Datasheet

Part I: Wrapping Your Brain Around Blender

he’s really just standing in a big green room, you’ve seen what can be done

with 3D computer graphics. In the right hands, Blender is capable of produc-

ing this kind of work. With a little patience and dedication, your hands can be

the right hands.

One thing that makes Blender different and special compared to other com-

parable 3D software is the fact that it is free and open source. Being free and

open source means that not only can you go to the Blender Web site (www.

blender.org) and download the entire program right now without paying

anything, but you can also freely download the source, or the code that makes

up the program. For most programs, the source code is a heavily guarded and

highly protected secret that only certain people (mostly programmers hired

by the company that distributes the program) can see and modify. Because

it’s open source, anybody can see Blender’s source code and make changes

to it. The benefit is that instead of having a small group of paid programmers

work on the program, Blender can be improved by programmers all over the

world!

Because of these strengths, Blender is an ideal program for small animation

companies, freelance 3D artists, independent filmmakers, students beginning

to learn about 3D computer graphics, and dedicated computer graphics

hobbyists.

Blender, like many other 3D computer graphics applications, has had a

reputation for being difficult for new users to understand. At the same time,

however, Blender is also known for allowing experienced users to bring their

ideas to life quickly. Fortunately, with the help of this book and the recent

improvements introduced in the latest version of Blender, that gap is becom-

ing much easier to bridge.

Discovering Blender’s Beginnings

The Blender you know and love today wasn’t always free and open source.

Blender is pretty unique in that it’s one of the few software applications that

was “liberated” from proprietary control with the help of its user community.

Originally, Blender was an internal production tool for an award-winning

Dutch animation company called NeoGeo, founded in the late 1990s by

Blender’s original (and still lead) developer, Ton Roosendaal. As interest in

Blender grew, Ton spun off a new company, Not a Number (NaN), to market

and sell Blender. Sadly, NaN was forced to shut its doors in 2002, despite

Blender’s growing popularity. Ironically, this is where the story starts to get

exciting.

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