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Graphics Software

Blender Goes Freeware 71

Posted by CmdrTaco from the the-third-dimension-comes-free dept.
xype writes "I just got a mail from NaN (the company developing Blender) that the new 1.8 release is out now - and it's freeware, without any "optional features one needs to pay for"! B@rt of NaN also gets into detail about NaN's plans around opensourcing parts of Blender." For those in the dark, Blender is a 3D Modeling/Rendering application for Linux [Update by nik: And FreeBSD (freebsd.org hosts the US mirror), and SGI, and Sun, and others]. Its not 3D Studio, but it'll do a lot of the same stuff.
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Blender goes Freeware; OpenSource plans Explained More

Blender goes Freeware; OpenSource plans Explained

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  • If my testimony didn't do it justice: slashdot did a review of the 2nd edition manual here [slashdot.org]

    Just checked out the site, happy about it not being crippleware anymore, but I do plan on buying the 3rd edition manual, which isn't shipping yet, and tutorial (anyone want my 2nd edition manual?).
  • Uh, what are you talking about?
    From http://www.opengl.org/Documentation/G LUT.html [opengl.org]

    The GLUT library has both C, C++ (same as C), FORTRAN, and Ada programming bindings. The GLUT source code distribution is portable to nearly all OpenGL implementations for the X Window System and Windows 9x/NT. GLUT also works well with Brian Paul's Mesa, a freely available implementation of the OpenGL API.

    The current version of the GLUT API is 3. The current source code distribution is GLUT 3.7.

    So, um...it's not opensource? Why can I download the source from here [sgi.com] then?


    One Microsoft Way

  • 3D on Linux (Score:3)

    by dsyu ( 203328 ) on Thursday June 22, 2000 @03:24PM (#981809) Homepage Journal
    Nice to see more real 3D animation apps becoming available on Linux, free or otherwise. Blender can join the somewhat illustrious company of But I have to wonder...how well is this going to work-out for NaN? The 3D Animation market as it currently stands is a relatively small market. Home users in general aren't 3D-savvy, and probably aren't going to become more-so any time soon. Production and Game houses typically have already invested time and money in a particular setup, and don't like to change. Giving it away free, or almost free, may actually work against NaN, believe it or not. A lot of houses equate free to "not well supported" I'm dubious of NaN's strategy, although I like the app, and I wish them luck.
  • Actually, once you get the hang of it it gets pretty easy to use. One hand on the mouse and one on the keyboard means it optimizes how quickly you can do things...read a few tutorials and you'll start to get the hang of it.


    One Microsoft Way

  • Re:OpenAL? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Blender 2.0, which they are releasing this month at SIGGRAPH is labeled "Game Blender"

    It will be a free game development platform/animation studio. So anyone can create OpenGL games. I take it these games will use sound :) , so this OpenAL library will be something not for this version 1.8, but the one coming out this summer.

    Game Blender might just revolutionize the game platform industry....
  • Blender was first and foremost developed as an inhouse animation tool, being pretty isn't at the top of the list. Tools like Lightwave 3D and 3D Studio Max are serious tools that cram an absolutely amazing amount of functionality into a single 21" screen and woe to you if you screen is smaller. Blender is comparable. Here there can't be enough hands. Mouse and keyboard work together - the buttons you see are actually just a tiny part of the functionality of Blender - there's no way it could perform all the tasks it needed to perform with just mouse-clicks. The app has modeling, animation, post-production and everything inbetween and beyond. Frankly, I think they really did a good job cramming the buttons in there. Many of the buttons are actually miniature sliders - click and move your mouse left or right to change the value or type a value in. That's some really neat stuff. And it's rendering is very quick. No complaints on this side. It'd be nice if they went totally GPL - but, frankly, I couldn't care less. I've paid far more for tools that did far less...

    BTW - There are command-line capabilities to explore as well as multi-node rendering. Nifty for a free animation suite.

    If you want something easy for an absolute beginner, keep looking. I'm sure there's a lot of simple modeling and rendering tools out there. Many are actually front-ends to POV. But if you're used to a little complexity, Blender is a breeze to use and real neat to explore...
  • OpenAT (http://www.openat.org) is the sound toolkit developed by Loki. Nice, but this is not something they're working on; they're just using it in Blender

    Actually, it's OpenAL (http://www.openal.org).


    One Microsoft Way
  • That's right. If you thought Gnome was easy to use, just wait till you try Indigo Magic. And I don't know what that comment about servers was supposed to mean, but can Linux scale to 512 processors in a single system image? I think not! As great as Linux might be, IRIX is far more friendly, scalable, stable, ....etc etc. But, SGI does see Linux's place. It is needed for those hackers out there in need of a cheap operating system.

    As far as blender is concerned, it runs much better on IRIX than Linux, simply due to the fact that it is natively accelerated by the hardware.
  • The interface isn't at all ugly, it's just efficient. You may not be used to it, but once you get the hang of the controls it works far better than most 3d programs. It is actually one of the more intuitive programs I've used once you get used to it.
  • > I've been lusting after the manual and tutorial book, but I think I'll wait until 2.0 comes out.

    I can just say: Yeah, blender's really cool, but I recommend buying the 1.80 manual now, because it's REALLY worth the money. And further on 2.0 won't be out until very late of this year and maybe the 2.x series will be a lot different...
    And last but not least: The manual really LOOKS cool! :-)

  • The opensourcing part is interesting.Does it help to port it to run on beowulf clusters,so we that we can have really fast rendering machine.(if the porting is possible, of course ;) ). -lz
  • Posted by pixel designs:

    I recently made an image with blender, I still need to do some corrections which I left out,
    but here is the link to an explanation as well as the link to the image:
    http://www.blender.nl/ne ws-blender/shw_item.ws?di_id=36099 [blender.nl]
    If you feel that you want to skip the explanation then here is the link to the image:
    http://www.quakeclan.ne t/fallenones/render/kitchenstuff.jpg [quakeclan.net]

    No raytracing was used in this image, and it was totally done within blender,
    there are better examples out there on the web, for instance, check out Randall Rickert's works:
    http://www.rickert-digital.com/ [rickert-digital.com]
    Also, please check out Hiroshi Saito's works:
    http://www.dims.or.jp/blender/blender _jp.html [dims.or.jp]
    An old NaN production:
    diditdoneit.mpg [blender.nl]
    xype:
    http://www.xype.com/ [xype.com]

    There is also extensive FREE documentation on blender, especially on NaN's ftp [blender.nl], for example:
    Blender basics, like, how to tackle the interface [blender.nl]

    One shouldn't forget that there is lots of tutorials out there too,
    there is a blender links site that links to most of them:
    http://www.redrival.com/rash/links.htm [redrival.com]

  • If you do a search for "linux" on newtek's website you get zero matches.

  • I have used Blender, and seen it make some good progress from its earlier versions.

    Apparently more then you've taken the time to find out:

    Cycle-based animation tools. AND IK would be nice, but not essential

    This has been in Blender since before I started using it about two years ago.

    Subdivision Surfaces

    This has been available for several months.

    UV Mapping

    This has been available for a couple of months now also.

    have move/rotate/scale tools accessible from a wireframe globe that appears at the objects center

    Blender doesn't have this... but I don't see why you'd want it, you can use the keyboard to perform these actions faster.

    Realtime playback - be able to preview animations in realtime smoothly with a variable frame rate. Be able to selectively toggle GL/Wireframe for groups of objects. (blender may already support this)

    Well, Blender is close here. There is a realtime playback in either wireframe, GL, or GL textured views. But there is no variable framerate for this playback that I know of.

    Just my 2 cents.

    -ictatha

  • One amazing thing I have seen is an MPEG by NaN called "diditdoneit.mpg". It was made in '98 or '99 to showcase everything that blender could do. It is unfortunately a 36Mb download, but it's definitely worth it if you really want to see what it can do.

    The MPEG is available at the FreeBSD blender mirror site [freebsd.org], or if not you can find it at ftp.blender.nl [blender.nl], but please, be nice, because I don't think they want their little IAE connection to be slashdotted by people d/ling 36Mb files!!

  • It's good to see them re-using the wheel (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm sick of the bug that won't let me post this as myself.

    I am "PD" for the record.

    The solid collision detection library that they are using is really nice. I used it in my (now suspended) open source project "Free Trek". I found it to be a really nice library, with excellent performance.

    Setup of the objects is *exactly* like the setup of objects for OpenGL. Basically you place objects, rotate them, translate them, just like you would with OpenGL. Once you have your scene all set up, you just call a function and it spits out a list of objects that are colliding. You just can't get any sweeter than that.

    If you need collision detection, I recommend this library very strongly.

  • ye gods - a 3D newbie Blender is pretty powerful, but if you can't appreciate Lightwave's power, pick up a copy of Ray Dream or something "easy." before dissing a 3D prog's interface, consider how many users create marvels with it and how many shows use it. the market usually eliminates those with crummy GUIs, anyway.

  • Blender Rulez (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've been using Blender (altho not so activly) for almost two years now, and i was pretty amased from the begining. You've mentioned it's not 3D Studio - I can say it might be better.

    Explanation:
    It is only 1 Mb compresed. It loaded instanteniously on my machine - compared to 3D MAX that takes two minutes or so on the same machine.It has almost every feature that 3D MAX has, only not so perfect, maybe. I'm no pro, but I can do everything in Blender that I can do in 3D MAX.

    Interface might look very complicated, and it is. For the firt week that is. Later, You get so used to it and things are very well organized. I just tried a new version, and am happy with new scripting support that fell into my eyes :)

    It also has a feature similar to Adobe Premiere (3D MAX has it also) and it was very, very usefull at one point of my life (i needed to complete some video for school project) - saved my ass (censor me if you dare)

    p.s. i'm in a hurry so do not mind my inglish, mean english
  • I hear ya, but Blender needs to do what most popular 3D progs do - integrate the numerical entry as part of the UI, like Lightwave or Maya.
  • a render daemon is a invaluable tool for those who do professional work and having one in open source or free is a big step in reducing costs for studios. think before you display a total ignorance of the subject.
  • renderers don't use hardware acceleration, save for the processor and memory.
  • A/W only makes a maya renderer for Linux. I wish they ported the whole thing.

  • linux isn't even a true Unix

    Being not a true UNIX® system [unix-systems.org] lets the GNU system [gnu.org] (the system that runs on the Linux® kernel) be both good and free; UNIX system vendors have to pay royalties [opengroup.org].

    BTW, www.opengroup.org runs Solaris, a UNIX system [opengroup.org].
  • Amazing how every post I've made that has been moderated, has been moderated down as Overrated. This can't be coincidence.

    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • I used to moan about the interface quite a bit...but what I realized was that it wasn't so much the interface that I had a problem with, but a lack of some basic tools. Even without these, Blender is a very capable piece of software...it's just that with them, efficiency would improve dramatically.
  • I personally like Blender as a tool for creating stills, and since it doesn't do ray tracing, sometimes its a bit of a challenge to make things look as good as you'd like. Just the same, it seems to me that with the soon-to-be-released GameBlender, NaN isn't even after the same market segment as Maya, Houdini, and others. My hope is that NaN will continue to support the interests of both camps...those who see blender as a modeling/rendering/animation app, and those who see it as a game development app.
  • Trademarks are adjectives anyway, so why not give it the subject "SOLID library" or something.
  • Granted, Blender's UI isn't too "easy to learn", but I think it works wonderfully once you have the hang of it! Yes, it should be more obvious and there would be a good need for online help...

    And hey, now that Blender doesn't have the C-key anymore, they'll need the income from the manual sales [blender.nl], anyway =)

  • Then you haven't toyed with Max/Lightwave enough to know that Blender, in it's current incarnation, offers little in the way of competition.

    I have used Blender, and seen it make some good progress from its earlier versions. I think it has a bright future, and i am keen to use it myself, but theres just no way it can currently replace my 3D tools. (Lightwave, Hashs Animation Master)

    The animation tools aren't intuitive at all, the modelling tools leave a hell of a lot to be desired - NURBS/Splines are next to useless for complex work without blends/trims, and theres no support for subdivision-surface modelling/animation in any useful form (sure you can subdivide a model, but then youre stuck with that complex polygonal geometry, and can't manipulate the original 'cage' object.

    The renderer is just plain bad compared to Max, and way, way behind Lightwave's awesome renderer. RIB output for BMRT would be good.

    What blender needs is to concentrate on a market, like game modelling/animation (this is, apparently, exactly what they are doing) and provide specialised tools for this market.

    What i want to see is the following: (in no particular order)

    Cycle-based animation tools. Make it simpler to create seamless walk, fight, die cycles in Blender than in any other package. IK would be nice, but not essential, as i would prefer to have a great cycle editor, even if i was restricted to FK.

    Subdivision Surfaces - Model and animate with low-res cages and output multi-resolution meshes for game content. Ditch Splines/NURBS etc, cos they basically suck, especially for animation.

    UV Mapping - Be able to unwrap meshes for painting in the GIMP etc. Procedural textures are next-to-useless for game stuff, so don't focus on them.

    When you select an object, have move/rotate/scale tools accessible from a wireframe globe that appears at the objects center (A/W has a name for this but i forget it)

    Onion skin - be able to show next/previous frames of an animation sequence 'ghosted' in the view window.

    Interpolation - have multiple methods of angle interpolation. i.e. Avoid gimbal lock at all costs. Be able to easily toggle between rotating an object in local and world coordinates.

    Object morphing tied to the skeleton- be able to edit an object at vertex level, and tie those changes to the rotation/translation/scale of a bone. i.e. for bulging muscles, good looking joints that deform smoothly over a wide range of motion.

    Realtime playback - be able to preview animations in realtime smoothly with a variable frame rate. Be able to selectively toggle GL/Wireframe for groups of objects. (blender may already support this)

    If blender had all that stuff, then it would be really useful to me, and to a lot of other people too.

  • I don't think that's supported currently. I know the developers are looking at increasing the number of game-oriented formats it will export but already people have written exporters themselves (using Python). You can export UV coords for textures as well.

    Off the top of my head, VRML, Wavefront, DXF are natively exported and 3ds, 3DSMax and some others can be done using Python. XRacer - a WipeOut clone - uses Blender for its modelling. Check out the source which includes all the export scripts here [annexia.org].

  • Blender freeware... an odd move ? (Score:3)

    by Vapula ( 14703 ) on Thursday June 22, 2000 @10:38PM (#981837)
    I've been following Blender for a while. I'm no 3D designing people but I found it interresting and I tested about every release since 1.54.

    What was said from the beginning is that the new features would need the C-Key to be used but also that these feature would go free after some time...

    Indeed, Plugins and other features went free as new features appear, needing the C-Key.

    At first, the MS Windows version of Blender needed a B-Key to be really used (in order to allow saving). Then, the MS Windows version came to the same status that the Unix one... You only needed to pay for the bleeding edge functionnalities.

    The features made free in 1.8 have been worked on for a long time and IMHO, it's about the time they would have been freed anyway. So, let's see if in the future there will be new feature you'll have to pay for (whatever thay'll be)

    But Blender being available for free is a smart move. When it started to be available, it was said to be the in-house 3D tool of NeoGeo. So, making it free allows people to learn how to use it, to make feedback,...

    And this is great for NeoGeo... Now, if they need 3D graphist for their game development, thay may really ask them to be able to use Blender (when the program was not distributed, these people needed to be teached how to do it... and that is a costly process).

    This is also good as it provides them a great feedback from users, allowing to find bugs easier, to have information about what would be useful (not wasting time to implement unneeded stuff),...

    It's also some kind of advertizing for themself... How many people did come to their WWW site for blender then follow the link to NeoGeo ?

    And it made a little profit by itself, thank to the buying of B and C-keys and of manuals.

    So, if you think of Blender as a 3D tool, it may seems not rentable, if you think of blender as the in-house tool of NeoGeo, the point of view may change...

  • Re:Interface.... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > First thing to work on - the interface. Has
    > anyone tried to do anything with Blender? It's
    > the ugliest and least intuitive thing
    > I've ever seen. Lightwave and 3D studio aren't
    > a whole lot better....but there _is_ room for
    > improvement.

    You are missing the point. I've been a Blender user and supporter (manual buyer, C-Key purchaser) for a year and in that time I've come to love the blender interface. It may sound odd but the purpose of 3D modelling programs interfaces is zero-thought operation, not "intutitive" operation.

    When you are modelling a scene/object/sequence the one thing you never want to think about is the user-interface, you expect to learn the interface at the start and then operate it w/o thinking. "Intuitive" interfaces are generally aimed at non-professional users to allow easy entry to the application, once you've learned the interface 100% those "intuitive" bits tend to slow you down.

    3D modelling is a very complex disicpline, so the audience it serves are quite willing to put up with a steep learning curve at the start to gain the speed and no-thought, imagination-to-screen transfer.


  • It is actually one of the more intuitive programs I've used once you get used to it.



    intuition n. (knowledge obtained from) an ability to understand or know something immediately without needing to think about it, learn it or discover it by using reason.



    I've seen and used Blender's interface, and as almost everybody commenting on the article mentions, it is a real bugger to learn. I've never fully managed to. A lot of people have mentioned how it is "intuitive once you learn it". That is a contradiction in terms. Intuitive interfaces are simple, almost child's play, to learn - without manuals or hours upon hours of practice and experimentation. That is what "intuitive" means.

    The interface can, however, very well be good even though it isn't intuitive. Take vi, take emacs. Both have un-intuitive interfaces, but they are still good.

    The difficult part of interface design is making an interface that is expert-friendly, but without being newbie-hostile. Intuitive and expert-friendly in one interface is the stuff that makes killer-apps.

    Now, most 3D-apps do not need to be friendly to the newcomer. Their main revenue comes from serious 3D-artists who are used to complex interfaces and who do not mind an interface taking three weeks to learn. Also, since they all have difficult-to-learn interfaces, you get very loyal customers. If it takes three weeks to learn any other tool, you don't unless you really have to.

    What would happen if e.g. Blender got a intuitive interface that was still expert-friendly (such interface can be done, they are just a lot more difficult to design), and also got a lot of really cool features? Perhaps professional artists would try it out, it wouldn't cost them very much time to do that. Perhaps we would also find that a lot of people who are not 3D-designers tried Blender and created marvels with it. If you don't think you're good, you'll never take the weeks to learn it.

    That could be a killer-app for Linux if I ever saw one. :-)

  • From the email Ton sent out to c-key owners:

    Later, you will also get a pretty nice discount at the Blender 2.0 boxed version (manual, tutors, cdrom) to be released in november.

    blender 2.0 will make money from this boxed set. Sounds like a linux distro model.

    I cannot wait for my tutorial guide!

  • This is great news, but I couldn't help but think that more and more each day, Linux is starting to take to the role of Irix. As in, a desktop unix designed for productivity, instead of a massive server platform. Not that I'm complaining.
  • B@rt of NaN also gets into detail about NaN's plans around opensourcing parts of Blender.

    Yes, this is good news. Yes, this is exciting news. I won't argue that. But this sounds like the company isn't entirely convinced that the open source route is the way to go.

    It's encouraging that this is happening, but disheartening to see that they still want to keep some parts secret.

  • *leech*

    hmm, looks like most of the mirrors don't have the new version. ah, well.

    blender is _really_ cool software. i just wish it would work with my voodoo3. they say that glide doesn't support enough of opengl for it to work well.

    anyways... plug plug. blender rocks.

    --

  • There already is a Win32 version [blender.nl], along with BeOS [blender.nl], Solaris [blender.nl], etc [blender.nl]. This looks pretty cool.. cross platform, free and all...
  • First thing to work on - the interface. Has anyone tried to do anything with Blender? It's the ugliest and least intuitive thing I've ever seen. Lightwave and 3D studio aren't a whole lot better....but there _is_ room for improvement.
  • They modified GLUT? Tricky, since it isn't Open Source. Wonder if they made a deal, or were just unaware of the problem. Check out freeglut [sourceforge.net] for an Open alternative.

  • I don't understand Non-Free "freeware" (Score:5)

    by Sleepy ( 4551 ) on Thursday June 22, 2000 @05:27PM (#981847) Homepage
    I am glad this is freeware, but there's some drawbacks.

    Because this is "free enough" for people who don't care about freedom, there will not be enough real demand for a good, GPL or even BSD licensed 3D app. Look at the legions of POVRAY users.. although it's a good app, it's matured slowly *because* the authors are not prepared to "let go", or lead. Another example is VRML... we HAVE VRML viewers, but they're binary things and they suck. This plays right into the hands of companies like Microsoft, who every 9 months announce a new 3D format (which has yet to materialize, but vaporware still does freeze the market).

    I respect people's right to choose their own licenses, but to me proprietary freeware is worst than shareware. Anyone ever look at the work plowed into mIRC for Windows? What a *waste* of time (and apparently, years of someone's life).

    I'll still gladly download the new version. I hope I can actually import an ASCII camera path animation so I can attempt a real "match move" with it. It ain't Alias/Wavefront's Maya, but after Houdini this is the premiere 3D app for Linux.

  • 3D Apps and Linux (Score:3)

    by WombatControl ( 74685 ) on Thursday June 22, 2000 @05:42PM (#981848)
    Well, I've used Blender, and I find two things about it I dislike.
    - The interface
    - The rendering engine

    Now, that doesn't mean that it's not worth getting - you can't really beat it for the price. But those who say it can compete with the likes of LightWave and 3D Studio are decieving themselves. Blender needs a lot of work, and going the open source route is probably a good decision for getting that done. Here's a few of the features that Blender would need to be competitive:

    - Volumetrics (Something akin to LightWave's Hyper Voxels or Afterburn would be good to see.)
    - Better shader support, and better shaders (Once again, there are some very good OSS shaders available, all someone would need to do port them over. This could be a good project for someone looking for one.)
    - Better interface. (Personally, I like the LightWave/Softimage style of dialogs rather than the cluttered look of other programs. In the end, the ability to customize the interface would probably be the best course of action.)
    - Better render engine (Things like better lighting and antialiasing need to be implemented before Blender can hit the big times. Even better would be support for things like radiosity.)

    Blender represents a good first step towards 3D on Linux. With some of the things I mentioned above, and other enhancements, it could very well come to challenge other 3D packages. If I had the time and the ability I'd love to work on some of these things myself. Still, there are a lot of OSS programmers who will invariably see the opportunities here and jump on them. That should show people why open development is a superior method of software engineering!
  • If its not good (i.e. free) enough for GNU people then that is their problem. I would point out that the level of free'ness is more crucial at the foundation/library/OS level than further up.

    Furthermore, if the non-GPL'd ness of this product actively encourages development of a potential killer product for free platforms then that is all the better.

    The question that should sit in GPL people's mind is what would happen if development would slow down or cease, so that commercial support is no longer possible.

    In -that- case there would be a strong argument for a GPL style release, but in its current state I see no problem.
    John
  • So, um...it's not Open Source. You can download it from that link because the source code is available under a non-Open Source license. The GLUT license notoriously disallows distributing modified copies, as has been discussed endlessly on the various OpenGL-related mailing lists. You might want to follow the freeglut [sourceforge.net] link, or take a look at the Open Source definition [opensource.org].
  • Because this is "free enough" for people who don't care about freedom, there will not be enough real demand for a good, GPL or even BSD licensed 3D app

    Blender is already a professional quality 3D modelling and animation package. They are committed to making the best quality product possible while keeping it free of charge to their users. Also you should note that the founder has promised [blender.nl] to relicense Blender under the GPL if the company should fail. The evidence so far shows that the developers have not fallen into any of the traps/evils of closed-source software: so we are getting the best of both worlds-- although coders cannot submit patches at the moment, the Python API is open and the developers responsive to suggestion. If that situation ever changes, we've got the main man's guarantee that we'll see the code.
  • Why would you criticize NaN for not completely OpenSource 'ing the entire package? Releasing the source on _ANYTHING_ is good. Lets welcome their efforts and congratulate them for their forward thinking and courage.

    Is 'OpenSource' not a 'community' where all are welcome to contribute?

  • Actually, the interface is one of the things that most regular Blender users like most. I DID NOT find it intuitive at first, but once I spent some time learning Blender, I don't think I'd give it up easily. I can do things in Blender much faster that I can in other engines just because of the way it is designed. Though it doesn't seem easy at first, it was put together so that you can reach the important functions quickly.

    Not to mention, I don't know about Lightwave but 3D studio isn't exactly cheap, much less free.

  • It is not soon to be free as in speech. According to an e-mail from the author, they have decided not to free blender. One reason is because the author wants to force everyone to use his UI, and he is afraid that others will change it (it's considered pretty cryptic). Another reason (I've heard this one a lot) is that he doesn't want to support it. This seems like something that the Free Software community needs to work on.


    -Dave Turner.
  • Thank god! 3D Studio has one of the nastiest user interfaces I've ever seen in a 3D program.

    Give me Lightwave anyday. :)

    On-topic, I've played with Blender, and it seems quite cool. I have yet to try anything big in it though. Does anyone know if there are any large projects that have been done with Blender? I'd be interested in seeing some info...

    :wq!

  • It will be a free game development platform/animation studio. So anyone can create OpenGL games.

    So if someone has OpenGL and a modeler he can create games? "OpenGL = game engine" is one of the persistant myths of recent times. Even if you used OpenGL to write a renderer, or even if you used Crystal Space or something else canned, you still have 90% of the work ahead of you.
  • Ummm... When did you last use blender? Radiosity has been there for ages..

    See the partial list of blender features [blender.nl]

  • And Linux. Now a combo linux hacker/Modelling hobbyist has no excuse to use linux full time, having a competent and free modelling program they don't have to pirate or shell out $3500 and still use windows. Modelling is a great hobby. Thank you NaN for giving us a great tool.

  • Lightwave! (Score:1)

    by DG ( 989 )
    The only thing I really miss from my Amiga is Lightwave. And I have the PC V5.0, but WINE won't run it.

    Have NewTek commented on plans to do Lightwave for Linux?

  • Far from being just "for Linux" as the article suggests, Blender is available [blender.nl] on Irix, Solaris, FreeBSD x86, Linux x86, Linux Alpha, Linux PPC, BeOS x86, and of course Windows 95/98/NT.

    The web site [blender.nl], should you choose to read it, has all kinds of tutorials and manuals. Very awesome especially since it is free.

  • What they are and what they are not (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    SOLID is a collision detection toolkit. Useful to have, and I don't know of any other open-source alternatives out there already.

    "Windows Toolkit" is Yet Another Windowing Toolkit. The good part about it is that it is crossplatform, working on both X and Windows. Not a duplicate because C doesn't have that many toolikits that are STABLE on both platforms.

    OpenAT (http://www.openat.org) is the sound toolkit developed by Loki. Nice, but this is not something they're working on; they're just using it in Blender.

    Blender Render Daemon - Insignificant. Lets you distribute your rendering jobs so you can have, say, 10 idle machines do your rendering late at night. Nice, but it's not a major part of Blender and it's not much of an innovation anyway.

    So, all in all, they're releasing a few things and making a huge fuss about it. Some of these are really cool and helpful but don't go on about open-source Blender itself.

    MostlyHarmless posting anonymously because of a weird quirk in the comment form

  • POVRay (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is another 3d renderer for many systems that is already open sourced: POVRay [povray.org].

    I use it myself, and it is very nice. It doesn't use hardware acceleration, which would be nice, but it renders beautifully. If you're into 3d and don't know about it, check it out immediately.

    Okay.. this sucks. I've been repeatedly trying to post this as me (i am drrobin_) but I am getting "Unknown Error While Posting". So I'm gonna try doing it as AC.

  • Your Voodoo 3 should work fine in XFree86 4. The Voodoo3/Banshee drivers for XFree86 4 support OpenGL-in-a-window unlike the X 3.3* drivers. And I know that the latest win95/98 Banshee reference drivers from 3dfx support rendering in OpenGL in a window (Driver wise, Banshees are very similar to Voodoo3s). I use a Banshee, and while I 'm still running XFree 3.3.6, I know that the latest win32 drivers run Blender beautifully in win95.
  • I have toyed with blender on and off now for over a year or two, and I am willing to say (with experience in 3dStudio, and Alias Animator both of varying versions) That blender is at least as powerful and possibly more so than offerings for commercial products.
    However, it's interface is very difficult to learn -- those of you who like VI, Emacs, or any other "real" programmers editors, I think you will be quite happy though. The blender interface was designed for speed, not ease of use. The learning curve has an infinite slope, but takling that, in a draw vs one of the other commercial offersings, a blender user will be the one standing with the smoking mouse and keyboard.

    Great work NAN, I for one have been looking forward to this.

  • Excellent (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sweet, I've been looking for a 3D rendering program for Linux that wasn't POVRay. I guess now I'll have to dust off my "things to create 3D renderings of" list.

    BTW, here's an intro page for Blender [blender.nl], with some nifty screen caps and basic info on what blender is, etc.


    Argh! Damnit, when I tried posting this non-anonymously, I got

    There was an unknown error in the submission.

    Thank you very much Mr. Slashcode, may I have another?

  • Do you still need to buy the manual to be productive with it? I thought that's how they made money before.
  • And I'll buy it again, it's a wonderful tutorial on 3d modelers as it explains all the buttons and wussits.

    I haven't enough CPU to do real work (need that new machine soon), but I will but another updated version of the book, and would gladfully buy blender itself when I have the hardware to really play around in it.

    The people who are writting cheap/free alternatives for software that is charged in the thousands (rdbms,graphics), should be supported. We don't need no mo barriers.

    NaN, keep up the good work, and expect my money soon ;)
  • Small point of contention -- POVRay is mainly a renderer. Blender is a full 3D Animation application. In the graphics world, that's comparing apples with, well, apple-pie, perhaps. Folks interested in POVRay should also check-out Blue Moon Rendering Toolkit [bmrt.org], an excellent free (well, okay, shareware, but free for non-commercial use) renderer that does radiosity.

  • Rockin'! (Score:3)

    by FascDot Killed My Pr ( 24021 ) on Thursday June 22, 2000 @03:08PM (#981869)
    When I first heard about blender, I thought "that sounds cool, I'll try it". So I d/l'd and was shocked--at the poor (and poorly documented) UI.

    But the coolness made me persevere. And man, am I ever glad. Blender is just about the coolest thing since sliced bread. And the UI is actually easy to use once you get used to it. It's very consistent--it just has a whole different paradigm (like buttons that act like sliders or that do different things depending on which edge you press on). Once you realize how much screen real estate is being saved just by relearning a few key mappings you will marvel at the mind that came up with it all.

    I've been lusting after the manual and tutorial book, but I think I'll wait until 2.0 comes out.

    To anyone thinking of trying it: Do it now! Even if you have no artistic skills (like me) you will have more fun than sex in a hottub (believe me, I know).
    --
  • Anyone ever look at the work plowed into mIRC for Windows? What a *waste* of time (and apparently, years of someone's life).


    Huh? I don't see where you get off saying that someone who has devoted their time to making a cool app for the love of it and given it for "gratis" (if not "liber") is a *waste* of their time. If he enjoyed doing it, good for him. If he wants to give the binaries away good for him. Nobody *owes* anybody source. If you don't like it, don't use it (BitchX is just fine, thank you), and get off his wave. Sheesh. Some people.

    Yes, there is a threat in setting an "almost-free" precedent. But that threat is coming from the big boys like Sun and Apple. Not some guy making some app at home.
  • Before blender was released to the public, it was used inhouse for NeoGeo, the company that started NaN. They were using to make games. I believe there have been some games made for CD-I as well as the PlayStation. If you download the "tutor"-xxx.tar.gz from their ftp-server, you'll some pretty neat things that have been done by the company with blender. especially ride.blend is pretty cool. -- ar0n
  • I've used Blender since about version 1.5 or so. And yes, previous posters have stated that "No, the interface isn't intuitive". Right. It isn't. Blender has a rather formidable UI Learning curve. But compared to Alias/Maya, Lightwave, even 3d Studio, there really -aren't- any good 3d modeling programs that are of this caliber, -and- user friendly/intuitive.

    But, for the price, even for the C-Key price, its the most powerful 3d package I've ever seen. Sure, its not Maya, or what have you. But neither is that price tag. Plus it'll run on Most any current day OS. (Irix, Solaris, FreeBSD, Linux (x86|Alpha|PPC), Beos, and Windows are listed. Unlike 3dsMax or what have you. I'm -glad- that theres a really formidable 3d package available for FreeBSD|Linux. More applications like this are what I think these OS'es need. Gimp, StarOffice, Blender... Shows the OS is good for getting more than "That geek programming stuff" done. Art can be made.

    Yes, the UI is not the best. But like all UI's it -does- take time to get used to. (check Excellent Whale's [home.iae.nl] home page for a list of the keystrokes. Blender uses nearly every available key. Plus the basics (move, rotate) are available as mouse click/drag swoops on the screen. There are a few kinks.. But every system has kinks.

    Not counting the fact that its distributions are -tiny- (1.0M tgz for my FreeBSD, 1.1M zip for Windows). Ever check the size of Maya/Lightwave/3dsMax? Not counting that it runs sweet, and has never even once crashed on Win98.

    I recommend it. Its not an easy learning curve. But perhaps this is not a bad thing.

    -Ryan
  • A/W only makes a maya renderer for Linux. I wish they ported the whole thing. Ah, I didn't realize this...thanks for pointing this out. Seems odd that they'd make a big deal about porting Maya to MacOS, but wouldn't port to Linux, given that a Linux port from IRIX sources would probably be easier. Oh well.
  • You can use Mikado's excellent 3ds export script to export a Blender scene into 3ds, and from there any small Quake modeling tool can convert it to Quake format. Copy it from chat.carleton.ca/~rmckay /3d/scripts/3DSFormat.blend [carleton.ca].
    DeMoN has also written a preliminary md2 export script; available from members.xoom.com/chwillrich/ [xoom.com], under the "other projects" link.
  • not sure you would count this or not. but rhino3d works fine via wine (with a slight performance hit)

    Hmm...I consider Rhino [rhino3d.com] more of a modeler, less of a full-fledged 3D Animation app. It's a great modeler, btw. You can't do animation in it, however.

    Based on what I garnered from Bob, Michael and other folks at McNeel during Rhino beta testing, I doubt they're planning on making a non-Win32 port anytime soon...
  • The Game market is definitely the smart route to take. High-end 3D markets are pretty flat -- a typical film effects house will buy a few copies of soft [softimage.com] and be done for the year.

    I have to point out however that both Maya and Houdini are actively trying to get into the Game market. A/W, in particular, is actively pushing Maya into the game market with "discounts" for current 3DS MAX users, almost to the point of annoyance. GameBlender should be pretty cool.

  • Blender has lots going for it... (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 22, 2000 @01:40PM (#981877)
    I'm a very happy C-key user. I paid to get all the features plus a stunning manual which helped over the learning curve. I'm very happy to see NaN has used that financial support to make those features completely free (as in beer). C-key users get a bonus though - a gift-wrapped Tutorial Guide as a way of saying thanks.

    Blender isn't quite there yet for game development and commercial character animation but the progress it has made so far is incredible. NaN say Game Blender (v 2.0) out in November this year will address the needs of game developers much more specifically a la character modelling, skins and the like.

    But in the meantime, here are the benefits of the package (as I see them):

    * kick-butt all-round cool 3d modeller, renderer and animator suite
    * it's a whopping 1 Mb download
    * Free as in Beer with Free as in Speech in the works
    *runs on SGI Irix 5.3/6.x, Sun Solaris 2.6, FreeBSD , Linux x86, Linux Alpha, PPC Linux Macs, BeOS, Windows 95/98/NT
    * has been used for commercial (i.e. studio quality) animations and TV ads so it's not Mickey Mouse
    * very nice to use once you understand how it works
    * exports a range of file formats
    * built-in post processing and sequence editing
    * built-in Python scripting (you can do anything with this feature)
    * supports hardware acceleration
    * plugins
    * the developers listen on the mailing list and take people's feature requests seriously
    * I could go on and on here...

    See it for yourself and decide...

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