I like the fact that it doesnt crash(too often) for me, anyway. Ive used other programs that were constantly crashing/locking up, but not with Blender. I really love the pack feature(cant remember if other programs have it), makes it easy to share files with my friends.
And its constantly growing. like, every month it makes major improvements.
And its also affordable enough for a 13 year old kid to jump headfirst into CG. Without it, I would not be the artist I am now. Heck, I wouldnt even be an artists at all
As someone else said, most of that is templates and brushes etc. I worked out that Maya was really about 70MB or so despite the install being over 300MB. Plus they separate a lot of things into libraries and that adds some overhead. Maya also has it’s own language MEL built in whereas the Python stuff that Blender uses is installed in your system.
The best thing I like about Blender is the efficiency and stability. Most other 3D software is so slow as to be unusable on anything but the highest end machines and it shouldn’t be that way. People were doing production quality animation in the 1980s so it shouldn’t take a high end machine to run any 3D software package.
I also like Python and people are actually starting to adopt it more. Maya is going to have Python support in the next version lol. They’re so far behind ;). That’s LSCM and Python that Blender had first.
free_ality - if it is crashing at all - please learn about how to make and use debug builds - then the next time it crashes get a back trace and load the file to the bug tracker and it can get fixed.
Oh, it doesnt crash often. Im working on a game, Ive had a couple of crashes, mostly collision related issues.
Blender rocks other than those…two times
osx rules - we include a subset of the python interpreter in the windows distribution, it isn’t included in linux and os x installs because it comes with the OS.
What I like most in blender?
It gave me (snd still does) some much joy. I love to work with Blender - everything is on its’ place.
Very intuitive and fast interface + huge possibilities.
Oh, and nice community.
If I wouldn’t go with blender a while ago, I would follow my friend advicve and download ‘less’ (read: not) legal version of 3ds max
When I first met with blender (it was 2.36 i guess),as soon as i saw the interface and could interact it by no means,i was frustrated and uninstalled it.The last time which i really don’t remember how i met it again .But the pics in galleries was beatiful,i made up my mind to learn it, because now that some people can do something with it,why i should fail.Then the story begins,i started to follow tuts on wiki and later other resources for tuts,and i’m still learning.
What my story sez;its interface maybe make no sence at first sight but it does.It is simple( but i’m still not sure when it comes to the material assigning ).
Since it is free,it is widely used and therefore there are lots of people out there (actually right here,this forum) to councel.So not just blender itself,everything about it is free;from tuts to plugins,etc…And there is some kind a fellowship between blenderheads.It is about blender’s free software character.
And another imported point is that,we don’t have to wait until some wise,smart professionals to improve it,and buy the new version paying again.As for blender,everybody participates its development and this means the feedbacks feed it directly.
There are lots of things to say about it.But everytime i see a new things done in blender , i found it very inspiring and its urges me to learn much,try much.The only limit is my ability and knowledge which are easy to improve in the blender community.
Never have i come across a program that can, almost simeltaneously be soul crushing fustrating, but also intoxicatingly fun! And the fustration is always just my inability to learn how to do it properly. Blender - the true dream machine!
Scotchtapeworm -
install to a portable USB, and then you can run the application from the USB drive on any similar computer. Doesn’t work across platforms, maybe I’m wrong, but if you are on Windows, you can only do so for windows, Mac on Mac, Linux on Linux… or if this is not right, please someone step in and correct me!
Reliable. I just put 1000 metaballs (to simulate snow cover) on a hair-particle pine tree, converted them to a mesh with 250k vertices, and then reduced them down to a manageable 50k, and wonderful Blender digested it like a python eating a fat pig. Took awhile, but it got it done. Wow!
#1: Plays well in my pipeline with Silo and ZBrush #2: Great community #3: Does the job, does it fast, does it well. #4: Constant evolution #5: There’s an exporter to Torque for Blender #6: I can spend my money on beer, not upgrades!
