Blender 2.61 screenshot |
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| Developer(s) | Blender Foundation |
| Stable release | 2.61 / December 14, 2011[1] |
| Written in | C, C++ and Python |
| Operating system | AmigaOS 4, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD[2] |
| Type | 3D computer graphics software |
| License | GNU General Public License v2 or later |
| Website | www.blender.org |
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current stable release version is 2.61, and was released on December 14, 2011.[1] Blender's features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, animating, rendering, video editing and compositing.
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Blender was developed as an in-house application by the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo and Not a Number Technologies (NaN). It was primarily authored by Ton Roosendaal, who had previously written a ray tracer called Traces for Amiga in 1989. The name "Blender" was inspired by a song by Yello, from the album Baby.[3]
Roosendaal founded NaN in June 1998 to further develop and distribute the program. The program was initially distributed as shareware until NaN went bankrupt in 2002.
The creditors agreed to release Blender under the terms of the GNU General Public License, for a one-time payment of €100,000 (US$100,670 at the time). On July 18, 2002, a Blender funding campaign was started by Roosendaal in order to collect donations and on September 7, 2002 it was announced that enough funds had been collected and that the Blender source code would be released. Today, Blender is free, open-source software and is, apart from the two half-time employees and the two full-time employees of the Blender Institute, developed by the community.[4]
The Blender Foundation initially reserved the right to use dual licensing, so that, in addition to GNU GPL, Blender would have been available also under the "Blender License", which did not require disclosing source code but required payments to the Blender Foundation. However, this option was never exercised and was suspended indefinitely in 2005.[5] Currently, Blender is solely available under GNU GPL.
In January/February 2002 it was quite clear that NaN could not survive and would close the doors in March. Nevertheless, they found the energy for doing at least one more release: 2.25. As a sort-of easter egg, a last personal tag, the artists and developers decided to add a 3D model of a chimpanzee. It was created by Willem-Paul van Overbruggen (SLiD3), who also named it Suzanne after the orangutan in the Kevin Smith film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Suzanne is Blender's alternative to more common test models such as the Utah Teapot and the Stanford Bunny. A low-polygon model with only 500 faces, Suzanne is often used as a quick and easy way to test material, animation, rigs, texture, and lighting setups, and is also frequently used in joke images. The largest Blender contest gives out an award called the Suzanne Awards.
Blender has a relatively small installation size and runs on several popular computing platforms. Official versions of the software are released for Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and FreeBSD.[6] Though it is often distributed without extensive example scenes found in some other programs,[7] the software contains features that are characteristic of high-end 3D software.[8] Among its capabilities are:
Blender has had a reputation of being difficult to learn for users accustomed to other 3D graphics software. Nearly every function has a direct keyboard shortcut and there can be several different shortcuts per key. Since Blender became free software, there has been effort to add comprehensive contextual menus as well as make the tool usage more logical and streamlined. There have also been efforts to visually enhance the user interface, with the introduction of color themes, transparent floating widgets, a new and improved object tree overview, and other small improvements (such as a color picker widget). Blender's user interface incorporates the following concepts:
Blender has very low hardware requirements compared to other 3D suites.[11][12] However, for advanced effects and high-poly editing, a more powerful system is needed.
| Hardware | Minimum | Recommended | Production-standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | 1 GHz, Single core | 2 GHz, Dual core | 2 GHz, Multi-core (64-bit) |
| Memory | 512 MB RAM | 2 GB | 8 – 16 GB |
| Graphics card | OpenGL card with 64 MB Video RAM | OpenGL card with 256 or 512 MB Video RAM | OpenGL card with 1 GB RAM, ATI FireGL or Nvidia Quadro |
| Display | 1024×768 pixels, 16-bit color | 1920×1200 pixels, 24-bit color | 1920×1200 pixels, 24-bit color |
| Input | Three-button mouse | Three-button mouse | Three-button mouse and a graphics tablet |
Blender features an internal file system that allows one to pack multiple scenes into a single file (called a ".blend" file).
The actual ".blend" file is similar to the EA Interchange File Format, starting with its own header (for example BLENDER_v248) that specifies the version, endianness and pointer size, followed by a collection of binary chunks storing the data blocks, and all the type and struct definitions also known as DNA. Although it is hard to read and convert a ".blend" file to another format using external tools, the readblend utility can do this. Dozens of import/export scripts that run inside Blender itself, accessing the object data via API, make it possible to inter-operate with other 3D tools.
Jeroen Bakker documented the Blender file format to allow inter-operation with other tooling. The document can be found at the The mystery of the blend website.[14] A DNA structure browser[15] is also available on this site.
Blender organizes data as various kinds of "data blocks", such as Objects, Meshes, Lamps, Scenes, Materials, Images and so on. An object in Blender consists of multiple data blocks – for example, a polygon mesh has at least an Object and Mesh data block, and usually also a Material. This allows various data blocks to refer to each other; there may be, for example, multiple Objects that refer to the same Mesh, allowing the mesh to be duplicated while only keeping one copy of the mesh data in memory, and allowing subsequent editing of all duplicated meshes at the same time. Data block relationships can also be changed manually. Data blocks can also be referred to in other .blend files, allowing the use of .blend files as reusable object libraries.
Blender is a dominant open source product[16] with a range of features comparable to mid- to high-range commercial, proprietary software.[16][17] In 2010, CGenie classed Blender as a fledgling product with the majority of its users being "hobbyists" rather than students or professionals[18] but with its high standards rising year on year.[16] They also reported that users thought Blender needed more development and required more compatibility with other programs.[16]
A 2007 article[17] claimed that Blender's interface was not up to industry standards, but was nevertheless suited to fast workflow and was sometimes more intuitive. Poor documentation was also criticized[17] although there is community support through an online wiki,[19] and a range of books published both by the Blender Foundation and independently.[20]
In 2011, Blender 2.5 was released. Featuring a completely redesigned user interface, it aims to improve work flow and ease of use.[21] During beta-testing, Blender 2.5's animation system was considered by the Sintel animators to be as good as or better than some commercial packages.[22]
Since the opening of the source, Blender has experienced significant refactoring of the initial codebase and major additions to its feature set.
Recent improvements include an animation system refresh;[23] a stack-based modifier system;[24] an updated particle system[25] (which can also be used to simulate hair and fur); fluid dynamics; soft-body dynamics; GLSL shaders support[26] in the game engine; advanced UV unwrapping;[27] a fully recoded render pipeline, allowing separate render passes and "render to texture"; node-based material editing and compositing; Projection painting.[28]
Part of these developments were fostered by Google's Summer of Code program, in which the Blender Foundation has participated since 2005.
The current stable release version is 2.61, and was released on December 14, 2011.[1] New features include:
In the month following the release of Blender v2.44, it was downloaded 800,000 times;[31] this worldwide user base forms the core of the support mechanisms for the program. Most users learn Blender through community tutorials and discussion forums on the internet such as Blender Artists[32] ; however, another learning method is to download and inspect ready-made Blender models.
Numerous other sites, for example BlenderArt Magazine[33]—a free, downloadable magazine with each issue handling a particular area in 3D development—and BlenderNation, provide information on everything surrounding Blender, showcase new techniques and features, and provide tutorials and other guides.
Blender started out as an inhouse tool for a Dutch commercial animation company, NeoGeo.[34] Blender has been used for television commercials in several parts of the world including Australia,[35] Iceland,[36] Brazil,[37][38] Russia [39] and Sweden.[40]
The first large professional project that used Blender was Spider-Man 2, where it was primarily used to create animatics and pre-visualizations for the storyboard department.
The French-language film Friday or Another Day (Vendredi ou un autre jour) was the first 35 mm feature film to use Blender for all the special effects, made on GNU/Linux workstations.[43] It won a prize at the Locarno International Film Festival. The special effects were by Digital Graphics[44] of Belgium.
Blender has also been used for shows on the History Channel, alongside many other professional 3D graphics programs.[45]
Tomm Moore’s The Secret of Kells, which was partly produced in Blender by the Belgian studio Digital Graphics, has been nominated for an Oscar in the category ‘Best Animated Feature Film’.[46]
In September 2005, some of the most notable Blender artists and developers began working on a short film using primarily free software, in an initiative known as the Orange Movie Project hosted by the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk). The resulting film, Elephants Dream, premiered on March 24, 2006. In response to the success of Elephants Dream, the Blender Foundation founded the Blender Institute to do additional projects with two announced projects: Big Buck Bunny, also known as "Project Peach" (a 'furry and funny' short open animated film project) and Yo Frankie, also known as Project Apricot (an open game in collaboration with CrystalSpace which reused some of the assets created during Project Peach).
On October 1, 2007, a new team started working on a second open project, "Peach", for the production of the short movie Big Buck Bunny. This time, however, the creative concept was totally different. Instead of the deep and mystical style of Elephants Dream, things are more "funny and furry" according to the official site.[47] The movie had its premiere on April 10, 2008.
Apricot is a project for production of a game based on the universe and characters of the Peach movie (Big Buck Bunny) using free software. The game is titled Yo Frankie. The project started February 1, 2008, and development was completed at the end of July 2008. A finalized product was expected at the end of August; however, the release was delayed. The game was released on December 9, 2008, under either the GNU GPL or LGPL, with all content being licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.[48]
Plumíferos, a commercial animated feature film created entirely in Blender,[49] was premiered in February 2010 in Argentina. Its main characters are anthropomorphic talking animals.
The Blender Foundation announced its newest Open Movie, codenamed Project Durian[50] (in keeping with the tradition of fruits as code names). It was this time chosen to make a fantasy action epic of about twelve minutes in length,[51] starring a female teenager and a young dragon as the main characters. The film premiered online on September 30, 2010,[52] also has upcoming game that is currently in production and was officially announced on Blenderartists.org on May 12, 2010.[53][54]
On October 2, 2011, the fourth open movie project, codenamed Mango was announced by the Blender Foundation[55][56]. A team of artists was to be assembled using an open call of community participation.
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