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Blender 4.3
- TOMDM 2y agoBlender continues to be an inspiration and aspiration for open source. Huge congrats and thank you to everyone who contributed.
- stevage 2y agoIt's really puzzling (but extremely welcome) that Blender continues to be such an open source success story. Seems rare for such complex pieces of software in a niche space to get that level of development. I wonder what the secret is.
- greenknight 2y agoWhat really kickstarted their development... was the introduction of the Blender Development Fund -- https://fund.blender.org/ https://fund.blender.org/ They made tiers, made it simple and easy, and promoted it. Before the fund really was pushed... they were getting about 5,000 USD per month to develop it... Now it is sitting at 215,000 USD per month. More money = More developers. More Developers = Better product. Yes it didnt happen overnight that increase, but it was slow and steady.
- iamgopal 2y agotell me more or write a blog post.
- prox 2y agoAnd apparently only 2% percent (according to their ad) donates. I wish people would be more in the “giving back” spirit. If you can afford a designer coffee, throw that money to the Blender Fund! I donate yearly, and its worth it.
- flohofwoe 2y agoI guess one very important part is that there are now pretty big companies which depend on Blender and have an interest in Blender's continued development.
- The_Colonel 2y agoRight, that's exactly what separates Blender from e.g. GIMP.
- Tomte 2y agoThe more natural way for individuals is probably https://studio.blender.org/welcome/ https://studio.blender.org/welcome/
- stevage 2y ago2% is a pretty high rate. It's pretty standard for 1% of any userbase to contribute in any way (including through content) to it.
- victornomad 2y agoNot really, their aim is to reach a 2%, I think the current number is waaaaaay lower. Ton Roosendaal mentioned it during the Blender Conference 2024 Keynote https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ5022VaMmA&list=PLa1F2ddGya_-Ymw4YlOjqrdQxiRMJql5x https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ5022VaMmA&list=PLa1F2ddGya...
- diggan 2y ago> What really kickstarted their development... was the introduction of the Blender Development Fund -- https://fund.blender.org/ https://fund.blender.org/ Before that, I'd say open sourcing the project is what really gave it a second wind. If I remember a talk correctly by Ton Roosendaal, the company behind Blender development went bankrupt and development stopped for a while, as it was closed-source at that point. Eventually, he started a fundraiser to get funds to re-acquire Blender and open sourcing it (the goal being 100K EUR or something) which was successful and made Blender into the open source project we know today :)
- jasode 2y ago>What really kickstarted their development... was the introduction of the Blender Development Fund [...] >More money = More developers. There was actually another "kickstart" before that kickstart. Blender's open-source timeline has a very unusual history in that it was a commercial product funded by €4.5 million in VC capital. Those original investors lost their money by selling in a "down round" to a 2nd set of investors. Those later investors also then lost their money by selling back the source code for a discount of 100k EUR to today's non-profit Blender organization. https://docs.blender.org/api/htmlI/x115.html https://docs.blender.org/api/htmlI/x115.html One of the reasons (but not the only reason) that other examples of open-source projects like ... Gimp lagging Photoshop, or FreeCAD not being as polished as Fusion360/SolidWorks ... is those tools never had millions in investor money paying the salaries of 50 developers to kickstart them. E.g. FreeCAD has a non-profit fund but it doesn't attract the same mindshare as Blender did in 2002: https://www.google.com/search?q=freecad+non-profit+fund https://www.google.com/search?q=freecad+non-profit+fund Just because Blender started a fund doesn't mean any open-source project can also just "start a development fund" and attract the same level of donations. Blender has some extra history and circumstances in the timeline of "cause & effect" that a random open-source project can't easily replicate. Blender circa ~2002 had a level of mindshare + evangelism + momentum that most open-source projects do not have. Those ingredients have to be there first to help attract donations to the fund.
- stevage 2y agoAh, that's really interesting history, thank you. And confirms I'm not crazy - I had vaguely thought long ago that Blender cost money.
- dirkc 2y agoMy takeaway from this is that there was a community of people willing to collectively pay 100k EUR and I'd say that was the biggest contributor to it's success - a large group of people seeing the value of the shared good. I don't have examples at hand to point at, but I feel like there is/was several open source projects that did have the initial VC money, but fizzled out after the money was spent specifically because they got to a fairly polished point without really having a community
- exitb 2y agoAt the same time, I'd expect it should have its Linux-moment by now and eat the world, but it doesn't seem to be the case for high profile productions.
- flohofwoe 2y agoIn a way, Blender has eaten the world, it's just very hard to replace an existing and highly customized 3D production pipeline across hundreds or thousands of seats in an existing business. But I bet everyone has created an Autodesk exit-strategy by now and is waiting for an opportune moment to realize it. Using Blender for a video game production is entirely normal now, but was unthinkable 15 years ago, and starting a new game company which depends on Autodesk tools instead of using Blender is quite foolish tbh.
- psychoslave 2y agoNot sure what you mean with Linux-moment exactly, but Blender is sitting rather in a niche need compared to Linux which sit just above the hardware. So in that sense, Blender can’t have a Linux moment: it won’t be deployed in most servers, it won’t be embedded in a mission to Mars…
- flohofwoe 2y agoI guess 'Linux moment' as in 'first they ignore you, then they laugh at you...'. Both Linux and Blender have been going through those stages.
- exitb 2y agoAt a certain point in time Linux became the best platform available to base wide variety of projects on, so the industry followed and made it a de facto standard. It seems, at least superficially, that Blender has all the capabilities needed for wide industry adoption, but it doesn't seem to happen. Obviously talking about industries related to video production, gamedev etc.
- flohofwoe 2y agoAutodesk monopolizing the 3D tooling ecosystem and having entered an aggressive 'customer milking phase' via an overpriced subscription model about a decade ago played a very important part.
- swiftcoder 2y agoYeah, I think this is definitely a good part of the driving force behind Blender's more recent successes. That said, Adobe has been doing pretty much the same thing in all their spaces, and it hasn't spurred open-source competition in the same way (though plenty of proprietary competitors have been boosted by it)
- DonHopkins 2y agoOutstandingly excellent leadership who attracts and inspires an extremely skilled dedicated international team. Ton Roosendaal is the open secret, who's earned all that great credit, reputation, and loyalty over the decades. BLENDERHEADS - Ep.07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8A59Jtluxw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8A59Jtluxw Enjoy the seventh episode of Blenderheads, a series about the people behind the Blender project. In this episode, we follow the process around Blender's showcase named Project Gold, by @BlenderStudio . The editor and director –documentary maker Maaike Kleverlaan– works embedded in the Blender headquarters to cover the activities and conduct interviews.
- xiaomai 2y agoWhat's the best way to get started with Blender these days? I'm mostly interested in making art and possibly even 3d printing some stuff (do these skills overlap at all?).
- Tomte 2y agoCG Boost‘s apple basket course (free) or their Blender Launchpad course (cheap).
- klysm 2y agoDepends on what you want to 3D print. If you’re going for functional parts, then you probably want a CAD package rather than something like blender. If you want to 3D print art than by all means blender is your friend
- tritiy 2y agoDonut tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0J27sf9N1Y&list=PLjEaoINr3zgEPv5y--4MKpciLaoQYZB1Z https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0J27sf9N1Y&list=PLjEaoINr3z... As for 3d printing there are other software which is simpler if you need to do simpler things. But you can not go wrong in learning Blender for 3d printing as well.
- KeplerBoy 2y agoI'd say that depends a lot on what you want to print. Some people might be able to use Blender for technical parts, but for most people traditional CAD software would be the better choice here.
- skykooler 2y agoCAD is great when you want to make a nice parametric model that you can edit as requirements change. But for a simple one-off part, I can often whip one up in Blender in a third the time it would take me to dimension everything in a CAD sketch.
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- wolframhempel 2y agoBlender, in my view, is one of the best arguments to develop native desktop applications over web view wrappers like Electron. Everything is responsive and instant, you can open new 3D view windows by just sliding them open at 60 frames a second, performance is stable even with multiple windows open and the download size is a reasonable 334MB.
- cultofmetatron 2y ago> and the download size is a reasonable 334MB. I remember when it was 2 MB!!
- ideasman42 2y agoI remember downloading it from my library on a floppy disk (hoping the librarian wouldn't hear it the floppy drive working - since it wasn't allowed). :) It's in fact still quite small if additional 3rd party libraries are disabled. It's possible to make a much smaller download that removes OpenCollada, FFMPEG, OpenEXR, OpenImageDenoise, OpenVDB ... etc. However it's a hassle to distribute a second version at a time when the current size is manageable for most users.
- flohofwoe 2y agoIt notably doesn't use any 'standard' UI framework though, which is frowned upon by some people just as much as using Electron (but for different reasons - usually missing accessibility features and not looking consistent with 'system applications').
- jbggs 2y agoI think that's the smoking gun for why most UIs are terrible. it is definitely cheaper to use a framework, but maybe, sometimes, doing something yourself (for 25+) years is worth it
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoShould be separated out and reused by many Electron apps in my opinion
- hi_hi 2y agoFrom a beginners perspective, a good mouse is crucial for working in these kind of tools. It's touched on at the start of the donut tutorial (linked elsewhere) but I just wanted to re-iterate it here. Now, I haven't done serious 3d work for many years, and recently tried getting into Blender again on my Mac laptop with a Magic mouse. It was a horrible experience. Can anyone recommend a good mouse you can buy nowadays (so not something like the original SGI workstation mouse that had 3 buttons and no scroll wheel, unless those are still readily available...I loved them!) that works well in these programs. I remember the key differentiator being the scroll wheel which also acts as the middle button. Getting this wrong can make for a frustrating experience as it will zoom the view while trying to middle click.
- dv35z 2y agoCheck out the Ploopy trackball. It's open-source. - https://ploopy.co/classic-trackball/ https://ploopy.co/classic-trackball/
- Kaijo 2y agoOne thing that at least doubled my modelling efficiency was my acquisition of a multi-button gaming mouse with a twelve-button thumb grid. In Blender I have that mapped mostly to the numpad which enables 3D navigation at the speed of thought, and without me having to move my other hand away from the cluster of most-often-used hotkeys at the bottom-left of the keyboard. You also get five functions out of the MMB which also can really speed up working in the Node Editor. But. I'm left-handed. The only suitable mouse I can find like this is a Razer Naga Left-Handed Edition, and I don't like the build quality. It's too light and small for my hand, and on the two specimens I've used, the MMB is a little bit glitchy (occasionally registering scrolling the wrong way, and click turns into push-left or push-right). So I wouldn't be without it, but I wish there were better options.
- akerr 2y agoI really like the MX Anywhere 3S (with BetterMouse for macOS instead of Logi Options+ to configure gestures like middle click move to pan). It’s closer to a Magic Mouse in functionality/simplicity but more ergonomic and USB-C on the front.
- xyst 2y agoIf you are remodeling your home, strongly suggest using Bonsai (previously Blender BIM) add-on to model and plan. In addition to getting my layout just right down to the ft, and using current materials (ie, hardwood, cabinet placement). I modeled out HVAC ducts and overall system. I had planned on doing major renovations (including plumbing, electric, networking) and would have modeled those as well since the walls would be exposed. But ultimately, due to changing political atmosphere, decided to put these on hold. It does have a learning curve but would have been made collaboration with at architects much easier (exchanging ifc files).
- haunter 2y agoFor the average person Sweet Home 3D is a much better choice http://www.sweethome3d.com/ http://www.sweethome3d.com/
- rnewme 2y agoHow does it compare to Revit, for smaller basic projects like you mentioned (residential house/simple office, with hvac etc)?
- xyst 2y agoI am not a professional architect or engineer (in the construction space), so I haven’t tried it. The subscription pricing turns me away. Seems like it has most of the same offerings as Bonsai just by browsing the marketing materials (support for IFC). Not sure if it’s native IFC or translated to their proprietary format, likely the latter. With that said, seems like it’s more or less the same learning curve (ignoring price)
- countrymile 2y agoBlender really is a gem, for beginners there really is little reason to learn anything else, fully featured, free and runs off a USB or shared drive, can run on pretty old hardware. For examples of what teenagers in the UK are making with Blender see these: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42113898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42113898 https://younganimator.uk/submissions/16f0edf9-4fff-43d5-b82b-609fd37fd559/ https://younganimator.uk/submissions/16f0edf9-4fff-43d5-b82b... https://younganimator.uk/submissions/96059d6c-796e-485f-9582-3d46fd1dd17f/ https://younganimator.uk/submissions/96059d6c-796e-485f-9582...
- pcblues 2y agoThey were gorgeous.
- masteruvpuppetz 2y agoLove Blender's interface. I wish MS Excel was built like this. Dragging the border to create new viewports, customizable views, ease of binding keyboard shortcuts to functions.. FA-BU-LO-SO
- flohofwoe 2y agoYour statement is remarkable insofar as I can remember that Blender was famous for having an absolutely terrible UX (IIRC 2.8 was the version where it really started to improve).
- pavlov 2y agoThe "Geo Nodes Meets Grease Pencil" demo video is so cool. Makes me want to download Blender again just to play with this 2.5D effect. I don't think there's any other open source project that does release notes with such amazing quality as Blender. For that matter, very few commercial software companies reach this level of quality in their product websites. Note how the Blender page doesn't break scrolling, doesn't fluff up everything with useless adjectives like "delightful" and "beautiful", etc.
- zerop 2y agoIs it possible to generate code in LLM and create animation using Blender. I want to create Animation for educational video content.
- eblanshey 2y agoLike others have mentioned, Blender has become quite the successful open-source story. They used to be riddled with bugs and UX issues, much like FreeCAD was. Yesterday FreeCAD released v1 of their software, and they seem to be on the same redemption path as Blender. It's too bad their v1 release didn't gain much traction on here, as more people ought to give FreeCAD another whirl. The improvements there are massive. And it's the only proper parametric CAD software available on Linux.
- amelius 2y agoTo what extent can Blender replace FreeCAD for mechanical engineering purposes?
- cultofmetatron 2y agoI would say avoid it. blender is an excellent MESH modeler but that puts it fundamentally at odds with being a good parametric modeler. a parametric modeler's base primitives are based in deformations on solid objects. mesh modelers are just vertices connected by line segments where 3 form a face. servicable if you're just doing simple objects for a 3d printer but disastrous if you need precision.
- amelius 2y agoI don't understand why precision would be an issue? Is it not possible to fix the position of vertices to sub-micron precision? I know that Blender is used more in the movie industry. But what if I wanted to make, say, an animation of some cartoon character that gets shredded in a gearbox? What program would I use?
- rounce 2y agoA curve in a parametric CAD program will have an internal representation which is perfectly smooth. As rather than being than a set of straight lines (edges) connected by vertices it is instead a mathematical description of a curve which has infinite resolution. For your animation example Blender would be the appropriate tool to use as you are doing stuff that requires flexibility of form rather than precision.
- hannofcart 2y agoBlender's success is a lot due to how welcoming they are of new contributors. 15 years years back, this was the first big OSS project that I contributed to. Since I was a greenhorn, the patch I submitted (there weren't 'PR's back then :) ) was, to say the least, rather shoddy. Ton Roosendaal helped me patiently on the IRC (I think they were on Freenode back then, not fully sure), guiding me through the changes needed to make it acceptable to merge it. I learnt a ton just hanging out in the dev channel. Good times. It was a great product even back then but it's amazing how much more awesome it has gotten since then. Great work Blender team.
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- Crudodev 2y agoI started reading Hacker News a year ago, and it was amazing. Sometimes, very smart people get involved in discussions. But what I see here now is disappointing—people who most likely don’t even have an understanding of the CG industry, real post-production, 3D programming, and so on, trying to push immature arguments. Discussions about whether Blender can have an "abstract Linux moment," or if it can be adopted by big players, lack depth and seriousness. It's just sad to see discussions at this level. On the other hand, in the world of post-production, we face big problems with very expensive per-seat software from large vendors. We need solutions because even the best industry-standard software—not Blender—has bugs and lacks necessary features. Sometimes, small software projects build communities, push boundaries, and save you at the peak of a deadline, but they’re still not perfect. You need to understand that Blender is young and has only recently started its own path. It's a very good tool, first and foremost, and it can offer much more if you’re a strong artist or programmer. But it’s a tool that anyone with knowledge of coding or 3D programming can improve. You don’t need to pay for a license or deal with closed SDKs. Sure, businesses build around stability, and Blender isn’t a first choice for many. Investors don’t want to make risky decisions. But very soon, we’ll see Blender integrated into pipelines alongside other tools. In the end, it will become the first-choice software for many tasks in the CG industry. Over the last decade, I’ve seen different companies acquire solutions, integrate them into their own tools, and claim they "innovated"—but they often killed the original ideas and didn’t push anything forward. Most of the major advancements in the CG industry have come from open source or studios that made their tools available for everyone. Just look at how many new technologies Autodesk has developed in the last decade: none. They just bought solutions or received them from open source. Stop being narrow-minded and look at the bigger picture