Blender 2.46 Released

The Penguin Man writes to mention the latest release of Blender, the popular open-source 3D graphics suite was officially launched today. You can download it from Blender.org. The culmination of half a year's work has resulted in many new features including a new particle system, approximate AO, the new cloth simulation system, and much more!

Looks like they've made some improvements.

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

Looking at the screencaps I'd say they've done a lot to improve the interface. For my amateur work I started with Blender about 2 years ago and quickly switched to Maya. If these improvements are as significant as they look, I may consider installing Blender on all of my lab machines.

Re:Looks like they've made some improvements.

[KDR_11k]

The interface is a hurdle to learning but not much for work. It has almost no click-dragging (instead you click twice), I've read comments (about another program with little dragging) that that reduces strain on the fingers or hand.

Re:Looks like they've made some improvements.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want, you could wait for Blender 2.50. They plan to completely rewrite the interface which will allow users the power to create their own if needed.

Honestly, I've never found the interface too much of a problem. Sure, it's different but it has been designed well (mainly for speed). A 3D suite isn't something that's really meant to simple anyway.

Blender Devs Said No

[MrMista_B]

Subject says it all.

Don't forget to support Blender

[LetterRip]

Please consider picking up a copy of the Big Buck Bunny DVD it supported a lot of the development that was done for this release. You can see the trailer here [vimeo.com].

Or consider preordering Apricot [blender3d.org] the game that is currently in development that is based on the Big Buck Bunny movie. You can see the development reports here [blender.org].

Or you can donate here [blender.org].

Thanks for your support and we hope you enjoy the latest release,

LetterRip

Re:Don't forget to support Blender

[LetterRip]

Hmm for some reason the link to Big Buck Bunny [blender3d.org], didn't show up. Also I should mention the blog [blender.org] that showed the development of Big Buck Bunny as it was being created.

Re:People always complain about UIs

[ChameleonDave]

is it because you guys are instinctively comparing it to what you are familiar with? Photoshop-GIMP, Maya-Blender, etc.

Nope. I'm not experienced in 3D.

I recently tried Sketchup on Windows. I immediately got creating 3D scenes, very easily.

I have Blender open on Linux right now. I have no idea how to achieve anything at all in it. Even the save dialogue is weird and non-standard. What's wrong with a standard GTK or QT save dialogue? Why am I seeing all the hidden files in my home directory? Do they think I'm likely to want to save the file in ~/.klamav? Why does it assume I want to save in JPEG rather than PNG?

It's putting me off making the effort to learn it.

Re:Ugh

[NullProg]

The Blender team, unfortunately, is driven exclusively by the concerns of users who are experts in the field, not beginners.
My twelve year old learned to use it.

Its a good thing someone did some beginners tutorials.
http://www.blender.org/education-help/tutorials/ [blender.org]

Enjoy,

Re:Looks like they've made some improvements.

[Melbourne Pete]

I recently finished watching the six hours of Blender Basics tutorials at http://blenderunderground.com/video-tutorials/ [blenderunderground.com] and now I'm a convert. I absolutely hated the interface before (and by extension, the whole program), but now I'm confident, productive and actually enjoying the process of modelling in Blender. I can't recommend those tutorials highly enough.

Re:But...

[bh_doc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_it_blend [wikipedia.org]