
Blender 2.83 LTS - doener
https://www.blender.org/download/releases/2-83/
======
knolan
I started using Blender around 2013 when we needed to make some exciting
animations for a work project. I quickly grew to love it for its streamlined
Jack of all trades approach to media creation and it’s breathtaking pace of
development.

It’s such an incredible piece of software and I would encourage anyone
interested in working with 3D graphics and animation to jump in. There is a
wealth of training material online.

When you compare it’s basic workflows to other professional creation software
such a as CAD, Photoshop the comparative bloat and lack of interface fluidity
in the paid software is often jarring. It’s like comparing Vim to MS Word.

For example in SolidWorks if you want to rotate the view to a top, front or
side view you can mouse over to a widget up in the corner of the screen or
more quickly press space and then click a button there to orient the view. But
that window has to be closed with the mouse and not by hitting space again and
oddly can be resized for no good reason resulting in a big empty mess on so
many users installs. It’s sloppy and janky design in extremely expensive
professional software.

In Blender I just have to press 1, 3 or 7 on my numpad for front, side or top
view as those keys correspond to X, Y and Z axes. Wonderfully intuitive and
responsive.

~~~
zimpenfish
> In Blender I just have to press 1, 3 or 7 on my numpad for front, side or
> top view as those keys correspond to X, Y and Z axes. Wonderfully intuitive
> and responsive.

 _If_ you have a numeric keypad. None of my laptops have one; neither does my
main machine. None of them have a middle mouse button either. The lack of
those two things make an incredible amount of the Blender UX inaccessible to
me. It's like making your site only work with Javascript and forgetting that
some people have it turned off.

~~~
atoav
Which is why there is an option called _emulate numpad_ under Blender
Preferences > Input. The same is true for the middle mouse button ( _Emulate 3
button mouse_ ). They both work fine, the numpad one is one of the first
things I activate.

Not only is this option at the place where you would expect it to be, it is
also not hard to find hints to it online.

------
tony
If anyone here remember's Star Fox, there's a fan-made series called _A Fox In
Space_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uieM18rZdHY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uieM18rZdHY)

The story is, they moved all their assets over to Blender:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m09ZOHmGf8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m09ZOHmGf8s)

That's the whole kit. Apparently it's awesome at 2D-like animations. They
started moving over _before_ 2.80 dropped grease pencil:
[https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.80/G...](https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Reference/Release_Notes/2.80/Grease_Pencil)

The creator was updating his Patron saying the lack of updates was him
spending a month mastering Blender. Now they don't have to hop around N number
of different Adobe applications, with that cloud service running the bg
slowing everything down. It even hangs when I restart.

Blender is great teamwork, open source at it's finest. But some bits of it -
maybe just my imagination - feel it's a sort of wake up call to players like
Adobe that overreach trying to push services cloud stuff on users.

~~~
themodelplumber
By dropped you mean like delivered / dropped off, right?

~~~
slazaro
Interesting that it can mean one thing or literally the opposite, with the
exact same phrasing. Language is weird.

~~~
chrismorgan
This is actually a common phenomenon, typically connected with meaning
changing over time. Two examples that spring immediately to my mind are:

• Cleave: to cleave to something means to stick tight (this is now an uncommon
usage), while to cleave something is to cut it in sunder.

• Let: now means “permit” but used to mean “hinder”. The older sense is
broadly obsolete, but is still used in tennis (“let” meaning there was some
_hindrance_ to the serve, typically but not exclusively from the ball striking
the net).

I suspect “couldn’t care less” being corrupted to “could care less” (which
_should_ mean something quite dissimilar) is a related sort of case, but I’m
no linguist. I can imagine that all of these cases could be at least partly
due to carelessness or misunderstanding of the word or idiom; but again, I’m
no linguist.

------
Animats
Nice. Users have been screaming about how much changed between 2.79 and 2.81.
They should have called it Blender 3.

The Blender 2.8x experience has too much of "where did they put ???".
Remember, this is a 3D animation program capable of film quality, with UI
complexity far beyond most applications. I spent 15 minutes yesterday looking
for the "align" tool, which isn't where the "current" documentation says it
is. That's a daily experience coming from 2.79.

Actually, the 2.8x series is pretty good. But it obsoleted most of the
published Blender books, of which there are many, and most of the user base.
So a stable version, to give users some relief and allow the documentation to
catch up, is a big win.

~~~
akavel
I understand old users and experts may be annoyed at the fact things were
moved, breaking their muscle memory (though I think this is at least partially
mitigated by "classic" shortcuts map?). However please note, that for people
who were always afraid and intimidated by Blender before, the new interface is
an absolute game-changer. I finally feel I have some fighting chance to maybe
try and slowly learn at least some of its basics, whereas before I felt
completely alienated and frustrated even in the smallest GUI elements. More
than that, I finally felt I can recommed trying to learn Blender to my close
artist friend, who's not very much into computers, and whom I'd never dare to
try and recommend the old version. Even with the new version I saw that for
them it feels fairly hard and tricky to use, _but now also definitively kinda
somewhat familiar and maybe usable_ (the jury is still out, but I felt super
happy when they since asked me _" hey, so what was the name of this program
you showed me?"_). In my opinion, this is a seminal example of how to push a
typically "nerdy" open-source project's GUI into a user-friendly one,
bordering even on intuitive. I am amazed somebody, or the whole community (I
don't know the story), managed to pull this out so well. And before Blender
did it, I seriously didn't think an open-source project could manage to pull
it out. If you take this into perspective, I think the changes to expert
users' workflow, however painful, may actually soon prove to be relatively
forgettable. If I am mot mistaken, I think all the old functions _are still
there_ ; so after a period of frustrations of relearning the menus, I believe
you're be no less productive than before. Whereas droves of people will
suddenly be able to discover Blender and feel welcome into its interface, and
empowered by the possibilities it opens before them. I sincerely bow with
respect and amazement before the authors of this change.

~~~
greggman3
It's still frustrating how different it is from all other software.

I know blender people are used to it but there are UI conventions. They work
on all other programs. they fail on blender for "reasons".

One simple example. Click to select, press the Delete key to delete. Works
pretty much everywhere. But no, Blender wants you to press X

Another is the way you move and or create window panes. Pretty much all other
apps you just drag the title/tab/corner and if you to close there's (a) a
close [x] icon, (b) no icon but drag the tab out to a separate window and one
will appear (c) right click the tab for a context menu. None of these work in
blender so it's off to search for a tutorial on how to close a window.

Another is using a non-standard file dialog which breaks all kinds of
conventions. Sure they wanted more options I guess (though OS ones offer a
place to add options). Or they wanted one UI across platforms, except of
course people on each platform use used to that platform's conventions...

etc...

Still it's amazing software

~~~
TD-Linux
>One simple example. Click to select, press the Delete key to delete. Works
pretty much everywhere. But no, Blender wants you to press X

Both of these examples work as you'd expect in Blender 2.8+. You may want to
try out a new version of the software.

------
DavidPeiffer
Blender continues to impress me. I spent a semester my senior year of high
school doing an independent study in 2011, then was able to do a project with
it my 1st year of college. To my knowledge, every function is available via
the Python API.

In 2011/2012 I worked on a project for a blind Chemistry student. MacMolPlt
[1] shows electron fields and the physical location of atoms during chemical
reactions. This visualization was useless to someone who was blind.

A CompE and I built a system which would take an export of the atom locations,
bond type, and vertex location for the electron cloud surface and convert it
to a 3d printed model. [2]

We came up with the following:

1) Import the Chemical Markup Language (CML) file. This is XML and contains
basically all the information needed for the screen visualization.

2) Each column of the periodic table was a certain shape.

3) Each row of the periodic table was a certain scale.

4) Each bond type had a different "rod" connecting them.

5) The electron cloud surface was imported.

6) Everything was "unioned" together to make a surface model.

7) The file was exported to an STL file. We then submitted this to a 3d
printer.

I asked the professor I was working with about making it open source. The
answer was basically "we might be able to do that, but it's going to be a
political mess at the university". The money to pay me was from the disability
office, with relatively little oversight. They wouldn't necessarily object to
how the funds were used, but they would probably have an issue paying for
enhancements. We weren't sure if they'd want to recoup the costs. The market
of beneficiaries was very small.

[1]
[https://brettbode.github.io/wxmacmolplt/](https://brettbode.github.io/wxmacmolplt/)

[2] [https://imgur.com/a/kxeDjy6](https://imgur.com/a/kxeDjy6)

~~~
sam_bristow
One thing I appreciate about the Blender Python API is that it follows the
conventions of the wider Python ecosystem [1].

Other tools, like KiCad and FreeCAD for example, have Python APIs, but they
tend to follow the conventions of the underlying C++ code. In the wider scheme
of things it's pretty minor, but it the consistency is nice.

[1]
[https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_63_7/info_...](https://docs.blender.org/api/blender_python_api_2_63_7/info_best_practice.html)

------
panpanna
I love what blender has done with the interface.

It's like the exact opposite of Inkscape, which gets worse by every release.
It no longer looks like incompetency, at this level I suspect sabotage by a
competitor...

~~~
robbrown451
And GIMP.

I use GIMP and Inkscape with some regularily. I wonder if I should be using
Blender.... it seems way better but also does so much more.

Does it replace much of GIMP/Inkscape functionality, or is it mostly just for
3d and animation?

~~~
fish45
it _can_ replace gimp but it's not made for it. I'm not sure about how much
the new grease pencil adds for photo editing though.

~~~
robbrown451
Yeah well I don't just use GIMP for photos, but as a general-purpose 2d paint
program. Any time I need a graphic on a web page or post or what have you.

~~~
_emacsomancer_
Krita is worth looking at for this sort of use case

------
vz8
My son and I are learning Blender together. I was an avid 3DS Max user for
many years (Kinetix, then Autodesk), and Blender is both impressive and a
comfortable next step. Never did much with Maya, though there was a detour to
Softimage for a few years...

With a GTX 1070 video card, Blender has been quite responsive on a dual-
monitor HD setup. Highly recommend that users try the Nvidia Studio Drivers.
We started off using the latest game-ready drivers and the system was
unstable, but after doing a clean install of the studio drivers (v 442.92),
its been rock solid no matter what we throw at it.

------
ImprobableTruth
It's absolutely crazy to me how fast the sculpt mode has improved, especially
since it's mostly done by one guy!

It's not going to "catch up" with zbrush, but it being integrated into a
complete 3D suite is a huge boon. It's still missing some key features (e.g.
polypainting, which is coming soon I think), but if it keeps improving at the
current rate, I could see it being a serious contender especially in areas
such as concepting.

~~~
akavel
For artists who can't afford ZBrush, I believe this is a gamechanger.

~~~
nineteen999
Blender needs a remeshing tool on a par with ZRemesher, however there is
Exoside Quad Remesher which is by the same guy as ZRemesher and offers pretty
similar results, although its over $100US. The new Quadrimesh in Blender 2.8
is great but it still doesn't quite hold a candle to ZRemesher.

------
corty
Blender has come such a long way since it went open source. Love it, great
work, and thanks to all contributors!

~~~
hartator
Ha! I didn’t even knew Blender was closed source at some point.

~~~
Animats
It was originally a commercial product. The seller went out of business, and
the user community bought the software from them.

~~~
IanCal
I remember contributing some of my pocket money at the time!

~~~
njharman
Me too. The success of blender really sold me on Open Source.

------
Jnr
It makes me happy to see the speed at which Blender is being developed now. I
have been following it for more than 10 years and it seems like it is finally
starting to take over the industry. :)

And even though I don't use it that much myself, it is one of my favorite FOSS
projects out there. I wish Blender developers and community the best!

------
jdechko
I do architectural modeling as a side thing. My needs in more marketing
materials rather than construction documents. Would blender be a possible
replacement for Sketchup given the recent announcement that SU is going
subscription only?

~~~
knolan
Blender’s cycles renderer and some HDRIs would be an excellent way to produce
stunning architecture rendering. Switch to the eevee renderer and use
freestyle to outline edges (which you can also export to SVG!) and you can
produce some excellent stylised images too.

Also have a look at the included Archimesh add-on.

[https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/add_mesh/ar...](https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/addons/add_mesh/archimesh.html)

~~~
akavel
\+ also Archipack (bundled as well)

------
ur-whale
One of the thing that has always amazed me with Blender is the sheer speed at
which it saves and loads large and complex scenes to/from disk.

I believe none of the other 3D packages is anywhere near that.

I'd love to hear how they do it if anyone knows (or has pointer to an
explanation).

~~~
cturtle
I couldn't find very recent documentation, but the Blender wiki archive has a
few articles that explain saving files. This article [1] in particular was an
interesting read. It appears it is mostly a direct write of structs to disk.

[1]
[https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/Dev:Source/Archit...](https://archive.blender.org/wiki/index.php/Dev:Source/Architecture/File_Format/)

------
cridenour
This release has a well needed update to the gLTF exporter which is great as
that's the preferred method of importing assets into Godot.

It was possible to update the exporter plugin separately via Github before but
this will help a lot of people.

~~~
panzerklein
Great news! gLTF is also a preferred way to export models for use in webgl 3d
frameworks, like three.js

~~~
nineteen999
Also becoming that way for Unreal too, they have had an importer since 4.19

------
geuis
I recently got into 3D printing and found I often need to modify models to get
better prints. This has lead me into learning some modeling basics.

Started with fusion 360 (because it’s free), but even as a new user the entire
interface is clunky and hard to use.

I then switched over to Blender 2.8. To be honest, it’s not a simple set of
tools for a beginner. However there are tons of great articles and videos
about how to do things. After a few weeks of working through simple tasks and
then on to more complex things, I’ve grown to love Blender.

Once you learn some concepts and get a handle on workflows, I can honestly say
Blender is a _much_ better tool than fusion 360. Not only is it more powerful
and faster, the folks working on Blender have clearly put a lot of thought
into usability. If you’re frustrated with Blender as a new user, just keep at
it and you’ll pick it up quickly.

To add another point, my experiences are specifically oriented towards
modeling and modifications for 3D printing. You’ll still probably want to use
tools like fusion if you’re doing other tasks like mechanical design.

~~~
justinclift
Does Blender still export complex geometry with holes in it (eg STL files),
that need manual fixing before they'll print?

~~~
knolan
As mentioned, enable the 3D printing add-on (it’s built in) it’ll check your
mesh and highlight trouble areas.

[https://youtu.be/-y5r2mTlUWA](https://youtu.be/-y5r2mTlUWA)

~~~
justinclift
Cool, that looks like a reasonable workaround. :)

------
slavik81
The native support for OpenVDB volumes is exciting. Having worked with OpenVDB
occasionally, it's a _very_ impressive library. The speed at which it can
execute complex volumetric operations is matched only by the difficulty of
understanding how to correctly invoke them. OpenVDB's points -> level set ->
mesh is an order of magnitude faster than the marching cubes implementation
I'd been using previously.

OpenVDB is a hidden gem, and I hope this gives it a bit more exposure.

------
the_other_b
Any advice for getting started with Blender? Been making 2D games for awhile
and want to jump into practicing some 3D, of course that comes with learning
to model.

~~~
young_unixer
I think Youtube tutorials are the way to go.

Blender Guru is the most popular channel, but I personally prefer the tutorial
series[0] by Grant Abbitt for getting started.

0:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MRonzqYJgw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MRonzqYJgw)

~~~
hrnnnnnn
Plus one on Grant, he does a lot of livestreams too and critiques viewer
submissions.

------
manifoldgeo
For anyone who finds the new Grease Pencil tool exciting but intimidating, a
YouTuber named Dedouze (whose amazing artwork is the Blender 2.82 splash
screen) has a two-part course on drawing and animating with the grease pencil.

Part 1:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c57qq2nE3B0&t=1404s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c57qq2nE3B0&t=1404s)

Part 2:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhcNPYxPqhw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhcNPYxPqhw)

------
vkoskiv
The Blender Foundation team is absolutely killing it, not only with their
product development, but also their marketing.

Which reminds me, I'm long overdue in donating to BF. So much inspiration and
utility over the years.

------
lspears
Does anyone have experience using blender for ML simulation data? How does it
compare to Unity? I’m using Unity for generating synthetic images and RL
learning.

~~~
risos
What kind of synthetic images are you wanting to generate? Blender has a lot
of power in terms of procedural generation.

~~~
lspears
One example is chess positions. I render them in Unity and take screenshots to
determine if my ML architecture and loss function can read the board from just
and image.

~~~
risos
Well I know you could definitely render the same thing in blender and it would
probably be faster as blender is actually designed to render images and
animations, as opposed to Unity being primarily a game engine.

As far as generating them procedurally I'm not sure. I'm assuming you're using
3d models of the chess pieces, and while it is possible to do procedural
animations with the animation nodes add-on I haven't used it much myself so
I'm not sure if it will me your use case.

[https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes](https://github.com/JacquesLucke/animation_nodes)

Blender also has a great python API. AFAIK it has an API for every single
function so the sky is the limit really. I don't think it would be too much
effort to create a blender file that on startup would execute a script that
generates a random chess board arrangement, inserts the corresponding models,
and sets up the camera.

Blender can even render from the command line, so you could probably just
setup a loop that keeps rendering the same file over and over to generate a
whole bunch of positions.

------
LockAndLol
I see a big NVIDIA part on that page and wonder where in the world AMD is. Are
they part of blender? Because maybe they should be.

