Tadd Mencer

Posts Tagged ‘Blender 3d’

Like everyone that uses a computer there are certain software packages that I use almost daily. I can’t really do what I do without these! I figured, hey – I love finding lists of software people use and finding something new so why not make one for others!?

So here is the list. Most are free though some, are not. Free applications are marked.

Documents and Writing

OpenOffice – Full office suite(when I’m at home – FREE!)
Microsoft Office 2007 (when I’m at home)
celtx – Full media production writing software !!!A MUST HAVE!!! (FREE)
Windows Live Writer – blog writing software (FREE)

Graphics

Adobe Photoshop CS3
Neverwinter Silo – 3D modeling app
Blender – 3D app (FREE)

Web Design

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 (At work)
Aptana Studio – Aptana Studio is a complete web development environment (At home – FREE version)
NotePad++ – Editor with tabbed interface, configurable syntax highlighting, syntax folding, line numbering, multi-view, bookmarks and regular expression (FREE)
Filezilla – FTP client (FREE)

Communication

Microsoft Outlook (at work)
Mozilla Thunderbird – Email client (at home – FREE)
Pidgin IM – A free chat client used by millions. Connect easily to MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, AIM and other chat networks all at once. (FREE)
Sunbird – Cross-platform calendar application (FREE)

Utilities

CCleaner – system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool (FREE)
Disk Cleaner – quickly and easily clean your hard disk from temporary files (FREE)
ClamWin – Antivirus (FREE)
Renamer – A very powerful and flexible file renaming tool (FREE)
Keepass – Password manager (FREE)
PuTTY – Telnet and SSH Client (FREE)

Uncategorized

PortableApps – This is handy little program that runs off a Flash USB drive. You can have many portable applications open easily with this – some of them are on my list. Really, if it can be used on a portable device, PortableApps will be able to open it for you – which is pretty dang slick.
ObjectDock – Organize shortcuts, programs and running tasks into an attractive and fun animated Dock (FREE version)
RocketDock – Similar to the above and just as awesome. I use these two in tandem so I can have two docks open (FREE)

You may remember a few of my posts that had a lot to do with Blender, the free 3D rendering system. This program not only kicks a lot of butt, it has a very active community.

I found a slew of sites that have turorials on how to use this. So I figured I would share the wealth!

Anyone else get infuriated with Blender 3D? I mean come on … how non-compliant can you really get with a GUI!?

If you don’t know, I’m attempting to use Open Source software to create a graphic novel, and in the future an animated ‘film’ or series. It will be dark, brutal and not exactly something for everyone. But it will be an adventure. For both the reader, and myself.

I chose Blender because of the amazing features that this free program has. It can really compete I feel with the ‘big dawgs’ like 3D Studio Max and Maya … perhaps not compeletely, but it really has amazing features and takes advantage of a lot of things – which I won’t bother posting here.

However, the GUI is completely wacked out! It makes no real sense, to be honest. For instance, I did a basic model in another 3rd party program and then imported the mesh into Blender. Sure, that was simple. However, now I want to rotate the model itself to face the camera – no go. I can rotate the scene, but not within the camera mode. And I can’t figure out for the life of me how to render the scene as I see it on the screen and not via the camera. Heck, I can do that easily in 3D Studio Max 7 … but not in Blender. Or at least not that I’ve been able to figure out.

So there is my rant. It’s got infinite power but a retarded GUI. And most of the ‘getting started’ tutorials seem to be about how to split the screen for multiple views … ok ok, we got that after the 10th video tutorial!

Oi … I know I can get some video tutorials all over the place. And CartoonSmart has some videos now too (RE:BlenderNation) but goodness. Can we make it any less intuitive!?

www.blender.org

There isn’t much good free stuff out there these days. If it is free, it’s pretty dang crappy and just plain useless.

Not so in this case – Blender 3D is a free (yes, totally free) 3D software package. You can do a SLEW of things with this software from just basic models to full movies and video games. It’s powerful enough for just about any application.

I’ve been watching this software for a few years, and honestly – when I first started to check it out I was pretty unimpressed. It features a strange GUI that’s totally new and, to me, is not very intuitive. However, that’s part of the charm. It breaks the mold that the big dogs have forged, and offers something free and bold.

Everything from modeling, sculpting, animation, physics and particle systems, rigging …. it can do it all. You can even use it to create your own video games!

Did I mention it’s free?

You do need the latest Python installation (www.python.org) which is also free and easy to install. Well, you don’t need it but it does help.

If you’ve always wanted to get into 3D design, but can’t afford the $1500+ software packages, and really don’t want to spend the dough on a hobby, go grab Blender 3D.

www.blender.org