Blender

[Radu]

 

 

Useful links:

 

Official Blender website:

https://www.blender.org/

 

Official Blender YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/BlenderFoundation/videos

 

The Blender Developers Blog is a great place to find out more about current and upcoming plans for Blender development:

https://code.blender.org/

 

If you have a good idea or a feature request, one of the best places to get in touch directly with the developers is through Devtalk forum:

https://devtalk.blender.org/

 

If you find Blender useful and like to help make it better, there's a new donation page:

https://fund.blender.org/
(They are currently getting 71K€/month from community and corporations! All funds are invested directly into hiring new contractors/developers.)

 

PS: If you find a bug that's annoying you and like to speed up fixing of it, you can report it directly from inside Blender via the Help dropdown menu.

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by Radu

[blackdog]

I’m really surprised by the apparently incredible support Blender is getting recently.

I wonder why that is: are companies just trying to cut on licensing costs (now that the software is mature enough for professional workflows)?

(Should the topic be in the general game dev discussion like the engine topics?)

Edited July 23, 2019 by blackdog

[Interfearance]

Ubisoft still pushes their products out on an otherwise obsolete platform that is required to run them. They are only using it to pinch a few pennies and avoid enterprise pricing. Even with new accessibility updates to blender, it is still a clusterfuck and is still filling its role as ugly, cheap, 3D software that gets the job done the same as any other $1,000 per month program. I think the majority of the support is coming from indie devs who realize it is not half bad for the cost ($0). Personally, I use Maya cuz I get it for free, its amazing, and Autodesk can't imprison me if I decide to use the models for a competition. 

Edit: Also, Epic games earns 3 bil a year...

Edited July 23, 2019 by Interfearance

[-HP-]

Both companies and artists are increasingly more frustrated at Autodesk as well, both Maya and 3DsMax are ancient apps by now, and I realize there's a lot of legacy code on there that I bet they just wanna stay the hell away from, but they really need to focus on making their tools fast and polished and stop adding so much crap that no one asked for.

To be fair to Autodesk, Maya 2018 was a step in the right direction, that release has a lot of quality of life improvements, but yeah... I feel they need their own "Modo", a fresh start, clean slate where they actually ask artists and modelers the tools they need and build around such needs. 
But nah, easier to buy other packages (XSI) and close the company that runs them, so fucked up man.

[leplubodeslapin]

Hummm ... I believe Blender got its 2.80 update (still in beta but plenty of people are using it) → People realize it's at least as good as maya/max for what they do but it also has plenty of tools within the same software that can replace other softwares (sculpting, baking, rendering, physics simulation ...) → They give it a try and it's just much better than paid softwares ?

Plus it has an incredible real-time render view (eevee).

Maybe guys you should give it a try  ?

 

 

To me, it's 1000% deserved.

(I'm no expert, I'm not an 3D artist)

[Radu]

Any of you guys know a good tutorial series on the basics? I tried my hand at Blender back in 2017 and blocked out some placeholder window frames for Source, but never got back to it. I remember it was pretty awkward finding something specifically tailored for creating game assets that also explains a bit more in depth. Most of the videos I found where focused on renders within the software and anything Source related was incomplete - had to use several videos to figure some things out. 

Actually, might be worth sharing more resources. I'll update the first post accordingly so it's easy to find for everyone.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Radu

[Zarsky]

5 hours ago, Radu said:

Any of you guys know a good tutorial series on the basics? I tried my hand at Blender back in 2017 and blocked out some placeholder window frames for Source, but never got back to it. I remember it was pretty awkward finding something specifically tailored for creating game assets that also explains a bit more in depth. Most of the videos I found where focused on renders within the software and anything Source related was incomplete - had to use several videos to figure some things out. 

Actually, might be worth sharing more resources. I'll update the first post accordingly so it's easy to find for everyone.

Here you go, freshly updated video playlist with Blender 2.8 Fundamentals:

Also Blender 2.8 is now at RC2 stage and scheduled to release this week if no major bugs emerge.

 

The Blender Developers Blog is a great place to find out more about current and upcoming plans for Blender development:

https://code.blender.org/

 

If you have a good idea or a feature request, one of the best places to get in touch directly with the developers is through Devtalk forum:

https://devtalk.blender.org/

 

If you find Blender useful and like to help make it better, there's a new donation page:

https://fund.blender.org/
(They are currently getting 71K€/month from community and corporations! All funds are invested directly into hiring new contractors/developers.)

 

PS: If you find a bug that's annoying you and like to speed up fixing of it, you can report it directly from inside Blender via the Help dropdown menu.

Edited July 24, 2019 by Zarsky
Additional links

[blackdog]

@Radu I bought a course a few years back, videos available on Steam(!). I think was tailored to the Valve workflow but I only watched a few of the UI explanation videos, then never continued 

Seemed very good (detailed) but probably there’s better stuff around now.

[Zarsky]

9 minutes ago, blackdog said:

@Radu I bought a course a few years back, videos available on Steam(!). I think was tailored to the Valve workflow but I only watched a few of the UI explanation videos, then never continued 

Seemed very good (detailed) but probably there’s better stuff around now.

I'd suggest jumping into the upcoming Blender 2.8 release with the improved interface and bunch of new features. This is a major release and there's already a huge amount of sweet features lined up for the next release that further enhances this reworked foundation.

I believe the tutorial video playlist I posted is a good place to start. Most of the community has also now ramped up the creation of more detailed tutorials for this impending release.

[Radu]

Thanks for the links @Zarsky I added them to the first post

[-HP-]

How about environment art specific tuts for blender? Anything like that out there in the world you guys might know about?

[esspho]

Here is a nice overview of uv unwrapping methods that helped me learning the ropes. I'm not sure if it applies to 2.80, though.

https://anothertutorial.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/maylees-tips-and-tricks-for-a-better-uving-in-blender/

 

I'm really excited to try out version 2.80 but i'll wait for the official release.

[Minos]

10 hours ago, Radu said:

Any of you guys know a good tutorial series on the basics? I tried my hand at Blender back in 2017 and blocked out some placeholder window frames for Source, but never got back to it. I remember it was pretty awkward finding something specifically tailored for creating game assets that also explains a bit more in depth. Most of the videos I found where focused on renders within the software and anything Source related was incomplete - had to use several videos to figure some things out. 

Actually, might be worth sharing more resources. I'll update the first post accordingly so it's easy to find for everyone.

This is a good one that covers all the fundamentals at a good pace: https://cloud.blender.org/p/game-asset-creation/56041550044a2a00d0d7e069

[MikeGon]

Last time I used Blender I got frustrated because the UI and workflow was an unintuitive mess

...but that was in like 2006, it probably received 1 or 2 updates since then 

One day I might finally cross this thing off my life goals bucket list: modelling a blender with Blender

[Zarsky]

The interface has changed in the latest release but I'd say most functionalities are still there, but they might have been moved around a bit.

Once you get a hang of things in blender and need more specific tools and features, there's a huge selection of high quality free and paid add-ons available. 
Most of them can be found on Gumroad or Blendermarket.

Regarding UV-unwrapping, many might be familiar with the TexTools add-on from 3dsMax which is also available for Blender 2.79 & 2.80 for free.