Blender 3D is one of the most impressive open source, free programs on the internet. It has established itself as a program that is used by professionals and rivals all the major 3D programs available on the market. With all of the same tools as the “big guys,” it thrives beyond them with its large user base, great tools, free documentation, tutorials, forums and customer support, and just an impressive program that creates professional quality animation for free (minus your time and effort of course!).
This program can replace most, if not all, of the following programs: Maya, 3D Studio Max, Mudbox, Lightwave, XSI, Zbrush and more. These are great programs but I will explain why Blender could possibly replace these as the “3D Standard” in the future.
My large claim could happen because Blender is an All-in-One 3D graphics powerhouse. It provides modeling, animating, rigging, lighting, texturing, rendering, video game creation, scripting and more all in one program. It seems like so much stuff would clutter the system down with too many tools, but that is not the case. I have both experience with Blender and Maya. My experience is that I can do things in Blender twice faster than Maya. Maya is clunky. Every time you have to go to a menu to open up a new menu to execute a command, and it has no shortcuts. Blender has shortcuts for just about any command you can think of, plus you can create a shortcut key if you need it.
The user interface seems daunting at first, but becomes very intuitive as you learn its ins and outs.
Some of its features include:
- Modeling, rendering, texturing, animating, rigging and more in one program
- Python scripting and execution
- Game editor
- Plugins
- Great user base and support
- Plenty of how-to’s, tutorials, documentation
- Forums where you can chat and discuss issues with others
- Intuitive graphic interface
- Clay like modeling
- And more – There are too many features to list. This program is a true Open Source Powerhouse
In conclusion I highly recommend this software for the beginner and professional. Not only will it save you THOUSANDS of dollars, but its quality is just as high, has a faster work flow and provides all your 3D editing needs in one software package.
