I just started using the program about 3 months ago and have been liking it. 
The learning curve is steep and navigating through the program sometimes 
makes me want to tear my hair out, but I have been able to do some cool 
things with it. I uploaded a few animations to youtube. Here's one and it 
should have links for my other ones next to it (username dig3d)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqmRT87HhtE

Mike


"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:499732e8$1@news.povray.org...
> Does anyone here use blender?
>
> -- 
>   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
>   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
>   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
>   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> find it, then got wrong the third time again, because I forgot how the 
> hell to get to the "right" settings. lol

I just spent another 15 minutes looking for the button that says "No, 
looking through a transparent texture shows you what's behind it, not just 
the color of the sky."  Again. :-)  Getting there, tho.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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stbenge wrote:
> Oh no, I do believe I said POV-Ray's texture system was superior in many 
> ways to Blender's:

It certainly seems easier to understand wtf is going on, at least. And more 
consistent.

> Each program has its strong points, so it's all a matter of preference. 
>  POV-Ray is a much more *fun* environment to experiment in.

Yep, altho I expect I'll be playing with the python interface to blender 
soon. I haven't gotten far enough to get trapped, but Blender definitely 
looks like the kind of program where you build something, "apply" your 
changes, start the next part, and realize you need to fix something from 
before when you "applied" stuff, so now you're kinda screwed going thru a 
lot of manual steps again. Unlike POV, where you'd just fix your source and 
run it again.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
>>>> My saturday night LOL! :-D :-D
>>>
>>>
>>> It's not *that* dumb a question. :-)
>>
>>
>> Do you know where you are? :-P
> 
> 
> Yes. Does anyone here use Wings3D?   Blender doesn't totally compete 
> with POV-Ray.  

You're both right.  True POV and Blender are NOT exclusive like the 
Hatfields and the McCoys.  But also true that dual users tend to be more 
about image-making and less about the shear geekiness, software-loyalty 
or otherwise, which seems to define the core of these groups.  I know of 
artists that move between the two technologies, and others, depending on 
the needs of their artwork.  They rarely post here.

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Darren New wrote:
> No. I just spent like 5 hours trying to figure out why something wasn't 
> working in spite of something else configured exactly the same was 
> working.

Best way to get into Blender is to slowly learn your way through both 
its 3D space and through its interface, which is organized in panels 
containing related functionality.  All of it via keyboard, of course.

First time I touched blender there were so many buttons around that I 
felt tempted to just push around some of them so I only accomplished 
horribly distorting the default 3D cube beyond all recognition.  Then, I 
decided to first learn how move around in the 3D space, how to 
manipulate objects in the 3D space, how to add and remove objects, how 
to constraint their 3D transforms to axis or planes.  Took about 1 week, 
I guess.

Then I begin learning edit mode, extruding faces etc.  Later, texturing, 
at which point I first began learning why all those panels below 
(texturing is all about F5 and F6).

Trying to hurry things up won't do any good.

> There isn't any way to actually get it to open two OS-level windows on 
> the same scene, as in dual-monitor use, is there?

I don't know, I'm a single-monitor guy. ;)

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nemesis wrote:
> Best way to get into Blender is to slowly learn your way through both 
> its 3D space and through its interface, which is organized in panels 
> containing related functionality.  All of it via keyboard, of course.

 From what I can tell, most everything can be accessed without the mouse at 
all, which is nice. When you can't remember the button, you can grope around 
thru the menus until you find something.

My main stumbling blocks seem to center around the system doing the wrong 
thing to be fast by default, in preference to doing the right thing slowly, 
which you have to figure out how to set up.

Otherwise, it seems pretty straightforward. Altho there are a couple (so 
far) of bothersome limitations, particularly in the textures. (Like, I don't 
know how to do checkerboards or hex shapes or some of the other stuff POV 
has built in, and you can't rotate a texture directly, so your wood rings 
are fixed in one axis - just minor stuff like that).

I've played with Hash Animation:Master, so most of the concepts (bones, 
strides, texture stacks, etc) are familiar, at least.

This is an awesome site for the parameters of the simulators:
http://www.pkblender.it/index.html
(What should be in the documentation to start with. :-)

And this guy does a great job of showing how to model something that isn't 
organic, which HAM made exceedingly difficult in my limited experience:
http://www.vimeo.com/groups/9075/videos/812311

Hope that helps anyone else who might be playing with Blender soon.

> I don't know, I'm a single-monitor guy. ;)

It's amazing how helpful it is, altho I don't understand people who put the 
space between the monitors right in front.

I saw one video of a UI idea, where when you're doing drag-and-drop, you can 
peel back the corner of the window you're over to expose the window 
underneath. I think D-a-D is the biggest win with a bigger monitor. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Otherwise, it seems pretty straightforward. Altho there are a couple (so
> far) of bothersome limitations, particularly in the textures. (Like, I don't
> know how to do checkerboards or hex shapes or some of the other stuff POV
> has built in, and you can't rotate a texture directly, so your wood rings
> are fixed in one axis - just minor stuff like that).

Much more powerful procedural textures are coming to Blender soon enough,
completely modifiable via the nodes editor as well.  Anyway, most people into
Blender -- and most other 3D apps as well -- simply use image maps, though
being a povhead myself, I never quite adapted to the whole UV-unwrap thing
either.

> I've played with Hash Animation:Master, so most of the concepts (bones,
> strides, texture stacks, etc) are familiar, at least.

Yeah, I've did any animation either.  I'm a still guy.

> I saw one video of a UI idea, where when you're doing drag-and-drop, you can
> peel back the corner of the window you're over to expose the window
> underneath. I think D-a-D is the biggest win with a bigger monitor. :-)

OTOH, I'm pretty happy myself with the newer monitor that came with my new
q6600.  More available screen estate to the sides.  Though I know some people
who simply occupy the whole screen with a single window, because that's the
standard Windoze way. ;)

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nemesis wrote:
> Much more powerful procedural textures are coming to Blender soon enough,
> completely modifiable via the nodes editor as well.  Anyway, most people into
> Blender -- and most other 3D apps as well -- simply use image maps, though
> being a povhead myself, I never quite adapted to the whole UV-unwrap thing
> either.

I had noticed that. The POV community seems more purist, perhaps because 
POV's procedural textures are more powerful. One of my experiments consists 
of seeing how to get POV to render a texture in a way that I can use it 
easily as an image map.  (Not hard. Just a matter of getting the texture 
stack full of normals and displacements and all that right.)

> who simply occupy the whole screen with a single window, because that's the
> standard Windoze way. ;)

I never understood that myself. Blender makes it easy to work that way, but 
I usually get nuts of windows are under other windows.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Does anyone here use blender?
>

I tried three times to get warm with "Blender".
I try it real serios and try to have no prejudices.
And certainly "Blender" have some nice features.

But the conceptional difference between POV-RAY and
"Blender" is not conquerable for me - at the moment.

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> Oh no, I do believe I said POV-Ray's texture system was superior in many
> ways to Blender's:
>
http://news.povray.org/povray.general/thread/%3Cweb.48fdae14f034d1aa519bbb570@news.povray.org%3E/
>
> Each program has its strong points, so it's all a matter of preference.
>   POV-Ray is a much more *fun* environment to experiment in.
>
> Sam

Okay, I guess my memory's not what it once was, heh! And no, I don't recall ever
seeing a Blender image posted here by you :)

But I'm sure I speak for a lot a folks when I say that your POV insights and
macros are an inspiration Sam; you produce some amazing work :)

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