I wasn''t too sure where to post this, but does anyone else out there use blender, I am interested in learning it and was wondering what other people thought about it. Thank you.

I use mine to make pretty good margaritas. Would you like the recipe?

I played around with Blender for a few days. It is HARD. Very HARD! But go grab a few tuts or the official manual and you''ll be fine, I think...





E-mail:wiseelben@wiseelben.com
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[edited by - GameDev Staff on September 27, 1989 9X:58:97 XMS] For violating Article 43 Page 456 Paragraph 251 Line .042]

Personally, I don''t like the interface. Granted, it''s neat, and efficient, as long as you spend time on it. But for my taste it''s waaaayyy too out there. It boggles me every time i try and use it. Tho it''s definatly good, especially since it''s free. But''s that''s somewhat ofa rant. Sorry.

I use Blender have for a quite a few months now. It''s interface is a bit obtuse, but there loads of good tuts out there and great user communiity.

Go to www.blender.org and look for the Blender 2.0 guide. They sell the hard copy, but an web based version is free on the site. Go through it to get a good start.

Here a few useful links:
http://www.vrotvrot.com/support/browse.php - this is a great blender Q&A online database. Blender doesn''t come with help files, but this is just as good.

www.elysiun.com - Blender community site. Great place for tuts, questions, scripts, etc.

BTW, This post should be in the Visual Arts forum.

Once you get the hotkeys down, it''s very fast. It does a lot of things besides just modeling; you can UV map your stuff, you can "paint" right on the models, you can animate, it has a video editor, I think that the next release will see the return of the game engine...it''s a really good program and all you have to invest is some time to learn it.

====================================
Cat: the other white meat

The interface is a bit odd, but that is just a result of seeing a standard Windows interface all the time. once you get used to it, it is pretty easy to use. Here is a list of good tutorial sites that I found very helpful.

http://blender3dfr.free.fr/anglais/tuts.htm
http://www.raph.com/3dartists/tutorials/t-blender.html
http://www.b5-blender.com/main.html
http://www.linuxgraphic.org/section3d/blender/pages/didacticiels/didacticiel-ang.html
http://www.crosseyedmedia.com/0_a_px800/tutorials.html
http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/english/python_script00.htm
http://www.janw.gothere.uk.com/documentation.html


First make it work,
then make it fast.
--Brian Kernighan

"The problems of this world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men and women who can dream of things that never were." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy(35th US President)