Blender, baby! (Some questions)
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I've installed Blender this morning, and dug around a little in the UI. Seems like a very competent app, but errrrr - I did NOT fully realise, until now, how terribly complex it is. Quite the opposite of SU and Silo.
Maybe in a few years.
Still, kinda impressive it's free. 
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My basic impression is that once youve got a good foot hold in the basics its very good, as you can just improvise your way through the rest.
Its also a lot more powerful than SU in many aspects, especially when it comes to animation stuff. If i rmeber correctly it can handle stuff like hair and cloth, which i imagine might come in useful every now and then for archviz stuff.
Like everyone else tohugh, when ive tried it before i always get a bit overwhelmed by it, theres a lot there.
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@hfm said:
Well Blender is a very intuitive program, but you must be prepared to learn. I have over 4 gigs of tutorials and 'how to's and a direct link to the wiki page and I'm still messing around with basic stuff
.Sorry but this made me laugh! If it is very intuitive...you wouldn't need 4 gigs of tutorials to learn how to use it!!
Seriously...don't even think about using Blender without taking the time to go through LOTS of tutorials. The good thing is, there are lots of tutorials all over the web. IMO, Blender is just not geared towards archviz but you can use it for anything if you put in the time to learn.
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Hmm, indeed not the best word to describe blender. What I was trying to say is, that once you learn the basics and shortcuts you can work with blender pretty fast.
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Blender, like Max is a first generation 3D graphics system that carries the bagage of an overcomplex UI in order to access a massively powerful disjointed underlying graphics system. I speak as somebody that has spent the time and used this app for a short while. Just too complex and not worth the investment in time. The time cost in learning this app cannot be offset by the fact that it is free.
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Pretty clear verdict. Thank you all for your input.
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Just incase you never understood, I learned Maya faster than it took me to do the basic stuff with Blender.
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lol. Point taken. SU + Silo it is.
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Stinkie, please at least try it for a couple fo days before you dismiss it. Chances are youll be even more stalwart in your use of silo+SU, but in the unlikely event you actually get anywhere you may subsequently find somethign really useful.
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One alternative not mentioned is Truespace (now free). It has most of features included in XSI, C4D etc. including bones, animation, more complete modeling tools than Silo, plus a not half bad render engine. If you are interested take a look at their organic modeling videos. http://www.caligari.com/products/trueSpace/ts5/Courses/WorkspaceOrganicModeling1.asp?Cate=Training&Subcate=Fundamental
The interface is not inspiring but not nearly as daunting as Blender.
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why not take this thread up to the SKETCHUP DISCUSSIONS
i think it maybe be interesting enough, or not ?
there are more relevant threads on the Corner bar going on ?
is not it ?
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I dont really see why this thread should be in SU discussions, it doesnt really have anything to do with SU after all.
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and what about its fussion then ?
Blender, baby! (Some questions)
by stinkie on August 30th, 2008, 11:36 amIt's free, it's supposed to be very potent. How many of you have used it? How's it for archviz? Does it import SU models? If so, what's the workflow? Any downsides? How's the internal renderer? Can neanderthals like myself use it? Is there an obscure blender2maxwell plugin somewhere?
In short, what's your honest opinion on the use of the planet's most popular free 3d app for archviz modeling and rendering? What would be a viable SU+Blender workflow?
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Sorry for distractign from your thread stinkie.
Juan, dont forget the rest of the post. SU discusions is for talking about SU stuff, this post asked about blender.
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@remus said:
Stinkie, please at least try it for a couple fo days before you dismiss it. Chances are youll be even more stalwart in your use of silo+SU, but in the unlikely event you actually get anywhere you may subsequently find somethign really useful.
I'm not dismissing Blender. I'm gonna look further into it when I have the time. This looks like an interesting read:
@phil said:
One alternative not mentioned is Truespace (now free). It has most of features included in XSI, C4D etc. including bones, animation, more complete modeling tools than Silo, plus a not half bad render engine.
Looked into it already. Didn't appeal to me. I am not blown away by the renders it produces, either. Most of the stuff on the TS site is ... meh. I can do better with the engines I already have. (Me! Wo would've thought!)
@juanv.soler said:
why not take this thread up to the SKETCHUP DISCUSSIONS
i think it maybe be interesting enough, or not ?
there are more relevant threads on the Corner bar going on ?
is not it ?
)As Remus pointed out, this is hardly a SketchUp discussion. Not yet, at least.
@remus said:
Sorry for distractign from your thread stinkie.
Quite allright. Back on topic, shall we?
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I know Remus,
SU discusions is for talking about SU stuff and this post is asking about blender.
but as I saw a posibility of discussing its fussion, that is why I thought we could discuss it in the Stuff`ss if it is worth to debate
_hum
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Good link
http://www.blender3darchitect.com/Free MIT accredited blender course that I'm doing off and on when I have the time
http://ocw.tufts.edu/Course/28 -
Good old Blender.
Okay, On to the advice I can give you:
The UI is difficult, but you'll get used to it eventually. The SFX tools are handy, but similar to the rest of it, difficult to get into, but once your in, Plain Sailing. One of the features I really like is the Fluid Simulation, It's quite possible to mess around with it for hours without getting bored.
As for actually making models, I found it a bit tricky, Some Models(Like a simple car) could be made in minutes, But others can takes ages. I remember trying to make a basic blimp, and it took me 3 hours.
One of the other things that a lot of people are using blender for now is the game engine. It's very powerful if it's used correctly. What I would recommend is to have a look through the wiki for some tutorials, even if they don't really interest you, do them. Then I would head over to http://blenderartists.org/forum/ They are nice folks there, and are more than willing to help new users.
Also check out http://www.blendernation.com/ As they can have some very helpful articles.
And the final bit of advice, is have a read through: http://www.blenderart.org/issues/. They usually have some good short tutorials that are well written.
Just remember, my first blender model was this:
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and your last?
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It's on a USB Stick somewhere, It's of a Sail Boat. Quite nice looking.
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