Talk:Blender (software)

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Contents

[edit] The program was initially distributed as freeware until NaN went bankrupt in 2002.

this sounds a bit silly. :) i think it should be described like here: http://www.blender.org/cms/History.53.0.html

I'm not so sure, the link you provided doesn't say clearly if it was free before NaN went bankrupt in 2002. To quote:
"...At the core of NaN was its desire to create and distribute a compact, cross platform 3D tool for free. ... NaN's business model involved providing commercial products and services around Blender. ... This over extension resulted in restarting NaN with new investors and a smaller company in April 2001. Six months later NaN's first commercial software product, Blender Publisher was launched. ..."
--Lemontea 08:47, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

There is so much editing to make this article NPOV that I hardly think its worth it.

However, leaving a notable topic like this out of the scope of Wikipedia is too much a pity to bear with... --Lemontea 08:49, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Blender Versions (News)

Blender Version 2.4

I haven't added this to the main page because I think its secondary information that users can get by clicking on the discussion tab. Ton Roosendal announced the features list for 2.4 on the developers forum and it looks like many things will be added to blender including support of stack based shape manipulators (ala 3DsMax). There will be other major changes.. I don't know if I have the abilities to make the necessary documentation changes to Wikipedia's main blender page documenting all the current features of blender.. It seems the page could go through a bit of a makeover. Also note all the external links below the page (including mine, to my video tutorials) probably should be removed because they detract from the page. But as long as they are there I thought I would link my page. The "Star Trek" link seems not to exist so I annotated it as "dead". Whoevers that is should remove it, or redirect it. --Rofthorax 11:43, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Blender Version 2.4

Blender V.6.0 is the newest speculated version of a series of Blender Game and animation programs. It is designed under the overall supervision of Ton Roosendaal.

Blender V.6.0 is believed to have newer capabilities such as better GUI, animation organisation, and the newest capability, Futuristic Templates.

I've no idea if this stuff is correct; nothing of the sort is mentioned on the Blender homepage, and a google search for 'futuristic templates' turns up nothing in the context of blender. I've followed Blender's development for many months and haven't heard anything about it. The original contributor for that article seems to have disappeared, so I vote to just scrap all of it if it can't be confirmed. -- Wapcaplet 16:57, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)
That's 100% bullshit. I am one of the devs and one of the major Blender rules is "no high version numbers". So the next version of blender will be 2.46. The version with the refactored event system will be version 2.50.

There will be NO new GUI or something. The new thing is, that the user can fully customize the GUI. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.4.204.242 (talk) 15:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


Goals for after 2.4 haven't really been set - 2.4 has additional targets for Project Orange particularly multipass rendering and general rendering engine improvements (likely motion blur, and improved anti aliasing), also you left off 16 bit per channel support for renders - also more improvements in the animation tools are planned (particularly the SOC project on constraints will be integrated). For after 2.4 there is a desire to add additional customizing in particular customizable keybindings and menus (not a priority for Ton but it is for many other developers).

[edit] Blender UI

I've removed:

It has a highly idiosyncratic user interface, which has been criticized as unintuitive but defended as very efficient. Once the initial learning curve is over, modelling with blender is faster than alternatives such as 3D Studio Max or Lightwave 3D.

I did so because I could think of no way to make these claims seem anything other than purely subjective without being weasel worded. In my experience, Blender is no harder to learn (nor necessarily faster) than any other 3D suite. -- Wapcaplet 23:30, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. Blender's UI is notoriously hard to learn. A very popular piece of software, Cinema4D is a walk in the park compared to it. I think something should be mentioned, but I agree wording it well is important.

I agree! Blender's UI is NOT hard to learn. Mayas + Max are really bad. Lightwave3D was also nice. Cinema 4d is just confusing for blender users. (and maybe the way arround)

Blender's UI is just far more complicated than need be. Lesser Shadow (talk) 11:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Documentation

The above two are the documentation of blender, is it ok to add them to link section? (Because in the blender program there is a link linking to these pages)

[edit] Logo usage

I have removed the 'Blender icon' (Blender.png) image from this page. It is not the Blender icon or logo, and looks like it has been made by a third party. Unfortunately there's no logo pages on the blender website (there will be with the new site), but there's a brief history of the logo here, with some 'unofficial' usage guidelines: http://www.mopi.nl/blogo/ --Mattebb 03:36, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have never seen the logo in the article on the Blender website or in any official documentation. --adbabypenguin

[edit] Going open source

There is no direct proof of correlation between Blender going open source and software lowering prices.

(this message is defunct considering Blender is no longer available commercially. Ton Roosendal's Company NaN went bankrupt, and with some luck was able to convince the Angel Investor that funded his startup to allow him to release the sources to the world. Blender's development continues as a result of the sale Blender branded Merchandise and Contributions). -- —Kiernan 05:04, 28 July 2005 (MST)

[edit] Blender file compatibility

The .blend file format is *mostly* backwards and forwards compatible, but there are exceptions - a bug in the file format means that files saved in 2.32 or later with themes will cause problems in earlier versions, for example. This claim should be removed or rewritten in a better way.

Version 2.32 is totally irrelevant in year 2008 with blender 2.45. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.4.204.242 (talk) 16:49, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2.40 doesn't exist yet.

Okay, here's the deal: 2.37a is the current stable Blender version. That's what the web site currently recommends you to download. 2.40 currently exists in form of alpha releases. So please, if you stick a new version to the infobox, at least make it clear that that's the real version to download. Perhaps the infobox should have separate stable and preview release numbers, as in, say Mozilla Firefox article, but I don't know how they did that voodoo there. Also, at this point, I don't think it's really yet that important to ramble on the new features, especially if that rambling only consists of links to changelogs / release notes. --Wwwwolf 18:34, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] On Portal:Free software, Blender is current featured article

Just to let you know. The purpose of the featuring an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. Gronky 19:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism/Comparison?

I would personally like to know how it compares good and bad to other software, otherwise, it reads a bit like a marketing blurb. Surely there are reasonable reviews/critiques that can be quoted from and cited? I notice on this page that someone said that it had a 'idiosyncratic' interface. Sounds interesting... does anyone else think this? Is this a common criticism? --Vryl 19:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I added a link to a comparsion chart that is being created at CGTalk. The interface (non standard usage of mouse and key bindings) are a source of criticism by many users. LetterRip 18:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compositing

Is blender advanced enough to be listed on the compositing page as a professional tool? (Or is that list itself a bad idea that shouldn't be encouraged? I'm not overly fond of big lists of products.) --kop 03:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm no expert at compositing, but Blender does have a very rich, modular, and powerful compositing mode that can be expanded. I'd say yes, but I have very limited experience with other packages, so I can't say for sure. --I80and 23:49, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It's compositor is currently mostly integrated its rendering pipeline so it isn't currently directly comparable. I'd suggest waiting till at least the next release before doing so. LetterRip 10:39, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Is Not a Changelog.

Seriously, the development section has to be trimmed a lot. Wikipedia article is supposed to tell about the application broadly, as in "what the application is capable of". Yes, release history is important, but it needs to document the broad changes, too. As in "Blender 2.42 was a giant honkin' patch that added a lot of features that were used in ED movie, like (this) and (that) and (the another)." Nobody, nobody is interested to hear that it had "new python scripts" or that Blender finally has a loop/path select. The latter goes in the features section. No wait, no one needs to hear about that in features section - any more than you can learn that "Wow, Blender has the surprisingly amazingly uncommon tool to select and - knock me down with a feather - remove Mesh Vertexes."

I'm not saying it doesn't matter. I'm saying this is an encyclopaedia: compact, relevant information for people who have no idea what this software does and what's so special about it. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 22:32, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi I trimed it quite a bit, I think it should probably be removed entirely and instead provide an overview of what major features Blender has and then just link to the release note pages. LetterRip 18:43, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Trimmed it further and reorganized it. Now it provides a brief list of major changes since going open source, with a link to release notes for further details. LetterRip 19:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing sentence

I removed the last sentence of the "Advanced Features" section, which read:

This makes it practically impossible to convert a ".blend" file to another format, although dozens of import/export scripts make it possible to convert files with little loss of information.

If someone knows what this was supposed to mean, could you please clarify it and add it back in? Thanks. --Mark Yen 02:08, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Right, there you go. =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 12:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox

{{Template:Protocoldroid/template/User blender}} shows:

Image:Cube45.jpg This user supports the
Blender Software Project




-- Protocoldroid 03:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User count 250000?

How it is possible to know there is 250000 Blender users? Besides, this number has been here for ages and has surely changed. I tried to remove it but somebody put it back.

Good question I did an estimate once based on active blenderartists user base then a multiplier based on global usage. However my numbers were quite a bit lower. The source of the 250,000 is a quote from this Blender page regarding registered users http://www.blender.org/cms/Free_Blender_Fund__ca.70.0.html LetterRip 18:50, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Probably same person who removed a link to free library of Blender materials I added (http://www.tellim.com/texture_cd/). This link is also on official Blender site so I don't see why it should be removed. As a matter of fact, I will go and put it back to Development.

Hi, I just removed that link again (although I wasn't the original remover). Textures are different from materials in the 3D industry. A material presets library is refering to algorithmically defined materials that utilize a combination of shaders to create the material appearance. LetterRip 19:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually there were also materials behind that link.

[edit] ATI issues

Would the issue with ATI graphics cards be notable? I know that was issue keeping me from running Blender for a while until I found a workaround (AFAIK, there's been no official fix, though I haven't kept up in the last three months), and I seem to recall it was specifically addressed as a large problem on the site.

I think this should be mentioned as well. This is a major problem with Blender (actually, it's more of a problem with ATI). I've been using a work around that leaves support for about 10000 polygons before getting unworkable lag (this is on a 128MB graphics card). I can run Blender faster on a 32 MB card that isn't an ATI. Hopefully the OpenGL problems in ATI will be fixed. -Alden

[edit] Publisher

Anyone heard of Blender Publisher? 80.47.32.66 14:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Blender Publisher was the name of commercial version of Blender before NaN went bankrupt, and then licensed the source code to the Blender Foundation under the GPL. LetterRip 06:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ogre

is there any particular reason Ogre particularly is listed in the "See Also" part? 216.152.208.1 01:57, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I can't say for sure, but blender is commonly used to make OGRE models, and a Blender->OGRE plug in is linked from the Blender3D webpage. --I80and 23:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

well, im sure Blender is used for a lot more than just OGRE models, and there are many other exporters on the Blender3d site as well. i don't see any reason to single out OGRE specifically, and not have anything else too. 216.152.208.1 19:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and removed. qwe 02:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge the two articles?

Someone suggested a merger of Suzanne (Blender primitive) and Suzanne Awards into this article.

For the blender primitive, I think it definitely needs to be it's own article, just like the utah teapot and some other 3d object I see around here.

The suzanne awards also deserves an article of it's own especially that the award is awarded annually and there's bound to be entries on who's getting an award for what and it'll keep bloating by itself. Already there's four categories that can be expanded upon. It's totally separate of what a wikipedia entry on blender is supposed to be. So, if nobody minds (that is, a concensus can be reached) let's remove the two proposal on the page. ~ Feureau 14:18, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

  • On second thought, it's been tagged since october, and nobody did nothing, so I'll just remove it then. If anyone objects, you can put the tag back in and leave a talk here.~ Feureau 14:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • IMO, Suzanne isn't notable enough to deserve her own article. She's unknown outside of the Blender community (unlike the Utah Teapot), which doesn't have a large enough marketshare (if that's even the right term) for specific minor mascots to have their own articles. Having a section within the main Blender article would be fine, if you think she's really notable enough. As far as the Suzanne Awards, I'd argue they're not really notable(since the audience is a fraction of the total Blender community - again, a brief mention in the main Blender article would be more than sufficient (and including an EL to an appropriate site with winners and losers). VirogIt's notmy fault! 02:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Since the Suzanne (Blender primitive) is now a redirect to this page, I suggest adding a section to explain what it is. It's not even mentioned except for Suzanne Awards; on the other hand, the Suzanne Awards page does not even explain why the awards are named so. I may add a section myself as soon as I find some more precise background and historical information - UncleZeiv 22:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Create a new category?

What if we created a new category for Blender, along with articles on several projects derived from Blender such as the Blender Artists Forums (website: http://blenderartists.org/forum, among the most popular forums for Blender), Blenderart Magazine (website: http://blenderart.org, a free, downloadable magazine with each issue handling a particular area in 3D development) and Blendernation (website: http://www.blendernation.com, a site with articles and new on Blender and all surrounding it)?

That would hold articles such as the one on Elephants Dream.

Blender is significant enough to deserve it's own category.

As previously mentioned, Suzanne is indeed not significant enough to have her own article so I agree that we should merge that article with the one on Blender (software).

[edit] Cleaning of cites

Okay. The article has tons of web references... but looks like I was the first one to add a <ref> to the article. Anyway, all of the web citations should use the {{cite web}} template rather than just an external link. Would be cool if the links would be checked and citations would be made consistent. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaning up the grammar and language issues

This article is, in quite a few places, rather poorly worded or written. I was hopping others would join me in simply passing it through a bit of an editorial process, one which I have already begun. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Zbobet2012 (talk • contribs) 05:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Agreed. I just made some small changes in the hope to improve wording in the first part of the article. If those changes are agreed upon, I would like to continue. I am afraid that eventually, though, some reorganization of the article will be needed anyway. UncleZeiv 23:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
"I was hopping others would join me" Tee hee. You'll be checking for typos will you? Oh mercy.

[edit] Video

I made a neat little animation using the rigid body dynamics animation system. Should I upload the video/screen captures? - 24.218.139.94 03:11, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plumiferos

Just added a short note about Plumiferos. I would like to note that the project seems to be very important to the Blender Foundations, and that developers try to satisfy their "this is what happens when Blender is used in production" requests and bug reports readily. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find references to this. Any ideas? - UncleZeiv 19:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blender 2.43 - New Version (18.02.2007)

New version, new features and a new site look&feel.

It would be nice if the link in right upper corner (www.blender3d.org) will be changed to www.blender.org since it redirects to blender.org. Maybe a new picture that demonstrates one of blenders many :) new capabilities. Sorry for my 0.1 cent english. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Presmute (talk • contribs) 11:56, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] This article sounds too much like an advertisment for Blender than an objective article on the program.

I've removed the "Artists using Blender" section and "Usage in the media industry" as none of the other articles on 3d software have such sections that I know of. I've also nominated that this article get checked for neutrality. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.83.126.45 (talk) 08:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

  • Hmm I'm not sure why other articles not having those sections make it an 'advertisement' - most of the other articles on 3D tools are extremely poorly done and incomplete. However a brief search reveals that although they don't have specific sections for such content, the articles contain such information within them - ie the ZBrush article "it is used by companies ranging from ILM to Electronic Arts"; and in the Maya article "Alias worked with Sony Pictures Imageworks" (and a specific mention of Spiderman 2). Personally as a someone reading about 3D software - significant work related to the software is something of interest. LetterRip 19:14, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I see no problem in an article about a movie or work that was created primarily with one 3d program to cite the tool used, but a section in an article about the tool citing creations made though use of the tool is pretty much the same thing as the gallery page at a 3d tool's homepage. It's there to sell the tool. The other articles about 3d programs that have comments about what studios use them and what works were created with them should get cleaned up too, but this Blender article is by far the biggest offender. 71.83.126.45 07:48, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Anything the reflects positively on a tool would act as an 'advertisement' for, and anything within an article that reflects negatively on a tool would act as an 'advertisement' against. The only questions are - is the information accurate; is the information provided something that would be of interest to a reader about the topic. If I read about Maya or ZBrush I most certainly want to know of some important or significant works that are associated with those tools. Also if you are refering to mentions of Elephants Dream - it was a project created and executed by the Blender Foundation as a specific tool to improve the features of Blender - not mentioning it would be a major omission. Also a large scale commercial feature animation that uses a single 3D tool almost exclusively for its content creation pipeline is unheard of in the 3D industry - thus the mention of Plumiferos is relevant. If there was a mention of other less significant stuff (ie Blenders usage for some animatic work in Spiderman 2; or Blenders usage in the XMen game for modeling) then I would agree that it shouldn't be present. If you mean the 'artists using Blender' I don't see how that can really be construed as 'advertising', but certainly wouldn't object to its removal. LetterRip 06:10, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Agreed (with statement above). Clearly, stating the capabilities of the suite still falls within the range of neutral assessment. Now withholding said information -- that could be construed as malicious and (anti)competitive. Furthermore, any public developments of relevance associated with it are also truthful and informational, and as such they belong in the page. The removal of the "Noted Artists" section I would support, or rather, its renaming: "noted" is not a deterministic a criteria as everyone has a different idea of the qualifications are. A more clear-cut designation probably would work better (e.g., Blender artists that achieved public notoriety beyond the community.) CubOfJudahsLion 20:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I think you're also missing the fact that Blender is fundamentally different from other packages, because it is free and open source. That large commercial projects are using it is of interest, more so than learning that they used a commercial package. I'm a professional 3D animator who uses another package, and I was quite interested to see what Blender had been used for - apart from Ele-berloody-phants dream.--202.63.45.194 (talk) 12:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Source code

Is the part of source code of Blender that actually draws the images on the screen available in C? I'd be interested to download it. --212.149.219.120 12:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, complete sources are available: http://www.blender.org/download/source-code/ --Allefant 16:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! - 212.149.219.120 12:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't forget that the license is GPL and therefore all changes + your code has to be made public (with your redistribution) again under GPL. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.4.207.44 (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Clarifying, the source only needs to be made available if you distribute your modified version, but giving code back is pretty much universally regarded as the friendly thing to do. Grandmartin11 (talk) 04:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Computer-aided design software

Is Blender really CAD software? So much as I know it is not. I think it should be removed from "Computer-aided design software" category. 88.196.38.179 21:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Not sure - what is the purpose of the category? Blender is not a real CAD app I'd say, but it can be used for simple CAD tasks - so might make sense to have it in the category. --Allefant 11:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I didn't found much information about this topic: [1], this feature isn't also mentioned in Blender's manual [2] and even in current article.
While searching on Blender's website [3] I found one old (2003-2005) topic: [4] and one dead project: [5].
It seems that Blender isn't desinged for CAD and it's support isn't planned.
So, what do others thinks about it?
88.196.38.179 19:51, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
It really depends on the 'type' of CAD one wants. It exports to standard CAD formats; its output is used for the input of machining tools. People use it for unit precise drawings. However it doesn't do CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry) and to do dimensioning it requires external scripts. LetterRip 04:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
'Computer Aided Design' is obviously a ridiculously broad term, but by use 'CAD' has come to mean something akin to "used to create 2d dimensioned drawings", as opposed to 3D modeling software which Blender is. Sure, software in both categories overlaps alot more than it used to, but if we were to put Blender in the 'cad' category, we'd have to do the same for a ridiculous number of other 3d modeling applications, none of which (including Blender) are commonly used for this purpose Miscreant 08:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually many CAD users would not consider '2d drawings' to be CAD - Ie most CSG users do not consider 'mere drafting' to be CAD. Often times a product isn't in a category due to marketing and segmentation interests of the parent company. Blender and QCad are the only things in the 'Free CAD software' list that actually are reasonably considered CAD. "we'd have to do the same for a ridiculous number of other 3d modeling applications" not really - at a minimum I'd expect any CAD software to support CAD format standards DXF and/or STEP and/or IGES at a minimum. "none of which (including Blender) are commonly used for this purpose" - from blenderartists.org it appears that Blender is used a fair amount for this type of work.LetterRip 07:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
If you can find some appropriate projects on the internet that use Blender in a CAD setting, I might be more convinced of your argument. I cant find much at all on blenderartists.org of these sort of projects. Also, as a side point, i think you'll find most vector graphics software 2d or 3d supports DXF import/export. Software I mean that you'd have to call 'CAD' if you decided to include Blender in the definition is other 3d modelling software like 3dsmax, maya, etc. or even more related 2d packages (Adobe Illustrator, inkscape, etc.), all of which will import/export DXF as blender does Miscreant 14:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blender external link advertisment

The last external link leads to an 'under construction' page. I therefore think that this is an advertisment, of if it isn't should be removes anyways. I will remove it for the time being. Sorry if this is the wrong thing to do.

207.112.75.26 (talk) 21:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

No, you did the right thing. We might re-add it when they finish the website. Thanks for pointing that out. :) RC-0722 communicator/kills 15:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Does Blender use GPU for rendering ?

May a sentence be add to tell if Blender use the GPU for rendering ? I honnestly don't know and I think this information has its place here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.190.208.38 (talk) 11:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC)