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Graphics Software

Blender 2.34 Released 33

Posted by michael from the puree dept.
Ratow writes "From Blender's site: 'Just in time for Siggraph 2004, the Blender 2.34 release! Packed with new features, from particle force fields and deflection, to advanced UV mapping, ramp shading and more. Read the full list of additions and changes in 2.34. Here you can download Blender 2.34 for all platforms.'"
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Blender 2.34 Released More

Blender 2.34 Released

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  • Bleder UI is great. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by noselasd ( 594905 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @02:33PM (#9901370)
    So, are we having flamewars again about the Blender UI ? Knock on wood
    if it doesn't happen.

    Anyway, before people start bitching about it, please download the manual here [blender.org](Vol 1)
    and go through the tutorial of creating your first animation.

    Once you get to know how things works, its logical, and a breeze to use.
    Sort of learning the power of vi or emacs, it's right there, you just
    don't see it at first, and you have to learn a few basics to get started
    • Well, vi I'll accept. But if Blender were really similar to Emacs, you'd have to quintuple click while holding both Ctrl keys to select an object.

    • Re:Blender UI is great. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by shadowman99 ( 598429 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @02:44PM (#9901505)
      Yes it is a great interface. It takes practice, like anything worth learning. I have used blender to build two projects (works in progress) Superman [elysiun.com] and female mesh [elysiun.com]. Open source program open source docs open development comunity People need to stop bashing Blender. It's one of Open sources big success stories.

    • Some people just aren't very good at creating 3D graphics. Instead of realizing things like this, most people yell and blame the tool, not their own inability. It's just like some people don't have any talent for drawing or are just poor drivers. Cooking would be a good example, too. Last time I tried to cook something I got yelled at by the FEMA. :(

    • It is *NOT* logical. It doesn't even have an internal logic that sort of makes sense if you forget everything you know about other programs (see Lightwave). The improvements that have been made are still a long way away from making Blender usable for anything but people that are new to 3d. The actual UI has improved dramatically, so much so that at least visually it's my absolute favorite of any package I've used (and I've used a lot). It's the way that the UI is layed out, and the way the things within the
      • Any specific examples of how and when it is illogical?
        • First and foremost is the inability to set your own hotkeys. I understand this is being worked on, but not fast enough. Next on the list would have to be mouse controls. I have been using Blender on and off for several years and I did not know until the LAST RELEASE (keep in mind I got into Blender around .9) that the left mouse button had gestures assigned to it. WHAT THE HELL? There's a reason mouse gestures haven't taken off, they're completely unintuitive. The parameter value boxes also make no sense. Y

          • First and foremost is the inability to set your own hotkeys.

            Not really an issue to do with the logic of te controls, something that could certainly be better and as you mention something that is being worked on.

            Next on the list would have to be mouse controls. I have been using Blender on and off for several years and I did not know until the LAST RELEASE (keep in mind I got into Blender around .9) that the left mouse button had gestures assigned to it. WHAT THE HELL? There's a reason mouse gestures haven

          • "but it requires a SHIFT-click to do so." Not true since a while in CVS and now with 2.34. Direct click in middle area of button enables you to give manual input.
          • If you are into doing serious 3D graphics, you would probably
            read the manual of that program, it's usually all there, Blender
            beeing no exception. Put a newbie in front of Maya, he won't be getting
            very far either. 3D modelling studios are advanced programs, it's not a
            simple email/browser type of program.
            For your examples, if you cannot remember to hold shift , well, god help you. For doing steps in smoother sizes, you hold CTRL. Same as doing small steps with anything else in blender.

  • Development speed (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Wuukie ( 47391 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @02:38PM (#9901420)
    Have you noticed that Blender development speed is just absolutely amazing nowadays? It had the expectable slow start when new developers were making themselves familiar with the codebase, but lately we have had new, major updates regularly and IMHO quite frequently.

    Amazing work guys!
  • I have always wondered about the difference between blender and povray. Are they competitors do they complement each other, what is the relation? It seems they are often mentioned together.

    • Re:Povray (Score:4, Informative)

      by noselasd ( 594905 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @02:56PM (#9901658)
      Blender is a modelling/animation studio. You point'n'click to make 3D models.
      povray is a renderer, it reads a file that describes what to
      render (all objects/camera/lightning/texturing etc.), and produces an
      image for you. That file might very well be created with blender,and

      a povray export script.
      It should be noted that blender has its builtin renderer as well, and builtin support for rendering via yafray [slashdot.org].
      No builtin support for povray yet though.
      • Gee. Things screwd up there:

        povray export script [uk.com]

        yafray [yafray.org]

      • Re:Povray (Score:3, Informative)

        by Wuukie ( 47391 )
        Also note that Blender's built-in renderer is not a raytracing one unlike Povray and Yafray.

        Yafray in fact uses photon mapping, but I'm not really the one to compare "traditional" raytracing and photon mapping. Maybe someone else could describe them?
        • Traditional raytracing you fire a ray from say the first pixel 0,0 in your image, follow it bouncing around the model and get the color that way. When you hit a diffuse surface, that one ray becomes lots of rays.

          Photon mapping you fire lots of rays from the lights, and see where they hit. Then you write down the color, illumance, and direction the ray hit in some 3D memory array. Then you can do standard raytracing but use the photon map to get the colors..

          Photon mapping lets you do soft shadows, and h
  • Is it possible to recompile from source and get OpenGL hardware acceleration under linux? I don't mind hacking the makefiles (or even the source) a bit...
    • Just download the dynamic binary, or simply compile it yourself.
      No hacking needed. What you do need ofcourse, is accelerated OpenGL
      drivers, e.g. the nvidia binary drivers installed and working.
  • These posts have seriously been lacking details lately. As someone not currently in the 3d rendering field, I don't have a clue what it is. A short, one sentence description is a MUST for articles about new versions of software.
    • Well, you could just follow the link to the site [blender3d.org] and find out yourself, but since you're too lazy, and apparently not up on the open source scene, here you go:

      Blender was originally a freeware 3D rendering program developed by NaN software, capable of modeling, animation, and even had a built in game engine. NaN fell on hard financial times and had to be shut down. Not wanting to see it go to waste, NaN release it under the GPL license for a payment of 100,000 (generated by an online fundraiser), where

  • "Rump Shaking" (Score:3, Funny)

    by JeffHunt ( 129508 ) on Friday August 06, 2004 @04:19PM (#9902809) Homepage
    I just woke up and misread "Ramp Shading" as "Rump Shaking".

    I was excited for one second.
  • Here you can download Blender 2.34 [blender3d.org] for all platforms.

    What about my Amiga you insensitive clod?

    • Re:Thats not all of them (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      given that blender's UI is still a bad imitation of an old amiga app, you're not missing much if you stick to the copy of Imagine that was on the cover of Amiga Format years ago...
  • Best would be to share your bandwith and download Blender from the torrent tracker for Blender torrents, which is hosted at Blender Torrents [letwory.net]

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