Blender, the open source 3D computer graphics software package, has released a major new version, Blender 2.80. Among other things, it sports a brand new user interface designed from the ground up, a new physically based real-time renderer, and much, much more.
The 2.80 release is dedicated to everyone who has contributed to Blender. To the tirelessly devoted developers. To the artists inspiring them with demos. To the documentation writers. To the Blender Cloud subscribers. To the bug reporters. To the designers. To the Code Quest supporters. To the donators and to the members of the Development Fund. Blender is made by you. Thanks!
I remember way back when, in the early 2000s, when people would adamantly state that professional software for fields such as image manipulation and 3D graphics would never be something the open source community could create or maintain. And here we are, almost two decades later, and Blender is a household name in its field, used for all kinds of big, megabudget projects, such as Marvel movies, Ubisoft games, by NASA, and countless others.
Blender is a stunning success story.
I had high hopes but low expectations for the Blender source code purchase but I contributed anyway.
That’s definitely one I have no cause to regret.
Blender source code *purchase* – it’s an open source project, so should be free…
https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/B/
It’s only free *now* because 17 years ago, a lot of people PAID to set it free, contributing the €100,000 asked
bannor99,
Indeed. We’re very fortunate for that. I used to dabble in that stuff, my one gripe is that I’m not a big fan of the interface.
‘Captain disillusion’ made fun of it too at the 2018 blender conference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qSTcxt2t74
I tried my hand at lightwave too, which I liked better many years ago, although I haven’t used either of these packages in eons.
Alfman,
I used it in the 2.45 days, and it only took about 30 mins to learn the basic interface. It’s easy to see they were focused more on expert productivity rather than lowering the initial learning curve.
bannor99,
I forgot about that. Back then I was still studying so didn’t have money. But later on I did buy their tutorial DVDs to support them. Never did become a 3D artist though.
Just looked at their store again. This looks like a nice coffee table book.
https://store.blender.org/product/the-art-of-blender-open-movies/
Absolutely concur – Blender is a shining example of what Open Source can achieve.