Blender 2.66 Released

First time accepted submitter hochl writes "The Blender Foundation has announced a new release of the popular, free 3D design program Blender. From the release page: The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.66. This release contains long awaited features like rigid body physics simulation, dynamic topology sculpting and matcap display. Other new features include Cycles hair rendering, support for high pixel density displays, much better handling of premultiplied and straight alpha transparency, a vertex bevel tool, a mesh cache modifier and a new SPH particle fluid dynamics solver."

Usability

[SplashMyBandit]

Good on the Blender crew for plugging away at it. When I saw "UI and Usability" my heart leapt, until I saw that was about Retina. The UI in Blender is pretty much the best example of how not to design a UI. The UI has grown by evolution and not by sensible design. Every time I have to use Blender I wish for something better - not in terms of features (although improved reliability of import and export formats would be nice), but in terms of usability. Navigation is loathsome and I find to be troublesome as UI panels don't seem logically arranged to me (its hard to get from import to 3D view and back using menus, so you have to remember the accelerators instead). I hope that someone takes the bull by the horns and rationalizes the Blender UI (sorry, my development time is on another project).

UI

[Anonymous Coward]

Since 2.5 came out Blender's UI has improved incredibly. I now prefer it to tools like 3ds Max and Maya, which feel clunky by comparison. And anyone who says Blender is a toy and can't be used for serious projects clearly doesn't know what they are talking about. Blender can read/write most formats, has excellent rigging and animation tools, an incredible compositor, integrated video editing, UV editing, sculpting, remeshing tools, motion tracking, soft and hard body simulation, hair, network rendering, several renderers available, including the new (excellent) cycles renderer, the list goes on and on. It has improved FBX support now, which means it integrates with most game engine asset pipelines seamlessly. Plus it has fairly easy-to-pick-up python scripting built-in, which means whatever you need that isn't there you can hack in without too much work.

Unlike many OSS projects, the blender foundation does a really good job of accepting patches, and creating branches for what seem at first to be random ideas, that quickly develop into can't-live-without features. And yes, that does lead to some bloat, but so what -- it's still a fraction of the size of 3dsMax, and far more functional in most areas.

Seriously, if you haven't tried Blender since 2.49, you haven't used blender at all.

Heh, captcha "approval"

Re:Usability

[sg_oneill]

Pretty much how Max, Maya or Cinema4d are doing it. You should be able to open a new program and see at a glance how the basic operations are performed, and if you can't find out how to do it without consulting a manual. Blender is the only 3d software I know where its impossible to learn without a manual.

UI design isn't a black art, its a science with a lot of research behind it and its abundantly clear the blender team never consulted with it. Its an undoubtably power piece of software, and with inbuilt sculpting and matchmoving (I think), it may well be one of the most powerful 3D pieces of software on the market. But if nobody knows how to use the damn thing, it'll never achieve its goal of bringing that power to the masses.

Tough decisions need to be made that will disrupt the comfort of the power users by adjusting for workflow and ease of learning. My understanding is that blender can be operated well with a keyboard, and that doesn't need to change at all since keyboard shortcuts are largely non-discoverable. But The UI needs a massive redesign to create discoverability for new users.

Re: Usability

[deathguppie]

Are you even talking about the same product? Or have you actually tried Blender in the last few years? The non overlapping window layout can be modified any way that you desire. Import is on the main file menu in the upper right hand corner at all times.. You can even change the key keymapping to that of Maya with one click in the preferences. I understand when people have valid complaints about products, but what you are saying neither makes any sense or is in any way even truthful.

how bout them changelogs?

[X0563511]

How about linking to the changelog [blender.org] instead of directly to the download page? Or even better, both?

Re:Usability

[kayoshiii]

the x and delete keys do exactly the same thing in blender. x is also available because delete is a common operation and x is in the part of the keyboard where the left hand normally sits

OSS graphics tools

[jones_supa]

While the desktop is always a bit broken, at least the open source graphics tools for Linux are excellent.

- Blender
- Inkscape
- Gimp

There might be some certain enterprise features missing, but the tools are not "broken" in any way. The pack is completely usable for semi-professional work right now.

This works, and should be improved even further.

Re:Sometimes open source loses ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Blender manual claims it has been usable since 1994. If it is still inferior after everyone has had the source code for nearly 20 years then your argument has failed.

The only failure here is your total lack of any research.

  Blender was a closed source program for roughly the first ten years of its life. The company, NaN (Not a Number), inc. was one of those profitable small businesses that got caught in the fallout from the dotcom collapse, and went under. They had begun Blender as an in-house tool for their own artists, but began selling it in the latter years; the folks who bought Blender and loved it managed to raise the cash to purchase the source code and copyrights from the now-defunct NaN, and released it as open source.

  It was a small community working on it until the past few years.