It’s free, it’s fully-equipped, and it’s constantly improving — ok, where’s the catch? For anyone who has randomly landed on this article from some internet wormhole and isn’t familiar with the name, Blender is design toolset for animators, visual effects technicians, video game designers, and artists who work in 3D graphics.
It Takes a Village
Let’s go back to that second word — free. Blender does not cost you anything to download. Blender is free because of a 2003 crowdfunding campaign that transformed it from the side project of a small Dutch animation company’ to open-source software (OSS). This is perhaps the greatest thing about Blender: since it’s open-source, it develops quickly. Since its methods and design are all out in the open, it’s ultra-responsive to any user ideas, input, and development. Any new modifications do not have to hide behind the opaque software of a private company, and are usable on any operating system. At any given moment, tons of Blender users are working on making Blender a better tool. This transparency also means a more secure and bug-free software as a whole.
Pros
Besides the whole free-software-for-all philosophy mentioned above, Blender is capable of some incredible work — for example, this short animated film or this beautiful movie. You can do a lot of things all in one program: besides just 3D modeling, texturing, and rendering, there are features like UV unwrapping, raster graphics editing, and sculpting. Blender is great for animation and has quality rigging, skinning, fluid simulation, smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, and match moving features as well. Video editing and composition is also pretty smooth in Blender. All of these things and more are used to create animated films, execute visual effects, create art, design 3D printed models, form interactive 3D applications and develop video games (especially with the help of Blender’s integrated game engine!). An especially cool feature is the skin modifier, which lets you use edges to draw shapes and generate a simple base mesh quickly. The extensive system of pre-programmed keyboard shortcuts are also a huge time saver — make sure to have a copy of the shortcut list handy when you learn Blender. Perhaps one of the biggest pros of Blender is the addons: this software is modular to an impressive degree. Since its launch, users have created mini tools that mimic functionality of other, paid software which you can easily locate and install through the user preferences window. If you can think of it, there’s probably an addon for it! There’s also plenty to look forward to — coming soon is the integration of the Evee render engine. There’s also talk that the next version (2.8) will include a fully-fledged 2D animation, as well.
Cons
The first time you open Blender, you might feel uneasy. The fact is, with so many incredible features, Blender can be overwhelming. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to getting the hang of this tool. As it goes with other major design programs like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, it takes lots of practice and hard work to get it down. The layout of the interface and the type of workflows it allows are something you need to hash out for yourself — Blender’s seemingly-cluttered menus and toolbars are highly customizable. That’s probably more pro than con, actually: if you don’t like the UI or color schemes, you’re free to change them!A few key stumbling blocks to be aware of include the selection system (why all the right-clicking?!) and the extrusion tool (every extrusion creates a new vertex and edge).
Resources
Now that you know a bit more about this incredible home-grown software, it’s time to dig into learning it. Luckily for you, its community is massive and eager to help. Here are some resources for finding all the help you need when it comes to all things Blender:
- Blendswap: a free 3D asset trading website
- Blender.org Tutorials: video tutorials hosted by the official Blender site
- Blender stack exchange: documentation of Blender development
- Creativebloq’s Blender tutorial masterpost
- Blendernation: community hub of Blender news, tutorials, discussion, and assets
- Blender cloud: open content-creation platform and collaboration space
- Wikiversity’s Blender resource masterpost
Want more info, news, and insight into the world of 3D? Read this article and others like it on iMeshup’s blog!
