Blender is a nice project. But a 3D modeler that is a bit easier to learn, and deserves a bit more attention imo, is Wings 3D [1]. It might excite some part of the audience here that it is written in Erlang. Internally it uses the winged-edge data structure [2], something that is also worth a read if that doesn't ring a bell.<p>[1]: <a href="http://www.wings3d.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wings3d.com/</a>
[2]: <a href="https://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/COURSES/cs3621/NOTES/model/winged-e.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/COURSES/cs3621/NOTES/model/win...</a>
I've always been wary about learning Blender, since historically it's been written off by large swaths of the 3D community. However, every once and a while you see some truly fantastic work created with it.<p>The most recent that comes to mind is the <i>Factorio</i> team's use of Blender:<p><a href="https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-146" rel="nofollow">https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-146</a><p>They have a fairly complex art pipeline that relies on Blender, and they continue to use it despite having had strong sales for some time now. A vote of confidence if I ever saw one.
Yes, Blender is a lot like using VIM. The hotkey chart is about ten pages long, and it's very keyboard oriented. Most modern 3D programs are more mouse-oriented, but not Blender.<p>At the other extreme is Autodesk Inventor. Unless you're typing in a numeric dimension, you seldom touch the keyboard.
IMO (as an architect), Blender shines on animations and "non-euclidean shapes" but if you only want to model "euclidean shapes" use Sketchup. Sketchup is for 3D what Ruby is for programming: most 'professionals' despise it, all amateurs and the remaining 'professionals' love it.<p>However, if you seek the power and speed of a CLI, use Autocad, an Emacs for CAD. Scripting (traditionally) is done with AutoLisp a cousin of ELisp.
About the uncool mouse comment - I have a Logitech MX Master that I'm in love with now, which has the scroll quality of a gaming mouse without the garish looks. It's wireless (boo hiss - yes but it's rechargeable through a micro usb cable so even if you would leave it plugged in all the time it would work like a wired mouse. In practice I just leave the cable laying about and only plug it in for a few hours once every month or so) and the scroll wheel can be switched between 'discrete' and 'continuous' mode with a button just below itself. This turned out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.<p>I also like the ergonomics a lot. It has a bunch of other buttons too but I never use those. If you're in the market for a new mouse, check it out.
Finally an article that makes me feel confident enough to actually try using blender.
In the past I have tried a number of tutorials, but the problem was they all went way too deep in the subject matter, so I was feeling overwhelmed. This one seems to give you just enough information to get going; looks like I will give it another try.
Mmmm I have been loving learning blender over the past few years. TBH its what first got me into coding python and has also through teaching myself python from it, helped me through my first unit of python at uni. The functionality of the program astounds me... every month I learn about something new you can do with blender! You can make games with it, render 3d scenes for architectural purposes and even use it as a complex video editor/movie maker/special effects maker.<p>These days I have been working on a basic FPS rig with blender that I want to use for a generic 4-player split screen pc shooter...as I just really miss these style games on the PC and my tv has been a HTPC for the last 4 years and there are very few split screen shooters/fighting games available.
This was the 'click point' that made Blender's interface finally make sense to me, back in version 2.2 or whatever it was. Since then when trying to teach Blender to friends, the first thing I say is "it's vim for polygons."<p>The newer and more advanced features seem to have become a lot more GUI-focused (and that GUI isn't always the most streamlined or easy to discover) but basic mesh editing is great.
Artists at my work still use 3ds max. Despite it crashing every 5 minutes, being slow, having less features, costing infinitely more, having zero support, terrible documentation, compatibility issues... I could go on. I show them blender and they immediately don't like it because the shortcuts are different.
Blender can be used with a two button mouse comfortably. This part is wrong.:<p>"Now for an important prerequisite: a mouse with an easy to use middle button."<p>You don't need a mouse with a middle button.<p>Just go to user preferences, "File" menu, "Use preferences..." item, "Input tab", set radio button "Emulate three button mouse" on, Click button "Save user settings" in the bottom.<p>Now alt+ left button will map to the same action as the middle button.
I started using Blender in 2000. Cheatsheets with hot-keys did not exist, tutorials could still be counted and YouTube had not been invented yet. All I got was a short introduction by Ton Roosendaal. So, you might assume I had a horrible user experience, but it was quite the opposite. Learning Blender in 2000 was like a game of discovery, randomly trying key-combinations and new techniques, followed by sharing them on IRC,
Blender has inverted left and right mouse buttons by default which I think isn't like vim but just a very bad UX decision that's not being changed now since the old user base probably adapted.
If you'd like to do 3D modeling with actual vim, you can do it in the venerable raytracer POVRAY: <a href="http://www.f-lohmueller.de/pov_tut/basic/povtuto3.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.f-lohmueller.de/pov_tut/basic/povtuto3.htm</a>
Blender and Freecad[0] let the user interact via a python shell. I haven't tried to script Blender, with Freecad it's easy to start making things that auto-scale with a var (wall thickness for example). The two are not that comparable otherwise, Blender is light-years ahead but it's CAD roots are new-ish. CAELinux[1] has all the cool stuff bundled.<p>[0] <a href="http://www.freecadweb.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.freecadweb.org/</a><p>[1] <a href="http://caelinux.com/CMS/" rel="nofollow">http://caelinux.com/CMS/</a>
I learnt Blender using the following 2 resources:
1. Book: Beginning Blender [1]. Using this book I learnt enough Blender to make stand-in models and animations for prototyping my game.
2. This video resource: Mastering Blender Vol 1 & 2 [2], is a brilliant resource if anyone really wants to master the Blender fundamentals.<p>I am pretty sure just learning from the Blender video resource [2] will also suffice, but just listing my journey. The thing is just like Vim (as most are referring to it here) and I am a Vim user, Blender has a learning curve but sticking to it and gradually advancing to doing more complex stuff makes sense. But I don't know if this curve is true of other modeling software as well.<p>Plus the fact that python scripting lets you do your own stuff is even more fun. In the course of my game, and using Blender's rigify, I had more weight influences which would cause SceneKit to animate on the CPU. Just writing a simple python script [3] did the trick.<p>I think like other proprietary tools in the industry, which have deep roots in the asset pipelines, probably makes Blender a non-starter. But if someone is an indie developer and wants to use a 3D software; Blender is a great choice. For the game I am working on [4], even if it succeeds, we will stick to the Blender asset pipeline. In fact we have made the rigs such that it is also compatible with Unity's MecAnim.<p>The only downside is if you are planning to become a 3D artist, Blender may not be the right choice. Heck, even wanting to work as a 3D graphics engineer in the games/movie industry requires you have to knowledge of the proprietary tools, at least as per my current job search results. If someone has a similar experience vis a vis Blender and the 3D software engineer requirements, or even better if is part of the industry and can throw some light on this, will be great.<p>Overall, I believe Blender is very powerful and worth learning.<p>[1]<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Blender-Source-Modeling-Animation/dp/1430231262" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Blender-Source-Modeling-Ani...</a>
[2]<a href="http://www.cgmasters.net/training-dvds/master-it/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cgmasters.net/training-dvds/master-it/</a>
[3]<a href="https://gist.github.com/dmsurti/aa3411a82e12aaaee564a17bb493f162" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/dmsurti/aa3411a82e12aaaee564a17bb493...</a>
[4]<a href="http://www.isongames.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.isongames.com</a>
Blender is also a neat program to just create and edit videos.<p>I wanted to be able to put together a video, so I made an introduction for my D&D friends for our next adventure.<p>First time I used video or sound editing, but it worked out fine, because I found a really good instruction video series. That usually makes all the difference.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MikeycalDOTcom/playlists" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/user/MikeycalDOTcom/playlists</a>
It feels like the author's claim that 3D modeling is just like using VIM could be generalized to "any application that has keyboard shortcuts can resemble VIM in that the keyboard can be used to do things in the application". It seems like there's some overlap in Blender's keyboard shortcuts and VIM's key bindings, but the bit about using a mouse seems like a pretty big departure from VIM usage.
Blender is to 3D modeling what Gimp is to image editing what Darktable is to photo editing. Painful. My biggest grip with blender is the non-standard custom GUI that they just refuse to update. I know Blender predates toolkits such as GTK/Qt but seriously, they've had plenty of time to "fix this".<p>Bonus: Try to draw a line in GIMP (without first going to google). Have fun! (;
I used Blender/Cycles also for the case to render in Game and Application images in high quality. I wrote therefor a Python Export/Importer.<p>Here is an example:
<a href="https://virtual-mannequin.eu/img/Full/AnomalyFull.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://virtual-mannequin.eu/img/Full/AnomalyFull.jpg</a>
I've been considering picking up Blender for a few months and this just tipped me toward committing. As a long time vim lover, this is a great way to get people excited.
I hoped this was more about doing everything in scripting which I am trying to learn. For me, when I use the mouse, things go wrong. While in my brain I have a good spatial view, however, somehow the coordination to the (for me!) awkward 3d representation all those 3d packages have, does not work at all.
If you can't get used to the mouse controls you can customize them pretty easily.<p>File > User Preferences > Input > then you can choose Blender, Maya, 3Dsmax<p>There are lots of other options on that Input dialog, too.