Stephen Bain wrote:
On 8/11/07, Brianna Laugher
<brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote:
What exactly does Blender do?
It's a pretty flexible 3D modelling program which can also do keyframe
animation. See [[blender (software)]] on enwiki.
It is a 3D content creation suite (Similar to Maya, 3DS Max, Cinema 4D,
Lightwave, Houdini, etc.) - that means modeling, texturing (can paint in
2D, 3D, use images, or node/procedural textures), animation (rigging,
skinning, a host of sophisiticated character and keframe animation
tools), rendering, particle tools, simulation tools (hair, fluids,
physics, cloth and softbodies), rendering - it can also be used for 2D
animation; and of course creation of 2D stills. It also has an
integrated sequencer and compositor (movie editing and compositing); and
an integrated game engine.
It has a fairly comprehensive import and export suite - supporting most
major formats to some degree (standard 3D and 3D interchange formats
such as Collada, FBX, OBJ, 3DS, DXF; assorted game formats; and other
formats of interest such as VRML) also there are tools to export to
flash and shockwave 3D format.
> Is it the program you could use to make
> a Pixar animation film? (potentially)
Certainly among other capabilities - movies, game content, web
animations, architectural renderings/previz, and content used in
illustrations, also fairly decent CAD capabilities.
It is being used as the almost exclusive 3D tool for 'Plumiferos' a
commercial feature animated film that should be out by the end of this
year or so.
http://www.plumiferos.com/
Does Commons
accept Blender
working/output files? If not, should we?
I believe the .blend format is a
container type format similar to ogg.
You put model, scene, texture etc information into the one file and it
can be read by any version of Blender. I don't know if it can be read
by any other programs.
Blenders own format isn't really appropriate for interchange - it is
almost a direct memory dump to disk. However Blender, as noted above,
exports to a large host of open formats.
LetterRip