Blender (software)
Encyclopedia
Blender is a free and open-source
3D computer graphics software product
used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current release (stable) version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011. Blender's features include 3D modeling
, UV unwrapping
, texturing
, rigging and skinning
, fluid and smoke simulation, particle
simulation, animating
, rendering
, video editing
and compositing
.
, who had previously written a ray tracer called Traces for Amiga
in 1989. The name "Blender" was inspired by a song by Yello
, from the album Baby.
Roosendaal founded NaN in June 1998 to further develop and distribute the program. The program was initially distributed as shareware
until NaN went bankrupt in 2002.
The creditors agreed to release Blender under the terms of the GNU General Public License
, for a one-time payment of €100,000 (US$
100,670 at the time). On July 18, 2002, a Blender funding campaign was started by Roosendaal in order to collect donations and on September 7, 2002 it was announced that enough funds had been collected and that the Blender source code
would be released. Today, Blender is free
, open-source software and is, apart from the two half-time employees and the two full-time employees of the Blender Institute, developed by the community.
The Blender Foundation initially reserved the right to use dual licensing
, so that, in addition to GNU GPL, Blender would have been available also under the "Blender License", which did not require disclosing source code but required payments to the Blender Foundation. However, this option was never exercised and was suspended indefinitely in 2005. Currently, Blender is solely available under GNU GPL.
, a last personal tag, the artists and developers decided to add a 3D model of a chimpanzee. It was created by Willem-Paul van Overbruggen (SLiD3), who also named it Suzanne after the orangutan in the Kevin Smith
film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
.
Suzanne is Blender's alternative to more common test models such as the Utah Teapot
and the Stanford Bunny
. A low-polygon model with only 500 faces, Suzanne is often used as a quick and easy way to test material, animation, rigs, texture, and lighting setups, and is also frequently used in joke images. The largest Blender contest gives out an award called the Suzanne Awards
.
, , Microsoft Windows
, and FreeBSD
. Though it is often distributed without extensive example scenes found in some other programs, the software contains features that are characteristic of high-end 3D software. Among its capabilities are:
, there has been effort to add comprehensive contextual menus as well as make the tool usage more logical and streamlined. There have also been efforts to visually enhance the user interface
, with the introduction of color themes, transparent floating widgets, a new and improved object tree overview, and other small improvements (such as a color picker widget).
Blender's user interface incorporates the following concepts:
Editing modes: The two primary modes of work are Object Mode and Edit Mode, which are toggled with the Tab key. Object mode is used to manipulate individual objects as a unit, while Edit mode is used to manipulate the actual object data. For example, Object Mode can be used to move, scale, and rotate entire polygon meshes, and Edit Mode can be used to manipulate the individual vertices of a single mesh. There are also several other modes, such as Vertex Paint, Weight Paint, and Sculpt Mode. The 2.45 release also had the UV Mapping Mode, but it was merged with the Edit Mode in 2.46 Release Candidate 1.
Hotkey utilization: Most of the commands are accessible via hotkeys. Until the 2.x and especially the 2.3x versions, this was in fact the only way to give commands, and this was largely responsible for creating Blender's reputation as a difficult-to-learn program. The new versions have more comprehensive GUI
menus.
Numeric input: Numeric buttons can be "dragged" to change their value directly without the need to aim at a particular widget, thus saving screen real estate and time. Both sliders and number buttons can be constrained to various step sizes with modifiers like the Ctrl and Shift keys. Python
expressions can also be typed directly into number entry fields, allowing mathematical expressions to be used to specify values.
Workspace management: The Blender GUI is made up of one or more screens, each of which can be divided into sections and subsections that can be of any type of Blender's views or window-types. Each window-type's own GUI elements can be controlled with the same tools that manipulate 3D view. For example, one can zoom in and out of GUI-buttons in the same way one zooms in and out in the 3D viewport. The GUI viewport and screen layout is fully user-customizable. It is possible to set up the interface for specific tasks such as video editing or UV mapping
or texturing by hiding features not utilized for the task. The user interface supports multiple monitors.
The actual ".blend" file is similar to the EA
Interchange File Format
, starting with its own header (for example BLENDER_v248) that specifies the version, endianness
and pointer size, followed by a collection of binary chunks storing the data blocks, and all the type and struct definitions also known as DNA. Although it is hard to read and convert a ".blend" file to another format using external tools, the readblend
utility can do this. Dozens of import/export scripts that run inside Blender itself, accessing the object data via API
, make it possible to inter-operate with other 3D tools.
Jeroen Bakker documented the Blender file format to allow inter-operation with other tooling. The document can be found at the The mystery of the blend website. A DNA structure browser is also available on this site.
Blender organizes data as various kinds of "data blocks", such as Objects, Meshes, Lamps, Scenes, Materials, Images and so on. An object in Blender consists of multiple data blocks - for example, a polygon mesh has at least an Object and Mesh data block, and usually also a Material. This allows various data blocks to refer to each other; there may be, for example, multiple Objects that refer to the same Mesh, allowing the mesh to be duplicated while only keeping one copy of the mesh data in memory, and allowing subsequent editing of all duplicated meshes at the same time. Data block relationships can also be changed manually. Data blocks can also be referred to in other .blend files, allowing the use of .blend files as reusable object libraries.
. In 2010, CGenie classed Blender as a fledgling product with the majority of its users being "hobbyists" rather than students or professionals but with its high standards rising year on year. They also reported that users thought Blender needed more development and required more compatibility with other programs.
A 2007 article claimed that Blender's interface was not up to industry standards, but was nevertheless suited to fast workflow and was sometimes more intuitive. Poor documentation was also criticized although there is community support through an online wiki
, and a range of books published both by the Blender Foundation and independently.
In 2011, Blender 2.5 was released. Featuring a completely redesigned user interface, it aims to improve work flow and ease of use. During beta-testing, Blender 2.5's animation system was considered by the Sintel
animators to be as good or better than some commercial packages.
Recent improvements include an animation system refresh; a stack-based modifier system; an updated particle system (which can also be used to simulate hair and fur); fluid dynamics; soft-body dynamics; GLSL shaders support in the game engine; advanced UV unwrapping; a fully recoded render pipeline, allowing separate render passes and "render to texture"; node-based material editing and compositing; Projection painting.
Part of these developments were fostered by Google
's Summer of Code
program, in which the Blender Foundation has participated since 2005.
The current release (stable) version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011. New features include:
Numerous other sites, for example BlenderArt Magazine—a free, downloadable magazine with each issue handling a particular area in 3D development—and BlenderNation, provide information on everything surrounding Blender, showcase new techniques and features, and provide tutorials and other guides.
The first large professional project that used Blender was Spider-Man 2
, where it was primarily used to create animatics and pre-visualizations for the storyboard department.
The French-language film Friday or Another Day (Vendredi ou un autre jour) was the first 35 mm feature film to use Blender for all the special effects, made on GNU/Linux workstations. It won a prize at the Locarno International Film Festival
. The special effects were by Digital Graphics of Belgium.
Blender has also been used for shows on the History Channel, alongside many other professional 3D graphics programs.
Tomm Moore
’s The Secret of Kells, which was partly produced in
Blender by the Belgian studio Digital Graphics, has been nominated for an Oscar in the category ‘Best Animated Feature Film’.
, in an initiative known as the Orange Movie Project hosted by the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk)
. The resulting film, Elephants Dream, premiered on March 24, 2006. In response to the success of Elephants Dream, the Blender Foundation founded the Blender Institute to do additional projects with two announced projects: Big Buck Bunny
, also known as "Project Peach" (a 'furry and funny' short open animated film project) and Yo Frankie, also known as Project Apricot (an open game in collaboration with CrystalSpace which reused some of the assets created during Project Peach).
) using free software
. The game is titled Yo Frankie. The project started February 1, 2008, and development was completed at the end of July 2008. A finalized product was expected at the end of August; however, the release was delayed. The game was released on December 9, 2008, under either the GNU GPL
or LGPL
, with all content being licensed under Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0.
s.
action epic of about twelve minutes in length, starring a female teenager and a young dragon
as the main characters. The film premiered online on September 30, 2010, also has upcoming game that is currently in production and was officially announced on Blenderartists.org on May 12, 2010.
was announced by the Blender Foundation
. A team of artists was to be assembled using an open call of community participation.
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
3D computer graphics software product
3D computer graphics software
3D computer graphics software refers to programs used to create 3D computer-generated imagery. This article covers only some of the software used.-Uses:...
used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current release (stable) version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011. Blender's features include 3D modeling
3D modeling
In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical representation of any three-dimensional surface of object via specialized software. The product is called a 3D model...
, UV unwrapping
UV mapping
UV mapping is the 3D modeling process of making a 2D image representation of a 3D model.-UV mapping:This process projects a texture map onto a 3D object...
, texturing
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
, rigging and skinning
Skeletal animation
Skeletal animation is a technique in computer animation in which a character is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character and a hierarchical set of interconnected bones used to animate the mesh...
, fluid and smoke simulation, particle
Particle system
The term particle system refers to a computer graphics technique to simulate certain fuzzy phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques...
simulation, animating
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
, rendering
Rendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
, video editing
Video editing software
Video editing software, is application software which handles the post-production video editing of digital video sequences on a computer non-linear editing systems...
and compositing
Compositing
Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today,...
.
History
Blender was developed as an in-house application by the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo and Not a Number Technologies (NaN). It was primarily authored by Ton RoosendaalTon Roosendaal
Ton Roosendaal is a Dutch software developer. He is known as the original creator of the open-source 3D creation suite Blender, as chairman of the Blender Foundation, and for pioneering large scale open-content projects...
, who had previously written a ray tracer called Traces for Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
in 1989. The name "Blender" was inspired by a song by Yello
Yello
Yello is a Swiss electronica band consisting of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank. They are probably best known for their singles "The Race" and "Oh Yeah", which feature a mix of electronic music and manipulated vocals, as does most of their music....
, from the album Baby.
Roosendaal founded NaN in June 1998 to further develop and distribute the program. The program was initially distributed as shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
until NaN went bankrupt in 2002.
The creditors agreed to release Blender under the terms of the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, for a one-time payment of €100,000 (US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
100,670 at the time). On July 18, 2002, a Blender funding campaign was started by Roosendaal in order to collect donations and on September 7, 2002 it was announced that enough funds had been collected and that the Blender source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
would be released. Today, Blender is free
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, open-source software and is, apart from the two half-time employees and the two full-time employees of the Blender Institute, developed by the community.
The Blender Foundation initially reserved the right to use dual licensing
Dual license
Multi-licensing is the practice of distributing software under two or more different sets of terms and conditions. This may mean multiple different licenses or sets of licenses. Prefixes may be used to indicate the number of licenses used, e.g...
, so that, in addition to GNU GPL, Blender would have been available also under the "Blender License", which did not require disclosing source code but required payments to the Blender Foundation. However, this option was never exercised and was suspended indefinitely in 2005. Currently, Blender is solely available under GNU GPL.
Suzanne
In January/February 2002 it was quite clear that NaN could not survive and would close the doors in March. Nevertheless, they found the energy for doing at least one more release: 2.25. As a sort-of easter eggEaster egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
, a last personal tag, the artists and developers decided to add a 3D model of a chimpanzee. It was created by Willem-Paul van Overbruggen (SLiD3), who also named it Suzanne after the orangutan in the Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith
Kevin Patrick Smith is an American screenwriter, actor, film producer, and director, as well as a popular comic book writer, author, comedian/raconteur, and internet radio personality best recognized by viewers as Silent Bob...
film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is a 2001 American action adventure comedy film written, directed by, and starring Kevin Smith as Silent Bob, the fifth to be set in his View Askewniverse, a growing collection of characters and settings that developed out of his cult favorite Clerks...
.
Suzanne is Blender's alternative to more common test models such as the Utah Teapot
Utah teapot
The Utah teapot or Newell teapot is a 3D computer model which has become a standard reference object in the computer graphics community. It is a mathematical model of an ordinary teapot of fairly simple shape, which appears solid, cylindrical and partially convex...
and the Stanford Bunny
Stanford Bunny
The Stanford Bunny is a computer graphics 3D test model developed by Greg Turk and Marc Levoy in 1994 at Stanford University.The Bunny consists of data describing 69,451 triangles determined by 3D scanning a ceramic figurine of a rabbit. The data can be used to test various graphics algorithms;...
. A low-polygon model with only 500 faces, Suzanne is often used as a quick and easy way to test material, animation, rigs, texture, and lighting setups, and is also frequently used in joke images. The largest Blender contest gives out an award called the Suzanne Awards
Suzanne Awards
The Suzanne Award is awarded to animators using Blender 3D annually since the second blender conference held in Amsterdam 2003. The categories of the Suzanne Awards have changed repeatedly since the first Suzanne Awards....
.
Features
Blender has a relatively small installation size and runs on several popular computing platforms. Official versions of the software are released for LinuxLinux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, , Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, and FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
. Though it is often distributed without extensive example scenes found in some other programs, the software contains features that are characteristic of high-end 3D software. Among its capabilities are:
- Support for a variety of geometric primitives, including polygon meshPolygon meshA polygon mesh or unstructured grid is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object in 3D computer graphics and solid modeling...
es, fast subdivision surfaceSubdivision surfaceA subdivision surface, in the field of 3D computer graphics, is a method of representing a smooth surface via the specification of a coarser piecewise linear polygon mesh...
modeling, Bezier curveBézier curveA Bézier curve is a parametric curve frequently used in computer graphics and related fields. Generalizations of Bézier curves to higher dimensions are called Bézier surfaces, of which the Bézier triangle is a special case....
s, NURBS surfacesNonuniform rational B-splineNon-uniform rational basis spline is a mathematical model commonly used in computer graphics for generating and representing curves and surfaces which offers great flexibility and precision for handling both analytic and freeform shapes.- History :Development of NURBS began in the 1950s by...
, metaballsMetaballsMetaballs are, in computer graphics, organic-looking n-dimensional objects. The technique for rendering metaballs was invented by Jim Blinn in the early 1980s....
, digital sculptingDigital sculptingDigital sculpting, also known as Sculpt Modeling or 3D Sculpting, is the use of software that offers tools to push, pull, smooth, grab, pinch or otherwise manipulate a digital object as if it were made of a real-life substance such as clay....
, outline fontFontIn typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
, and a new n-gon modeling system called B-mesh. - Internal render engine with ray tracing, indirect lighting, and ambient occlusion that can export in a wide variety of formats.
- Integration with a number of external render engines through plugins.
- Keyframed animation tools including inverse kinematics, armature (skeletal), hook, curve and lattice-based deformations, shape keys (morphingMorphingMorphing is a special effect in motion pictures and animations that changes one image into another through a seamless transition. Most often it is used to depict one person turning into another through technological means or as part of a fantasy or surreal sequence. Traditionally such a depiction...
), non-linear animation, constraints, and vertex weighting. - Simulation tools for Soft body dynamics including mesh collision detection, LBMLattice Boltzmann methodsLattice Boltzmann methods is a class of computational fluid dynamics methods for fluid simulation. Instead of solving the Navier–Stokes equations, the discrete Boltzmann equation is solved to simulate the flow of a Newtonian fluid with collision models such as Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook...
fluid dynamics, smoke simulation, and BulletBullet (software)Bullet is an open source physics engine featuring 3D collision detection, soft body dynamics, and rigid body dynamics. It is used in games, and in visual effects in movies. The Bullet physics library is published under the zlib license. Erwin Coumans, its main author, worked for Sony Computer...
rigid body dynamics. - A particle system which includes support for particle-based hair.
- Modifiers to apply non-destructive effects.
- PythonPython (programming language)Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
scripting for tool creation and prototyping, game logic, importing and/or exporting from other formats, task automation and custom tools. - Basic non-linear video/audio editing.
- Game BlenderGame BlenderThe Blender Game Engine is a component of Blender, a free and open-source comprehensive 3D production suite, used for making real-time interactive content...
, a sub-project, offers interactivity features such as collision detection, dynamics engine, and programmable logic. It also allows the creation of stand-alone, real-time applications ranging from architectural visualization to video game construction. - A fully integrated node-based compositor within the rendering pipeline.
- Procedural and node-based textures, as well as texture painting, projective painting, vertex painting, and weight painting.
- Realtime control during physics simulation and rendering.
User interface
Blender has had a reputation as being difficult to learn for users accustomed to other 3D graphics software. Nearly every function has a direct keyboard shortcut and there can be several different shortcuts per key. Since Blender became free softwareFree software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, there has been effort to add comprehensive contextual menus as well as make the tool usage more logical and streamlined. There have also been efforts to visually enhance the user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
, with the introduction of color themes, transparent floating widgets, a new and improved object tree overview, and other small improvements (such as a color picker widget).
Blender's user interface incorporates the following concepts:
Editing modes: The two primary modes of work are Object Mode and Edit Mode, which are toggled with the Tab key. Object mode is used to manipulate individual objects as a unit, while Edit mode is used to manipulate the actual object data. For example, Object Mode can be used to move, scale, and rotate entire polygon meshes, and Edit Mode can be used to manipulate the individual vertices of a single mesh. There are also several other modes, such as Vertex Paint, Weight Paint, and Sculpt Mode. The 2.45 release also had the UV Mapping Mode, but it was merged with the Edit Mode in 2.46 Release Candidate 1.
Hotkey utilization: Most of the commands are accessible via hotkeys. Until the 2.x and especially the 2.3x versions, this was in fact the only way to give commands, and this was largely responsible for creating Blender's reputation as a difficult-to-learn program. The new versions have more comprehensive GUI
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
menus.
Numeric input: Numeric buttons can be "dragged" to change their value directly without the need to aim at a particular widget, thus saving screen real estate and time. Both sliders and number buttons can be constrained to various step sizes with modifiers like the Ctrl and Shift keys. Python
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
expressions can also be typed directly into number entry fields, allowing mathematical expressions to be used to specify values.
Workspace management: The Blender GUI is made up of one or more screens, each of which can be divided into sections and subsections that can be of any type of Blender's views or window-types. Each window-type's own GUI elements can be controlled with the same tools that manipulate 3D view. For example, one can zoom in and out of GUI-buttons in the same way one zooms in and out in the 3D viewport. The GUI viewport and screen layout is fully user-customizable. It is possible to set up the interface for specific tasks such as video editing or UV mapping
UV mapping
UV mapping is the 3D modeling process of making a 2D image representation of a 3D model.-UV mapping:This process projects a texture map onto a 3D object...
or texturing by hiding features not utilized for the task. The user interface supports multiple monitors.
Hardware requirements
Blender has very low hardware requirements compared to other 3D suites. However, for advanced effects and high-poly editing, a more powerful system is needed.| Hardware | Minimum | Recommended | Production-standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | 1 GHz, Single core | 2 GHz, Dual core | 2 GHz, Multi-core (64-bit 64-bit 64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s... ) |
| Memory | 512 MB Megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000... RAM |
2 GB Gigabyte The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is... |
8 – 16 GB |
| Graphics card | OpenGL OpenGL OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL... card with 64 MB Video RAM |
OpenGL card with 256 or 512 MB Video RAM | OpenGL card with 1 GB RAM, ATI FireGL ATI FireGL The ATI FireGL range of video cards, renamed to FirePro 3D in late 2008, is the series specifically for CAD and DCC software, usually found in workstations.-History:... or Nvidia Quadro NVIDIA Quadro The Nvidia Quadro series of AGP, PCI, and PCI Express graphics cards comes from the NVIDIA Corporation. Their designers aimed to accelerate CAD and DCC , and the cards are usually featured in workstations.... |
| Display | 1024×768 pixels, 16-bit color | 1920×1200 pixels, 24-bit color | 1920×1200 pixels, 24-bit color |
| Input | Three-button mouse Mouse (computing) In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons... |
Three-button mouse | Three-button mouse and a graphics tablet Graphics tablet A graphics tablet is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images and graphics, similar to the way a person draws images with a pencil and paper. These tablets may also be used to capture data or handwritten signatures... |
File format
Blender features an internal file system that allows one to pack multiple scenes into a single file (called a ".blend" file).- All of Blender's ".blend" files are forward, backward, and cross-platform compatible with other versions of Blender, with the exception of loading post-2.5 files in Blender pre-2.5.
- Snapshot ".blend" files can be auto-saved periodically by the program, making it easier to survive a program crash.
- All scenes, objects, materials, textures, sounds, images, post-production effects for an entire animation can be stored in a single ".blend" file. Data loaded from external sources, such as images and sounds, can also be stored externally and referenced through either an absolute or relative pathname. Likewise, ".blend" files themselves can also be used as libraries of Blender assets.
- Interface configurations are retained in the ".blend" files, such that what you save is what you get upon load. This file can be stored as "user defaults" so this screen configuration, as well as all the objects stored in it, is used every time you load Blender.
The actual ".blend" file is similar to the EA
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
Interchange File Format
Interchange File Format
Interchange File Format , is a generic container file format originally introduced by the Electronic Arts company in 1985 in order to ease transfer of data between software produced by different companies....
, starting with its own header (for example BLENDER_v248) that specifies the version, endianness
Endianness
In computing, the term endian or endianness refers to the ordering of individually addressable sub-components within the representation of a larger data item as stored in external memory . Each sub-component in the representation has a unique degree of significance, like the place value of digits...
and pointer size, followed by a collection of binary chunks storing the data blocks, and all the type and struct definitions also known as DNA. Although it is hard to read and convert a ".blend" file to another format using external tools, the readblend
Readblend
ReadBlend is a small library to read and extract any data structures from most .blend files created by the free 3D application Blender. It is part of the Bullet Physics SDK....
utility can do this. Dozens of import/export scripts that run inside Blender itself, accessing the object data via API
Application programming interface
An application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
, make it possible to inter-operate with other 3D tools.
Jeroen Bakker documented the Blender file format to allow inter-operation with other tooling. The document can be found at the The mystery of the blend website. A DNA structure browser is also available on this site.
Blender organizes data as various kinds of "data blocks", such as Objects, Meshes, Lamps, Scenes, Materials, Images and so on. An object in Blender consists of multiple data blocks - for example, a polygon mesh has at least an Object and Mesh data block, and usually also a Material. This allows various data blocks to refer to each other; there may be, for example, multiple Objects that refer to the same Mesh, allowing the mesh to be duplicated while only keeping one copy of the mesh data in memory, and allowing subsequent editing of all duplicated meshes at the same time. Data block relationships can also be changed manually. Data blocks can also be referred to in other .blend files, allowing the use of .blend files as reusable object libraries.
Comparison with other 3D software
Blender is a dominant open source product with a range of features comparable to mid- to high-range commercial, proprietary softwareProprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
. In 2010, CGenie classed Blender as a fledgling product with the majority of its users being "hobbyists" rather than students or professionals but with its high standards rising year on year. They also reported that users thought Blender needed more development and required more compatibility with other programs.
A 2007 article claimed that Blender's interface was not up to industry standards, but was nevertheless suited to fast workflow and was sometimes more intuitive. Poor documentation was also criticized although there is community support through an online wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
, and a range of books published both by the Blender Foundation and independently.
In 2011, Blender 2.5 was released. Featuring a completely redesigned user interface, it aims to improve work flow and ease of use. During beta-testing, Blender 2.5's animation system was considered by the Sintel
Sintel
Sintel is a short computer animated film by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation. The name comes from the Dutch word sintel, which can mean cinder or ember, as confirmed by Ton Roosendaal in a blog comment: " “Sintel” is [a] piece of glowing coal or metal...
animators to be as good or better than some commercial packages.
Development
Since the opening of the source, Blender has experienced significant refactoring of the initial codebase and major additions to its feature set.Recent improvements include an animation system refresh; a stack-based modifier system; an updated particle system (which can also be used to simulate hair and fur); fluid dynamics; soft-body dynamics; GLSL shaders support in the game engine; advanced UV unwrapping; a fully recoded render pipeline, allowing separate render passes and "render to texture"; node-based material editing and compositing; Projection painting.
Part of these developments were fostered by Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
's Summer of Code
Google Summer of Code
The Google Summer of Code is an annual program, first held from May to August 2005, in which Google awards stipends to hundreds of students who successfully complete a requested free or open-source software coding project during the summer...
program, in which the Blender Foundation has participated since 2005.
The current release (stable) version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011. New features include:
- New user interface
- New animation system, which allows almost any value to be animated
- Re-written, Python 3.x scripting API
- Smoke simulation
- Updated toolset, with improved implementation
- Approximate indirect lighting
- Volume rendering
- Ray tracing optimizations, rendering some scenes "up to 10x faster"
- Solidify modifier
- Sculpt brush and stroke upgrade
- Add-on system
- Custom keyboard shortcuts
- Spline IK
- Color management
- Fluid particles (smoothed-particle hydrodynamics)
- Network render
- Deep shadow maps
- 3D audio and video
- Game engine navigation meshes
- Motion capture tools
- Collada integration
Support
In the month following the release of Blender v2.44, it was downloaded 800,000 times; this worldwide user base forms the core of the support mechanisms for the program. Most users learn Blender through community tutorials and discussion forums on the internet such as Blender Artists ; however, another learning method is to download and inspect ready-made Blender models.Numerous other sites, for example BlenderArt Magazine—a free, downloadable magazine with each issue handling a particular area in 3D development—and BlenderNation, provide information on everything surrounding Blender, showcase new techniques and features, and provide tutorials and other guides.
Use in the media industry
Blender started out as an inhouse tool for a Dutch commercial animation company, NeoGeo. Blender has been used for television commercials in several parts of the world including Australia, Iceland, Brazil, Russia and Sweden.The first large professional project that used Blender was Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 is a 2004 American superhero film directed by Sam Raimi, written by Alvin Sargent and developed by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Michael Chabon. It is the second film in the Spider-Man film franchise based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man...
, where it was primarily used to create animatics and pre-visualizations for the storyboard department.
- "As an animatic artist working in the storyboard department of Spider-Man 2, I used Blender's 3D modeling and character animation tools to enhance the storyboards, re-creating sets and props, and putting into motion action and camera moves in 3D space to help make Sam Raimi'sSam RaimiSamuel Marshall "Sam" Raimi is an American film director, producer, actor and writer. He is best known for directing cult horror films like the Evil Dead series, Darkman and Drag Me to Hell, as well as the blockbuster Spider-Man films and the producer of the successful TV series Hercules: The...
vision as clear to other departments as possible." - Anthony Zierhut, Animatic Artist, Los Angeles.
The French-language film Friday or Another Day (Vendredi ou un autre jour) was the first 35 mm feature film to use Blender for all the special effects, made on GNU/Linux workstations. It won a prize at the Locarno International Film Festival
Locarno International Film Festival
The Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...
. The special effects were by Digital Graphics of Belgium.
Blender has also been used for shows on the History Channel, alongside many other professional 3D graphics programs.
Tomm Moore
Tomm Moore
Tomm Moore is an Irish illustrator, comics artist and filmmaker. He is co-founder of Cartoon Saloon, an animation studio and production company, based in Kilkenny, Ireland...
’s The Secret of Kells, which was partly produced in
Blender by the Belgian studio Digital Graphics, has been nominated for an Oscar in the category ‘Best Animated Feature Film’.
Elephants Dream (Open Movie Project: Orange)
In September 2005, some of the most notable Blender artists and developers began working on a short film using primarily free softwareFree software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, in an initiative known as the Orange Movie Project hosted by the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk)
Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk)
The Netherlands Media Art Institute is an international institution based in Amsterdam focusing on the presentation, research and collection of Media Art....
. The resulting film, Elephants Dream, premiered on March 24, 2006. In response to the success of Elephants Dream, the Blender Foundation founded the Blender Institute to do additional projects with two announced projects: Big Buck Bunny
Big Buck Bunny
Big Buck Bunny is a short computer animated film by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation.Like the foundation's previous film Elephants Dream, the film was made using Blender, a free software application for animation made by the same foundation.-Overview:Work began in October 2007...
, also known as "Project Peach" (a 'furry and funny' short open animated film project) and Yo Frankie, also known as Project Apricot (an open game in collaboration with CrystalSpace which reused some of the assets created during Project Peach).
Big Buck Bunny (Open Movie Project: Peach)
On October 1, 2007, a new team started working on a second open project, "Peach", for the production of the short movie Big Buck Bunny. This time, however, the creative concept was totally different. Instead of the deep and mystical style of Elephants Dream, things are more "funny and furry" according to the official site. The movie had its premiere on April 10, 2008.Yo Frankie! (Open Game Project: Apricot)
Apricot is a project for production of a game based on the universe and characters of the Peach movie (Big Buck BunnyBig Buck Bunny
Big Buck Bunny is a short computer animated film by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation.Like the foundation's previous film Elephants Dream, the film was made using Blender, a free software application for animation made by the same foundation.-Overview:Work began in October 2007...
) using free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
. The game is titled Yo Frankie. The project started February 1, 2008, and development was completed at the end of July 2008. A finalized product was expected at the end of August; however, the release was delayed. The game was released on December 9, 2008, under either the GNU GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
or LGPL
GNU Lesser General Public License
The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...
, with all content being licensed under Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
Attribution 3.0.
Plumíferos
Plumíferos, a commercial animated feature film created entirely in Blender, was premiered in February 2010 in Argentina. Its main characters are anthropomorphic talking animalTalking animal
A talking animal or speaking animal refers to any form of non-human animal which can produce sounds resembling those of a human language. Many species or groups of animals have developed forms of Animal Communication Systems which to some appear to be a non-verbal language...
s.
Sintel (Open Movie Project: Durian)
The Blender Foundation announced its newest Open Movie, codenamed Project Durian (in keeping with the tradition of fruits as code names). It was this time chosen to make a fantasyFantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
action epic of about twelve minutes in length, starring a female teenager and a young dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
as the main characters. The film premiered online on September 30, 2010, also has upcoming game that is currently in production and was officially announced on Blenderartists.org on May 12, 2010.
Project Mango
On October 2, 2011, the fourth open movie project, codnamed MangoMango
The mango is a fleshy stone fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to India from where it spread all over the world. It is also the most cultivated fruit of the tropical world. While...
was announced by the Blender Foundation
Blender Foundation
The Blender Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for the development of Blender, an open source program for three-dimensional modeling....
. A team of artists was to be assembled using an open call of community participation.
See also
- 3D computer graphics software3D computer graphics software3D computer graphics software refers to programs used to create 3D computer-generated imagery. This article covers only some of the software used.-Uses:...
- Blender FoundationBlender FoundationThe Blender Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for the development of Blender, an open source program for three-dimensional modeling....
- Suzanne AwardsSuzanne AwardsThe Suzanne Award is awarded to animators using Blender 3D annually since the second blender conference held in Amsterdam 2003. The categories of the Suzanne Awards have changed repeatedly since the first Suzanne Awards....
- Ton RoosendaalTon RoosendaalTon Roosendaal is a Dutch software developer. He is known as the original creator of the open-source 3D creation suite Blender, as chairman of the Blender Foundation, and for pioneering large scale open-content projects...
- IllusionMageIllusionMageIllusionMage is a paid for 3D modeling, animation, and rendering software packages comprising the core engine of Blender, an open-source, 3D software suite, and bundled with materials related to Blender....