries depend on...but I don't run Linux, yet.
plugin API source?
Wow! Great explanation! Thanks for answering that guy's question so thoughtfully.
That real world example was terrific! Man, I felt like I was right there next to you when you realized that your book contained an error, then you moved on. Like, I could just see it all unfolding before my eyes. Beautiful, man! God bless you!
I don't get why you'd spend a lot of your free time writing code, give it away, then have someone else make a killing off of it by documenting it. I think this is one of the reasons RMS is pissed off at O'Reilley. They make a lot of money documenting free software, and they do it very well. All I can say is, thank God for O'Reilly.
Software that's free, but the manual's not?
Now isn't that an incentive to make the software as hard to use and unintuitive as possible?
The freedom to write a book and to make money off from it! I love capitalism!!
I've tried blender a few times - it works, but the interface is absolutely the worst I've seen on any large application on any platform - tiny icons, cluttered, unintuitive, and confusing. Certainly a good manual would help - but an extremely large monitor seems essential as well. I guess it would be easier to work with using an 800x600 viewport looking into a 1500x1500 screen, but I seldom run X in such "wierd" modes.
No way I will pay $47 for the manual. However, I may try Blender again and do the viewport trick. One can obtain some pretty good FAQs and How-To's from various Blender related sites (not from the official site) put out by users for other users.
For 3-D work I'll continue to use Pov-Ray, which comes with excellent documentation and is now GLP'ed and totally free. I used it for years with Windows and now use it with Linux. Pov has has several front-ends for Linux - some free, and some shareware. Several more front ends using Gtk and Qt are in the works. It's easy to save code generated from modelers in pov format, but very difficult to read pov files into them. That's the only drawback I see. Sure, Blender is more "sexy" but pov is also very good and one can modify the code now, no problem.
For real-time animation why not just use Mesa-OpenGL and animate with code. Not as much detail as in mpegs, but more than sufficient for games and demos. Again, there are several modeling toolkits to use if you want or need them - and plenty of sample code which can be easily modified to produce good demos like screensavers without knowing much about OpenGL internals.
Come on Blender, please work on your interface some. If you do, Blender could well be another "killer" application for Linux.
I've got the order page up.
89 NLG for the Manual ($47)
32 NLG to ship manual(~$17)
45 NLG for a t-shirt ($23)
15 NLG to ship shirt ($8)
Additional $$$ to ship the shirt? WTF?
So the manual alone will cost $64 to get it shipped to you.... just so you know.
There seem to be enough people complaining about the interface. Doesn't that together with the business model, suggest something more than coincidence?
IIRC, Blender was an in-house design tool, I don't
:)
think they really intended to release it when they
were designing the UI...I doubt it was ever intended to be easy to use.
Design Linux/UNIX games in GL? That'd be great...too bad there's no hardware acceleration in (PeeCee) X yet.
(3dfx glide isn't GL and dosen't count.)
Software-rendered GL is pretty pointless for models with any kind of complexity.
(Try running Quake2 with software GL...)
I just want open-source GLX drivers for my TNT!
BTW, does POV have particle effects?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I've got friends in the Netherlands (Amsterdam)... Any bookstores there stock this?
Yes I agree the interface is getting in the way of a good prog. Maybe for version 2 it could be completely redesigned?
I'll take a free beer, thank you!
Hic!
try starting blender this way:
./blender -p 25 90 1024 768 $@
where you can substitute 1024 768 with 640 480 - 800 600 - 1280 1024 - 1600 1200 - etc.
i use the above line under a 1280x1024x32 display and change it to 1280 1024 when i used a 1600x1200x16 display.
~@~
Anybody with experience on both care to comment?
DG
Blender is small, its easy, its fast,
it does just abother everything and if it doesn't
there is bound to be some way you can do it otherwise
out of pieces of the interface.. It's reusable,
recyclable.. I propose it as the interface for
future 3D applications.. By the way, just because
it don't have Icons doesn't make it hard, Alias is
about 10X harder than blender once you know how it works,
Blender is not easy if you don't know how it works.. In the long
run learning blender first and Alias last will get you more places.. If you had used Alias first then blender, you'd get disgusted, but there are reasons to learn blender if you have Alias, it is a new way of dealing with 3D problems that are nearly impossible in Alias/Maya..
Blender is not for the faint of heart,
all I can say is it took me a year to learn blender
completely (I can say this about 98%) and
I didn't have a manual, but I did get direct help from
Ton.. Ton designed the program and he spent three months
writing the manual.. He's not asking much for payment,
typical gurus would charge a mint for Blender.. The Manual is 300+ pages,
you'll spen most of your time looking through the reference to
find what certain buttons mean, but what you see in the interface looks like a
mess but its very well designed (hint: he began working on this blender in 1995, and started programming 3D about a decade ago, Blender is named after a song by the 80's group "Yello".. Ton was the president, programmer for NeoGeo he had several employees and they made video games using this software, the blender you have is a smidgen of what he has at NaN.. He often refers to our blender as the "incomplete" version (he's working out bugs for the complete version which has radiosity, motion blur, and a number of other things that will have you bowing down before him in reverence)..)..
it's just perfect
the best i've ever seen
most productive
etc
I'm using blender about one year, without manual, step by step learning on my own.. I can say now, that i've rarelly met such a progressive and helpfull user interface as blender got. No viewport locks, 3d cursor, bunch of curve types to use, great material management... you have to realize, that power doesn't go besides simplicity. If you touch any of Alias|Wavefront products, or Softimage or 3DSMax, you'll be really shooten down by absolutly flow of options... In blender, you get only siple window, and all options (such as tools, primitives etc.) comes from pull down menu, which (great) doesn't hurt the view during the period you don't need it.
:) ), i'd buy it even, just because great riffraff design, just as the piece to my art gallery, guy, just look at that manual, and open the mind - it's one of greatest looking piece of book you can ever see...
I still cannot get all from blender, and so i'm going to get manual soon, and i must say - even if i knew blender as god (as ton
OV.
SSIA.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
ftp ftp.redhat.com binary hash get /pub/linux/Redhat-5.2/images/boot rawrite boot a: format c: (just to be safe) ctrl-alt-del select network install X-workstation re boot Then try again... (Note: I'm not responsible for the accuracy of these commands, since I'm just kidding...)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
ftp ftp.redhat.com /pub/linux/Redhat-5.2/images/boot
binary
hash
get
rawrite boot a:
format c: (just to be safe)
ctrl-alt-del
select network install
X-workstation
re boot
Then try again...
(Note: I'm not responsible for the accuracy of these commands, since I'm just kidding...)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You probably need to set the gpm to use the PnP
mouse driver. This was the case for my old 2.01
version of the Microsoft serial mouse.
Looking at the Blender Shop page, the price is quoted as 89.00 NLG. Anyone know how much that is in American money?
--
Posted by Mojoski:
Could some kind soul mirror my empegs listed above? I'm afraid my server won't stand up very well if many people want to see my humble creations..
Thanks,
Del
Posted by Mojoski:
It's just a way to make a living on a free product. He needs mindshare so he allows people to use. If someone wants to really get good at it and make excellent stuff then they can purchase the extra level of knowledge through the manual. I think this is a great model to use.
Posted by Mojoski:
Once I worked through the manual I found it very well organised and intuitive, but an understanding of the object model is important to understanding the interface. That is one of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much..
Posted by Surzer:
A book can't hide it's source code, it can't hide it's contentes. It can't crash like a computer program, so it is kinda free. A book is much more free than a proprietary computer program, since you have the "source code" for the book. And people can sell free software, but not get very much money from each copy, so selling books about the software is IMHO a good way of making money.
It works very well on Linux and even better on an SGI. Very nice program. I'll probably pick up the manual sometime in the near future! (it is really nice - and supports the Blender folks)
blenders are fun. they make stuff better... err batter... okay... not funny...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
I've just got the manual today and I must say it's really a piece of art. Can't wait to try it out on my linux box at home! If you've got blender, buy it, it's worth it.
I see English English/American English flamewars on the horizon...
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
now that /. runs on a much faster machine, why not add a module that runs every article through 'ispell'? 'Definately' gets old very quick.
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
If you think AutoCAD is good software, you haven't used it much. After R12, they removed the IGES import/export (to put it into a more expensive package), screwed up their DXF output so it was incompatible with older software (like AutoDesk's own 3D Studio R3 at the time). Properly designed code can handle the changes, but not always.
/dev/ttyS1'.
Then with R14, the AutoLisp was modified such that I had to change every routine I wrote - to make it imcompatible with R13. The plot-to-file option outputs 'correct' code, but such a way that Win/DOS can't shove it through the comm port properly. I had to reboot to Linux to get that file to work - 'cat filename
I which I could help with a free 3D CAD program, but I am working on related projects.
At the console, that is, while gpm is running. Do you see a cursor on screen? If no, kill gpm and try re-running it with "gpm -t msdos". If you see a cursor now, then your mouse works okay, and you need to start looking at your X config file, and (like the other poster said) make sure you kill gpm before running X.
If you DON'T see a cursor when you move the mouse at the console, (while running "gpm -t msdos") then you need to check the mouse itself, cable, connections and whatnot, or try other mouse types ("gpm -t ps2").
If you can get your mouse to work at the console with gpm, then you should be able to get it to go with X.
Good luck!
**>>BELCH
I'm inspired!
I've got Blender loaded, but have been TOTALLY intimidated by the interface. I might just have to pay off my credit card and order me that book!
**>>BELCH
Moron! How are you going to give away a manual that's printed on non-free paper and printed on a REALLY non-free Heidelberg. However, it's trivial to provide binaries of software, especially if you've already got the dedicated bandwidth for some other reason. But I guarantee you, International Paper, etc. will not give away paper.
Low Volume manuals like this one are $$EXPENSIVE$$ to produce and ~$50 is cheap for one.
These people use this software in Their work, they have no reason to goof it up!
Use your head for a doorstop. That's what it seems capable of.
At the moment, you cannot benefit from 3Dfx acceleration in Blender or any other app that uses in-window OpenGL rendering.
Reasons for this:
1. 3Dfx Voodoo and Voodoo2 chips cannot render into a window. This is a *hardware limitation* and cannot be circumvented. There is the "mesa window hack" which copies the 3Dfx frame buffer into the X frame buffer, which is slower than pure hardware but faster than pure software. However, myself and others have been 100% UNsucessful in getting this to work with Blender.
2. 3Dfx hardware, including the upcoming Voodoo3, use 16-bit Z buffers. Blender needs 24 bits. It remains to be seen if this problem can be worked around, due to #1 above.
MoNsTeR
Dutch postal services are extremely expensive... It costs about $30 to ship 1 kg of goods. And that is by boat. Telephone services are also very expensive. These things have been state-monopolies and have only recently been privatised. Alternatives would be DHL or UPS, who are even more (but not that much considering speed of delivery) expensive. So, 'not a number' cannot help this extra charge. Computer (or any other) books are expensive too around here. If a book says $50 on the cover, and $1 == f2,- the bookstore charges f150,- for it. Same story for cd's, children cloths, and some other stuff. There are cartels around here.- -------------
------------------------------------------
UNIX isn't dead, it just smells funny...
-------------------------------------------------
UNIX isn't dead, it just sme
$1 is about 2 NLG (Dutch guilders). So it's about $45.
By the way, a VERY USEFUL SITE:
http://www.cnn.com/TRAVEL/ESSENTIALS/
This includes the currency converter I used. -matt
---
Wha? TV & Movie Theme Songs? Oh yeah....
Do you have one of those PS2/serial switchable mice? If so, you might have it on the wrong setting. I've observed similar behavior in that circumstance. Flicking the switch on the bottom of the mouse fixed it instantly.
--Bitscape
The whole principle behind free software is that you should be free to do with it as you will - that is, if you find an exasperating bug that's been knawing at you for centuries, you have the freedom to go through the source and fix it.
This doesn't really apply to books, since errors in books don't affect your ability to get stuff done in the way software bugs do.
(Real-world example: I found several errors in a book I bought; I was able to change my code accordingly and move on).
D
----
Heh, I bought two manuals, one for my brother :)
and four T shirts. And if/when blender cost money
I'll buy that too.
He doesn't have run articles through 'ispell' for every access. Just run them through when posting.
Rich
It's free as in beer, but not free as in speech. But, it is some pretty good technology, and I can understand the author's fears. While I personally am not into 3D, I am going to buy my brother a nice birthday present. =) He's been loving playing around with the Gimp, and this will give him some serious power toys.
Hmm. Maybe I should get in touch with him and start work on an OS/2 port?
Cheers,
Joshua.
--jon. Postel is dead. May we all mourn his, and our, loss.
While I believe removing Anonymous Coward posting would be an asset to this site, mandating any kind of filtering, even ispell, would only serve to hurt. I believe that one's spelling/grammer tells you something about that person. Its up to him/her to decide whether to present ideas in a coherent manner.
A spell checker would be a really nice _option_ though.
Running NT4 (sp3) and I get and error telling me that ActiveMovie won't work because the video stream "falls outside the constrained standard"?! What the hell is that about? I can play the logo video but not this one. What gives?
Thanx for the suggestion :)
I will read it again and again...
--C
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Keyboard commands are natural to me-I use AutoCAD (probably the best piece of win32 software I've ever used.)
Good point on blender. It's beautiful. I thought I was nuts when I saw the size of the download. This is what free software is all about, no?
Actually, that reminds me of something I was wondering, and it seems on topic, so here goes: why don't hardware manufacturers offer open sources of their drivers? I mean, I understand closed source software where the software is the product, but you've already bought the freakin' hardware, why do they bother to keep the drivers secret? Seems to me they only stand to gain, because if they make some kickass hardware, and then let people port the drivers to other OSes and work bugs out, it should be all good.
Write your hardware vendor today!
Now if I could only get my damn M$ serial mouse to work w/ X11. Hey, anybody know anything about that?
kmj
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
kmj
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
kmj
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
I think we should declare that any use of the
word definitely be spelt "definately"!
It makes me laugh when I see it spelt definately.
This happens so often it's hilarious.
Regarding reason 1, Voodoo Rush actually can render into a window.
The manual is well worth the investment plus it helps a great product get better. Since I've used Blender there have been 4 releases with more cool stuff added each time. This is only in a 4 month period. Why pay $500 or $2000 or more for Windows crashable software? The other great thing is the program is amazingly small.
For exWindows users you will understand what the middle mouse was used for, and that the mouse and keyboard work together (not this or that usage).
Granted the learning curve for blender is very steep for newbies, but the manual makes a steep hill a very quick sprint.
Compaired to the (M$)alternitive, it sounds fair.
DARLING NO BAAAKAAA!!!
DAAARLING NO BAAKAAA!