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?).
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)
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 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
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?
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)
