I know the potential audience is most likely a <i>lot</i> smaller than Blender but we're really struggling to grow the volunteer community around Open Brush (the open source fork of Google's Tilt Brush).<p>I was expecting it to grow organically but it's actually gone quiet recently - despite continuingly healthly download and usage numbers.<p>If anyone has any suggestions that don't involve me spending all my time on community building or PR then I'd love to hear them.<p><a href="https://openbrush.app/" rel="nofollow">https://openbrush.app/</a><p><a href="https://github.com/icosa-gallery/open-brush/" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/icosa-gallery/open-brush/</a>
It never ceases to amaze me how much improvements Blender is getting all the time. I've never used it much, simply because I got burned in the past by the (legacy) esoteric UI, but it has increasingly become a joy to get started with and just noodle around with.<p>There are other cool open source tools of course. Blender could've easily remained another one of those hard to use niche applications, but they've definitely managed to transcend that.
Blender is amazing. The other day, I needed to create a video of a rotating image so I looked around for potential software to use. Very quick and dirty job.<p>I didn't want to download anything large like Davinci Resolve. I saw OpenShot but was not sure it can do what I needed easily. It's not even lightweight.<p>Then someone mentioned that Blender can do video editing. Can you believe that blender is only around 200mb? I downloaded it, followed a quick tutorial on YouTube to figure out keyframes and how to render. 10 minutes after and I'm done.<p>It's great to see even more features to the video sequencer in this update. Will probably use again for my next video editing needs.
There really needs to be a "the architecture of open source applications" type writeup about Blender.<p>However it is that it is architectured internally seems to have helped it grow over time and not collapse under the weight of 30 years of hacks and poor decisions.
I spent a lot of time during COVID learning Houdini as a hobbyist, because I really liked the concept of procedural modeling and node based development. However, with the continued iterations on Geometry nodes, it feels like a foregone conclusion that Blender will replace Houdini for hobbyist procedural artists. Cycles is a really nice GPU renderer and I don’t have to pay a subscription like I do with Redshift.<p>Houdini still has some strong advantages built over decades such as dynamics and KineFX and is the industry leader for FX. But I wouldn’t be surprised if these tools appear in Blender in a future version, though.
I was reading this article yesterday: 'The best 3D modelling software in 2022'<p>As a blender studio subscriber & hobbyist, I'm so grateful such incredible software has no barrier to entry, especially for creatives in developing countries.<p>You can see this reflected in this great video of the worldwide blender community from last years blender conference <a href="https://youtu.be/uEjmbsiflMU?list=PLa1F2ddGya_8Wzpajwu1EtiS8E1Exm82S&t=292" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/uEjmbsiflMU?list=PLa1F2ddGya_8Wzpajwu1EtiS8...</a><p><pre><code> Autodesk Maya $4590 per year
Zbrush $895
Houdini $4495 per year
Cinema 4D $3495
3ds Max $1700 per year
Modo $1596
Lightwave $995
</code></pre>
<a href="https://www.creativebloq.com/features/best-3d-modelling-software" rel="nofollow">https://www.creativebloq.com/features/best-3d-modelling-soft...</a>
AMD HIP support on Linux now works without proprietary drivers on RDNA2 cards! My 6700xt is great as all I had to do was just install hip-runtime-amd package on Debian from AMD's ROCm repo¹. I am glad they are putting the work into supporting AMD hardware and I no longer have to use opencl and be stuck on older Blender versions.<p>¹ <a href="https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/apt/debian" rel="nofollow">https://repo.radeon.com/rocm/apt/debian</a> ubuntu main
dreaming for the day blender has more support for 2d animation. software like toon boom harmony are way too expensive for hobbyist work and there aren't many alternatives for that paper cutout type of animation.
I love blender.<p>I've been using it to model the renovation for my house, and I have no prior skills or experience in 3d modelling or CAD.<p>it makes me want to buy a 3D printer so i can make things for real.
There is a release party stream that you can follow here<p><a href="https://youtu.be/0yGoeMfTY8Y" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/0yGoeMfTY8Y</a>
Seeing this announced made me realize it has been a few months since I did anything with blender. I'm not doing much gamedev right now (and even when I am I started using all the assets I bought cheap in various humble bundles/etc for prototyping) but this is giving me the itch to build SOMETHING just to do it.<p>I am far from a visual artist, but Blender is so satisfying to play with.
> Gas simulations now support motion blur<p>What? Isn't motion blur always done in post anyway? As far as I know, motion blur is just a property of the camera, it's caused by after images that show up in the picture when things move too fast, it has nothing to do with the actual 3d world out there.
Question: do companies / startups hire people who know just Blender well (and Gimp/Photoshop), nothing else? (Asking for someone else, not myself.)