What does blender mean to you?

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
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I decided to start a “What blender means to me:” thread. Maybe this is dumb. Still, go on ahead, post what blender means to you.

To me, blender is what I think Ton wanted it to be in the first place. I may be “speaking out of turn” here, but I seem to remember one of the goals of blender being to help fill in the gap between the 3D designer wanna-be, and the 3D designer. A way to make 3D graphics available to everyone. That’s what blender did for me.
I am still nearly a complete “newbie” to 3D graphics, programming, and computer art (a quick glance at my shabby little gallery tells anyone that). Basically all I know comes from my experience with blender.
You can read about my “big introduction” to 3D graphics in the About Me portion of my homepage:
http://www-personal.interkan.net/~gspshome/redfox/aboutme.html

My ideas of what went on “behind the scenes” were basically limited to the little “The Making of Toy Story” explanations. You know the ones - the little dialogues which take you through step by step from model to final render of those fantastic computer animated films. Sure, those were nice enough, but I wanted more.
When I heard about LightWave, I finally had something I could pin a name to. After a quick (and very naive) search for a piece of software that was affordable, I met bitter reality. They just cost too much for a 15 year old kid.
What prompted me to look for free 3D modelling programs, I’ll never know. One of the first things I found was blender. The others were Teddy and Alice. Blender hadn’t yet risen to my interest, and so my exploration went into Teddy and Alice. While Teddy and Alice were neat, they didn’t give me the control I wanted. I wanted to view the actual mesh. I wanted to grab hold of a corner of that mesh and place it precisely where I wanted it. While they let me throw a bunch of pre-made objects onto a scene and manipulate those objects, they didn’t let me create my own. At least not with the ease, realism, and power that I wanted.
I gave blender a second look.
Suddenly, it seemed the entire world of 3D CG seemed finally at my fingertips. I was excited. I plunged into blender with both feet. It was (and still is) tough to learn, but I’ve stuck with it.
Chances are that someday I’ll have the oppertunity to use some of the “more advanced” software such as LightWave or Maya. Someday blender may finally breath its last breath (and I hope not). No matter where blender or I go, I’ll never forget blender.
Blender gave me what I wanted. It let a 15 year old feel “real 3D” for the first time.

2

Blender means something much different to me now, than it did before it went commercial. Now, it’s another product among many, while before, it was one man’s pioneer effort to make the world a more interesting place by providing a tool that allows people to share ideas. This, along with the fact that it was the only (capable) modeler available on Linux at the time, is what has kept my interest. As for the future, we’ll just have to wait and see.

BTW…your writing skills are exceptional.

3

What blender means to me is the ability to finally create what I see in my mind. I don’t draw exceptionally well so now I finally have the freedom to create what I want. I love the depth of detail I can create with blender.

4

Long Long Ago…

God created this Earth with all the trees, animals (including us Humans.).
I still wonder which software he had used to make the models (ain’t i dumb?). Anyways he did it.

okay.

Many many eons later Ton created Blender. So by induction, He is God.
This time he has choosen “Blender” to render our imaginations to life. Infact by divulging his tool that he had made and used, again by mathematical induction, he is creating Lots of Gods (rather Little Gods), which means we, BlenderHeads.

    Blender, The Wonder, as i call it, is the tool with which i communicate with all the people around. Infact here at Stevens (thats where i study), my friends call me a blendermadman.

I thank Ton and Nan once again for this incredible product and Blender Rules. It will rise and render with wonder.

Regards,

Yours’ Blenderingly,
Satish.

5

Having done programming of increasing complexity during my time learning Blender, I have to admit it’s an astonishing piece of work, certainly beyond anything I’ve done (not saying much.) I learnt 3D on my old Acorn Archimedes and when I got a PC Blender meant I didn’t have to pay loads out for a program to do 3D, it also happened to be a massive upgrade for me (as nothing on the Acorn platform was close.) I’ve been able to do animations in Blender the quality of which I had been dreaming of for years.

Personally I find Blender quite inspiring, both as a programmer (its minimal requirements are ridiculously small), and as a designer having opened up many possibilities to me. I often find you can achieve most things in it, it’s just a question of how.

KT

6

Opening doors I never would have known.

7

Please Ric,
never bump such old threads, they will get locked!