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Blender is a free software 3D animation program. It can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulating, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications. Blender is available for several operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, IRIX, Solaris, FreeBSD with unofficial ports for SkyOS, MorphOS and Pocket PC. Blender has a robust feature set similar in scope and depth to other high-end 3D software such as Softimage|XSI, Cinema 4D, 3ds Max and Maya. These features include advanced simulation tools such as rigid body dynamics, fluid dynamics, and softbody dynamics, modifier based modeling tools, powerful character animation tools, a node based material and compositing system and Python for embedded scripting. Blender icon This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ...
Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 466 pixelsFull resolution (1280 × 745 pixel, file size: 232 KB, MIME type: image/png) Summary, This is a screenshot of the open source 3D Design Program, Blender 3D, version 2. ...
Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a software product. ...
The Blender Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for the development of Blender, an open-source program for three-dimensional modelling. ...
A software release is the distribution, whether public or private, of an initial or new and upgraded version of a computer software product. ...
is the 133rd day of the year (134th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...
// An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer. ...
A cross-platform (or platform independent) programming language, software application or hardware device works on more than one system platform (e. ...
Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function, type, or field of use. ...
3D computer graphics are different from 2D computer graphics in that a three-dimensional representation of geometric data is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. ...
A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ...
The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ...
A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos and other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML...
Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without...
3D computer graphics are different from 2D computer graphics in that a three-dimensional representation of geometric data is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. ...
3D modeling is the creation of 3D computer graphics based on wire frame modeling via specialized software. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
A non-linear editing system is a video editing or audio editing system that can perform random access on the source material. ...
In visual effects post-production, compositing refers to creating new images or moving images by combining images from different sources – such as real-world digital video, film, synthetic 3-D imagery, 2-D animations, painted backdrops, digital still photographs, and text. ...
// An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer. ...
Windows redirects here. ...
Mac OS X (IPA: ) is a line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ...
This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ...
IRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. ...
Solaris is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. ...
FreeBSD is a Unix-like free operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) branch through the 386BSD and 4. ...
SkyOS is an operating system developed by Robert Szeleney. ...
MorphOS is a mixed proprietary and open source operating system produced for the Pegasos PowerPC (PPC)-processor-based computer, most models of PPC-accelerated classic Amiga computers, and the EFIKA PPC consumer device. ...
The Dell Axim x30, a Pocket PC A Pocket PC, abbreviated P/PC or PPC, is a handheld-sized computer that runs a specific version of the Windows CE operating system. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
CINEMA 4D is a commercial cross platform high-end 3D graphics application produced by MAXON Computer GmbH of Friedrichsdorf near Frankfurt, Germany. ...
3ds Max is a full-featured 3D graphics application developed by Autodesk Media and Entertainment. ...
This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...
Python is a high-level programming language first released by Guido van Rossum in 1991. ...
History Blender was developed as an in-house application by the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo (not to be confused with the Neo-Geo game console) and Not a Number Technologies (NaN). It was primarily authored by Ton Roosendaal, who had previously written a ray tracer called Traces for Amiga in 1989. The name "Blender" was inspired by a song by Yello, from the album Baby.[1] Neo-Geo is the name of a cartridge-based arcade and home video game system released in 1990 by Japanese game company SNK. The system offered comparatively colorful 2D graphics and high-quality sound. ...
3D portrait Ton Roosendaal is the lead developer of the free 3D application Blender, and chairman of the Blender Foundation. ...
A ray traced scene. ...
The original Amiga 1000 (1985) with various peripherals The Amiga 500 (1987) was the most popular variant of the Amiga. ...
Year 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar). ...
Yello is a popular Swiss electronica band consisting of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank. ...
Baby is an album by the band Yello. ...
Roosendaal founded NaN in June 1998 to further develop and distribute the program. The program was initially distributed as shareware until NaN went bankrupt in 2002. Look up shareware in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
The creditors agreed to release Blender under the terms of the GNU General Public License, for a one-time payment of €100,000 (approximately US$102,000 as of September 2002). On July 18, 2002, a Blender funding campaign was started by Roosendaal in order to collect donations and on September 7, 2002 it was announced that enough funds had been collected and that the Blender source code would be released. Blender is now an open source program being actively developed under the supervision of the Blender Foundation.[1] The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ...
is the 199th day of the year (200th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Also see: 2002 (number). ...
is the 250th day of the year (251st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Also see: 2002 (number). ...
Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ...
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The Blender Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for the development of Blender, an open-source program for three-dimensional modelling. ...
The Blender Foundation initially reserved the right to use dual licensing, so that, in addition to GNU GPL, Blender would have been available also under the "Blender License", which did not require disclosing source code but required payments to the Blender Foundation. However, this option was never exercised and was suspended indefinitely in 2005.[2] Currently, Blender is solely available under GNU GPL. This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...
Features Blender has a relatively small installation size and runs on several popular computing platforms.[2] Though it is often distributed without documentation or extensive example scenes, the software contains features that are characteristic of high-end modelling software.[3] Among its capabilities are: - Versatile internal rendering capabilities and integration with YafRay, an open source ray tracer.
- Keyframed animation tools including inverse kinematics, armature (skeletal), hook, curve and lattice-based deformations, shape keys (morphing), non-linear animation, constraints, vertex weighting, soft body dynamics including mesh collision detection, fluid dynamics, Bullet rigid body dynamics, particle based hair, and a particle system with collision detection.
- Modifiers to apply non-destructive effects.
- Python scripting for tool creation and prototyping, game logic, importing and exporting from other formats such as OBJ, FBX and COLLADA and task automation.
- Basic non-linear video/audio editing and compositing capabilities.
- Game Blender, a sub-project, offers interactivity features such as collision detection, dynamics engine, and programmable logic. It also allows the creation of stand-alone, real-time applications ranging from architectural visualization to video game construction.
Look up polygon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
In computer graphics, subdivision surfaces are used to create smooth surfaces out of arbitrary meshes. ...
In the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis a Bézier curve is a parametric curve important in computer graphics. ...
A NURBS curve being created in NX Shape Studio. ...
Two metaballs Metaballs, in computer graphics terms, are organic-looking n-dimensional objects. ...
Digital sculpting is the interaction with computer generated geometry such as polygons or pixels as if they were clay or stone, using tools to push, pull, smooth, grab, pinch and other manipulations of the object as if it were clay. ...
A font can mean: A member of a typeface family; or digital font - file format that encapsulates a typeface family in a database. ...
Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Digital sculpting is the interaction with computer generated geometry such as polygons or pixels as if they were clay or stone, using tools to push, pull, smooth, grab, pinch and other manipulations of the object as if it were clay. ...
A YafRay rendering of piston engine parts modelled in Blender. ...
Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ...
A ray traced scene. ...
Inverse kinematic animation (IKA) refers to a process utilized in 3D computer graphic animation, to calculate the required articulation of a series of limbs or joints, such that the end of the limb ends up in a particular location. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Bullet is an open source physics engine, hosted at Sourceforge. ...
Python is a high-level programming language first released by Guido van Rossum in 1991. ...
OBJ (or . ...
COLLADA is a COLLAborative Design Activity for establishing an interchange file format for interactive 3D applications. ...
// Game Blender Requirements Version: 2. ...
“Computer and video games†redirects here. ...
Image File history File links Engine_movingparts. ...
Image File history File links Engine_movingparts. ...
3D rendering is the 3D computer graphics process of automatically converting 3D wire frame models into 2D images with 3D photorealistic effects on a computer. ...
A ray traced scene. ...
Ambient occlusion is a shading method used in 3D computer graphics which can help add realism by taking into account attenuation of light caused by obstructive geometry. ...
A YafRay rendering of piston engine parts modelled in Blender. ...
Additional features - A fully integrated node based compositor within the rendering pipeline
- An internal filesystem that allows one to pack multiple scenes into a single file (called a ".blend" file).
- All of blender's ".blend" files are forward, backward, and cross-platform compatible with other versions of blender, and can be used as a library to borrow pre-made content.
- Snapshot ".blend" files can be auto-saved periodically by the program, making it easier to survive a program crash.
- All scenes, objects, materials, textures, sounds, images, post-production effects for an entire animation can be stored in a single ".blend" file.
- Interface configurations are retained in the ".blend" files, such that what you save is what you get upon load. This file can be stored as "user defaults" so this screen configuration, as well as all the objects stored in it, is used every time you load blender.
However, a ".blend" file is less a structured specification of objects and relationships and closer to a direct binary dump of the program's memory space. This makes it very hard to convert a ".blend" file to another format using external tools, although dozens of import/export scripts that run inside Blender itself, accessing the object data via API, make it possible to inter-operate with other 3D tools. . ...
The software that provides the functionality described by an API is said to be an implementation of the API. The API itself is abstract, in that it specifies an interface and does not get involved with implementation details. ...
 Blender making use of the node editor to create metallic materials Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1280x770, 217 KB) This is a screen capture of a modified . ...
Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1280x770, 217 KB) This is a screen capture of a modified . ...
It has been suggested that Properties and uses of metals be merged into this article or section. ...
User interface Blender has had a reputation as a program that is difficult to learn. Nearly every function has a direct keyboard shortcut, and with the number of functions Blender offers this results in several different shortcuts per key. Since Blender became open source, there has been effort to add comprehensive contextual menus as well as make the tool use more logical and streamlined. There have also been efforts to visually enhance the user interface, with the introduction of color themes, transparent floating widgets, a new and improved object tree overview, and other small improvements (color picker widget, etc.). An example for a context menu taken from the word processor Microsoft Word The term context menu is commonly used for menus which pop up when clicking an item in a graphical user interface, offering a list of options which vary depending on the context of the action, the application...
Blender's user interface incorporates the following concepts:
- Editing modes
- The two primary modes of work are Object Mode and Edit Mode, which are toggled with the Tab key. Object mode is used to manipulate individual objects as a unit, while Edit mode is used to manipulate the actual object data. For example, Object Mode can be used to move, scale, and rotate entire polygon meshes, and Edit Mode can be used to manipulate the individual vertices of a single mesh. There are also several other modes, such as Vertex Paint, Weight Paint, and UV Mapping.
- Hotkey utilization
- Most of the commands are accessible via hotkeys. Until the 2.x and especially the 2.3x versions, this was in fact the only way to give commands, and this was largely responsible for creating Blender's reputation as a difficult-to-learn program. The new versions have more comprehensive GUI menus.
- Numeric input
- Numeric buttons can directly be "dragged" to change their value without the need to aim at a particular widget, thus saving screen real estate and time. Both sliders and number buttons can be constrained to various step sizes with modifiers like the CTRL and SHIFT keys. Python expressions can also be typed directly into number entry fields, allowing mathematical expressions to be used to specify values.
- Workspace management
- The Blender GUI is made up of one or more screens, each of which can be divided into sections and subsections that can be of any type of Blender's views or window-types. Each window-type's own GUI elements can be controlled with the same tools that manipulate 3D view - for example one can zoom in and out of GUI-buttons in the same way one zooms in and out in the 3D viewport. The GUI viewport and screen layout is fully user customizable. It is possible to set up the interface for specific tasks such as video editing or UV mapping or texturing by hiding features not utilized for the task.
A keyboard shortcut (also known as an accelerator key, shortcut key, or hotkey) is a set of keyboard keys that when pressed simultaneously, perform a predefined task. ...
A graphical user interface (GUI) is a type of user interface which allows people to interact with a computer and computer-controlled devices which employ graphical icons, visual indicators or special graphical elements called widgets, along with text labels or text navigation to represent the information and actions available to...
Python is a high-level programming language first released by Guido van Rossum in 1991. ...
UV Mapping is a 3D modelling process of making a 2D map representing a 3D model. ...
Comparison with other 3D software
Blender: Rendering Dreams... Blender has a comparable depth and breadth of features compared to commercial, proprietary, high end and mid range 3D software. A fairly comprehensive comparison between the available 3D software can be viewed at this comparison chart. Blender has areas where it is more limited than many of its commercial counterparts such as a lack of Font Preview for text, lack of NGon based modeling workflow and some missing or incomplete modeling tools, and a lack of a standard library of material presets; however, in other areas Blender is on the leading edge such as the advanced algorithms utilized for its UV unwrapping. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 493 pixelsFull resolution (2048 × 1263 pixel, file size: 691 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 493 pixelsFull resolution (2048 × 1263 pixel, file size: 691 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
It has been suggested that closed source be merged into this article or section. ...
Until recently, Blender has also tended to lack up-to-date and complete documentation, an issue that is being addressed through the wikification of the blender documentation project, the 2006 Blender Summer of Documentation project, and the June 2007 introductory book "Essential Blender", which was published by Blender Foundation. Additionally, a number of other books on using Blender have been recently published by publishers unaffiliated with the Blender Foundation including "Introducing Character Animation with Blender" which was published by Sybex.
Development Since the opening of the source, Blender has experienced significant refactoring of the initial codebase and major additions to its feature set. A code refactoring is any change to a computer program which improves its readability or simplifies its structure without changing its results. ...
Recent improvements include an animation system refresh [4]; a stack based modifier system; an updated Particle System (which can also be used to simulate hair and fur); fluid dynamics; soft body dynamics; GLSL shaders support in the game engine; advanced UV unwrapping; a fully recoded render pipeline, allowing separate render passes and "render to texture"; node based material editing and compositing.
Part of these developments were fostered by Google's Summer of Code program, in which the Blender Foundation participated in 2005, 2006 and 2007. This article is about the corporation. ...
The Google Summer of Code is an annual program, first held during the northern hemisphere summer of 2005, in which Google awards cash prizes to students who successfully complete a free software / open-source coding project during the summer. ...
Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...
For a more complete and in depth view of Blender's free/open source development history, you can view the release logs.
The current version is 2.44. It features 64 bit support and subsurface scattering, and many minor improvements and bug fixes.
Support The popularity of Blender has reached approximately 800,000 users [5] worldwide, and support is widely available. Most users learn Blender through community tutorials; others learn Blender through many discussion forums on the topic. A popular forum for Blender discussion is Blender Artists, previously known as elYsiun (http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/). Numerous other sites, such as Blenderart Magazine (website: http://blenderart.org, a free, downloadable magazine with each issue handling a particular area in 3D development) and Blendernation (website: http://www.blendernation.com, a site with articles and news on Blender and all surrounding it), provide information on everything surrounding Blender, including the showcasing of new techniques and features and the production of tutorials and other guides.
Artists using Blender Notable artists using Blender as their main or only tool are
Usage in the media industry The first large professional project in which Blender was used was Spider-Man 2, where it was primarily used to create animatics and pre-visualizations for the storyboard department. This article is about the 2004 film. ...
- "As an animatic artist working in the storyboard department of Spider-Man 2, I used Blender's 3d modeling and character animation tools to enhance the storyboards, re-creating sets and props, and putting into motion action and camera moves in 3d space to help make Sam's vision as clear to other departments as possible." [6] - Anthony Zierhut, Animatic Artist, Los Angeles
Friday or Another Day was the first 35mm feature film to use Blender for all the special effects, made on Linux workstations [7]. It won a prize at the Locarno International Film Festival. The special effects were by Digital Graphics of Belgium. The Locarno International Film Festival is an international film festival held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. ...
Blender has also been used for shows on the History Channel, alongside many other professional 3D graphics programs. [8]
Elephants Dream/Project Orange -
In September 2005, some of the most notable Blender artists and developers began working on a short film using primarily free software, in an initiative known as the Orange Movie Project. The resulting film, Elephants Dream, premiered on March 24, 2006. In response to the success of Elephants Dream the Blender Foundation has founded the Blender Institute to do additional projects with two announced projects Project Peach (A 'furry and funny' short open animated film project) and Project Apricot (a open game in collaboration with CrystalSpace that will reuse some of the assets created during Project Peach). Elephants Dream is a computer-generated short film made primarily[1] using free software applications and premiered on March 24, 2006, after about 8 months of work. ...
Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without...
Elephants Dream is a computer-generated short film made primarily[1] using free software applications and premiered on March 24, 2006, after about 8 months of work. ...
is the 83rd day of the year (84th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Elephants Dream is a computer-generated short film made primarily[1] using free software applications and premiered on March 24, 2006, after about 8 months of work. ...
Plumíferos Plumíferos, a commercial animated feature film created entirely in Blender,[3] is currently in the works at the Argentina-based Manos Digitales Animation Studio. Trailers of the movie were shown at the 2005 and 2006 Blender Conferences (Link to Google Video) PlumÃferos is an upcoming Argentine computer-animated feature film being made by Manos Digitales Animation Studio. ...
A computer-animated film commonly refers to feature films that have been computer-animated to appear three dimensional on a movie screen. ...
See also Image File history File links Portal. ...
Modeling in LightWave. ...
The Blender Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for the development of Blender, an open-source program for three-dimensional modelling. ...
The Suzanne award is awarded to animators using Blender 3D (an open-source 3D graphics animation program) annually at the blender conference held in Amsterdam. ...
3D portrait Ton Roosendaal is the lead developer of the free 3D application Blender, and chairman of the Blender Foundation. ...
References Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...
is the 18th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...
January 19 is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...
is the 35th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Image File history File links Wikibooks-logo-en. ...
Wikibooks logo Wikibooks, previously called Wikimedia Free Textbook Project and Wikimedia-Textbooks, is a wiki for the creation of books. ...
Image File history File links Commons-logo. ...
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