Blender 2.46 Released 182
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!
Speed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blender... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:2, Insightful)
Blender is way easier to use than any other 3D app if you know what you're doing, you're simply used to proprietary apps and their demonstrably bad existing interfaces. You need to unlearn that.
Slow Down! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ugh (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't argue whether or not it's effective from the perspective of a person that "knows what they're doing", not being an artist myself.
I can argue though that I managed to pick up 3D Studio Max, install it, and punch out a relatively simple spaceship model for a game I was working on. I'd even say it was slightly better than typical programmer art, but that's me. I did this in about an hour. I did this without tutorials or having really touched 3DSM prior to that point. I had the option to try it and I did. I won't say the interface is brilliant, but it was at the very least obvious for basic things.
It took me a good part of that same hour just to figure out how I would achieve this in Blender because Blender's way is not obvious. I have to say I like Blender for what it is, I like the push to try something new, but not being an artist, I don't want to spend more time becoming familiar with something than the amount of time I'm actually going to spend using it.
It may be stupid, but there's something to be said for a program that's so dumb that even a person completely unfamiliar with the field can use it to do what they want without training.
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:1, Insightful)
Not only did the buggy whip makers refuse to accept the automobile's encroachment
into their marketplace, they also stuck to the notion that making a buggy whip is
and should be a difficult art, known only to a selected few, and taught only after
a prolonged apprenticeship.
Re:rendering could use gpgpu / cell support (Score:4, Insightful)
What I mean is, I just finished my senior seminar on CUDA a little less than a month ago and it's meant for doing what GPU's don't already do easily; they're already very good at graphics. Multiplying huge matrices on a Core 2 Duo can take 10 minutes whereas the same operation on a Quadro 5700 with my (not very good) CUDA kernel takes 30 seconds. That's some serious horsepower when applied properly, it's just that it's not the right thing to use very often. Also, CUDA kicks Cell's ass all day long on SIMD, especially on very large datasets.
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:5, Insightful)
For what it's worth, my daughter (10) tried blender just recently, and it wasn't the interface that made her give up, it was a lack of tutorials that matched the current version.
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:5, Insightful)
But there are very few F/OSS programs that would fill that gap (if there are any at all) and by implementing a "simple" mode which wouldn't take too long and wouldn't bloat the binary, it could fill that need, and it wouldn't just be limited to kids, adults who want to make simple 3-D models without spending hours reading tutorials and dealing with an unfamiliar interface would also help make it be popular.
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:4, Insightful)
For a start - what's a "buggy whip"? I know that Buggy is an americanism for Carriage, but what does the whip have to do with it, and what makes it a useful analogy for anything?
Also, using blender is easy. very easy, because the interface has been carefully designed to be productive. But if you've got a preconceived idea about how it should work, then maybe it might take reading a tutorial to get started. But if you're an experienced user, then you'll understand that every tool does things differently, and learn how Blender does things, or if you're not, then you'd need a tutorial anyway, so what's the problem?
Why should they cripple a productive interface so that the first five minutes are a little easier for someone who doesn't want to RTFM?
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gimp, whatever other peoples complaints about the interface, I can at least do things and come back with a product that, if not professional quality, I can look at with some pride and pleasure, and try to do something slightly more sophisticated using new features each time I work with it it. Am I good - Probably not. But I can *do* things with it.
Blender has never gotten to that point with me.
"Oh, look I made a cup in Blender!" - {G}
Pug
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:3, Insightful)
Complaining now, or complaining five years ago?
Gimp's interface used to be pretty dodgy. Not because it wasn't Photoshop, but because it was simply crude. It's improved a lot. People complaining about the Gimp's interface now haven't used it recently.
Blender's not in the same category at all.
Re:rendering could use gpgpu / cell support (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blender... (Score:3, Insightful)
But they're not misusing it. The very point is that "easy" and "intuitive" are not the same thing. A hammer is indeed intuitive. Its use it totally obvious and anyone can use it. Now, it may take some experience to use it with great precision, but that's not an issue of intuitiveness.
Re:Looks like they've made some improvements. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about "in crowd" it's about responding to the ACTUAL demands of someone who uses the program day in and day out.
I'm not going to say any program has a fantasic interface but that's partly because when people talk about "interface" they aren't talking about the button layout-- they're talking about the workflow. How the user moves from one task to another, how the program responds to actions you take, how a user can review and revise multiple versions, how a user can arrange data to their particular needs. These questions and solutions extend far beyond where you put a button or how a button is pressed. These are solutions that are largely determined by people who UNDERSTAND how the application is supposed to be used.
How you 'use' the application is the interface and that is why people complain about Gimp and Blender. The interfaces seem to be designed by people who don't understand how their program is used to create greate art.
Re:Those who say Blender is hard (Score:2, Insightful)
3D tools and weird custom interfaces (Score:3, Insightful)
I always thought this had to with the history of some of these tools in X-windows and the lack of standard widget toolkits, and maybe also because this makes porting the tools to other platforms? I'm curious why this is so prevalent in so many of these tools
The f*sking interface argument again (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two camps:
1. People who want 3DS MAX/Maya/Lighwave for FREE and Blender happens to be the closest thing... so take that an MAKE IT MAYA.
2. People who have been using Blender for many, many years and have come to either appreciate or at least get used to the speed that the interface allows... ONCE YOU KNOW IT!
Given that the interface HASNT changed much in all this time... perhaps its time for the GIVE ME MAYA FOR FREE crowd to go and write their own FOSS 3D app.
PS. For all those Blenderheads out there who haven't already seen it... check out www.indigorenderer.com for photorealism.
Re:Those who say Blender is hard (Score:4, Insightful)