Thread: Blender

The best place to start might very well be the open source modelling and animation pack¬age Blender (www.blender.org).This is avail¬able in both 32- and 64-bit Windows and Linux versions and also for Mac as x and Solaris. This has rich functionality, on a par with soft¬ware such as MAX and Maya, although it also has a rather funky user interface - but that is typical of much open, source software. The package is very well documented, with hundreds of pages of tutorials and documen¬tation available for download and more infor¬mation available on the Web site. The down¬loadable PDFs are very useful, but lacking some features of the software. Perhaps the Web site is kept more up-to-date.

The modelling uses standard meshes (prim¬itives constructed from triangles), curves and surfaces using NURBS, and meta objects. The latter refers to a procedural method for defin¬ing surfaces; they are simply mathematical definitions. There are five basic types: ball, tube, plane, ellipsoid and cube. You can construct more complex objects by editing and combining these together, and then eventually convert to a standard mesh of triangles when satified with the basic model. Interestingly, meta objects interact with and influence each other when in close proximity, and there is a parameter called stiffness that determines just how strong these effects are. Basically, the surfaces that are close to each other move towards each other - they bulge out - and then combine in a fluid and uncomplicated manner (none of the artefacts than can develop when Boolean operations are performed on meshes). These effects can also be negative, where one surface pushes another away (without them actually touching.



before you get it right. 3ds MAX users might be interested to know that files created in Blender can be exported to 3ds format and opened in MAX. The couple we have tried worked successfully, and so this makes this functionality available to MAX users. Some effects can be created using this method that would be quite difficult using MAX. As far as lighting is concerned, Blender includes both ray tracing and radiosity for advanced lighting techniques.