Blender - Free 3d Animator

[hippiman 0]

I did a quick search of the forum to see if there was anything about Blender, and I found a bunch of topics with it in them, but there were no reviews of it.

So, if you've ever wanted a pretty easy-to-learn, free way to make 3d animations, or just 3d images, I think Blender's for you.

Link to Blender

There are a lot of examples on the site, and the best one I've found is Elephants Dream.

They used all free software to make it, and Blender was the main program.

It's relatively easy to make models and skeletons for them, and you can use Yafray(Yet Another Free Ray Tracer) to make it render faster, and I think it has more options.

There are plenty of tutorials online for it, and if you already have experience with other animation programs, it's almost the same thing, but free.

The user interface is sweet! You can split the windows however many times you want, and use them for whatever you want. You can use more than one monitor, too, and have it display the 3d views on one, and the options and stuff on the other. It's like the most customizable UI I've ever seen.

If you ever want to do anything having to do with animation, you should look at it. You can do almost anything already, and if theres something you want to do that you can't find, there are ways to use Python scripts to do whatever you want.

[kab012345 0]

I used to use Blender 3D (and some similar other programs) on my mom's old computer. Now, I use a program called gmax. Its the low - tech and free version of Autodesk's 3ds Max (Which is as low as $795 to as high as $3,495 ; It is used my many big game developing studios/comanies), since that is the program that I am using at school in computer art class. A few games that were made with gmax are Electronic Arts - Battlefield 1942 and Microsoft - Flight Simulator 2004 A Century of Flight.

 

I may start using Blender again though, just from you starting this topic and getting me back interested in it because of the examples and such.

Edited September 30, 2007 by kab012345 (see edit history)

[t3jem 0]

I tried blender 3D for a little bit, I found the main problem with it for me is that since I don't know how to load blender models into my program I couldn't use it. It doesn't have any cross-filetype functionality and it can't make ms3d models or load them either, so for now i'm with milkshape, but when I get unlazy I'll check out blender again and figure out how to use it.

[MotU2510 0]

I had Blender installed on my computer before I managed to lose everything. I never actually got round to learning how to use it. After seeing what you can do with it, however, I think I'll have to re-install it and learn how to use it. I did open it up a few times, and I have to say, the UI was very good and logically laid out.

[etycto 0]

i used blander for a little bit but it was confusing i saw the works that's been done by it but it was very comfusing for me learning how to use it is pretty confusing

[MiniK 0]

I've tried using Blender but I found it quite confusing. I prefer Macromedia Flash to be honest. It's a lot easier and has more functionality.

[street 0]

I tried using blender once i made a stick figure but that is about it. I think it is bit confusing to me. I use 3d studio max and cinema 4d I am still learning how to make 3d models but the two programs seem much easier. The movie that they made with blender blew me away the graphics and the texture looks as if it was made using one of the expensive 3d programs.

[MotU2510 0]

Almost everyone agrees that Blender is the best free 3d animation prgram around, some people even go as far to say as it being better than some licensed software. Having seen some work done in Blender, I have to agree.

[nol 0]

Looks like a great program. Infact, I'm looking for 3D modelers. I think there are a lot out there, but my friend gave me Autodesk maya, which he had to buy for a class he took ( I knew the guy from my brother in law) Its a good program actually, infact I am loving the autodesk maya, but blender seems like a free version, maybe not as many options, but it looks good. The thing I like about autodesk maya, is the fact that it has everything in one, plus more then you could ever need. Its very flexible and everything.I may download blender just to look at it, maybe not though. It looks like the best 3D option ive seen thats free, and maya looks like the best thats not free. So it looks pretty good both ways.

[thismachine 0]

I've used this pretty extenxsively in my 3D designs. It's a useful program, but I've since dropped 3D designing. I now just work on animations and commercial-quality images.

[Atthack 0]

Thanks for the recommendation, Always wanted to give the 3D Animator in me (lol not a big one) a try ;P

[Jenzz 0]

Omg this is great!! On my school we are using 3d programs all day long and they only got license for some cinema *BLEEP*, but with this u can do so much more. Tnx for the tip, time to own the teachers

[hippiman 0]

Ok, if you've gotten blender, and you have an ATI video card (I'm not sure what all kinds this works for), and Blender has been going really slow, even if your specs are perfect, here's something for you.

Speed up Blender!

This guy found out that the nvidia openGL drivers work perfectly for ati. All you have to do is find their dll (It's pretty easy with google) and rename it to atioglxx.dll and put it in your Blender directory, or even the system32 folder. Just to be safe, though, I would back up the old dll somewhere.

I think I saved myself like more than $100 doing that, because I was about to get a new video card. I have ATI Radeon XPress 200, and Blender had been going pretty slow, but games like Half-Life were working perfectly. I did that little fix, and now Blender is faster than ever.

Just so you know.

And if any moderators find this, you can make it a new topic wherever it's supposed to be or whatever. This is the best place I could think of.

[AskAndrewD 0]

Yeah, that's pretty cool! I don't get the purpose of it though! I mean, why do you need a 3D ? Although, when I looked through the gallery it was PRETTY SWEET!

[mahirharoon 0]

the great thing is it is made in python and compiled with py2exe