Firstly I apologize for the length of this post, but I think this will solve the Blender rage I'm reading...
About 6 months ago I decided to get into 3d modelling and animation, etc., and started up in Blender mainly because it is freeware, I was impressed with its capabilities. Being a noob, I found it difficult at first but because of the large amount of new-user friendly tutorials, I eventually learned and am now considering learning 3ds or maya.
Is Blender the best software for modelling or animation? Probably not, but that is a matter to be decided from reviewing finished works of art from the Program, not its design flaws. Discounting the credibility of software that is able to create animations like Sintel simply because of an elitist view of not having paid $3000-$7000 for the software and licenses, or jumping into a design program at a University or College for tens of thousands of dollars without knowing if you will even enjoy it... is a little silly.
If every pencil in the world was $5000 and you wanted to learn how to draw, that is perhaps quite an expensive mistake if it is really not for you. If I created a synthetic pencil that performed very similarly for free, what is stopping everyone from learning to draw if they wish, without getting into debt?
Blender is an amazing stepping stool into the awesome artistic world, and if the artist believes the extra cash spent on professional 3d software is worth the added capabilities it provides to them, then wonderful. The more capabilities Blender has in relation to the professional suites, the better, in my opinion.
Firstly I apologize for the length of this post, but I think this will solve the Blender rage I'm reading...
About 6 months ago I decided to get into 3d modelling and animation, etc., and started up in Blender mainly because it is freeware, I was impressed with its capabilities. Being a noob, I found it difficult at first but because of the large amount of new-user friendly tutorials, I eventually learned and am now considering learning 3ds or maya.
Is Blender the best software for modelling or animation? Probably not, but that is a matter to be decided from reviewing finished works of art from the Program, not its design flaws. Discounting the credibility of software that is able to create animations like Sintel simply because of an elitist view of not having paid $3000-$7000 for the software and licenses, or jumping into a design program at a University or College for tens of thousands of dollars without knowing if you will even enjoy it... is a little silly.
If every pencil in the world was $5000 and you wanted to learn how to draw, that is perhaps quite an expensive mistake if it is really not for you. If I created a synthetic pencil that performed very similarly for free, what is stopping everyone from learning to draw if they wish, without getting into debt?
Blender is an amazing stepping stool into the awesome artistic world, and if the artist believes the extra cash spent on professional 3d software is worth the added capabilities it provides to them, then wonderful. The more capabilities Blender has in relation to the professional suites, the better, in my opinion.
Again, just my two cents.
That's a very interesting perspective considering how often people here promote learning basic drawing skills as a fundamental step to gaining good digital art mastery. I started on Gmax, graduating to 3DS later on and then moved away from that to Blender because its workflow fits my way of thinking better than Autodesk software ever did. It let's me think spatially about the interface rather than contextually, which fits a visual/tactile learner such as I am. It also allows my right and left brain to work together to accomplish things faster than working entirely in one side.
Hi guys, I'm some kinda new in this community, Blender is my main 3d package, gimp is starting to be my main 2d package too. (still love photoshop so much :poly127: ). I would like to know, if there is some tool like unfold in blender, the unwrap works great but, after looking at this full tutorial http://www.3dmotive.com/training/photoshop/hand-painted-weapon-texturing/?follow=true , I feel like I really need unfold XD, I'm using headus uv layout until I find how to do the same way like Murphy Tyson but in blender. Any suggestion?
I really support Blender though it is on the losing end of the spectrum here. I first learned custom animation and a lot of 3d modeling through this so I have to love where I came from.
It is not that packed with features though when compared to other software but can very well stand on its own. I love how things could be made simple through Blender, while still offering a lot of options.
2.61 is out with some REALLY big improvements. Totally new rendering engine, dynamic paint (like painting with particles), ocean simulation, and some new motion tracking tools.
andy, do you know if there are any intentions on adding a cage based baking system to blender in the near future ?
Not currently, but it's something I keep pushing for.
I am going to write up a suggestion paper explaining why they are needed and what cages do, along with some examples or stuff you can bake with uniform ray distances. (smoothing groups etc.)
I can't figure out how to disable the fill holes option in the uv editor. 2.49 had a uv calc panel but it must be removed or buried away somewhere in 2.6?
In 2.6, unwrap your mesh, then press F6 in the 3d window. This brings up a panel with all of the options of the last operator used (works for other operators as well). There you will find the Fill holes option. You will also be able to change from Angle Based to Conformal unwrapping method, the latter being more useful for hard surface stuff.
Andy, what is your relation to blender? Are you a developer?
No, Im just a user
I make scripts (the PolySphere one is in Blender as of 2.6 ^^), use Blender a ton and try and keep my ear to the ground in regards to new features etc.
Aside from that, I just try my best to lend a hand to my dev. friends as much as possible by testing new stuff and offering suggestions from an artists perspective
Blender is legit. Love the direction it's been going for some time now. Just keeps getting better and better. Definitely a breath of fresh air and while it may never replace the monolithic tools in place at most studios, it is such a great option for small indies, iOS development and freelancers (provided they still work with Max, Maya, XSI et al.) How cool is it to get constant updates and to not worry about licensing-this or dongle-that (snicker)? And you can't beat the price (though I am going to make it a point to donate to the cause).
@Computron: Barring any large show stoppers, 2-3 months. It's slated for 2.63. As is, it's mostly stable, but some of the tools still need a bit of work before primetime (including the bevel and knife tools).
Yea, Bmesh will be going into trunk within the next week or so. Ton has advised people to be aware of the merge before committing anything, so 2.63 looks like it's pretty set in stone, unless as Dim says, there are any show stoppers.
Don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread, but check out this awesome Blender-to-Cryengine 3 add-on tool being created by a chap going by the handle angjminer:
He's been making impressive progress in the past few days and wants to develop the tool to a level it will be a fully-Blender-Foundation-blessed add-on.
I find the title funny. Been subscribed to their developer mailing list for nearly two years now and I did not get the feeling that anyone is terribly worried about "competing" so much as to simply write good code and make their features stable, usable and very fast. Something I cannot say about many other 3D packages where stuff breaks constantly and the people I worked with just accept it as "something normal that just happens." On the other hand, crashing Blender takes skill
Actual competition might occur when the Blender foundation launches their professional, commercial support program they were debating about a while back. I hope this doesn't happen though because if everyone learns Blender I cannot be that sneaky guy anymore who does his work in a quarter of the time with less effort :P
I must admit that I love the 3d cursor, though I never set it's location with left mouse...far too imprecise
You can turn "Auto Depth" on in your preferences which causes the 3D cursor to be placed on the surface of the mesh where you click. I find that very effective for placing new objects. Side effect is that the camera will rotate about that point too though.
If only there was a proper PSK pipeline that respects sharp edges....
Are you using the Edge Split modifier and marking sharp edges with ctrl+e+k?
Have not tried it but that should work since it is actually breaking up the marked edges into separate vertices. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is exactly what game engines end up doing anyway, isn't it?
Have not tried it but that should work since it is actually breaking up the marked edges into separate vertices. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is exactly what game engines end up doing anyway, isn't it?
Yeah, but last time I even did the 'apply modifier' and then exported a PSK I remember it automatically merging my separate sharp vertices.
What are you talking about, Blender breaks all the time - I have years worth of "oh nose.. not again" on KatsBits.
The unstable nightly builds of blender crash just as much as any commercial app!
Jokes aside, I've been having psd opening issues recently, works fine in 2.57 and lower, but 2.58->2.62 it just wont recognize psd files, but in any build of 2.63 it works again.
I'm running 32bit versions of blender in win7-64bit, and I do have quicktime installed.
You can turn "Auto Depth" on in your preferences which causes the 3D cursor to be placed on the surface of the mesh where you click. I find that very effective for placing new objects. Side effect is that the camera will rotate about that point too though.
Yea
I meant more that I tend to place it on verts, at the origin or in the centre of an object via the snap menu in edit mode. Come to think of it, I might as well assign left mouse to something different in edit mode :P
Jokes aside, I've been having psd opening issues recently, works fine in 2.57 and lower, but 2.58->2.62 it just wont recognize psd files, but in any build of 2.63 it works again.
I'm running 32bit versions of blender in win7-64bit, and I do have quicktime installed.
They decided to remove psd support in 2.58 due to issues with Quicktime being included in Blender and concerns over it's compatibility with the GPL license. Nathan was looking into a way to get gif and psd support back in so maybe he found a way?
In regards to FBX...I was listening to the Blender podcast and Campbell said that that though Blender cant use the actual FBX SDK due to Autodesk restricting it's license so that it can't be distributed with free programs, someone in the community could make an exporter using it and then people could be linked to it. If Autodesk were less restrictive, this would be much less of an issue.
Replies
Firstly I apologize for the length of this post, but I think this will solve the Blender rage I'm reading...
About 6 months ago I decided to get into 3d modelling and animation, etc., and started up in Blender mainly because it is freeware, I was impressed with its capabilities. Being a noob, I found it difficult at first but because of the large amount of new-user friendly tutorials, I eventually learned and am now considering learning 3ds or maya.
Is Blender the best software for modelling or animation? Probably not, but that is a matter to be decided from reviewing finished works of art from the Program, not its design flaws. Discounting the credibility of software that is able to create animations like Sintel simply because of an elitist view of not having paid $3000-$7000 for the software and licenses, or jumping into a design program at a University or College for tens of thousands of dollars without knowing if you will even enjoy it... is a little silly.
If every pencil in the world was $5000 and you wanted to learn how to draw, that is perhaps quite an expensive mistake if it is really not for you. If I created a synthetic pencil that performed very similarly for free, what is stopping everyone from learning to draw if they wish, without getting into debt?
Blender is an amazing stepping stool into the awesome artistic world, and if the artist believes the extra cash spent on professional 3d software is worth the added capabilities it provides to them, then wonderful. The more capabilities Blender has in relation to the professional suites, the better, in my opinion.
Again, just my two cents.
That's a very interesting perspective considering how often people here promote learning basic drawing skills as a fundamental step to gaining good digital art mastery. I started on Gmax, graduating to 3DS later on and then moved away from that to Blender because its workflow fits my way of thinking better than Autodesk software ever did. It let's me think spatially about the interface rather than contextually, which fits a visual/tactile learner such as I am. It also allows my right and left brain to work together to accomplish things faster than working entirely in one side.
It is not that packed with features though when compared to other software but can very well stand on its own. I love how things could be made simple through Blender, while still offering a lot of options.
2.61 is out with some REALLY big improvements. Totally new rendering engine, dynamic paint (like painting with particles), ocean simulation, and some new motion tracking tools.
Release log and download: http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-261/
Automatic retopology modifier:
http://www.blendernation.com/2012/01/04/remesh-modifier-trunked/
Sounds like it dynamically retopologizes on the fly too, i.e. is animatable.
thats not for make your LP mesh, it is kinda like dynamesh in zbrush
sketch sculpt > remesh > clean sculpt > manual retopo
its awesome, but it keeps crashing when i try to add a cylinder =(
anyone elso got this problem ?
Yea the new knife is great
I get the issue with cylinders too, but its getting more and more stable with each commit.
New UV tools from GSoC are up on Graphicall and with anyluck they should be in the next official release
64bit
32bit
The improved stitch works really well and it also contains subsurf aware unwrapping and Relax/Pinch/Grab brushes for UVs too!
Pretty awesome!
I am going to write up a suggestion paper explaining why they are needed and what cages do, along with some examples or stuff you can bake with uniform ray distances. (smoothing groups etc.)
iam not really a fan of blender uv tools
they just dont do a very good job on hardsurface stuff
i watched a video of the new toolset from GSoC and its just not there yet
iam envious of max relax & stitch
No, Im just a user
I make scripts (the PolySphere one is in Blender as of 2.6 ^^), use Blender a ton and try and keep my ear to the ground in regards to new features etc.
Aside from that, I just try my best to lend a hand to my dev. friends as much as possible by testing new stuff and offering suggestions from an artists perspective
i love the new render engine
Yea, Cycles is awesome. They just added render passes for the next release too ^^
I must admit that I love the 3d cursor, though I never set it's location with left mouse...far too imprecise
quote for truth
also, tell him to enable dynamic spacebar menu in settings -> addons
its great since you have all these rather hidden options in one menu
Download: http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/
Release Notes: http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-262/
Some highlights:
Remesh modifier (essentially Dynamesh, but all quads)
New UV Tools
A brand new Boolean library
Object tracking
The new UV tools are a major improvement...I really suggest everyone check them out
Don't know if this has been mentioned in this thread, but check out this awesome Blender-to-Cryengine 3 add-on tool being created by a chap going by the handle angjminer:
Cryblend Thread on crydev.net
He's been making impressive progress in the past few days and wants to develop the tool to a level it will be a fully-Blender-Foundation-blessed add-on.
Interview with angjminer
isnt UDK moveing away from ASE towards more of a fbx pipeline.
Actual competition might occur when the Blender foundation launches their professional, commercial support program they were debating about a while back. I hope this doesn't happen though because if everyone learns Blender I cannot be that sneaky guy anymore who does his work in a quarter of the time with less effort :P
You can turn "Auto Depth" on in your preferences which causes the 3D cursor to be placed on the surface of the mesh where you click. I find that very effective for placing new objects. Side effect is that the camera will rotate about that point too though.
If only there was a proper PSK pipeline that respects sharp edges....
Are you using the Edge Split modifier and marking sharp edges with ctrl+e+k?
Have not tried it but that should work since it is actually breaking up the marked edges into separate vertices. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is exactly what game engines end up doing anyway, isn't it?
Yeah, but last time I even did the 'apply modifier' and then exported a PSK I remember it automatically merging my separate sharp vertices.
The unstable nightly builds of blender crash just as much as any commercial app!
Jokes aside, I've been having psd opening issues recently, works fine in 2.57 and lower, but 2.58->2.62 it just wont recognize psd files, but in any build of 2.63 it works again.
I'm running 32bit versions of blender in win7-64bit, and I do have quicktime installed.
I meant more that I tend to place it on verts, at the origin or in the centre of an object via the snap menu in edit mode. Come to think of it, I might as well assign left mouse to something different in edit mode :P
They decided to remove psd support in 2.58 due to issues with Quicktime being included in Blender and concerns over it's compatibility with the GPL license. Nathan was looking into a way to get gif and psd support back in so maybe he found a way?
In regards to FBX...I was listening to the Blender podcast and Campbell said that that though Blender cant use the actual FBX SDK due to Autodesk restricting it's license so that it can't be distributed with free programs, someone in the community could make an exporter using it and then people could be linked to it. If Autodesk were less restrictive, this would be much less of an issue.