Blender? Potential?
by Timmy · in Artist Corner · 07/26/2003 (1:41 pm) · 19 replies
Does anyone think Blender is good or uses it? I know there is an exporter to dts. does anyone have a link to that?
About the author
#2
07/26/2003 (3:17 pm)
Yes, once i took a look at it from Milkshape, it was so overwhelming. Especxially how they managed to pack every button, scroller, text box, etc. all over squishing and overlapping eachother. Any tutorial, or book would be appreciated. As for the dts export I think your right. 
#3
This page may help...
The Old Blender Site Tutorials may also help too.
There are also many other blender tutorial sites on the web. =)
07/26/2003 (3:28 pm)
Timmy :This page may help...
The Old Blender Site Tutorials may also help too.
There are also many other blender tutorial sites on the web. =)
#5
Also, it has very limited support for undo/redo (or at least it did the last time I used it which was a few months ago) and it can be very hard to deal with that as I'm used to having full undo/redo in virtually every application these days. Save often!
07/26/2003 (5:39 pm)
Blender is extremely powerful for a free 3d modeler, but when people talk about the UI being pretty bad for beginners, they aren't kidding... It can take a long time for you to get up and running with it, even if you've used other modelers in the past.Also, it has very limited support for undo/redo (or at least it did the last time I used it which was a few months ago) and it can be very hard to deal with that as I'm used to having full undo/redo in virtually every application these days. Save often!
#6
07/28/2003 (7:58 am)
Someone once told me that the Blender team was able to release their product for free b/c they really made all their money selling the manual =)
#7
They went bust because they wernt making money, and one person decided that they should release it opensource (person on team i think), Soooo, that person made a big fund raiser thingy on the net to try and get the public to help support him and get enough money to buy the blender source and liscence.
Then he released it open source under a new liscence.
07/31/2003 (5:54 pm)
Actualy, thats wrong.They went bust because they wernt making money, and one person decided that they should release it opensource (person on team i think), Soooo, that person made a big fund raiser thingy on the net to try and get the public to help support him and get enough money to buy the blender source and liscence.
Then he released it open source under a new liscence.
#8
There's a new versoin of Blender out now, btw... saw it on /. today.
07/31/2003 (8:47 pm)
Matthew was talking about before the open source fundraising. I had heard the same thing, and even actually saw the manual at a Barnes & Noble. :-)There's a new versoin of Blender out now, btw... saw it on /. today.
#9
The Blender 2.0 guide can be found online at http://download.blender.org/documentation/NaN_docs/Manual2.0/ and it should help you ge to grips with the "weird" UI. But then, just because it uses a non-standard look for buttons it's none the harder to learn compared to maya or max, imho. The lack of undo is an issue, but you can simply make blender autosave our work every minute and keep the last 20 versions of the file you're working at.
Also as of 2.28 the python API is exposing more and more data, so writing export scripts should get easier (and there also is a python forum where you can ask the Python API developers directly on how to go about writing export scripts).
NaN never based their business model on selling documentation, which in sinsight might have been a mistake ;o), and I am actually tired of people complaining about the UI without even reading 2 lines of a tutorial/manual. If you are serious about using it you will learn it fast enough. If you simply downloaded it, fired it up and decided it's too complex that you'll probably have problems with anything more complex than Easy 3D Whatever. Blender is packing a sequence editor, character animation, modelling, the python API, animation in general and a game engine - you can't make an interface for something like that with 3 buttons.
07/31/2003 (11:17 pm)
The person deciding it should go Open Source is Ton Roosendaal, the original developer, and they did not make the UI to sell manuals but to work with the software, since Blender was initially developed for an animation studio. The Blender 2.0 guide can be found online at http://download.blender.org/documentation/NaN_docs/Manual2.0/ and it should help you ge to grips with the "weird" UI. But then, just because it uses a non-standard look for buttons it's none the harder to learn compared to maya or max, imho. The lack of undo is an issue, but you can simply make blender autosave our work every minute and keep the last 20 versions of the file you're working at.
Also as of 2.28 the python API is exposing more and more data, so writing export scripts should get easier (and there also is a python forum where you can ask the Python API developers directly on how to go about writing export scripts).
NaN never based their business model on selling documentation, which in sinsight might have been a mistake ;o), and I am actually tired of people complaining about the UI without even reading 2 lines of a tutorial/manual. If you are serious about using it you will learn it fast enough. If you simply downloaded it, fired it up and decided it's too complex that you'll probably have problems with anything more complex than Easy 3D Whatever. Blender is packing a sequence editor, character animation, modelling, the python API, animation in general and a game engine - you can't make an interface for something like that with 3 buttons.
#10
I was just passing on a joke that I had heard from time to time whenever Blender's "weird" UI came up.
As far as the "weird" UI is concerned I have heard this brought up enough (and experienced it for myself) to believe that this is a legitimate issue. Sure, I have seen people do some cool things with Blender but I have long wondered why they have never seemed to make an effort to address the *many* comments/complaints about the GUI?
08/01/2003 (5:23 am)
Ok, I had no intention of starting a Blender Holy War =PI was just passing on a joke that I had heard from time to time whenever Blender's "weird" UI came up.
As far as the "weird" UI is concerned I have heard this brought up enough (and experienced it for myself) to believe that this is a legitimate issue. Sure, I have seen people do some cool things with Blender but I have long wondered why they have never seemed to make an effort to address the *many* comments/complaints about the GUI?
#11
08/01/2003 (6:19 am)
Well, i didn't mean anything of it either, just wondering if anyone liked using it or had any info about it.
#12
They are listening to active users complaining about the UI issues they have and are making changes to it to make life easier for people who use Blender for day to day work. They're just not trying to please every 12 year old kid from Slashdot who screams "foul UI". If the UI was _that_ broken, the developers of Blender must have had a serious mental problem for not fixing it, wouldn't you think? (and come to think of it, people using it even a bigger one)
With 3D apps people who need and want to use them try a few and use the one they like best. Incidentally many people like Blender, just like many like Maya, Max or LightWave. And as long there are people who like Blender, I see no reason for it to change dramatically. Improve it can, of course. :o)
08/01/2003 (7:25 am)
I don't mean to start a holy war - but the Blender developers and people who have used it for longer than one hour are all very comfortable with the UI. I guess there's nothing simpler than to use Motif/Qt/GTK/Aqua/Whatnot for your UI, but to think about it and make it effective is something completely different. Blender was developed to be effective and it is, once you learn it. They are listening to active users complaining about the UI issues they have and are making changes to it to make life easier for people who use Blender for day to day work. They're just not trying to please every 12 year old kid from Slashdot who screams "foul UI". If the UI was _that_ broken, the developers of Blender must have had a serious mental problem for not fixing it, wouldn't you think? (and come to think of it, people using it even a bigger one)
With 3D apps people who need and want to use them try a few and use the one they like best. Incidentally many people like Blender, just like many like Maya, Max or LightWave. And as long there are people who like Blender, I see no reason for it to change dramatically. Improve it can, of course. :o)
#13
I initially learned 3d modelling on 3DS MAX, and I've also worked with 3d CAD software (autocad, cadkey). Jumping from interface to interface between most 3d products is fairly easy.
Not so with blender. I've downloaded blender a couple of times, but I generally get a headache and give up working with it after about 10 minutes.
Blender's a great, full featured product, but there's a good reason I'd rather use Milkshape. Even though Milkshape's lacking a lot of features I want that Blender's got.
08/01/2003 (7:42 am)
Samo, it's not broken per se, but it is different. I initially learned 3d modelling on 3DS MAX, and I've also worked with 3d CAD software (autocad, cadkey). Jumping from interface to interface between most 3d products is fairly easy.
Not so with blender. I've downloaded blender a couple of times, but I generally get a headache and give up working with it after about 10 minutes.
Blender's a great, full featured product, but there's a good reason I'd rather use Milkshape. Even though Milkshape's lacking a lot of features I want that Blender's got.
#14
Anyhow, since the Python API got renewed more import/export scripts that actually work should pop up, which is more important to many people than reading tutorials or not, I guess.
08/01/2003 (9:04 am)
Sure, I understand that (I use a Mac, even though it's "slower"), but it's not like there isn't lots of information availible online about Blender (much more than it was the case one year ago, or two). I guess my point was more that it's free, so people shouldn't act like they have the right to demand from Blender to change it's UI concept completely but maybe try to find some documentation instead. The Blender development team is doing it in their spare time, so saying "change this and that" without being an actual user will get people nowhere. Anyhow, since the Python API got renewed more import/export scripts that actually work should pop up, which is more important to many people than reading tutorials or not, I guess.
#15
And before you go off on me, I do have Blender installed, and I have gone through tutorials. Frankly the few I went through were fine, but I didn't learn anything. They were just procedures, and eventually the procedures failed. I probably missed something somewhere. Oh well. My stance is that the learning curve discourages enough people to warrant attention, regardless of whether or not it's "good" or "bad", "confusing" or "efficient."
08/01/2003 (2:57 pm)
I disagree. Listening to all feedback, including those outside the community, is the way to allow Blender to grow and evolve. Open projects benefit because of the power of the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. Establishing a xenophobic and arrogant culture will get Blender nowhere.And before you go off on me, I do have Blender installed, and I have gone through tutorials. Frankly the few I went through were fine, but I didn't learn anything. They were just procedures, and eventually the procedures failed. I probably missed something somewhere. Oh well. My stance is that the learning curve discourages enough people to warrant attention, regardless of whether or not it's "good" or "bad", "confusing" or "efficient."
#16
The problem with Blender is that, the way it was developed it doesn't allow much of a UI or functionality change without rewriting large chunks of it. Same goes for the Undo and problaly also a few other things that people have issues with. There is nothing xenophobic or arrogant in the way the developers are reacting - it's simply that there's nothing they can do about it from this to the next 0.01 release. As it is, Blender can work as a 3D tool and those who want a free tool should by all means try to learn it.
As for the "issues" - the Blender community is well aware of them and the "big picture" includes a 3.0 release which the developers how will be a rewrite from scratch, more or less. That's not going to happen overnight (as Torque 2.0 probably wont). But as with most OpenSource projects, the people behind it are deveoping it in their spare time and unless some more people join the advances wont happen in big steps.
I guess the conclusion I made is that apart from tryin to provide a as complete as possible documentation there is no "immediate" solution to the problems people have with Blender.
Timmy asked if anyone thinks Blender is good and uses it - yes, there are quite a few people who do. And if they managed to learn it, you will, too. It will take the same amount of time any other 3D app takes, even though with others you might get the feeling to know what's happening sooner than with Blender.
08/01/2003 (11:25 pm)
Well, I'm not arguing against the experience other have - but for me it worked. The problem with Blender is that, the way it was developed it doesn't allow much of a UI or functionality change without rewriting large chunks of it. Same goes for the Undo and problaly also a few other things that people have issues with. There is nothing xenophobic or arrogant in the way the developers are reacting - it's simply that there's nothing they can do about it from this to the next 0.01 release. As it is, Blender can work as a 3D tool and those who want a free tool should by all means try to learn it.
As for the "issues" - the Blender community is well aware of them and the "big picture" includes a 3.0 release which the developers how will be a rewrite from scratch, more or less. That's not going to happen overnight (as Torque 2.0 probably wont). But as with most OpenSource projects, the people behind it are deveoping it in their spare time and unless some more people join the advances wont happen in big steps.
I guess the conclusion I made is that apart from tryin to provide a as complete as possible documentation there is no "immediate" solution to the problems people have with Blender.
Timmy asked if anyone thinks Blender is good and uses it - yes, there are quite a few people who do. And if they managed to learn it, you will, too. It will take the same amount of time any other 3D app takes, even though with others you might get the feeling to know what's happening sooner than with Blender.
#17
Are models made with blender able to be sold in a commercial game?
The exporter, i see theres one in HEAD, but i dont know how to use it or if it works, more info?
I have Linux and Win versions of Blender (multiplatform dev team).
But i only have access to windows at the moment because my second hd (linux one) stuffed itself full of headless chickens.
08/02/2003 (7:11 pm)
2 Q time.Are models made with blender able to be sold in a commercial game?
The exporter, i see theres one in HEAD, but i dont know how to use it or if it works, more info?
I have Linux and Win versions of Blender (multiplatform dev team).
But i only have access to windows at the moment because my second hd (linux one) stuffed itself full of headless chickens.
#18
Yes, of course. The models are just data, the GPL license of Blender has no impact on them. You can use them for any purpose you wish, just like models created in any other package.
Haven't tried it myself, but from what I've read on these forums previously it doesn't work currently. This information may be out of date.
08/02/2003 (11:36 pm)
Quote:
Are models made with blender able to be sold in a commercial game?
Yes, of course. The models are just data, the GPL license of Blender has no impact on them. You can use them for any purpose you wish, just like models created in any other package.
Quote:
The exporter, i see theres one in HEAD, but i dont know how to use it or if it works, more info?
Haven't tried it myself, but from what I've read on these forums previously it doesn't work currently. This information may be out of date.
#19
ship then read tutorials on how to model then texturing etc Then with the game engine blew it up. great fun
you can make complete 3d game without
one line of code though getting python
involved helps
anyone got any blender projects afoot
Dave
09/26/2003 (7:00 am)
Yes I use blender Love it The idea is to imagine I imagined my first spaceship then read tutorials on how to model then texturing etc Then with the game engine blew it up. great fun
you can make complete 3d game without
one line of code though getting python
involved helps
anyone got any blender projects afoot
Dave
Associate James Urquhart
I think its good once you get past the initial steep learning curve (aka what on earth do all these buttons do?)... Though i haven't managed to get to grips with everything in it yet =)
I seem to recall there was an export to dts script in the CVS, but i don't think it does anything useful ATM. I don't know if anyone else has made one though =)