If you are remodeling your home, strongly suggest using Bonsai (previously Blender BIM) add-on to model and plan.
In addition to getting my layout just right down to the ft, and using current materials (ie, hardwood, cabinet placement). I modeled out HVAC ducts and overall system.
I had planned on doing major renovations (including plumbing, electric, networking) and would have modeled those as well since the walls would be exposed. But ultimately, due to changing political atmosphere, decided to put these on hold.
It does have a learning curve but would have been made collaboration with at architects much easier (exchanging ifc files).
It looks like its for people with engineering backgrounds. For me something like Sketchup is lot easier to plan a mockup.
Blender needs additional add-ons for auto-generated floor plans to 3D scenes.
https://github.com/grebtsew/FloorplanToBlender3d
The learning curve on your own is like a kick to the berries... However, we found these courses, and some after market assets libraries make it workable.
Should wait for the $19.99 deals to take these courses, and pay attention to the stated Blender version during instruction:
https://www.udemy.com/course/blendertutorial/ (low poly model skills)
https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-animation-rigging/ (some overlapping material, more rigging)
https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-3d-sculpting-course/ (stuff is out of date in this one, but if you can tolerate the kids antics... one may learn a lot about retopo and non-human sculpts.)
Textures:
https://blendermarket.com/products/sanctus-library-addon---p... (Awesome... can bake wood, metal, brick, tile, plastics etc.)
https://tinynocky.gumroad.com/l/tinyeye (Fantastic totally underrated eye tool)
Assets:
https://blendermarket.com/products/poly-haven-asset-browser (assets are free on their site too)
https://static.makehumancommunity.org/mpfb/releases/release_... (free low poly random people)
Would also recommend looking at speed sculpts for tips about how to fix humanoid meshes:
https://www.youtube.com/@BranSculpts/playlists
For advanced users, there are also working rudimentary ZSpheres/Metaballs support similar to ZBrush, fabric quad stitching, and volume aware re-topo process tools:
https://bartoszstyperek.gumroad.com/l/ahwvli?layout=profile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0GW8Na5CIE (how to get blender workflows to work on lower end GPUs)
Rigging tools:
https://blendermarket.com/products/auto-rig-pro (UE5 export helps)
Went through several grand worth of plugins this year for a project, and these paths proved useful.
Best of luck, YMMV... =3
For the average person Sweet Home 3D is a much better choice http://www.sweethome3d.com/
How does it compare to Revit, for smaller basic projects like you mentioned (residential house/simple office, with hvac etc)?
Blender's success is a lot due to how welcoming they are of new contributors.
15 years years back, this was the first big OSS project that I contributed to. Since I was a greenhorn, the patch I submitted (there weren't 'PR's back then :) ) was, to say the least, rather shoddy.
Ton Roosendaal helped me patiently on the IRC (I think they were on Freenode back then, not fully sure), guiding me through the changes needed to make it acceptable to merge it.
I learnt a ton just hanging out in the dev channel. Good times. It was a great product even back then but it's amazing how much more awesome it has gotten since then.
Great work Blender team.
Blender really is a gem, for beginners there really is little reason to learn anything else, fully featured, free and runs off a USB or shared drive, can run on pretty old hardware. For examples of what teenagers in the UK are making with Blender see these:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42113898
https://younganimator.uk/submissions/16f0edf9-4fff-43d5-b82b...
https://younganimator.uk/submissions/96059d6c-796e-485f-9582...
They were gorgeous.
Blender, in my view, is one of the best arguments to develop native desktop applications over web view wrappers like Electron. Everything is responsive and instant, you can open new 3D view windows by just sliding them open at 60 frames a second, performance is stable even with multiple windows open and the download size is a reasonable 334MB.
>Blender, in my view, is one of the best arguments to develop native desktop applications over web view wrappers like Electron.
Different class of products.
For Electron apps, often it's the choice of having a desktop app or not having one at all.
In my opinion, the actual problem is the focus on making everything web first.
> For Electron apps, often it's the choice of having a desktop app or not having one at all.
Maybe it would be better to have none at all. Having an electron app is an excuse to say "we already have a desktop app, so we won't make a native one".
In my opinion, the actual problem is the focus on making everything web first.
I would prefer they do not make an electron app and just have people use the web-app contained in a browser like it was meant to be.
So don't download the desktop electron app? What's the problem?
Web versions don't work with all browsers, they also want you to use the app, and heavily promote using the app, even though the app is just a web page in a browser that's not your browser.
If they want you to use an installed app then they should just build a native app that can be installed.
But what’s stopping you just using the web page (in a browser that it works with)? Yes, they want you to use the app, but you can still do what you want.
There is usually critical missing functionality from the web version (mostly around native filesystem access). Also, most sites that offer an Electron app paster annoying banners advertising this fact across their web version...
I have done that in the past, though it was more that certain features were just broken in a browser rather than the whole website not working.
If I needed to run another entire browser just for this website I wouldn't bother.
I wonder if this relationship will invert as wasm and web guy and their tooling matures, to the point where these types of applications where drawing performance is a must are being targeted desktop first and then thrown through a OSFA wasmification step to run on the web.
It notably doesn't use any 'standard' UI framework though, which is frowned upon by some people just as much as using Electron (but for different reasons - usually missing accessibility features and not looking consistent with 'system applications').
I think that's the smoking gun for why most UIs are terrible. it is definitely cheaper to use a framework, but maybe, sometimes, doing something yourself (for 25+) years is worth it
Should be separated out and reused by many Electron apps in my opinion
To bear clear, Blender is not an Electron app (reading my comment again it could be read as such I guess). Blender is a native application sitting directly on the operating system's 3D API and window system (with the UI being rendered through the 3D API, not through operating system widgets).
it could probably work well under webgl...
The WebGL API is sadly two decades behind state-of-the-art for modern rendering, and even the will-be-ready-for-adoption-any-day-now WebGPU spec is ~5 years behind.
Between that and the overhead of running the whole thing in WASM+Javascript, I don't think we'll see a pro-level DCC tool running on the web anytime soon.
It's not html/css/js though.
> and the download size is a reasonable 334MB.
I remember when it was 2 MB!!
I remember downloading it from my library on a floppy disk (hoping the librarian wouldn't hear it the floppy drive working - since it wasn't allowed). :)
It's in fact still quite small if additional 3rd party libraries are disabled.
It's possible to make a much smaller download that removes OpenCollada, FFMPEG, OpenEXR, OpenImageDenoise, OpenVDB ... etc. However it's a hassle to distribute a second version at a time when the current size is manageable for most users.
Of course there are still categories of app that should be native. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for things like Tauri and Electron too.
Electron apps can be very responsive as well. But a 3D designer is definitely in the category of needing all the performance you can get. So yes, native makes sense here.
3D DCCs are very different from todo lists.
It's not a web view
That's what the parent is saying, I also had to read twice though ;)
Please check out plasticity, this “electron bad” argument is pretty outdated and never evidenced. There is absolutely nothing that says browsers can’t do 60fps with multiple 3d views.
"electron bad" argument will always be valid. I wish people could "see" what actually happens in the app they running. Electron is essentially a hidden browser that runs a web app.
It doesn't matter if it can or can not do 60fps. Installing yet another copy of the browser just to run that small web app is just wrong.
I assume most people who dislike Electron dislike Tauri too, even though it doesn't need to ship a browser.
There definitely are a couple of annoying details. For instance visual mouse lag (when dragging items around) in WebGL and WebGPU can be higher than in a well written native application (just one or two additional frames of latency make a huge difference). Then there's WebGL2 being stuck on a GPU feature set from ca 2 decades ago, and WebGPU starting at a feature set from about a decade ago (and not being quite ready yet anyway).
Then there's also annoying differences between browsers when capturing the mouse - which is needed for camera controls (all browsers show some sort of popup while the mouse is captured, with Safari even shifting the canvas around).
TL;DR: it's possible in theory, but can be very annoying when actually trying to do it, mostly because most web APIs are badly designed (WebGL2 and WebGPU are notable exceptions, but they still lag far behind native 3D APIs).
What's the best way to get started with Blender these days? I'm mostly interested in making art and possibly even 3d printing some stuff (do these skills overlap at all?).
I am a 3D (jewelry) artist & goldsmith who specializes in 3D printable models and sculptures, 99% done in Blender.
You might want to check out my Youtube channel for some free tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/@PhialoDesign
Or classes on Skillshare:
Here is one of my most successful classes, a complete workflow "From Sketch to (printable) Model": https://skl.sh/3219zVE (from 2020 but still 100% doable with current Blender version!)
Or my "Blender for Absolute Beginners" class that is a bit more recent, a thorough introduction to Blender and creation of a simple 3D printable bird :) https://skl.sh/3xw8S77
(Both links give you a one month free trial of Skillshare, and you can watch the intro video without logging in)
You may also buy my beginners course directly here: https://gesa-pickbrenner-s-school.teachable.com/p/learn-blen...
Cheers :)
Donut tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0J27sf9N1Y&list=PLjEaoINr3z...
As for 3d printing there are other software which is simpler if you need to do simpler things. But you can not go wrong in learning Blender for 3d printing as well.
I'd say that depends a lot on what you want to print. Some people might be able to use Blender for technical parts, but for most people traditional CAD software would be the better choice here.
CAD is great when you want to make a nice parametric model that you can edit as requirements change. But for a simple one-off part, I can often whip one up in Blender in a third the time it would take me to dimension everything in a CAD sketch.
You and I must make very different parts. Unfortunaley even my one-off 3D prints are never one-offs. I almost always have to go back and tune a dimension or two.
I've been running Blender training for 17 years and Grant Abbitt is what we normally suggest:
This post from three months ago discusses the donut tutorial (a famous blender course) and another one I've never heard about.
https://old.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1eekomd/beginner_d...
I think to get an expert answer on the topic you'll need to listen to what a beginner has to say, so I believe the link I provided is a good source to look into.
Depends on what you want to 3D print. If you’re going for functional parts, then you probably want a CAD package rather than something like blender. If you want to 3D print art than by all means blender is your friend
CG Boost‘s apple basket course (free) or their Blender Launchpad course (cheap).
Best way is to steal somebody else's model and improve it to your taste. That is the main use of Blender in 3D-printing, because parametric modelling is not the best property in Blender. Although it is almost feasible to define OpenSCAD model and ask AI to redefine in blender-python.
Hey ChatGPT, how you define an empty box in Blender Python?
import bpy
empty = bpy.data.objects.new("Empty_Box", None)
empty.empty_display_type = 'CUBE'
empty.empty_display_size = 1.0
bpy.context.collection.objects.link(empty)It seems to be "empty" in name only. Lets try again.
ChatGPT: The OpenSCAD statement difference(){ cube(11); cube(10); } creates a shape by subtracting a smaller cube (10x10x10) from a larger cube (11x11x11). Here's how you can create the same effect in Blender using its Python API:
import bpy
import bmesh
# Create the larger cube
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=11, location=(0, 0, 0))
cube1 = bpy.context.object
# Create the smaller cube
bpy.ops.mesh.primitive_cube_add(size=10, location=(0, 0, 0))
cube2 = bpy.context.object
# Add a Boolean modifier to subtract the smaller cube from the larger cube
mod_bool = cube1.modifiers.new(name="Boolean", type='BOOLEAN')
mod_bool.operation = 'DIFFERENCE'
mod_bool.object = cube2
# Apply the Boolean modifier
bpy.context.view_layer.objects.active = cube1
bpy.ops.object.modifier_apply(modifier=mod_bool.name)
# Remove the smaller cube from the scene
bpy.data.objects.remove(cube2)It's really puzzling (but extremely welcome) that Blender continues to be such an open source success story. Seems rare for such complex pieces of software in a niche space to get that level of development. I wonder what the secret is.
What really kickstarted their development... was the introduction of the Blender Development Fund -- https://fund.blender.org/
They made tiers, made it simple and easy, and promoted it.
Before the fund really was pushed... they were getting about 5,000 USD per month to develop it... Now it is sitting at 215,000 USD per month.
More money = More developers. More Developers = Better product.
Yes it didnt happen overnight that increase, but it was slow and steady.
>What really kickstarted their development... was the introduction of the Blender Development Fund [...]
>More money = More developers.
There was actually another "kickstart" before that kickstart.
Blender's open-source timeline has a very unusual history in that it was a commercial product funded by €4.5 million in VC capital. Those original investors lost their money by selling in a "down round" to a 2nd set of investors. Those later investors also then lost their money by selling back the source code for a discount of 100k EUR to today's non-profit Blender organization.
https://docs.blender.org/api/htmlI/x115.html
One of the reasons (but not the only reason) that other examples of open-source projects like ... Gimp lagging Photoshop, or FreeCAD not being as polished as Fusion360/SolidWorks ... is those tools never had millions in investor money paying the salaries of 50 developers to kickstart them. E.g. FreeCAD has a non-profit fund but it doesn't attract the same mindshare as Blender did in 2002: https://www.google.com/search?q=freecad+non-profit+fund
Just because Blender started a fund doesn't mean any open-source project can also just "start a development fund" and attract the same level of donations. Blender has some extra history and circumstances in the timeline of "cause & effect" that a random open-source project can't easily replicate.
Blender circa ~2002 had a level of mindshare + evangelism + momentum that most open-source projects do not have. Those ingredients have to be there first to help attract donations to the fund.
Ah, that's really interesting history, thank you. And confirms I'm not crazy - I had vaguely thought long ago that Blender cost money.
> What really kickstarted their development... was the introduction of the Blender Development Fund -- https://fund.blender.org/
Before that, I'd say open sourcing the project is what really gave it a second wind.
If I remember a talk correctly by Ton Roosendaal, the company behind Blender development went bankrupt and development stopped for a while, as it was closed-source at that point. Eventually, he started a fundraiser to get funds to re-acquire Blender and open sourcing it (the goal being 100K EUR or something) which was successful and made Blender into the open source project we know today :)
And apparently only 2% percent (according to their ad) donates. I wish people would be more in the “giving back” spirit. If you can afford a designer coffee, throw that money to the Blender Fund!
I donate yearly, and its worth it.
2% is a pretty high rate. It's pretty standard for 1% of any userbase to contribute in any way (including through content) to it.
I guess one very important part is that there are now pretty big companies which depend on Blender and have an interest in Blender's continued development.
Right, that's exactly what separates Blender from e.g. GIMP.
The more natural way for individuals is probably https://studio.blender.org/welcome/
tell me more or write a blog post.
Autodesk monopolizing the 3D tooling ecosystem and having entered an aggressive 'customer milking phase' via an overpriced subscription model about a decade ago played a very important part.
Yeah, I think this is definitely a good part of the driving force behind Blender's more recent successes.
That said, Adobe has been doing pretty much the same thing in all their spaces, and it hasn't spurred open-source competition in the same way (though plenty of proprietary competitors have been boosted by it)
At the same time, I'd expect it should have its Linux-moment by now and eat the world, but it doesn't seem to be the case for high profile productions.
In a way, Blender has eaten the world, it's just very hard to replace an existing and highly customized 3D production pipeline across hundreds or thousands of seats in an existing business. But I bet everyone has created an Autodesk exit-strategy by now and is waiting for an opportune moment to realize it.
Using Blender for a video game production is entirely normal now, but was unthinkable 15 years ago, and starting a new game company which depends on Autodesk tools instead of using Blender is quite foolish tbh.
Not sure what you mean with Linux-moment exactly, but Blender is sitting rather in a niche need compared to Linux which sit just above the hardware. So in that sense, Blender can’t have a Linux moment: it won’t be deployed in most servers, it won’t be embedded in a mission to Mars…
At a certain point in time Linux became the best platform available to base wide variety of projects on, so the industry followed and made it a de facto standard. It seems, at least superficially, that Blender has all the capabilities needed for wide industry adoption, but it doesn't seem to happen. Obviously talking about industries related to video production, gamedev etc.
I guess 'Linux moment' as in 'first they ignore you, then they laugh at you...'. Both Linux and Blender have been going through those stages.
Outstandingly excellent leadership who attracts and inspires an extremely skilled dedicated international team. Ton Roosendaal is the open secret, who's earned all that great credit, reputation, and loyalty over the decades.
BLENDERHEADS - Ep.07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8A59Jtluxw
Enjoy the seventh episode of Blenderheads, a series about the people behind the Blender project. In this episode, we follow the process around Blender's showcase named Project Gold, by @BlenderStudio . The editor and director –documentary maker Maaike Kleverlaan– works embedded in the Blender headquarters to cover the activities and conduct interviews.
The "Geo Nodes Meets Grease Pencil" demo video is so cool. Makes me want to download Blender again just to play with this 2.5D effect.
I don't think there's any other open source project that does release notes with such amazing quality as Blender.
For that matter, very few commercial software companies reach this level of quality in their product websites. Note how the Blender page doesn't break scrolling, doesn't fluff up everything with useless adjectives like "delightful" and "beautiful", etc.
From a beginners perspective, a good mouse is crucial for working in these kind of tools. It's touched on at the start of the donut tutorial (linked elsewhere) but I just wanted to re-iterate it here.
Now, I haven't done serious 3d work for many years, and recently tried getting into Blender again on my Mac laptop with a Magic mouse. It was a horrible experience.
Can anyone recommend a good mouse you can buy nowadays (so not something like the original SGI workstation mouse that had 3 buttons and no scroll wheel, unless those are still readily available...I loved them!) that works well in these programs. I remember the key differentiator being the scroll wheel which also acts as the middle button. Getting this wrong can make for a frustrating experience as it will zoom the view while trying to middle click.
One thing that at least doubled my modelling efficiency was my acquisition of a multi-button gaming mouse with a twelve-button thumb grid. In Blender I have that mapped mostly to the numpad which enables 3D navigation at the speed of thought, and without me having to move my other hand away from the cluster of most-often-used hotkeys at the bottom-left of the keyboard. You also get five functions out of the MMB which also can really speed up working in the Node Editor. But. I'm left-handed. The only suitable mouse I can find like this is a Razer Naga Left-Handed Edition, and I don't like the build quality. It's too light and small for my hand, and on the two specimens I've used, the MMB is a little bit glitchy (occasionally registering scrolling the wrong way, and click turns into push-left or push-right). So I wouldn't be without it, but I wish there were better options.
I switched to an Evoluent vertical mouse for its ergonomics, but the feature I like the most is the middle click button! It has 3 buttons for left, middle and right click, a vertical scroll wheel and two navigation buttons for back and forward (that I never use). Find it really comfy to use in Blender and elsewhere.
I have found a simple 3-button-mouse (so LMB, RMB and MMB/clickable scroll wheel) to be absolutely sufficient for Blender. I tried the Space Navigator for a few months. But honestly, the navigation in Blender is so straightforward, I sold it again.
Now I use this somewhat anatomical three button mouse from logitec: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07W4DGC27?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_a...
What I wouldn't recommend is one of those Apple mouse types, where everything is touch. In general, touchpads do not do well with Blender.
And the recommendation further below, getting a gaming mouse and mapping the numpad to it, is very smart!
I'm quite fond of Steelseries gaming mice for this sort of thing. You want the resolution.
But also it's worth giving a graphics tablet a try and see if that works for your workflow. I find it much easier for sculpting.
I'm too old to remember the mappings for 20 button mice, but I've found the lowly Logitech G305 useful because it has a hardware button to toggle between DPI settings. That makes it useful without using any other key to change the speed of the mouse. Other than that, it has four buttons, and the scroll wheel clicks and goes left and right.
Another mouse I'm currently using for 3D stuff is Logitech G502, which also has a DPI toggle switch but more importantly, it has a "soft aim" button which temporarily lower the sensitivity while you hold that button. Great for precision stuff in 2D/3D arts, although I think the original use case is for snipering in video games or something like that.
Nothing beats using a Wacom tablet or similar though, even for boring 3D stuff. Not sure why, but I just end up with ridiculous precision compared to any mouse.
I think it has to do with the precision of the hand wrapped around a pen/paintbrush with a lifetime of experience. The precision of effectively painting with an orange can not be matched to painting with a stick :)
(Edit follows:) Also having the side of the hand on the canvas creates the ability to by so much more accurate. You have minute movements of the fingers rather than painting with your forearm.
I really like the MX Anywhere 3S (with BetterMouse for macOS instead of Logi Options+ to configure gestures like middle click move to pan). It’s closer to a Magic Mouse in functionality/simplicity but more ergonomic and USB-C on the front.
The key differentiator between mice is RSI. Try them for a few days and figure out whether they hurt or not.
Like others have mentioned, Blender has become quite the successful open-source story. They used to be riddled with bugs and UX issues, much like FreeCAD was. Yesterday FreeCAD released v1 of their software, and they seem to be on the same redemption path as Blender. It's too bad their v1 release didn't gain much traction on here, as more people ought to give FreeCAD another whirl. The improvements there are massive. And it's the only proper parametric CAD software available on Linux.
To what extent can Blender replace FreeCAD for mechanical engineering purposes?
Rigging. The assembly bits in FreeCAD just haven't been great historically, and the Ondsel assembly layer is very new. If you want to visually check for clashes I can see how someone might prefer to just import a bunch of STLs into Blender, rig them up, and wiggle them about.
I would say avoid it. blender is an excellent MESH modeler but that puts it fundamentally at odds with being a good parametric modeler. a parametric modeler's base primitives are based in deformations on solid objects. mesh modelers are just vertices connected by line segments where 3 form a face. servicable if you're just doing simple objects for a 3d printer but disastrous if you need precision.
I don't understand why precision would be an issue? Is it not possible to fix the position of vertices to sub-micron precision?
I know that Blender is used more in the movie industry. But what if I wanted to make, say, an animation of some cartoon character that gets shredded in a gearbox? What program would I use?
Why? They’re fundamentally different applications for different purposes.
I was thinking that since Blender has physics simulation, and it also has nice video renderings, that would be two great reasons to use it for mechanical designs with moving parts, for example.
But I don't have much experience in designing parts. I like SolveSpace, but it becomes slow for medium/large designs. I know FreeCAD has a lot of problems with stability and UI consistency, so I avoided it.
FreeCAD has more rigorous simulation features - FEM/FEA, mechanical assembly, CAM path generation and simulation, and robotics to name a few - out of the box which makes sense as it’s for engineering rather than art, and there are additional addons for CFD and sheet metal available among many others.
The recent 1.0 update brought some major UI/UX improvements, though if you’re coming from other software you’ll find the Ribbon addon to be extremely helpful to feel comfortable. I think it gets a lot of over the top criticism given there are more people working on just the Autodesk CAD kernel than the entirety of FreeCAD and its dependencies. The rate of improvement is gradually accelerating and its already a big jump from where it was a few years ago.
Blender continues to be an inspiration and aspiration for open source.
Huge congrats and thank you to everyone who contributed.
Love Blender's interface. I wish MS Excel was built like this. Dragging the border to create new viewports, customizable views, ease of binding keyboard shortcuts to functions.. FA-BU-LO-SO
Your statement is remarkable insofar as I can remember that Blender was famous for having an absolutely terrible UX (IIRC 2.8 was the version where it really started to improve).
That is true. In my opinion the introduction of the command palette was the game changer, but of course it's more than just that. Today you can really say the UI is nice and discoverable.
Today it really has one of the best UI I have ever seen in any program.
Is it possible to generate code in LLM and create animation using Blender. I want to create Animation for educational video content.