[Asmithey]

My latest learning quest in Blender. The cloth was created in Blender and imported into Form-Z as an obj. Everything else was modeled in Form-Z. The cloth material is from the mxm gallery.

Blender is one awesome app. I have never used 3DS Max can not afford it. Blender on the other hand...man it is an awseome app for being open source. The new interface in Blender 2.5 is great!

[sandykoufax]

Looks very nice.

[RobMitchell]

Very convincing. Great test.

Heard nothing but good things about Blender. I tried it once but remember not liking the interface or having any time to get properly into it. That was well over a year ago though so it may be worth another go now.

[Asmithey]

Thanks guys,

Yes, give it another go. What is so nice about learning Blender is the Blender community. Especially with BlenderCookie.com and BlenderGuru.com. Awesome web sites full of tutorials.

Aaron

[Lars Magnusson]

That looks really nice!
I think I'll have to try Blender. Free is a great price
trueSpace has been a nice tool, but it doesn't seem to like my current graphics card.

[Asmithey]

Thanks Lars,

The Blender version 2.54 Beta is very stable. Easy to download and easy to install. I have had no issues with my graphics card running Blender. I have a low grade ATI card.


Aaron

[Lars Magnusson]

Downloaded the beta, and....hopefully I'll have time this weekend to look through the tutorial-websites you mentioned.
After just a couple of minutes experimenting after installing...and not looking in manual or tutorials...I succeeded at moving the corners of a cube but not much more
It looks promising, lots of menus and functions, should definitely be able to do what I need and much more, and after looking through the tutorials I think it will make more sense.

[JTB]

After just a couple of minutes experimenting after installing...and not looking in manual or tutorials...I succeeded at moving the corners of a cube but not much more

Exactly what I did!!!
Blender looks great, I have Max Design 2011 and I am not sure I will keep on paying subscriptions (Actually I pay for Revit and ACAD already so maybe I will stop all of them). I use Max almost only for rendering but I have my favorite plugin Forestpack for my trees and grass. So, I will have to use it...
My only problem is the UI, it is soooo different from any other app... I feel it will take me 3 months to get used to it!

[Lars Magnusson]

He,he, good to know I'm not the only one who got confused. But I learned ZBrush so this shouldn't be too difficult

I think I'll start with this tutorial (interface and modelling video):
http://www.blendercookie.com/getting-st ... interface/

[Asmithey]

I will tell you form experience. The UI in 2.54 is sooooooo much better than the Blender versions previous to this. Once you start to use it, the UI gets easy to use. Lars, you will love the sculpting tools. The modifiers are incredible tools for non destructive modeling. I have been learning Blender off and on for 6 months and am now creating things now with out having to resort to tutorials, not too much anyway. But the tutorials are great and there are so many of them. I can't wait to see what you do with Blender. I did the Porsche tutorial, the dragon, coffee cup, pup tent and ran through various cloth and fluid sim tutorials.

[Lars Magnusson]

After the basic interface and modelling tutorial it makes a lot more sense! Still... I wonder who came up with the idea that you select things with right mouse button??
So far I have to agree with you, after just learning the basic buttons and shortcuts, Blender feels quite nice!
And since I'm a "occasional" user, I do the same as I have to do with maxwell and ZBrush, jotting down important things on a paper so I don't have to start over with the basic tutorials after a longer modelling/render break

I also did a quick workflow test, ZBrush -> OBJ -> Blender -> OBJ -> MaxwellStudio, to make sure UV's, position and size from ZB was kept, and, yes, it seems to work!
Note for others who might have a similar workflow as me, Blender 2.54beta needed this fix to be able to export OBJ files.
http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18140
( it has a link to a developer folder with three files that has to be replaced. Browser will warn that the encryption key certificate isn't valid, but since you're not going to use a creditcard it doesn't matter )

[numerobis]

I wonder who came up with the idea that you select things with right mouse button??

someone who thought: "Yesss!!! That's the ultimate feature to be different!!!"

[Polyxo]

I wonder who came up with the idea that you select things with right mouse button??

Fwiw: You can switch to Select with LMB in File/Preferences

[Asmithey]

Lars,

If you go to Blenderguru.com, there is a nice set of cheat sheets, keyboard shortcuts, that you can download and print out. They are very helpful.

Aaron

[Lars Magnusson]

Thanks! Printed the cheatsheet and will look for the LMB setting after work