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Blender is a really fantastic software, from a professional, a educational, and a tinkering perspective. I started using Blender in 1998 or 1999 back when it w

Blender is a really fantastic software, from a professional, a educational, and a tinkering perspective. I started using Blender in 1998 or 1999 back when it was still closed source (around version 1.6, I think). Back then I also used to use 3D Studio Max and it was a far superior software. Then, NaN went bankrupt and managed to raise enough awareness to collect the required money so that the investors could be paid out and Blender could be released into the public as open source. In the following years, Blender has continously grown in feature-size oftentimes coming quite close to what professional packages offer. From a professional perspective, one can get a very solid 3D Rendering and Modelling solution for free that offers enough features to get a deep understanding of the whole subject. This makes it easy to learn enough to be competitive when it comes down to searching for a job. From a educational perspective, Blender is a great teaching tool. The animations that Blender can generate (with particles and hair and bones) look good enough to amaze young kids. Based on this amazement, one can explain the math behind it, or the code behind it, to make computer science and math look more practical. From a tinkering perspective, Blender is fantastic. The core is written in C/C++ but a huge part of the application is scripted in Python. This makes it very easy to have a look into the source, extend the app, and gain a better understanding of the ideas behind 3D Rendering and modelling. Case in Point: When working on an iPad game recently, a friend and I decided that we did not want to build our own level editor. Since one requirement of each level was the ability to edit nurbs curves, we decided to simply script a lightweight Blender Plugin so that we could use Blender 3D as the level editor. After some initial problems it went fluidly, and we quickly had a great working level editor with an extensible interface, all scripted in Python. If I were to work on another game and if there weren't already a good level editor for the kind of levels I'd need, I'd go with Blender again as it is really easy to extend and already has functionality for lots and lots of use cases. All in all, Blender is - in my eyes - one of the big success stories of open source software. Especially because there's no big corporation behind it. Open Office has/had Sun, Linux has IBM, RedHat, and many many others, but Blender is really being build by a community of seperate entities and few corporations.

nunodonato 13y ago
I'm also from that time, it was lovely to see Blender grow. I still remember being online one afternoon (yes, in those times being online was something rare), just to download Blender 2.0 when they implemented huge interface changes and the first game engine. Congrats Ton and all!
nkoren 13y ago
Blender represents both the triumph and tragedy of open source software. I've been vaguely following its development since the late 90s, periodically making attempts to learn it, and failing until I finally made a more serious push earlier this month. Once one has gotten over the very steep learning curve, it's an amazing piece of kit. On a feature-by-feature basis, it handily outcompetes many commercial packages, and once one has learned the keyboard shortcuts, I can see how the interface would actually become a pleasure for daily users. However for beginners and casual users, the UI is a disaster: stupidly opaque and pointlessly obtuse. It is obtuse in ways which aren't necessary to support the power-user workflow, but seem to exist for no other reason than to maximise the "WTF?!?" factor for new users. For example: object-selection is done via a right-click, requiring the user to break their muscle-memory from literally every other GUI program they've ever used. WTF? And where are the contextual menus? And why are the all-important keyboard-shortcut tooltips scattered so haphazardly through the UI? Making things worse, the defaults and documentation assume a three-button mouse and a full keyboard with a numeric keypad etc., and the most basic navigation functions -- panning, zooming, dollying, orbiting -- all rely on inputs from these devices. Working on my 13" Macbook Pro, it took me about 15 hours of banging my head against the software until I found a combination of settings which allowed me to pan and zoom etc. using only my trackpad. (I had asked the Blender forums for help, and the advice I received was to buy another computer). Now it's working quite well for me, but only because I was willing to endure a few days of pain to get there. 3D software doesn't need to be this difficult. In my day, I've been highly proficient at 3D Studio, Lightwave, Cinema4D, Form•Z, and various other platforms, and none of them embody UX anti-conventions the way that Blender does. Heck, even basic things like its click-drag mechanics are just wrong (click-drag to initiate a drag, at which point the object or control point becomes "sticky" to the cursor, even after it's released; a second click is required to end the drag), requiring the user to comprehensively retrain their muscle memory in order to use the software. WTF?!? The Blender community, unfortunately, seems to largely be a self-selected cabal of people who have survived this pointless hazing ritual and are determined to make sure that everyone who follows in their footsteps does the same. Although a small minority of the community "gets it" and is making earnest and well-thought-through proposals about how to fix the situation (see: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9hH-NLs5weQKLkjqmgpA https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9...), they don't seem to have much traction, and are continually derided / ignored by the rest of the community. Thus even the very simplest lowest-hanging fruit -- such as enabling "select with left mouse button" by default (it's already an existing setting, buried deep in the preferences where no noob will ever find it) -- aren't implemented. It's a sad situation, because with a bit more polish on the UI/UX, Blender could be a genuine player in the 3D industry, rather than an intriguingly powerful assemblage of missed opportunities.

nunodonato 13y ago

I'm also from that time, it was lovely to see Blender grow. I still remember being online one afternoon (yes, in those times being online was something rare), just to download Blender 2.0 when they implemented huge interface changes and the first game engine. Congrats Ton and all!

nkoren 13y ago

Blender represents both the triumph and tragedy of open source software. I've been vaguely following its development since the late 90s, periodically making attempts to learn it, and failing until I finally made a more serious push earlier this month. Once one has gotten over the very steep learning curve, it's an amazing piece of kit. On a feature-by-feature basis, it handily outcompetes many commercial packages, and once one has learned the keyboard shortcuts, I can see how the interface would actually become a pleasure for daily users. However for beginners and casual users, the UI is a disaster: stupidly opaque and pointlessly obtuse. It is obtuse in ways which aren't necessary to support the power-user workflow, but seem to exist for no other reason than to maximise the "WTF?!?" factor for new users. For example: object-selection is done via a right-click, requiring the user to break their muscle-memory from literally every other GUI program they've ever used. WTF? And where are the contextual menus? And why are the all-important keyboard-shortcut tooltips scattered so haphazardly through the UI? Making things worse, the defaults and documentation assume a three-button mouse and a full keyboard with a numeric keypad etc., and the most basic navigation functions -- panning, zooming, dollying, orbiting -- all rely on inputs from these devices. Working on my 13" Macbook Pro, it took me about 15 hours of banging my head against the software until I found a combination of settings which allowed me to pan and zoom etc. using only my trackpad. (I had asked the Blender forums for help, and the advice I received was to buy another computer). Now it's working quite well for me, but only because I was willing to endure a few days of pain to get there. 3D software doesn't need to be this difficult. In my day, I've been highly proficient at 3D Studio, Lightwave, Cinema4D, Form•Z, and various other platforms, and none of them embody UX anti-conventions the way that Blender does. Heck, even basic things like its click-drag mechanics are just wrong (click-drag to initiate a drag, at which point the object or control point becomes "sticky" to the cursor, even after it's released; a second click is required to end the drag), requiring the user to comprehensively retrain their muscle memory in order to use the software. WTF?!? The Blender community, unfortunately, seems to largely be a self-selected cabal of people who have survived this pointless hazing ritual and are determined to make sure that everyone who follows in their footsteps does the same. Although a small minority of the community "gets it" and is making earnest and well-thought-through proposals about how to fix the situation (see: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9hH-NLs5weQKLkjqmgpA https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ScPMbHv8WRCU2znB7IU2l-W9...), they don't seem to have much traction, and are continually derided / ignored by the rest of the community. Thus even the very simplest lowest-hanging fruit -- such as enabling "select with left mouse button" by default (it's already an existing setting, buried deep in the preferences where no noob will ever find it) -- aren't implemented. It's a sad situation, because with a bit more polish on the UI/UX, Blender could be a genuine player in the 3D industry, rather than an intriguingly powerful assemblage of missed opportunities.