Blender 2.57 Released — and It's Easy To Use!

An anonymous reader writes "Past Blender releases, as capable as they were, had learning curves somewhere between straight up and down and 90 degrees. The release of Blender 2.57 changes all that. No longer are simple features 'non discoverable.' It has more or less a completely redesigned user interface that is clean, sensible and newbie friendly (hey, I'm using it!). It has a handy tab interface for Actions/Properties such as Render, Scene, World and Object etc. Plus, it's fast and CPU friendly. I'm running the official Blender standalone binary on Fedora 14, with 2GB RAM , Radeon X1300 (free drivers) and a cheap CPU Intel duel e2200. No more more slow GUI, no more 100% unexplained CPU, just great stuff. Kudos to all who made this possible."

Anonymous newbies posting release announcements?

[ari_j]

What's with the recent phenomenon of anonymous supposed newbies posting release announcements for software, claiming it's easy to use and posting all sorts of information about how well it runs on their systems? Why doesn't someone with some real knowledge post the release announcement? Should I personally be announcing the 2012 General Motors line-up?

For naysayers/Maya users, this is good, trust me

[sabernet]

I tried the beta, the UI is(or rather 'can be') very Maya-ish. They actually have a 'Maya' mode. All in all, the ability to jump in has greatly improved.

Just a disclaimer, I royally HATED the old UI and was sick of people jumping down people's throats for saying how utterly inaccessible it was. Yet now I have to say they did a really good job. Windows can be broken off or split, everything and the kitchen sink isn't all crammed into the lower half of the screen and the shortcuts actually can be set up to make sense..

Re:What a rubbish Meta Article Post.

[LetterRip]

There is no mention of the new tools and features, which are actually worth mentioning. F.E. a particle system that rivals that of Lightwave (the industry leader in this field) with particle path editing and other goodies

Lightwave is not an industry leader for particles. I'd put them 5th or 6th. Rought order would be Houdini, Maya, XSI, 3DSMax, Lightwave, Blender, Cinema4D.

Effort on Y and mastery on X

[tepples]

When I hear "steep learning curve" as it is used colloquially, I think of effort on Y and mastery on X, just like economics graphs put price on Y and quantity on X.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it...

[Deus.1.01]

I thought the same about 3D max but less so about Maya(which was the first 3D modelling program i ever tried)

3D modelling programs are so feature rich, any gui will seem counter intiutive in some degree.

Its really about practice, i spent maybe 3 months toying with blender and i felt i had a pretty good feel for it.
But when i first started it looked like a complete mess...then again i had the same feeling regarding 3Dmax...the difference was my encounter with 3D max wasnt very rigorous.

But really....if you know the graphics theory, know shader and light theory, that goes a long way, most people experimenting with 3D does not...and hence are bound to find the GUI unintuitive.

Re:No, it is not!

[mini me]

I started playing with Blender a couple of weeks ago. Being a software developer, I actually wanted to spend some time improving my skills working with 3D graphics. But what fun is that without some cool models to play with?

I started by downloading Blender 2.4 but couldn't figure out where to start. I was about to give up but the shiny 2.5 beta was calling my name. I thought I'd give it a try.

I went from virtually no 3D design experience to creating my first model [imgur.com] over the course of a couple of days of periodic tinkering. It is far from perfect and I have learned a lot more since I created it, but for my first try I am very proud of it and I think it speaks to the ease of the new interface for beginners.

Re:What a rubbish Meta Article Post.

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, You are definitely a Blender Fan-Boy but I don't blame you for it because Blender definitely is very capable... but user friendly UI, come on, No way... I have used 3ds Max, Carrera, Bryce, Cinema 4D, Houdini and LightWave (some being demos) for a hobby and I use AutoCad and Inventor for my living and I have to state unequivocally that the Blender of 5 years ago learning curve was as steep or steeper than any of those I mentioned, of course IMVHO. Blender very capable = yes Blender intuitive= No Way. Now I have to download to see if it is truly more intuitive because I love the price compared to some I mentioned and I haven't been able to afford an upgrade in some time ;-)

Re:What a rubbish Meta Article Post.

[geedubyoo]

Agreed - Houdini has the best general purpose particle system, although there are some very good standalone specialised solutions, too.