A couple of years ago, a friend of mine who is ever so much more into open source than I was informed me about a wonderful program called The Gimp. Which was like photoshop and it was free! Of course I was sceptic, I mean… come on, have you seen some of the open source stuff on the internet? (Also I “grew up” with free-ware and share ware so pardon me for being a bit sceptic.)
Anyway, so I got around to getting The Gimp. (he actually got it for me since ADSL was still only for rich people and big business.) Was I impressed? Yes… and no. Photoshop just completely blew the Gimp out of the water… at least for me. So I decided to let him get on with his odd fascination of “Open suckiness”, while I went on enjoying working on the REAL software. Well, needless to say, it all went on swimmingly and life could only get better if one day all of those (expensive) tidbits were presented for my consumption on the wonderful flaky pie pastry that was called Apple Mac.
Alas, by the will of Jobs I never got to taste the flaky pastry. (Which in recent years I’m afraid to say has gotten a bit more flakier and tastes more…PCier?)
So (for those of you who has continued to read thus far) I started looking for other things to do on my home PC, free things. (and at first - things of the gaming kind) And being naturally inclined to spend most of my time with my head up in the clouds (if you haven’t noticed) I came across something called… Orbiter. Oh boy. The graphics wasn’t all that wonderful, but hey I remember playing Elite Frontier so go figure.
And THAT is what got me hooked on open source. Then I bumped into something called Celestia… which expanded my general understanding of our universe and at the same time made me feel small, yet unique, alone yet safe. (If you don’t know what Celestia is Google it and enjoy) We really are so silly with our petty squabbles.
Anyhoo, so how do we get to Blender from here? Well obviously open source.
You see I had heard of Blender before, but never really took the time to investigate. (Note to self, build time machine, go back in time and kick self in a*se.) So it finally got to the point where I asked my friend to DL it, and some basic tutes. In fact I almost gave up upon seeing the tutes, since the “renders” (and the only pictures I got to see) of Blender seemed pathetic and limited. (See my {unread thread} on tutorial standardisation.) But something endeared and soon I had access to ADSL. Then I finally got to see Blender in all it’s capacity.
And let me tell you I was stunned. :eek:
I am a fervent believer in open source today because of Blender, I’m a complete noob… but a very proud one at that. I’ve had “real” 3d artists working with “real” 3d programs tell me what a silly twit I am to go on and on about Blender. Bah! Infidels! One day all will be Open… and the world will Blend in harmony.
(Okay so that’s a bit over the top, of course the other programmes have their strengths…but isn’t that where Open Source comes in real handy? Instead of specialising in one thing programmes such as Blender could be adapted rather freely due to the fact that a great many insights are involved when building it? Or am I being a complete idealist?)
Now the mods are closing in
