3 ms·

What kinda thing would you want to make? Blender can do so many things. I personally use it to draw pretty things to be 3d printed, and then cast out of metal.

What kinda thing would you want to make? Blender can do so many things. I personally use it to draw pretty things to be 3d printed, and then cast out of metal. But there are people who use it to composite things into live action footage, people who make game assets, and a lot more.

lars_francke 4y ago
I'm mostly interested in a 3D printing suite as well. I've been using SolidEdge for a few years and Fusion and also tried FreeCad but the latter also never really clicked for me. I'm trying to find an open source solution - I understand that SolidEdge etc. are parametric and Blender is not. But I at least wanted to get good enough in Blender to make simple things (mostly functional, not pretty as in your case).
- ravenstine 4y ago
  My 3D printing needs are not seriously complicated, so I've found that OpenSCAD to be the best solution for me. Because I'm a programmer, a workflow focused on programmatically generating geometry is very intuitive. Everything else I've tried is too cluttered and complicated for what I want to do. It's weak when it comes to organic geometry, but most of what I make isn't organic-looking. If I needed to make something more organic, I'd probably make the base model in OpenSCAD first and then bring it into Zbrush.
  - BanazirGalbasi 4y ago
    I've done some basics with OpenSCAD and it does well, but as soon as I want to do anything that isn't just a bunch of extruded polygons I run into trouble. Also the lack of chamfer and fillet functions is frustrating, even though I know I can use a custom function someone else wrote I don't like not understanding the math behind the code.
    - timonoko 4y ago
      roundedcube is all you need. -- Build the model only from roundedcubes as it is also a sphere and cube.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  I'm a noob but have learned Blender->3D-print. I can report that it works well enough for me. WIP: https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/scratch-built-space-tug-another-go.349976/ https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/scratch-built-space-tu...
- phkahler 4y ago
  Try solvespace. There is also the CAD sketcher addon for blender, but that's big software compared to solvespace.

lars_francke 4y ago

I'm mostly interested in a 3D printing suite as well. I've been using SolidEdge for a few years and Fusion and also tried FreeCad but the latter also never really clicked for me. I'm trying to find an open source solution - I understand that SolidEdge etc. are parametric and Blender is not. But I at least wanted to get good enough in Blender to make simple things (mostly functional, not pretty as in your case).

ravenstine 4y ago
My 3D printing needs are not seriously complicated, so I've found that OpenSCAD to be the best solution for me. Because I'm a programmer, a workflow focused on programmatically generating geometry is very intuitive. Everything else I've tried is too cluttered and complicated for what I want to do. It's weak when it comes to organic geometry, but most of what I make isn't organic-looking. If I needed to make something more organic, I'd probably make the base model in OpenSCAD first and then bring it into Zbrush.
- BanazirGalbasi 4y ago
  I've done some basics with OpenSCAD and it does well, but as soon as I want to do anything that isn't just a bunch of extruded polygons I run into trouble. Also the lack of chamfer and fillet functions is frustrating, even though I know I can use a custom function someone else wrote I don't like not understanding the math behind the code.
  - timonoko 4y ago
    roundedcube is all you need. -- Build the model only from roundedcubes as it is also a sphere and cube.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
I'm a noob but have learned Blender->3D-print. I can report that it works well enough for me. WIP: https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/scratch-built-space-tug-another-go.349976/ https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/scratch-built-space-tu...
phkahler 4y ago
Try solvespace. There is also the CAD sketcher addon for blender, but that's big software compared to solvespace.