
A developer’s introduction to 3D animation and Blender - okfine
http://radar.oreilly.com/2015/09/a-developers-introduction-to-3d-animation-and-blender.html
======
zaphar
Blender may be one of the most successful and best run Artistic/Media projects
in Open Source.

It manages to pack a lot of power in a very small package. And the Open
Movie/Open Game projects help to drive the direction of the Application with
concrete goals. Personally I think it's one of the media production suites out
there for the hobbyist. The power + price (free) can't be beat for the non-
professional.

~~~
BoysenberryPi
Blender also has one of the most god awful UIs I have ever had the displeasure
of working with. And it's not even the fact the UI is bad. It's the fact that
when you tell someone in the Blender community that you don't like the UI they
usually say "well once you understand why it's made that way you'll get it"
which is pretty much saying "once you understand it you'll understand it"
which is redundant.

/rant

~~~
zaphar
Blender's UI is like Vim's powerful but with a steep learning curve.

I happen to like Vim which perhaps explains why I like Blender. Blender isn't
really designed for the dabbler. It's designed for the serious user. For that
type of user it's worth the learning curve since you can get _really_ fast in
it. So fast that a common activity is speed modelling. If you only dabble then
something like SketchUp is probably more your speed. If you plan to create
stuff like this:
[http://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=...](http://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=402981&d=1443955428)
though then blender is well worth the learning curve.

~~~
berkut
I'd say a better comparison is that Blender is like to Nokia interface of Nxx
phones 10 years ago before the iPhone. All the functionality's technically
there, but it's often very convoluted to use it, and that doesn't necessarily
make it powerful.

Some of the defaults are just downright stupid: why does rotate by default
rotate in screen-space (so against the 2D camera plane, instead of world or
object space). The reliance on the MMB so much (Maya does this a bit as well,
but there's keyboard alternatives) means it's almost impossible to use on a
laptop. There's so many things like this that while minor in isolation are
just so frustraiting as a whole when attempting to use it, and make me go
"nope, I'll go back to Maya or Houdini thanks".

~~~
TranquilMarmot
First thing I do when using Blender on a new machine is go into the settings
and turn on "Emulate 3 Button Mouse". That makes it so you can Alt+Click to
rotate the camera instead of using the middle mouse button. No idea why it's
not on by default, since the Alt modifier isn't really used anywhere else
(especially in the context of a mouse click)

------
PixelMath
I used to work for Hollywood visual effects. Over the span of many years I
have tried almost all the software out there and I find Blender very powerful
but my personal favorite is a software named Houdini* (not free but you do get
apprentice version). The core methodology Houdini is built on is for creating
procedural systems for everything which i think is of more relevance for this
community. Do check it out, I am sure members of this community can put it to
use for the things not even their creators would have imagined.

*[http://www.sidefx.com/](http://www.sidefx.com/)

~~~
zaphar
I used a trial version of houdini once and the procedural workflow is amazing
and I loved it. But I can't justify the cost and at the time the limitations
of the community edition were prohibitive even for a hobbyist.

~~~
jacobwcarlson
I'm not sure when you used it, but Houdini Indie[1] looks pretty reasonable-
$200/year and you don't have to upgrade until you're doing $100k/year in
revenue.

[1]
[https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blo...](https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=244&Itemid=399)

~~~
zaphar
It was a long time ago. Like more than 10 years. The indie version is indeed
much more reasonably priced but I don't do enough to justify 200/year. Blender
hits my sweet spot :-)

~~~
PixelMath
well, now is the time to give it a try again. Last week they released Houdini
15

[https://vimeo.com/135607909](https://vimeo.com/135607909)

------
yohann305
Feel free to downvote me but the title is quite misleading as I was expecting
a developer introduction to 3D to be heavier on code and show what's behind
the hood.

For example, the tutorial starts by creating box, I'd love see the equivalent
using code. Same goes for adding vertices, moving vertices.

Cheers!

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I've done a bit of Blender Python scripting, and it's a bloody pain. The API
is very much an afterthought, and it can't be much used by anyone. As an
example, function calls in your script do different things based on which part
of the UI has mouse focus. It's very easy to make loops eat all your RAM, hang
everything for a few minutes and then segfault. I've even had it crash my X
session. And the built-in IDE is crap. /rant

~~~
332451b
The mouse focus issue is more related to missing APIs. If you call operators
(tools) from Python they do indeed depend on context, just like they would if
you use them from a toolbar, menu or shortcut key. These are not intended to
be used for scripting really, but they are available and sometimes the only
way to do things because there is no equivalent API function available.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Probably yes. A really nice feature is that you can hover over a button and
see the name of that Python function. Then it's hard to know if you're
supposed to do it that way or not when scripting.

Another gripe I remember is that angles in the UI are specified in degrees and
in Python they are specified in radians.

~~~
332451b
Yes, a big problem is indeed API documentation and making it easier to follow
best practices.

Regarding angles, users want to see degrees in the UI, but the python
functions like math.sin and math.cos and basically any other graphics code you
find uses radians. Whatever solution is chosen is always going to make someone
unhappy.

------
shawnfratis2
With all the complaints with Blenders UI I've never understood why more people
haven't developed plugins that offer a UI alternative. I wanted a simpler UI
for Maya so I wrote my own : [https://github.com/shawnfratis/Scrimshaw-MEL-
Mini-GUI-for-Ma...](https://github.com/shawnfratis/Scrimshaw-MEL-Mini-GUI-for-
Maya) . It's not perfect but it works for my uses. I'd think a program as open
as Blender would lend itself to something like that.

------
AlexB3D
...Blender it is for adult people

I do not care to be difficult or easy. If I like, I learn. I do not stop
interface.

I like many programming interfaces, but I'm especially grateful to Blender.

\- It is a program made by 3D artists for 3D artists. \- It is totally
dynamic. \- I've got a steady flow of work. \- (Shorcuts) memory exercises. At
36 he is appreciated. \- It is a professional program. \- To use it you have
to think. If not, use c4d, max, maya, blah, blah. \- Jump from 3ds max Blender
is not fair. Blender is vulgarly stable.

It had been years since I felt emotion, learning a program.

Blender can improve. I hope he does. It is on track.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Hello, welcome to HN!

Quick hint on formatting lists and other site-specific things:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10411561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10411561).

~~~
AlexB3D
Thank you. I'll read.

------
thenomad
Lots of talk about modeling in this thread - how's Blender for other
applications these days?

In particular, how's its animation capability (both UI and features-wise)?
Does it have decent importers and exporters for industry-standard formats (I'm
thinking FBX and Alembic)? Can it handle mocap data well? Does it have any 3D
paint / texturing tools yet?

I'd love to move away from Autodesk if it's possible!

~~~
thedaemon
I'm a studying animator. I can safely say that it's animation capabilities
have risen enough over the past few years that I am comfortable as I am in
Maya animating. It does have decent import and export support. I haven't done
any mocap so can't comment there. I haven't tried to 3d paint either. Not sure
about that. It does have sculpting similar to zbrush though.

~~~
thenomad
Whoa, Zbrush-style sculpt? Nice.

Does it have a non-linear animation editor similar to Maya? If so, bloody
hell. I might be giving this another go...

~~~
dazirius
It's been a long time since I did anything in Maya, but if you mean
keyframing, interpolation curves (possibly my most favourite thing in the
world), drivers (second favourite), armature rigging, shape keys etc. etc.
then yeah, Blender does have those features and as far as I can tell, they're
pretty well polished.

What I like best about the way animation is handled is that you can keyframe
(almost) anything. As an example, you can add keys for the strength (or some
other value) of the normal map that is a node in a material that is applied to
one or more objects and animate that value. I dare say that's feasible in
other packages too. Whether you can do it by just hitting "i" on the keyboard
while mousing over the value you want to animate, I don't know.

