[def13]

Hi,


I would like to share with you my knowledge about Blender, because it's a lightweight software but it's a real powerful 3D tool for your SGI workstation.

It's not usual to work with Blender for 3D projects on IRIX, CG artists mostly prefer using Softimage or Maya. In the middle of the 90s, the CG industry has been built auround Softimage and Alias|Wavefront until Maya arrived. In this context, Blender is a tiny challenger.

I work with it since 2003 (before : 3D Studio - DOS, 3DS Max, TrueSpace, Cinema4D - MacOS). I've install Blender 2.45, because the version 2.48 refuse to start (python version ?)… Nevermind. Blender 2.45 is a very stable built. I hightly recommand to install neko_python_2.4.1 (this version and not an other / important to run some scripts) and neko_yafray-0.0.9a (for beautiful renders).
Normaly, if you have well declared usr/nekoware/bin and usr/nekoware/sbin in your .cshrc, Blender should find Python and Yafray à startup.


As you can see in the picture above, Blender has found Python library …


Splash-screen designed by François Deretz aka … DEF13 (more about this picture here)


This is my favorite Blender workspace

According to me, Blender is hightly better than Maya for polygon modelling, UV mapping, scanline rendering, compositing nodes based rendering (like Flame or Shake), easy and quick animations set-up … But unlike Maya, Blender has not a friendly interface and to work quick and well with it , YOU HAVE TO KNOW ONE WORD : SHORTCUTS … and when you know them, you will create objects quicker than on Maya or Softimage.

Today, I've start to control a huge archive of Blender's Python scripts. Some of them are very powerful and useful (camera match, cyclic IPO manager, lots of objects creators : gears, trees, cities, …). When I'll finish check, I'll share this library with you.

If you have some questions, I'll try to answer it