| Q&A |
 Tom
Musgrove
Blender Foundation
Jan. 2006 |
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"Blender
has exporters for Collada, 3DS, OBJ, LWO, x3d, md2,
vrml, Cal3d, XSI, and Ogre 3D bundled. "
<
Blender in action (Orange, The Open Movie Project ) |
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| Q1 |
Version
2.4 is now available, what are the main new features? |
| A1 |
All
aspects of the animation system were completely refactored
greatly improving the power , flexibility, and ease of use
of the entire
animation process including rigging, constraints, weight painting,
morph targets, and animation cycles. The addition of a fluid
dynamics
was tremendously well recieved by the animation community,
with dedicated users of more traditional animation packages
such as
Lightwave and Cinema4D adding Blender to their workflow and
pipeline. Another area of keen interest has been the particle
based hair system which has allowed users to create realistic
fur and hair. There has also been the addition of a modifier
stack, which greatly improves the power of the modeling system.
Additionally the bullet physics library has been better exposed
so that physics simulations can be easily baked to animation
curves, for usage in the animation system.
There
have been a number of other significant improvements including
improvements in the mesh editing tools such as improved loop
and subdivide tools, and 'organic extrusion'. 'Live LSCM unwrapping'
which greatly improves the ease of use and speed of unwrapping
a mesh. Greatly improved text editing and creation tools,
a number of interface improvements, as well as a large improvements
in the Python API such as the addition of the fast Mesh module.
For
complete details you are encouraged to see the release notes
[http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Blender_2_40.598.0.html].
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| Q2 |
Is
Blender easy to learn? |
| A2 |
Blender
has historically had a steep learning curve - even more so than
other 3D applications. With the addition of a quick start guide
to help new users get over the 'first five minutes' and standard
features such as a 3d manipulator, the Blender learning curve
is much
easier to climb. By reading the quick start guide, and then
following a few tutorials and reading through the manual a user
should be able to learn Blender at a comparable rate to other
full featured 3D software. Users of other 3D software should
be able to learn Blender fairly quickly provided they read the
quickstart guide first. |
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| Q3 |
A
quick look to Blender's gallery show that Blender is capable
to produce very nice images. Is Blender as productive as other
competitive commercial products? |
| A3 |
Blender
has an extremely fast work flow "one hand on the keyboard,
one hand on the mouse" and makes extensive use of keybindings.
However users used to programs such as 3ds Max which have a
rich modeling toolset will find some things they are missing
in Blender. A user who can adapt themselves to the Blender workflow
can likely be as productive or moreso than they can in other
3d applications. |
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| Q4 |
Is
Blender capable of managing big scenes with millions of polygons? |
| A4 |
The
renderer can handle millions of polygons. For managing large
scenes you can use bounding box display if you are on a machine
with limited ram. To render large scenes it is recommended that
the user "render by parts". |
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| Q5 |
Blender
seems to be a great tool for realtime 3d, what are the export
formats supplied by blender? |
| A5 |
Blender
has exporters for Collada, 3DS, OBJ, LWO, x3d, md2, vrml, Cal3d,
and XSI bundled. Potential users are encouraged to check the
website to ensure that the format they are interested in using
supports all of the features they need. There are also external
exporters for Ogre 3D and a number of other formatsCurrently
the exporters and importers have not caught up with the changes
in the Blender python API. Those individuals who have immediate
need for animation export should either use 2.37a or wait till
the exporter they need has caught up (probably within a few
months).
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| Q6 |
Do
you plan to add a baking texture command? |
| A6 |
there
are currently two scripts that do texture baking. texbaker which
is bundled with Blender, and BRayBaker 3
[http://www.alienhelpdesk.com/index.php?id=22]
which will likely be bundled with the next release. Currently
both scripts are fairly time consuming, and it is likely that
the script will be
reimplemented in C in the future, but it is not an immediate
plan in the short term.
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| Q7 |
In
the field of animation, Blender introduces key features in the
2.4 release. Is it possible to export in realtime animations
like bones, fluids, physics? |
| A7 |
I'm
not quite sure what you mean by 'export in realtime' fluids
and physics animation can be 'baked' and then imported to a
different package and rendered - for instance lightwave and
Cinema4d users have exported fluid dynamics in order to render
in their prefered environment. |
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| Q8 |
Is
it possible to customize UI (shortcuts, toolbars, layout...)? |
| A8 |
The
layout of the viewports is highly customizable - shortcuts and
toolbars are currently only customizable via the sourcecode
- which
for the average user means 'not customizable'. A refactor of
the code to allow fully customized keybindings, menus, toolbars,
panels, etc. is planned for after the Orange project finishes.
(In 3 months time or so). |
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| Q9 |
What
is the status of Blender plugin for realtime 3D? |
| A9 |
If
you are refering to the browser plugins, they are currently
not maintained. There have been some mentions of programmers
working on the code, but nothing has yet been made public. |
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| Q10 |
Blender
is free and open. How is it possible to keep a software free
and maintain it's developpement? |
| A10 |
The
Blender Foundation is supported by donations [http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Payment_methods.517.0.html]
as well as income via the 'Blender Store' [http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/]
which sells Blender manuals, game engine kits, and some merchandise.
Ton keeps the overhead extremely low, with himself as the only
full time employee. Ton is the only individual funded by
the Foundation to code on Blender. Other coders are either pure
volunteers who have a love of 3D and programming, individuals
who
make use of Blender in a production environment and contribute
back changes that they make that were needed or useful for their
own work, or academics who use Blender as a platform for their
research projects. |
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