Blender is one of the most capable open source projects around. I wish the GIMP would take a few lessons...
Please, draw a circle.
Blender 3.4
51–60 of 106 posts
Re: Blender 3.4
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
DIY home repair. Right now, I need some fences repair, just want sketch that out, plus a couple of small container sheds.
In terms of ability, sure, Blender can replace SketchUp (and more), but I don't think it'd be worth the learning hassle just for that. The free SketchUp web version should suffice for small DIY stuff. You can always bring your model into Blender for further refining/rendering anyways (there's a good import addon).
There is a free version? Link?
I want a low learning curve application for home DIY stuff. I tried Fusion, just a bit more complex that I would like, I supposed Blender is ever more so.
Re: Blender 3.4
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fusion360 has a big learning curve for me. As a once a year hobbyist, not sure if it's worth the investment to learn. I think you are right that blender is probably worse than Fusion for basic carpentry planning, etc..
Blender imo is a much larger learning curve than fusion. In my experience Fusion or solidworks are about fundamentally how to construct a model. Whereas blender is much more oriented towards someone who may be more technically minded. As well as being just for surface models not real world objects.
I suspect that too. If I learn Blender to replace Fusion/SketchUp, I can do other stuff with Blender. But I'm sticking to basic home DIY. I might just spend some time on Fusion.
Re: Blender 3.4
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha the Blender Python API! Back in high school, a friend and I wrote a 3D platforming video game from scratch. The on-disk 3D model format we used was something I just came up with. It was plaintext ASCII where we would write in every vertex and tex coord by hand, and the engine would turn those over to the obvious OpenGL functions. That was obviously stupid, so my friend learned how to use Blender and wrote an exp…
Funny just stumbled upon Poi yesterday! Small world
Hey, you're the Boiling Steam guy :) I used to be the lead dev on Proton, I think we emailed once or twice. Small world, indeed.
Re: Blender 3.4
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
In terms of ability, sure, Blender can replace SketchUp (and more), but I don't think it'd be worth the learning hassle just for that. The free SketchUp web version should suffice for small DIY stuff. You can always bring your model into Blender for further refining/rendering anyways (there's a good import addon).
There is a free version? Link? I want a low learning curve application for home DIY stuff. I tried Fusion, just a bit more complex that I would like, I supposed Blender is ever more so.
Free web version: https://www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-for-web There is a list of differences between this and their more professional versions if you scroll down. It doesn't support more advanced stuff (like plugins) but all the fundamentals are there and it is pretty performant.
Re: Blender 3.4
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
What things do you typically use the API for? I can't come up with anything off the top of my head where you'd rather use the API than the GUI.
Suppose I want to keyframe 200 birds or something, taking off two at at time about every second with a bit of randomness. Oh, I want there to be some variation in their colors. And I just realized I want the interpolation on all of them to be linear, not bezier. That's 50+hours of tedious gui work reduced to 4 hours with the API.
In reality/right now, you'd probably use either a particle system, the boids system or just geometry nodes for something like that though, although for earlier versions of Blender your solution would probably be needed.
Re: Blender 3.4
#57I love blender. Software developers on hackernews HAVE to try out the blender python api. It's just an integral part of my workflow especially for modding games.
I've pondered learning it but hadn't gotten around to it. Any particular resource you recommend as a starting point? Because being able to automate certain things myself sounds great, though I'm super rusty on python.
Re: Blender 3.4
#58I love Blender and hope to contribute some day soon. But hoo-boy the codebase is intimidating.
A great way to get started is to write your own addon and get familiar with the Python API. Then as you come across bugs or missing features, you'll have a concrete goal on what you could contribute to, with a anchor to something you're doing "from the outside".
If I remember correctly, Geometry Nodes got started as a Blender addon (called "animation nodes") which eventually the Blender organization went as far as employing the creator of the addon and including it in the main release.
Re: Blender 3.4
#59I am pretty convinced Blender will be one the most important tools over the next decade. They should teach kids how to use it in middle/high school. Also a great gateway to learn coding with geometry node.
Re: Blender 3.4
#60Can blender replace sketchup? I just found out sketchup isn't free anymore.
Sort of. It can do much more than sketchup, but the interface is not designed for quick drafting like sketchup is. Blender doesn't shield you from the more complex parts of 3D design like sketchup does, but if you learn it you will have a better grasp of the system as a whole.