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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="CONTENT-TYPE" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<TITLE>A brief introduction to Blender</TITLE>
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="OpenOffice.org 3.1 (Win32)">
<META NAME="CREATED" CONTENT="0;0">
<META NAME="CHANGED" CONTENT="20091122;16164300">
</HEAD>
<BODY LANG="de-DE" DIR="LTR">
<H1 LANG="en-US" ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME="top"></A>Blender v2.5 beta
series</H1>
<P><BR><BR>
</P>
<OL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#intro">About</A>
</SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#pack">Package
Contents and Install</A> </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#start">Getting
Started:</A> </SPAN>
</P>
<OL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#start_run">Running</A>
</SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#start_1st">First
steps</A>, <A HREF="#start_3dview">The 3d View</A> </SPAN>
</P>
</OL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#resources">Resources</A>
</SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#trouble">Troubleshooting</A>
</SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#faq">(FAQ) A few remarks</A> </SPAN>
</P>
</OL>
<H2 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="intro"></A>1. About</H2>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">Welcome to the world of <A HREF="http://www.blender.org/">Blender</A>!
The program you have now in your hands is a free and fully functional
3d modeling, animation, rendering, compositing, video editing and
game creation suite. It is available for Unix-based (Linux, Mac OS X,
etc.) and Windows systems and has a large world-wide community.</SPAN></P>
<P LANG="en-US">Blender is free to be applied for any purpose,
including commercial usage and distribution. It's free and
open-source software, released under the GNU GPL licence. The full
program sources are available on our website.</P>
<P LANG="en-US">For impatient readers, here the two most important
links:</P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="http://www.blender.org/">www.blender.org</A>
the main website<BR><A HREF="http://wiki.blender.org/">wiki.blender.org</A>
the documentation website</SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=RIGHT><A HREF="#top"><SPAN LANG="en-US">back to top</SPAN></A></P>
<H2 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="pack"></A>2. Package Contents and Install</H2>
<P LANG="en-US">This is what you should get from a downloaded Blender
package:</P>
<UL>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">The Blender program
for some specific platform;
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">This text, with links
and the copyright notice;
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US">A basic set of scripts, including importers and
exporters to other 3d formats.
</P>
</UL>
<P LANG="en-US">The latest version for all supported platforms can
always be found at the main Blender site, along with documentation,
sample .blend files, many scripts, plugins and more.</P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">If you are interested in the development of the
program, information for coders and the SVN repository with the
sources can be found at the <A HREF="http://www.blender.org/development/">developer's
section of the site.</A></SPAN></P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="start_install"></A>Installation notes:</H3>
<P LANG="en-US">Installing is mostly a matter of executing a
self-installer package or unpacking it to some folder. Blender has a
minimum of system dependencies (like OpenGL and SDL), and doesn't
install by overwriting libraries in your system. There are also some
extra files needed for a good install, like standard python scripts,
but these are optional. Typically these will go to your
HOME/.blender/ directory. Below you find instructions for it per OS.
</P>
<P LANG="en-US"><B>Windows:</B> The .zip download has a .blender
directory included, which can be manually copied.<BR>Also note that
Blender comes with some dll files, which have to reside next to
blender.exe.</P>
<P LANG="en-US"><B>Linux, FreeBSD, Irix, Solaris:</B> after unpacking
the distribution, you can copy the .blender directory from it to your
home directory.
</P>
<P LANG="en-US"><B>OSX:</B> the .blender directory is in
Blender.app/Contents/Resources/. This is being located by default. If
you like to alter some of the files, copy this directory to your home
dir.</P>
<P LANG="en-US"><B>Other settings:</B><BR>There are many paths you
can set in Blender itself, to tell it where to look for your
collections of texture and sound files, fonts, plugins and additional
scripts, besides where it should save rendered images, temporary
data, etc. If you're only starting, there's no need to worry about
this now.
</P>
<P LANG="en-US"><B>Python:</B><BR>Blender 2.5x use Python 3.1 as
scripting language for im/exporters, UI buttons layout and other
areas like presets. On Windows, Python 3.1 is included in the zip
package from blender.org.
</P>
<P LANG="en-US">In other platforms Python is usually a standard
component nowadays, so unless there's a version mismatch or an
incomplete py installation, there should be no problems.</P>
<P LANG="en-US">Even if you do have the right version of Python
installed you may need to tell the embedded Python interpreter where
the installation is. To do that it's enough to set a system variable
called PYTHON to the full path to the stand-alone Python executable
(to find out execute "import sys; print sys.executable"
inside the stand-alone interpreter, not in Blender). To check which
Python was linked to your Blender binary, execute "import sys;
print sys.version" at Blender's text editor), it's 3.1.something
-- only the two first numbers should have to match with yours.</P>
<P ALIGN=RIGHT><A HREF="#top"><SPAN LANG="en-US">back to top</SPAN></A></P>
<H2 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="start"></A>3. Getting Started</H2>
<P LANG="en-US">Blender's main strength is at modeling, animating and
rendering 3d scenes, from simple cubes and monkey heads to the
complex environments found in videogames and movies with computer
graphics (CG) art.</P>
<P><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">Rendering</SPAN></STRONG> <SPAN LANG="en-US">is
the process of generating 2d images from 3d data (basically lit 3d
models) as if viewed by a virtual camera. In simple terms, rendering
is like taking a picture of the scene, but with many more ways to
influence the results. Blender comes with a very flexible renderer
and a Povray Render Exporter script. By </SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">animating</SPAN></STRONG>
<SPAN LANG="en-US">the data and rendering pictures of each successive
frame, movie sequences can be created.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">In </SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">compositing</SPAN></STRONG>
<SPAN LANG="en-US">a set of techniques is used to add effects to
rendered images and combine these into a single frame. This is how,
for example, artists add laser beams, glows and dinosaurs to motion
pictures. Blender also has builtin support for video sequence editing
and sound synchronization.</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">The </SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">game
engine</SPAN></STRONG> <SPAN LANG="en-US">inside Blender lets users
create and play nifty 3d games, complete with 3d graphics, sound,
physics and scripted rules. </SPAN>
</P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">Via </SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">scripting</SPAN></STRONG>
<SPAN LANG="en-US">the program's functionality can be automated and
extended in real-time with important new capabilities. True
displacement mapping, for example, is now part of the core program,
but before that it was already possible using scripts. Since they are
written in a nice higher-level programming language -- <A HREF="http://www.python.org/">Python</A>
in our case -- development is considerably faster and easier than
normal C/C++ coding. Naturally, they run slower than compiled code,
but still fast enough for </SPAN><EM><SPAN LANG="en-US">many</SPAN></EM>
<SPAN LANG="en-US">purposes or for mixed approaches like some plugins
use.</SPAN></P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="start_run"></A>Running:</H3>
<P LANG="en-US">Depending on your platform, the installation may have
put an icon on your desktop and a menu entry for Blender. If not,
it's not hard to do that yourself for your favorite window manager.</P>
<P LANG="en-US">But for more flexibility, you can execute Blender
from a shell window or command-line prompt. Try "blender -h"
to see all available options.</P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">Blender saves data in its own custom binary
format, using ".blend" as extension. The default start-up
configuration is saved in a file in your home directory called
.B.blend. To save your changes to it, click on </SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">File->User
Preferences->Save as Default</SPAN></STRONG> <SPAN LANG="en-US">or
use the Control+U shortcut directly.</SPAN></P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="start_1st"></A>First steps:</H3>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">This is the point where we stop and warn
newcomers that 3d Computer Graphics is a vast field and Blender has a
lot of packed functionality. If you already tried to run it and fell
victim to the "too many buttons!" syndrome, just relax and
<A HREF="#faq_2">read this part</A> of the F.A.Q. </SPAN>
</P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">Hoping the explanations helped, let's start
Blender and take a look at it. At the top header you can see the main
menu. Under "File" you'll find entries to save, load and
quit. If </SPAN><EM><SPAN LANG="en-US">someone</SPAN></EM> <SPAN LANG="en-US">ever
messes with your workspace and you can't find your way around: use
the menu </SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">File->New</SPAN></STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">.</SPAN></P>
<P LANG="en-US">Blender's screen is divided in "areas".
Each of them has a top or bottom header and can show any of the
available built in applications (called "spaces", like the
3d View, the Text Editor, etc). If you started with a default
configuration, there should now be five areas:
</P>
<UL>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">A thin strip at the
top where you can see the main menus and some important basic
functions like search and the new Engine drop down menu;
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">On the left:</P>
<UL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US">A big one, the
</SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">3d View</SPAN></STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">,
where you model and preview your scenes and the new toolbar on the
left; </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P><SPAN LANG="en-US">A smaller one at the bottom, the
</SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">Timeline</SPAN></STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">,
where you can playback your animations and change basic animation
settings.</SPAN></P>
</UL>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">On the right:</P>
<UL>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">A small one on top,
the O<B>utliner</B>, which gives you access over your objects and
it's underlying data.</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Beneath that, the
<B>Properties Window</B>, which contains most buttons and settings.
</P>
</UL>
</UL>
<P LANG="en-US">These are the five most important spaces, at least
when you are starting. At the left corner of each header you can find
the "Window Types" button, which is like the "Start"
buttom of many desktop environments. Clicking on it lets you change
what is shown in that area.</P>
<P><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">Highly configurable workspace</SPAN></STRONG></P>
<P LANG="en-US">Blender's interface has been considerably improved
for the 2.5x series. Besides the goals of exposing functionality via
menus and adding tooltips for all buttons, there are even more ways
now to change your workspace.</P>
<P LANG="en-US">Editor areas can be split and joined with the new
window split action zone. Dragging the zone inside the editor area
with LMB interactively splits a new window in between, dragging the
zone into another editor area joins it. Alt-LMB dragging the zone
swaps the area with another.
</P>
<P LANG="en-US">There should be a button with "Default" in
the top header. It has some preset workspaces that can be tried now
for a tour of the possibilities. When you change your current setup
to something worth keeping, that same button has the option to save
the new screen.</P>
<P LANG="en-US">The User Preferences space has many options there
that you may want to tweak, like turning button tooltips on/off,
setting paths, etc. Just remember to save your configuration if you
want to keep it for the next session). Since these preferences are
not saved in regular .blend files, the presets will retain working
even when loading files from others. Note however, that the
arrangement of the UI itself - its screens and windows - are always
saved in each file.
</P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="start_3dview"></A>The 3d View:</H3>
<P><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">Mouse buttons and the toolbox</SPAN></STRONG></P>
<P LANG="en-US">Pressing Shift+A while the mouse pointer is inside a
3d View space will open up the Add menu, where you can add new
objects to your scene.</P>
<P LANG="en-US">This is how the mouse buttons work in this space:
</P>
<UL>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Left button: anchor
the 3d cursor in a new location -- it defines where your next added
object will appear, among other things.
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Right button:
selection. If you hold it and move, you can move the selected item
around.
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US">Middle button: 3d space rotation or translation
-- choose which one in one of the User Preferences tabs.
</P>
</UL>
<P LANG="en-US">Combinations of mouse buttons and Shift or Control
will give you additional options like zooming, panning and restricted
movement. 3d scenes can be seen from any position and orientation,
but there are some default ones you can reach with Numpad buttons or
the "View" menu in the 3d View's header.</P>
<P><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">Edit Mode</SPAN></STRONG></P>
<P LANG="en-US">When you want to edit the vertices of a mesh, for
example, it's necessary to select the object and enter "Edit
Mode", either using the 3d View header "Mode" button
or by pressing TAB on your keyboard (press it again to return to
object mode).</P>
<P><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">And this was only the beginning ...</SPAN></STRONG></P>
<P LANG="en-US">The above guidelines should have given new users
enough to start playing with the interface. The next section lists
online references that can actually teach about 3d and this program,
but it's a good idea to spend some time just playing with Blender,
looking at menus and finding what mouse actions do in each space.</P>
<P ALIGN=RIGHT><A HREF="#top"><SPAN LANG="en-US">back to top</SPAN></A></P>
<H2 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="resources"></A>4. Resources</H2>
<UL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="http://www.blender.org/">www.blender.org</A>
- the general site, with documentation and downloads </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="http://www.blenderartists.org/">www.blenderartists.org</A>
- the main user community web site </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="http://projects.blender.org/">projects.blender.org</A>
- the project's site </SPAN>
</P>
</UL>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">This short presentation is meant to guide
newcomers to Blender through their </SPAN><EM><SPAN LANG="en-US">very
first</SPAN></EM> <SPAN LANG="en-US">steps, giving directions to
where you can find the resources you will need. We can't teach you 3d
in these few lines of text, that would take a lengthy book.</SPAN></P>
<P LANG="en-US">IRC users are invited to try #blenderchat or #blender
on irc.freenode.net .</P>
<P LANG="en-US">There are also local Blender community sites in some
countries, that should be listed at the Community section of the main
site.</P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">If you are a coder wanting to get in touch with
Blender development, a good read is the "Get Involved" page
at <A HREF="http://www.blender.org/community/get-involved/">www.blender.org</A>.
A good way to start is to follow the mailing lists for a while and
check bug reports, to see if you can fix one. On irc.freenode.net:
#blendercoders you'll find many active developers, here also the
weekly meetings take place.</SPAN></P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="resources_xtra"></A>Other useful links</H3>
<P LANG="en-US">In the realm of open-source cg programs, it's a
pleasure to mention other great projects that can help you achieve
your visions. Note that these programs are completely independent
from Blender and have their own sites, documentation and support
channels. Note also that this list is not complete and should be
updated on future versions of this text.</P>
<DL>
<DT><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="http://www.gimp.org/">The Gimp</A> </SPAN>
</DT><DD LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.5cm">
The mighty GNU Image Manipulation Program. In 3d work it is a
valuable resource to create, convert and, of course, manipulate
texture images. It is also useful for work with rendered pictures,
for example to add 2d text, logos or to touch-up, apply factory or
hand-made effects and compose with other images.
</DD></DL>
<H4 LANG="en-US">
Renderers:</H4>
<DL>
<DT><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="http://www.povray.org/">Povray</A> </SPAN>
</DT><DD LANG="en-US">
One of the best and most popular renderers in the world. There is a
script to export Blender scenes to be rendered with it, delivered
with 2.5.
</DD><DT>
<SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="https://renderman.pixar.com/">Renderman-compliant:</A>
open-source: <A HREF="http://www.aqsis.org/">Aqsis</A>, <A HREF="http://pixie.sf.net/">Pixie</A>.
Closed-source: <A HREF="http://www.3delight.com/">3delight</A>. </SPAN>
</DT><DD STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.5cm">
<SPAN LANG="en-US">The Renderman spec was created by Pixar years ago
to define both a standard and powerful representation of 3d data for
renderers and the expected quality of the renderization itself.
Think about 3d art from some movie -- it was much probably created
by Pixar's own Photorealistic Renderman (PRMan) renderer. This is a
good site to learn more: <A HREF="http://www.rendermanacademy.com/">The
Renderman Academy</A>. Neither Pixar nor its products are affiliated
with Blender. </SPAN>
</DD></DL>
<P ALIGN=RIGHT>
<A HREF="#top"><SPAN LANG="en-US">back to top</SPAN></A></P>
<H2 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="trouble"></A>5. Troubleshooting</H2>
<P LANG="en-US">If something isn't working, please read this entire
section before looking for help.</P>
<UL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#trouble_gen">General
start-up and usage problems</A> </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#trouble_vdo">Video
card blues</A> </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#trouble_py">Scripts</A>
</SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#trouble_bugt">The Bug Tracker</A>
</SPAN>
</P>
</UL>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="trouble_gen"></A>General start-up and usage
problems</H3>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">If the program crashes or something isn't
working properly, try running Blender in </SPAN><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">debug
mode:</SPAN></STRONG> <SPAN LANG="en-US">execute it as "blender
-d" from a command prompt. This might give some info about what
is wrong. There are also other options that might be useful, "blender
-h" lists all of them.<BR>Most likely an immediate crash is due
to Blender's need for a compliant and stable working OpenGL.</SPAN></P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="trouble_vdo"></A>Video card blues</H3>
<P LANG="en-US">Although OpenGL is cherished as an excellent cross
platform library, the enormous growth of different 3d cards have made
this a complicated affair for Blender. Unlike other programs - or 3d
games - Blender utilizes OpenGL for its entire GUI, including buttons
and pulldown menus. That means also the 2D options for OpenGL should
work good, something easily ignored or badly tested by 3d card
manufacturers, who target more at the latest SFX features for new 3d
games.<BR>In general Blender performs very well on 3d cards from
renowned brands, such as NVidia, ATI or 3dLabs.</P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="trouble_py"></A>Scripts</H3>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">To be sure that some functionality is scripted:
all scripts in Blender can be accessed from the "Scripts"
menu in the Scripts Window's header, even if the same functionality
is also in another menu somewhere. If you see an entry in one of the
submenus there, it refers to a script. Please don't report problems
with scripts to the bug tracker or other normal Blender channels. You
should find the author's site or contact email in the script's text
itself, but usually the Python & Plugins forum at
<A HREF="http://www.blenderartists.org/">Blenderartists.org</A> is
used for posting announcements, questions, suggestions and bug
reports related to scripts. It's the recommended place to look first,
specially if no site was specified at the script's window or source
file(s).</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">If some or all scripts that should appear in
menus are not there, running Blender in <A HREF="#trouble_gen">debug
mode </A>can possibly inform what is wrong. Make sure the reported
dir(s) really exist.</SPAN></P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="trouble_bugt"></A>The Bug Tracker</H3>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">If you really think you found a new bug in
Blender, check the Bug Tracker entries at <A HREF="https://projects.blender.org/tracker/?atid=498&group_id=9&func=browse">the
projects site</A> and if it was not reported yet, please log in (or
register) and fill in detailed information about the error. A small
.blend file or script (if it is a problem with the Blender Python
API) showcasing the bug can help a lot.</SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=RIGHT><A HREF="#top"><SPAN LANG="en-US">back to top</SPAN></A></P>
<H2 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="faq"></A>6. (FAQ) A few remarks</H2>
<OL>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#faq_1">Quick
tips.</A> </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#faq_2">What's
up with the interface?</A> </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm"><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#faq_3">How
good is Blender? How does it compare to other 3d programs?</A> </SPAN>
</P>
<LI><P><SPAN LANG="en-US"><A HREF="#faq_4">Something doesn't work,
what do I do?</A> </SPAN>
</P>
</OL>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="faq_1"></A>Quick tips:</H3>
<P><STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">Rendering</SPAN></STRONG><SPAN LANG="en-US">:
to see something when you render (F12) an image, make sure the scene
has a camera pointing at your models (camera view is NumPad 0) and at
least one light properly placed. Otherwise you'll only get a black
rectangle.</SPAN></P>
<P LANG="en-US">Setting texture map input to "uv" in the
Material Buttons window is not enough to assign a texture image and
uv data to a mesh. It's necessary to select the mesh, enter edit
mode, indicate face selection mode (modes can be accessed in the 3d
view's header), load an image in the UV/Image Editor window and then
define a mapping (or unwrapping). Only then the mesh will have uv
data available for exporting.</P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">If you want the fastest possible access to
Blender's functionality, remember what a </SPAN><CITE><SPAN LANG="en-US">wise
power user</SPAN></CITE> <SPAN LANG="en-US">wrote: "keep one
hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse". Learn and use
the shortcuts, configure your workspace to your needs.</SPAN></P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="faq_2"></A>What's up with the interface?</H3>
<P LANG="en-US">Blender uses a couple of innovative paradigms in the
UI, not following more common, somewhat standard rules for user
interfaces. In the past years several of our interface concepts have
been adopted in more programs though, especially using a configurable
non-overlapping subdivision layout and the paradigm to never block
the UI from working by offering all editors and options in parallel.
<BR>Typically free programs offer easy-to-use interfaces for large
audiences. Blender however is, like other high-end 3d tools, meant to
be a powerful production tool for professionals and 3d enthusiasts,
for people who are dedicated to become 3d artists with enough time
and motivation to master the software. <BR>This also has its origins
in the 90ies, when Blender was born as an in-house studio tool,
optimized to speed up daily heavy work, and not to please everyone.
But it's true that you can consider Blender's interface to be not
very newbie-friendly. Luckily you only have to learn it once, and
once you get the basics it'll feel like 2nd nature!</P>
<P LANG="en-US">Blender also has been considerably improved since the
2.3x series, exposing most functionality via menus, adding panels,
color "themability", tooltips for all buttons and
internationalization support. This is an ongoing effort or, better, a
goal to keep the best ideas in Blender's design while expanding and
making it more user-friendly.</P>
<P LANG="en-US"><B>Too many buttons!</B></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">Again, 3d Computer Graphics is a vast and fun
field. If you're only starting, Blender can seem daunting, specially
because of all its packed functionality. Don't let that upset you,
there is no need to care about </SPAN><EM><SPAN LANG="en-US">all</SPAN></EM>
<SPAN LANG="en-US">those buttons right now -- or ever.</SPAN></P>
<P LANG="en-US">There are basic things all users should learn early
up:</P>
<UL>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Start the program and
access the main menus;
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Find and configure
user preferences;
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Basic scene set-up:
how to add and transform (move, scale, rotate) lights, cameras and
objects;
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US" STYLE="margin-bottom: 0cm">Create and link
materials to objects, at least to color them;
</P>
<LI><P LANG="en-US">Render your scenes.
</P>
</UL>
<P LANG="en-US">One hour is enough time to assimilate and practice
that before going on with basic mesh editing and texturing, for
example. There are many different areas to learn about. Taste,
interaction with other users and your main interests (game art,
rendered stills, movies) will guide you and define the skills you'll
want to master. Then it goes like a spiral: practice something for a
while, study and find about new tricks or whole new areas, practice a
little more and so on. Soon you'll become pleased to have all those
buttons to play with. A few more months and you'll probably be back
asking for more ...
</P>
<H3 LANG="en-US"><A NAME="faq_3"></A>How good is Blender?</H3>
<P LANG="en-US">If you ever get the impression that it's not possible
to create great looking or complex works with Blender, rejoice -- you
are just plainly uninformed, as browsing blender.org galleries and
community forums can easily confirm.</P>
<H3 LANG="en-US">How does it compare to other 3d programs?</H3>
<P LANG="en-US">In short: it takes considerable dedication to become
good, no matter which program you work with, as long as it is good
enough not to get in your way. Blender has, like the others, its
strong and weak points.</P>
<P LANG="en-US">Compared to commercial alternatives, Blender misses
some features and isn't as "newbie-friendly". It doesn't
come packed with "one-click" or "wizard"
functionality, where you get much faster results in detriment of
flexibility and value. It also isn't bundled with tens of megabytes
of sample models, texture images, tutorials, etc. (which only partly
explains how Blender can fit in such a small download).</P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">Thankfully, these are relatively minor
shortcomings. Many of Blender's modeling, animation and
rendering/compositing features are up-to-par with the industry
standards. The pace at which features are being added or polished in
Blender is impressive, now that it's a well stablished open source
project. We get daily feedback from professionals and studios using
Blender, and results from the Blender Foundation's Open Movie/Game
projects such as <A HREF="http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/">Big Buck
Bunny</A> and <A HREF="http://www.yofrankie.org/">Yo Frankie!</A>
have set a reference standard for what a program like Blender can
achieve. More: through plugins and scripting, many repetitive or
otherwise cumbersome tasks can be made trivial. But plugin and script
authors go further, teaching Blender new tricks, from importers and
exporters to more advanced "applications".</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN LANG="en-US">About goodies, there are many places where you
can get them (check <A HREF="#resources">resources</A>). Besides the
many available Blender books, the main site and blenderartists.org
are the best ones to start. For free texture images, a simple search
for "free textures" should bring many results, just pay
attention to their licenses if you plan to release your work later.</SPAN></P>
<P LANG="en-US">Commercial packages might make it easier for newbies
to produce nice looking material, but only another newbie would
praise the results. There's a huge difference between what a skilled
artist and someone poking at buttons and using presets can
accomplish.</P>
<P LANG="en-US">Last but best of all: Blender is open-source, free
for all to use, study and improve.</P>
<HR>
<P LANG="en-US">Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoy Blender!</P>
<P LANG="en-US"><FONT SIZE=2>Document version 1.2, November 2009</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=RIGHT><A HREF="#top"><SPAN LANG="en-US">back to top</SPAN></A></P>
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