Blender 2.5 Alpha 0

thomthom

I might just download and try it. What is it they say; "20th time is a charm"?

dacad

And my Plan B(lender) keeps growig...

Yes Blender is a pain to understand and even find buttons (hell, there's even modeling stuff in the physics menus and vice versa...) but i still can't believe all the power it gives to the users.
BTW guys don't rely on 2.5 for comercial work. It still isn't production ready and mature enough.

thomthom

I'm amazed over how small the download Blender is. Where are they hiding all the bits and bytes?

pilou

Not so little
Core prog is 15 megas
Total application is 50 Megas

thomthom

@unknownuser said:

Not so little
Core prog is 15 megas
Total application is 50 Megas

3dSMax2010: 1,4GB

thomthom

@thomthom said:

@unknownuser said:

Not so little
Core prog is 15 megas
Total application is 50 Megas

3dSMax2010: 1,4GB

Oh wait, that was just the 64bit stuff. 32bit stuff that also installed is another 1,3GB.

pichuneke

I prefer to wait for the first beta, or even the first official version. It will be Blender 2.6 in the middle of next year.

pilou

Anim8or who makes quasi the "same" than 3Dmax is less than 2 Megas
Modeling Rendering Animation
Small is beautiful

remus

For comparison, the SU free download is 36mb to blenders 18mb. Not bad in my book.

Theres a release log here if anyone wants to check out.

thomthom

Ok. I managed to get into Edit Mode for the selected object. (Tab)
But how do you select a face?
I only seem to be able to select vertices (by right clicking)

hm... RTFM to be able to select a face?

Whaat

@thomthom said:

Ok. I managed to get into Edit Mode for the selected object. (Tab)
But how do you select a face?
I only seem to be able to select vertices (by right clicking)

hm... RTFM to be able to select a face?

I've been starting to use Blender 2.49 a lot more lately. It was always completely frustrating trying to do anything but now I have finally learned enough to start to enjoy using it.

Here are a couple Blender 2.49 tips for SketchUp users (not sure if these all apply to 2.5):

Go to User Preferences (if you can find it ) and change the view rotation to 'Turntable' and select with to 'Left Mouse'
View orientation controls are all with the numeric keypad
press 'b' to Window Select
press 'g' to move, 'r' to rotate and 's' to scale an object, then press x,y,or z to constrain along axis
'tab' goes to edit mode (like double clicking on component in SketchUp)
hover your mouse over the UI buttons to find out what they do
Don't even think about getting into materials and material editing unless you RTFM (my biggest mistake)

Oh, and to select a face in edit mode, look for a series of buttons at the bottom of the window to switch between vertex, edge, and face select mode

thomthom

@whaat said:

Oh, and to select a face in edit mode, look for a series of buttons at the bottom of the window to switch between vertex, edge, and face select mode

Ah hah! ahahaha!
Ok - so where's the inference? Or rather, how can I extrude to a given vector, like perpendicular to the face I have selected?

Also, is it correct that selecting is done by right clicking?
When I select faces it often selects faces behind the front one...

EarthMover

Thomthom, try selecting four verticies of a box and hit the "E" key and choose extrude region. Also use "S" key for scale. Make an obscure rectangular shape by extruding & scaling multiple times, then while still in edit mode, assign a "subsurf" modifier to the mesh and take the levels up to 4 or 5. This is similar to SDS for su. Continue to modify the subsurf and affect the subdivided geometry. Notice the speed.

Also, to select, use the RMB. To add to selection, use Shift+RMB. To quad face loop select, ALT+RMB

"A" to deselect all.

That's about all I remember from the 5 hours of tutorials I watched a few weeks ago.

remus

Thom, couple of tips to help when selecting faces: theres a little dot in the middle of each face, if you click near that its much more likely to select the face your going for. you can also occlude geometry (the SU equivalent of turning off transparency) by clicking the little button one along from the vertex/edge/face select buttons.

thomthom

@earthmover said:

Thomthom, try selecting four verticies of a box and hit the "E" key and choose extrude region. Also use "S" key for scale.

@remus said:

Thom, couple of tips to help when selecting faces: theres a little dot in the middle of each face, if you click near that its much more likely to select the face your going for.

Aaah! Hey - I can build stuff! Thanks guys..

Can't seem to find the Undo though. Not does Ctrl+Z work...

EarthMover

Michalis posted a link to some really good Blender tutorials in one of his early threads. The tutorials included the modeling of a frog. Anyone have a link? I can't seem to find the thread.

remus

ctrl+z works for me...i wonder if it depends on whether your in edit mode or not?

EarthMover

Undo might be broken in the 2.5 release. Ctrl Z works in 2.49. I use the portable version and it works great.

Also another good tip is the "K" key. Use it to knife or loop cut. Since there is no "pencil" tool in quad modeling programs, use the loop cut to divide a face in the appropriate sections and create windows and such. Boolean modifier also works well. Loop cut is also good to add some "weight" to an edge that will be subdivided.

Personally I'd rather use sketchup for architectural stuff any day of the week. Nothing beats the tape measure / line tool combo. For organic shapes, Blender is the best of the "FREE" apps.

Remus, how do you "box" select in Blender? (drag a selection window?)

pilou

Some videos tutorial (for 2.5 and 2.49)

EarthMover

THanks for the tutorial link Remus. Wow, 2.5 looks a lot like Modo.