Blender 2.48 released.

Blender, for those that have recently abandoned their rock dwelling, is a very capable 3D modelling, rendering, compositing and NL video/audio editing package that's open source and...Wait for it...Completely *FREE*.


This release features updates and tweaks made by the Project Apricot team during the production of Yo Frankie along with a few of the completed GSOC projects. This version also signals the resurrection of the, previously neglected, game engine.

Downloads are available here (Windows, OSX, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD).

A list of updates and changes can be found here.


If you're new to Blender, links to lots of free video tutorials can be found here.

And, with that, it's time for my standard "Blender sucks. The developers refuse to acknowledge the significant interface flaws that make the application both unpleasant to use and downright confusing for anyone other than hard-core Blender zealots. These zealots share the attitudes of their god-developers, but they also add a knee-jerk hostility to criticism, a fear of change, and other similarly insecure fanboy tendencies to the mix" post!

Here you go:

Blender sucks. The developers refuse to acknowledge the significant interface flaws that make the application both unpleasant to use and downright confusing for anyone other than hard-core Blender zealots. These zealots share the attitudes of their god-developers, but they also add a knee-jerk hostility to criticism, a fear of change, and other similarly insecure fanboy tendencies to the mix.

The irony of course is your fear of change to use an interface that is outside of the norm... That said... I do agree with you, I tried to use blender, I failed as everything was somewhere with 1000s of keyboard controls to do things magical that can't be accessed via menus.

And that said... The results from people who can be bothered to learn it's unique approach to 3D modelling are very good indeed, it's massively feature rich and stunningly good for a free application.

Not really. I've used many different 3d modelling applications. I don't mind any taking the time to adapt to any interface providing it isn't fuggly and reliant on the memorization of keyboard shortcuts.


See, I've never got this "I wouldn't pay money for it, but it's good because it's free" attitude. Rubbish is rubbish, regardless of how much or little it costs. At least, that's my opinion. If I poked you in the eye with my finger free of charge, would this make a poke in the eye a good thing?

Do we really need the same people having the same arguments on every thread about Blender? If you don't like and aren't using it, why do we have to hear the same dogmatic comments over and over ad nauseum?

Probably I'm just missing some unwritten forum rule that says it's a bannable offense to just walk away and not comment on a thread that doesn't interest/affect you.

Is it better to hear the same praise by the same people over and over again? I must be missing some unwritten forum rule that says it's a bannable offence to offer a contrary opinion or - gasp! - to engage in an actual discussion on a discussion thread.

Can't we express opinions about software without getting emotional about it?

There was no praise until you started your predictable anti-Blender UI rant.


You're not offering a contrary opinion, you're just offering the exact same opinion you churned out the last half a dozen times anyone tried to discuss Blender. Just repeating yourself over and over, while plugging your ears and refusing to hear anything contrary to your own opinion might fall under the heading of discussion for you, but I had higher hopes.


Bad assumption, I'm afraid. I'm entirely dispassionate about Blender. My opinion, for what it's worth, is entirely the same as yours. I'm just sick of seeing it repeated over and over with nothing new added. There's a new version, new features, I was actually hoping I might read some discussion about those.

How`s Blender for game development? Anyone tried it? The Open Source game project looks quite nifty.

Jason.

The 'norm' got where it is because people liked it and easily adapted to it.

'Norm' is good. More people would use Blender if you didn't need a degree in.... um... something really ugly, vague and complicated, in order to use it.

Well, you've spent two lengthy posts in the same thread now, telling us how you're sick of everyone saying they don't like Blender. So I guess you're just as bad as we are for going on about it. ;)

I do listen to people saying Blender is good. But they're still wrong. :D

(IMHO)

Unquestionably.

Thanks for the heads up Yan.

..and some users refuse to acknowledge its just different. So will never know its actually a good interface.

Most Blender users dont want pretty pictures to click on, i prefer icons that actually tell you what they do, instead of some cryptic hieroglyph. Also the fact the whole interface can be scaled and re-arranged/modified to any layout you like is a fantastic idea.

I am not the guy who can judge a 3D application because I am not good at 3D modeling, but as a user I am saying that Blender is a very good program concerning its capabilities...
But:
Its interface is worse than WordPerfect under MS DOS! (1990 ?)

Microsoft, Apple and many others companies have invested millions of dollars in order to implement unique GUI's for people they don't have time to learn different programmer approaches.
Even for the younger people in these forums there are excellent applications for 3D modeling and Animation and they can buy them only for a few dollars.
Most of us they already bought PC systems worth at least 1000€.
Under this point of view being the Blender free does mean nothing for me.

noiTisnt :P

Not always, it depends on how you do things. Personally i hardly ever use icons anyway unless i have to. Guis are alright for the inadept, but most people after a few weeks(mabe even days) of constant use start using shortcuts anyway.

Personally i like blenders interface. To be honest I have in he past wasted more time in 3ds max because it looked friendly and logical (but isnt always) so i was tempted to try and sus it out on my own, often wasting days. To use blender, you just HAVE to watch the 5 minute long video that simply explains how the gui works and perhaps the basic modelling, tex and anim tuts. Once this is watched its all pretty intuitive.

What bothers me with this take on the subject is not the time needed to learn, but the productivity once you learned, which is another matter entirely. Many modelling tools have already been revolutionary interface wise but very well planned (ZBrush for example is unique). To support a bit of everything doesn't necessarily mean getting the most out of every implemented feature (for example, you won't sculpt as good in Blender as you can in ZBrush or Mudbox, even though Blender is one of the few softwares to support proper sculpting).


Then they should definitely checkout Newtek Lightwave. The interface is elegant, text written, key binding based, extremely modular and yet more productive than overbloated.

Featurewise Blender is very robust, however time is of the essence in the CG industry. As you can't be as fast a modeller in XSI against Lightwave or organize a scene in Lightwave in the same vein as XSI, with Blender you'll never reach the same results as fast as with leading modelling tools, and with the amount of hours you are likely to spend with any CG tool investing some hundred dollars for a more streamlined process IMO is a better trade off even for passionate hobbyists. It's certainly interesting as an introduction to graphics as it is more feature-packed than many commercial modelling tools, but now that modelling tools are not as costly as ten years ago a determined newbie should at least consider the idea of learning something which is both more proficient and applicable as a day job skill.

That said, the more the merrier, since it is still added research in the field and since it has some interesting features of its own.

Blender, in my opinion, is excellent. A very capable modeller and animator for free. Lots of developers can´t afford payment lots of money on a mainstream modeller, so Blender is a very nice option for them. Now, with Caligari 7.6 for free, we have another free option.

My 2 cents

Hmm, have to try this some time. A real Milkshape junky over here. Always feared to try something new. :P

It is quirky, but i'm starting to warm to it. You just need to devote some time to it, probably more time than most other modellers, to get used to it. Might check the new release out, thanks.

Versus all the open-source software that you have to pay for?

*ducks*



Incidentally, just to add my two cents to the argument about Blender's merits, I discovered recently that its UV unwrap tool is freaking sweet. Skip down to "Unwrapping Using Seams" for documentation on it:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Unwrapping_a_Mesh

I suspect that some CS student wrote an awesome UV unwrapping technique for his thesis and he decided to add it to Blender's codebase. Anyway, the upshot is that I've been spending a lot of time lately getting cozy with Blender; I do my modeling and animation in Maya, but I use Blender for texture mapping.

I used to despise it but honestly, once you spend a while getting used to the different interface it's not half bad. The main issue really is that the non-standard interface is a huge energy barrier preventing people from adopting the app, but once past that (or rather, once you find the excellent documentation at http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Manual that definitely did not exist back when I concluded Blender sucks) Blender is a pretty handy tool really.

I never had a problem with the UI. You guys are crazy.
Anyone seen this: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Jaguarandi/SummerOfCode2008/ShrinkwrapModifier yet?

i don't like blender - and guess why? yes, its the UI. justluke is not alone...

Orly? I find it quite nice..

I don't mind different interfaces (I come from the Amiga with some programs doing their own thing: AdPro, Lightwave, etc). However, my main problem with Blender is that its' python user-interface is slooooooow (like, it literally takes 5 to ten seconds for some things to happen).

Russell

p.s. This point is really moot, though, because if you're looking for free, trueSpace is the way to go. It is different, but not nearly as different (or slow) as Blender.

The blender interface is only slow on my macbook with it's Intel graphics card. When I try it on a stationay computer with a better graphics card it's really fast.

Same here, runs nice and snappy on my machine (in both Ubuntu and windows).