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 Blender is a free 3D modeler program. It is used for modelling and rendering three-dimensional graphics and animations. Blender is available for several operating systems, including FreeBSD, IRIX, GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris, SkyOS, and MorphOS.
In addition, Blender's recent burst of new features in the last few versions has actually brought it close in feature-set comparison to high-end 3D software such as SoftImage|XSI, 3D Studio Max and Maya. Among these features and user interface ideas are, for example, complex fluid and cloth effects, a comprehensive and well-thought out hotkey program, which rivals that of most higher end applications, and a wide range of easily accessible and creatable extensions using Python scripting.
Blender has a relatively small installation size and runs on several popular computing platforms. Though it is often distributed without documentation or extensive example scenes, the software is rich with features that are characteristic of high-end modelling software. Among its capabilities are:
Standard features- Support for a variety of geometric primitives, including polygon meshes, fast subdivision surface modeling, Bezier curves and NURBS surfaces, metaballs, polygon sculpting, and vector fonts.
- Versatile internal rendering capabilities and integration with the YafRay open source ray tracer.
- Animation tools including inverse kinematics, armature (skeletal) and lattice deformation, shape keys, keyframes, timeline, non-linear animation, constraints, vertex weighting, soft body dynamics including mesh collision detection, fluid dynamics, hard body dynamics, particle based hair, and a particle system with collision detection.
- Python scripting for tool creation and prototyping, game scripting logic, file import/export and task automation.
- Basic non-linear video editing and compositing capabilities.
- Game Blender, 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.
Advanced features- In Blender, an Object (which represents an entity that interacts with the world) and its Data (the actual shape/function of the object) are distinguishable. Object-data relationships are m:n (a term from Database terminology meaning many objects can share the same data) and dynamically-linkable at all times, allowing for some rapid modelling processes that are unique to blender.
- An internal filesystem 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, and can be used as a library to borrow premade content.
- 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.
- 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.
User interface
Blender has had a reputation as a program that is difficult to learn. Nearly every function has a direct keyboard shortcut, with the amount of functions blender offers resulting in several different shortcuts per key. Since the open-sourcing, there has been effort to add comprehensive contextual menus as well as make the tool use more logical and streamlined, and also visually enhance the user interface further, with the introduction of color themes, transparent floating widgets, a new and improved object tree overview and other small improvements (color picker widget, etc.). Blender user interface has the following distinguishing 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 in general, while Edit mode is used to manipulate the actual object data. For example, for polygon meshes, Object mode can be used to move, scale, and rotate entire meshes, and Edit mode is used to manipulate the individual vertices of a single mesh. There are also several other modes, such as Vertex Paint and UV Editing modes.
- Very heavy use of keyboard hotkeys. Most of the commands are given from keyboard. 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.
- Workspace management. The blender GUI is made up of one or more screens, which each 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, resulting in the strange feature of being able to zoom in and out of GUI-buttons in the same way one zooms in and out in the 3D viewport. The GUI's layout and setup is fully controllable by the users, making it possible to set up the interface for specific tasks such as video editing or UV mapping and texturing and hiding other features that aren't needed for that specific task
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