Blender thread (threat?)

[Eugen Sares]

Hi guys,
my last look at Blender was before 2.5. Dismissed it because of the cheesy
UI.
Since 2.5 that changed. Tried to get the hang of it a bit the recent days,
version 2.61.

What to say... this opensource FREE program ist becoming some really slick
performer!

Name almost any feature a 3d-package can have these days, and it's either
already there, in beta, or in the roadmap...

It's compact, 30MB. Boots in 2 seconds.
Clean UI, with no overlaps, no modal windows, everything pure OpenGL.
Python.
Quite stable. Crashed only once in 2 days when I was fiddling around (when
rendering started).
Nice, well thought out set of modelling/texturing/animation/simulation
tools.
Animation mixer. Fracturing, particles, physics, fx compositor, built-in
game engine...
Weight painting, texture painting...
Remember that BSpline video of recent?
Heck, even that ICE equivalent (there was a thread here some time ago)!
Nice SubSurfs (= subds). Looks pretty much like in XSI.
Clean addon-system, load/unload on the fly.
Import/export: collada, obj, fbx(exp)... dxf/dwg in the making. 3d-coat!!

Didn't fathom too deep, but wherever I looked, it looked promising.
They try to keep keyshorts and concepts as consistent as possible.
Example: applying "Solidify" to a mesh, and it gets a shell. Add it to a
curve, and it gets an offset curve.
Add a mesh/curve in obect mode, and it becomes a separate object. Add it
in edit mode, and it becomes a "submesh"/"subcurve", whatever they call it.

Nice extrusions, with automatic UVS and respect to "subcurves"...
(Yeah... I'm really frustrated at the moment with XSI's inability to
handle (UV)Clusters well enough to allow development of "clean"
generator/topo ops, with automatic UVs. I don't want to be forced to use
ICE, I like to choose! Even Eric Mootz, whom I talked to about this, said
it's a horror to pull this off in C++.)

The modifier stack has an approach that makes sense and avoids trouble.
Modifiers on top of the "base geom" are only displayed, and cannot be
directly edited, but they can be selected (when a flag is on). In that
case, all the components derived from that base component get selected.
"Apply" freezes the modifier to the base mesh. The other modifiers
persist. They can be resorted also.
Very interesting thing to investigate.

Render options open source:
Blender Render
Cycles (GPU)
Yafaray
LuxRender
Aqsis

Commercial:
IndigoRender
VRay!! http://vray.cgdo.ru/download.html
Arnold!!! http://rudycortes.com/2011/08/btoa-blender-to-arnold/#comment-3
Did you know that??

Well... behold, Autodesk!

Best,
Eugen

[Rob Wuijster]

Agreed....

We've already had some chats to testdrive Blender properly, and see how it would fit into the current workflow.
The speed of development of Blender itself, and plugins is pretty impressive.

my 2 eurocents,

Rob

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[Dan Yargici]

I know, it's really quite impressive right!  and it's really quite snappy.

I wouldn't really quote Collada support as a feature until you try it though... that's my biggest frustration with Blender right now.  Getting anything into it.

I can't help feeling that if they just invested a little time in the IO side of things they would attract a large number of great minds which would in turn drive development in the right direction...

[Nic Groot Bluemink]

All excitement for the project aside, I think claiming Arnold as a viable rendering option for Blender seems a bit over the top. The BtoA plugin is, essentially, a one man curiosity driven venture unsupported by Solid Angle (or anyone else, for that matter), and no news for near on half a year.

Nic

--

Technical Pretty Picture Making Person

Kettle

[Eugen Sares]

A valid point of course. Might quickly go down the toilet, or already has.
Yet, this Rudy (what's his full name) says in this blog, he's on the
Arnold beta, and got some help from Solidangle.
So they are at least aware of this and don't put stones in front of
anybody willing to do the job.

Am 02.02.2012, 13:02 Uhr, schrieb Nic Groot Bluemink
<nicgroot...@gmail.com>: