The Official Blender 2.3 Guide

Like many pseudo-techno geeks, I've always been intrigued by three-dimensional art and animation. I've played with a few programs over the years, built a spaceship or three, and generally recognized that it takes a lot of patience and some serious horsepower, not to mention a fair amount of money to buy the "full" versions of most of the demos out there.

A while back Computer Arts magazine mentioned a little program called Blender: a robust 3D application that was open source and, well, free. I tinkered with it briefly and then set it aside, largely because of the unique interface and the feeling that I wanted a bit more guidance on how to use it. The Official Blender 2.3 Guide provides all that information – in spades.

Let's start with the idea behind Blender. The program is an offshoot of a Dutch animation company called NeoGeo; essentially, it had its genesis as an in-house product for use in animation production. In 1998, NeoGeo's founder decided to launch a new company to market that program – now known as Blender – to other artists. At the core of the project was the desire for a "compact, cross-platform 3D creation suite for free." Since most 3D products at the time (and even today) can cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, this goal – to make "professional level" modeling and animation tools to the general public - at was an ambitious undertaking to say the least. The plan was to make money by offering commercial products and services, with Blender at the core of it all.

Unfortunately, the business model hit a snag: namely, the tech bust. Disappointing sales of the company's commercial software product, Blender Publisher, was the death knell. But from the corporate ashes Blender itself was reborn as an open source product developed by the non-profit organization called Blender Foundation. The result is that there is now an open source development community charged with improving the product, and a user community that freely exchanges ideas and tricks regarding the actual operation of the program. In fact, the full text of the book (the Blender Guide) – is actually available for download from blender.org, together with any updates and improvements to it.

With that background, it is easy to see why Blender might spark the imagination: it is a free, open source 3d modeling product that can compete with some of the top-end products. The book features a full color section of artwork that demonstrates the program's power (power which remains as of yet beyond a neophyte such as myself).

Article Author: Bill Wallo

Bill Wallo is a book and movie junkie.

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