Blender Software - Polyloop

mon_stdnt · 2nd July 2006, 18:50

I have and tried blender and for me is very complex program. I checked the programs resources, they have alot of stuff and the think that caught my attention is the fur material.

Have any of you guys try this program?, vause I think it was used for the CG movie Elephants Dream.

graphinc · 2nd July 2006, 20:21

Yes, Elephants dream was completly made using opensource programs.
I have used a lot blender some years ago (for my pleasure and for my work) and I 'm learning it again. It's a very powerfull program with a very cool interface (not easy to learn at the start but really nice to use) and there is a very large community around blender. Last not least : blender can render image itself but you can also use Yafray, POV and some other free programs to render images, and a lot of plugins are free (some to do Zbrush-like stuff, some to create human characters,....)

JayBar · 2nd July 2006, 20:29

yes re: elephants dream
Currently it is a very good app and is getting better, new release is a few weeks off, i think, rs2, out now and works well.
As a modeler Hex maybe easier and more flexable at the moment, But Blend is quite powerfull, and in some cases better IMO, once you get used to it, plus it renders, composits, animates, everything for FREE.....!
The UV unwrapper "LSCM" is what Hex is trying to be. only far better and fewer,if any bugs (it has worked great so far), Also it has simple texture painting (improvemens comming), and displacement painting (havent tried this yet, only read about it so far_ But I am really waiting for SILO 2 for displacement ( ie. model,displace and continue modeling while still keeping displacement active on object)).
Imports its UV's into Carrara Flawlessly, no ugly seams and flipped correctly.
Some of the Shaders are great, with more on the way, via nodes in 2.24
At this point I am still fairly new to it. only about a mounth of use so far, Mainly looking at it due to Hex's Incompatability or buggyness with my current system. But I am greatly pleased by my testing so far.
It has far more animation capabilities and control than Carrara, currently.
I would suggest looking at some of the huge collection of Tutorials. At the very least it is a GREAT tool to compliment Hex or Carrara for some people. if not a possible Replacement, and again its FREEEEEEE.
Replacement....Well !!!, who can say, Me I'm one of those people who is Still annoyed at the current release of HEXAGON. or maybe I should say My current Hardware or BOTH.
Well thats what i reckon on BLENDER, so far, and yeh, it is a bit complex, But only cause it does SO MUCH, and takes a little practice, like anything new.

Sketchy · 2nd July 2006, 21:32

I found this Hexagon UI Theme at the Blender forums.

JayBar · 2nd July 2006, 22:17

An interesting thing with blender IS its interface
You can cut in as many windows as you like and assign whatever
function or view you desire to each window, and have menu's horizontal,
vertical,left, right, even free floating, and saved for recalling in different, configs. Smart stuff.

Caronte · 2nd July 2006, 22:31

I work long time with Blender (years) and is very powerfull solution for 3D

My latest work with Blender was all the VFX 3D of the amateur film (real image): "V de vicioso" (parody of the 80's TV series "V the visitors").

If you want to see an example extracted from the intro sequence (13MB):
http://www.nicodigital.com/allow/nodrizasmallweb.avi
If you want to see the full film, here is the link (397MB - 50 minutes - only spanish):
http://www.nicodigital.com/vicioso/v...omachinoid.avi

Now I purchased Hex2+Carrara5Pro and I'm very happy, because Carrara is very easy to use and have a nice renderer, but otherwise Blender is light years ahead in matter of animation (every aspect) and some other minor things.

Sketchy · 8th July 2006, 19:22

Blender is really the first 3d app that I've taken the time to learn seriously. I've managed to decipher the complex UI/workflow many people are talking about and reached the stage where I could tackle the advance features if I want to but will still need extra effort and time. Like most newcomers in 3d, we're distracted by what's going on outside of Blender. I bought Hex and Car Pro as a bundle and decided that I'd stick with them no matter what.

Now I'm deciding whether to just stick with Blender and forget anything outside of it. My mind is meant to be good only in focusing on one app. I can't use both Carrra and Blender. I have to pick one.

medeamajic · 15th July 2006, 22:34

Sketchy,

I am like you in reguards to mastering only one program. I have opted for Carrara but I think I will give Blender a whirl. I can not imagine a free program that is better than Carrara but anything is possible. Has anyone tried Anim8tor?

Grendel · 15th July 2006, 23:27

I have tinkered with Blender and was originaly put off by the interface. Now that I am familiar and re-arranged all the windows/shortcuts to be more like other apps(Carrara,C4D,Hex), it it is not that bad. It is a great renderer for free with Yafray or POV-ray. It does not have the ease of Carrara but it's character tools seem to be good with Elephants Dream. And now that 2.42 was just released there is a new compositor and render layers as well as other goodies included.

I did not like the character animation in ED or the story but that does not take away from the fact that they did it all with Blender. They also had Ton(the lead developer of the package) with them as well, and I think if you had any software team sitting next to you to write custom stuff everyone would be able to do more in the way of shorts.

Sketchy · 16th July 2006, 06:16

Frankly, I feel more comfortable using Blender than Carrara when taken as 3d packages. By that I mean, I find modeling in Blender a bit smoother than in Carrara's Vertex Modeler. The only drawback is that it has no n-gon capability. But there are workarounds, which I still find sensible when compared to Carrara's awkward VM. Blender also has neat features you can find in commercial ones like Hex and others. Features such as edge extrusion comparable to Hexagon's. You can even extrude verts. Wings3d is good, but it lacks these features.

Of course, I could always use Hexagon for modeling tasks, which is easier, but it seems more sensible to learn how to do everything in Blender. Therefore, workflow familiarization should be a must in anticipation for more improved and powerful modeling features in the next releases. Learn about its limitations, accept them and get used to them as opposed to learning the workflow only when the needed features had arrived.

It also seems to me that Blender is developing faster than any other 3d package. Looks like the developers now know what to improve upon such as areas of weaknesses after working on Elephant's Dream.

Finally, nowadays using open source like Blender seems cooler than using commercial ones unless it's the big ones like Maya or 3ds max. You can find that it has a special place in CG forums while commercial ones like Carrara don't. Which seems to me that it's not just a free app, but really a special 3d app to be reckoned with.

In the last releases (speaking at an intermediate level point of view), they heavily concentrated on features that are lacking such as hair, for example, as well as animation and things related to it. After they are done with features that aren't normally part of the app, I expect the developers to go back to all features to strenghten them. They may one day decide to concentrate heavily on modeling and add more power to it, or improve hair, and so on. Much like Carrara which concentrated on materials and shading...

I'm still absolutely sure that C6 will rock. I may decide to continue with Carrara side by side with Blender if I have to. I may not be able to drop Carrara when that happens.

medeamajic · 16th July 2006, 20:08

Sketchy,

I take it Blender has dynamic hair and cloth as well as particle effects and a terrian and atmosphere editor. I know Carrara is not the best for figure animation but for an all in one solution I think it is very good. Is Blender a good choice to edit terrains? If so I will down load it.

Sketchy · 16th July 2006, 20:31

You're right about Carrara as an all-in-one 3d app. It's got hidden powers even high-end ones lack. That's the problem: they are hidden. I haven't seen a lot of Car users doing a lot of mountainous, landscape pictures and stuff. Why? Most don't know how to use it. There's barely any learning resource about it. No one's doing any book or more tutorials. That goes with the shaders feature as well. It's got thousands of combinations, yet there's very little learning resource about them. It's frustrating having to discover everything by yourself which takes a lot of time.

Unlike in the Blender side, everything seems to be pointing in the right direction including proper documentation. Someone is even planning to release a book on Blender before the end of this year.

Caronte · 16th July 2006, 21:41

New Blender version (2.42) is launched:

http://www.blender3d.org
and the updates since previus version are awesome:

http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Blender_2_42.727.0.html

I think worth to try it if someone here don't know already ;)

Only for hardcore users:

Here is an experimental compilation (in development) with displacement painting like Hexagon2 (updated daily!):
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=71671

Enjoy!

medeamajic · 17th July 2006, 02:04

sketchy,

I went to the Blender website. I think Blender might have some potential. I think the GUI looks decent from the screen shots but I think Carrara looks a little better. I will have to download the demo and test it out for my self. If I can get a cube to flip and rotate with in five minutes then I consider the GUI to be decent and try to learn more. It might take several days to learn the bones and skeleton system along with morhping. I am assuming Blender has rigging and morphing features.

Grendel · 17th July 2006, 02:21

Sketchy - There are some really good landscape artists here(Patrick Tuten,Howie Farkes) and Carrara can do some things that higher end packages have trouble with. The fact that you do not see more of it is not indicative that is hidden knowledge. A good way to get used to it is examine the sample landscapes from the browser and then adjsut the terrain shaders to see it's effects. Also in 3dXtract there were several tutorials on terrains and in 3dWorld 80 there is a tutorial on using DEM's from the USGS.

I'm sure if you have trouble in any area concerning Carrara you can find someone here with an answer to help guide you along. In my opinion the Shader system is probably the most complex thing about Carrara. It can be as simple or complex as you need it to be.

mon_stdnt · 17th July 2006, 02:37

I still think Carrara has more "user-friendly" navigations.
The camera movement in blender is a pain. I might be doing it wrong or I use to a certain movement, but when I use Alt and the right mouse click the 3d view tilts to its-side.
Another thing thats weird for me is that bulllside that appearce everytime you click on the filed.

The tutorials a decent, but I couldn't find any tutoruial that does UV's.
It must be a decent program, but the controls are intimidating for a beginner.

Caronte · 17th July 2006, 09:15

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