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Blender 4.3

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Re: Blender 4.3

#71

Post by amelius »

eblanshey wrote: post #68

Like others have mentioned, Blender has become quite the successful open-source story. They used to be riddled with bugs and UX issues, much like FreeCAD was. Yesterday FreeCAD released v1 of their software, and they seem to be on the same redemption path as Blender. It's too bad their v1 release didn't gain much traction on here, as more people ought to give FreeCAD another whirl. The improvements there are massive.…

To what extent can Blender replace FreeCAD for mechanical engineering purposes?

Re: Blender 4.3

#72

Post by jasode »

greenknight wrote: post #4
stevage wrote: post #3

It's really puzzling (but extremely welcome) that Blender continues to be such an open source success story. Seems rare for such complex pieces of software in a niche space to get that level of development. I wonder what the secret is.

What really kickstarted their development... was the introduction of the Blender Development Fund -- https://fund.blender.org/ They made tiers, made it simple and easy, and promoted it. Before the fund really was pushed... they were getting about 5,000 USD per month to develop it... Now it is sitting at 215,000 USD per month. More money = More developers. More Developers = Better product. Yes it didnt happen overnigh…

>What really kickstarted their development... was the introduction of the Blender Development Fund [...]

>More money = More developers.

There was actually another "kickstart" before that kickstart.

Blender's open-source timeline has a very unusual history in that it was a commercial product funded by €4.5 million in VC capital. Those original investors lost their money by selling in a "down round" to a 2nd set of investors. Those later investors also then lost their money by selling back the source code for a discount of 100k EUR to today's non-profit Blender organization.

https://docs.blender.org/api/htmlI/x115.html

One of the reasons (but not the only reason) that other examples of open-source projects like ... Gimp lagging Photoshop, or FreeCAD not being as polished as Fusion360/SolidWorks ... is those tools never had millions in investor money paying the salaries of 50 developers to kickstart them. E.g. FreeCAD has a non-profit fund but it doesn't attract the same mindshare as Blender did in 2002: https://www.google.com/search?q=freecad+non-profit+fund

Just because Blender started a fund doesn't mean any open-source project can also just "start a development fund" and attract the same level of donations. Blender has some extra history and circumstances in the timeline of "cause & effect" that a random open-source project can't easily replicate.

Blender circa ~2002 had a level of mindshare + evangelism + momentum that most open-source projects do not have. Those ingredients have to be there first to help attract donations to the fund.

Re: Blender 4.3

#73

Post by hannofcart »

Blender's success is a lot due to how welcoming they are of new contributors.

15 years years back, this was the first big OSS project that I contributed to. Since I was a greenhorn, the patch I submitted (there weren't 'PR's back then :) ) was, to say the least, rather shoddy.

Ton Roosendaal helped me patiently on the IRC (I think they were on Freenode back then, not fully sure), guiding me through the changes needed to make it acceptable to merge it.

I learnt a ton just hanging out in the dev channel. Good times. It was a great product even back then but it's amazing how much more awesome it has gotten since then.

Great work Blender team.

Re: Blender 4.3

#74

Post by aurareturn »

daemin wrote: post #69
aurareturn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Blender, in my view, is one of the best arguments to develop native desktop applications over web view wrappers like Electron. Different class of products. For Electron apps, often it's the choice of having a desktop app or not having one at all.

I would prefer they do not make an electron app and just have people use the web-app contained in a browser like it was meant to be.

So don't download the desktop electron app? What's the problem?

Re: Blender 4.3

#75

Post by cultofmetatron »

amelius wrote: post #71
eblanshey wrote: post #68

Like others have mentioned, Blender has become quite the successful open-source story. They used to be riddled with bugs and UX issues, much like FreeCAD was. Yesterday FreeCAD released v1 of their software, and they seem to be on the same redemption path as Blender. It's too bad their v1 release didn't gain much traction on here, as more people ought to give FreeCAD another whirl. The improvements there are massive.…

To what extent can Blender replace FreeCAD for mechanical engineering purposes?

I would say avoid it. blender is an excellent MESH modeler but that puts it fundamentally at odds with being a good parametric modeler. a parametric modeler's base primitives are based in deformations on solid objects. mesh modelers are just vertices connected by line segments where 3 form a face. servicable if you're just doing simple objects for a 3d printer but disastrous if you need precision.

Re: Blender 4.3

#76

Post by daemin »

aurareturn wrote: post #74
daemin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer they do not make an electron app and just have people use the web-app contained in a browser like it was meant to be.

So don't download the desktop electron app? What's the problem?

Web versions don't work with all browsers, they also want you to use the app, and heavily promote using the app, even though the app is just a web page in a browser that's not your browser.

If they want you to use an installed app then they should just build a native app that can be installed.

Re: Blender 4.3

#77

Post by aniviacat »

divan wrote: post #59
demarq wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please check out plasticity, this “electron bad” argument is pretty outdated and never evidenced. There is absolutely nothing that says browsers can’t do 60fps with multiple 3d views.

"electron bad" argument will always be valid. I wish people could "see" what actually happens in the app they running. Electron is essentially a hidden browser that runs a web app. It doesn't matter if it can or can not do 60fps. Installing yet another copy of the browser just to run that small web app is just wrong.

I assume most people who dislike Electron dislike Tauri too, even though it doesn't need to ship a browser.

Re: Blender 4.3

#78

Post by pcblues »

diggan wrote: post #64
pcblues wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm too old to remember the mappings for 20 button mice, but I've found the lowly Logitech G305 useful because it has a hardware button to toggle between DPI settings. That makes it useful without using any other key to change the speed of the mouse. Other than that, it has four buttons, and the scroll wheel clicks and goes left and right.

Another mouse I'm currently using for 3D stuff is Logitech G502, which also has a DPI toggle switch but more importantly, it has a "soft aim" button which temporarily lower the sensitivity while you hold that button. Great for precision stuff in 2D/3D arts, although I think the original use case is for snipering in video games or something like that. Nothing beats using a Wacom tablet or similar though, even for bori…

I think it has to do with the precision of the hand wrapped around a pen/paintbrush with a lifetime of experience. The precision of effectively painting with an orange can not be matched to painting with a stick :)

(Edit follows:) Also having the side of the hand on the canvas creates the ability to by so much more accurate. You have minute movements of the fingers rather than painting with your forearm.

Re: Blender 4.3

#79

Post by Joel_Mckay »

smusamashah wrote: post #51
xyst wrote: post #26

If you are remodeling your home, strongly suggest using Bonsai (previously Blender BIM) add-on to model and plan. In addition to getting my layout just right down to the ft, and using current materials (ie, hardwood, cabinet placement). I modeled out HVAC ducts and overall system. I had planned on doing major renovations (including plumbing, electric, networking) and would have modeled those as well since the walls w…

It looks like its for people with engineering backgrounds. For me something like Sketchup is lot easier to plan a mockup. https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/bonsai/

Blender needs additional add-ons for auto-generated floor plans to 3D scenes.

https://github.com/grebtsew/FloorplanToBlender3d

The learning curve on your own is like a kick to the berries... However, we found these courses, and some after market assets libraries make it workable.

Should wait for the $19.99 deals to take these courses, and pay attention to the stated Blender version during instruction:

https://www.udemy.com/course/blendertutorial/ (low poly model skills)

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-animation-rigging/ (some overlapping material, more rigging)

https://www.udemy.com/course/blender-3d-sculpting-course/ (stuff is out of date in this one, but if you can tolerate the kids antics... one may learn a lot about retopo and non-human sculpts.)

Textures:

https://blendermarket.com/products/sanctus-library-addon---p... (Awesome... can bake wood, metal, brick, tile, plastics etc.)

https://tinynocky.gumroad.com/l/tinyeye (Fantastic totally underrated eye tool)

Assets:

https://blendermarket.com/products/poly-haven-asset-browser (assets are free on their site too)

https://static.makehumancommunity.org/mpfb/releases/release_... (free low poly random people)

Would also recommend looking at speed sculpts for tips about how to fix humanoid meshes:

https://www.youtube.com/@BranSculpts/playlists

For advanced users, there are also working rudimentary ZSpheres/Metaballs support similar to ZBrush, fabric quad stitching, and volume aware re-topo process tools:

https://bartoszstyperek.gumroad.com/l/ahwvli?layout=profile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0GW8Na5CIE (how to get blender workflows to work on lower end GPUs)

Rigging tools:

https://blendermarket.com/products/auto-rig-pro (UE5 export helps)

Went through several grand worth of plugins this year for a project, and these paths proved useful.

Best of luck, YMMV... =3

Re: Blender 4.3

#80

Post by zztop44 »

daemin wrote: post #76
aurareturn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So don't download the desktop electron app? What's the problem?

Web versions don't work with all browsers, they also want you to use the app, and heavily promote using the app, even though the app is just a web page in a browser that's not your browser. If they want you to use an installed app then they should just build a native app that can be installed.

But what’s stopping you just using the web page (in a browser that it works with)? Yes, they want you to use the app, but you can still do what you want.
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