Start Using Blender 3D Creation Suite
Ranked #1,785 in Arts & Design, #24,022 overall
Blender is a 3D design program, fit to compete with the best of them, such as Maya and 3ds Max, but infinitely better on one aspect - it's completely free.
That's why it's also very suitable to make sculpties in Second Life: if you want to make money selling virtual objects, it's better business to use a free program to produce them.
So you just download Blender and start. Here's how.
P.S. I created the illustration for this page on my second day of Blender. I'd never used any other 3D program before. Which means - any newbie can do it, too.
P.S.2 If you can't, or won't, study from just online tutorials, you can download a free Blender ebook here. It's a classroom tutorial book by James Chronister. You can get the same book in parts or chapters, also some other cool Blender tools and resources, here.
Blender 3D Tutorials Online
Learning 3D animation on the internet
- Blender Quick Start
- If you just downloaded Blender and never tried your hand at any 3D graphics, start here.
- "Noob to Pro" Beginner Tutorials
- A very, very good starter's tutorial, in Wiki format. My personal favorite so far. No instant results, but very good, slow, careful, methodical explaining of what you see and what is happening, and what means what.
Tip: for instant results, press F12 - a picture will appear in a separate window. That button is used for rendering. As you learn to do things, the picture in this window changes. I got this from another tutorial. - Tutorial Syntax
- This is where you begin your studies: learning to understand the tutorials.
Somewhere else there is that Golden Rule of Blender: 1 hand on the keyboard, 1 hand on the mouse.
Buttons, shortcuts etc are very important so learn to recognize them.
Essential for laptop users, no-middle-mouse-button users, single-button-mouse users, no-mouse users and all noobs in general. - David Jarvis Blender Tutorial
- A very clear, short and helpful tutorial, producing an instant result - a colored cube. Just what every newbie wants.
- Sculpted Prims
- Most well-known and widely used Blender sculptie tutorial, by Amanda Levitsky.
- Sculpted Prims
- Another link for the same Amanda Levitsky's tutorial, if you're having problems with the first one.
- Blender to Sculptie Tutorial
- Extremely helpful for Second Life users (making sculpties with Blender is all the rage in SL these days) but useful to other beginners too.
- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Blender (Almost)
- This is one blogger's account on their experience in using Blender specifically to create sculpties.
Complete with newbie advice, pictures (making a cool martini glass out of a ball) and a long discussion by other Blender/SL users.
Blender Video Tutorials on Youtube
Use Blender to Make Sculpties
Lots of people are making money in Second Life now, and you could do it too, using free products for it.
Don't spend a fortune on Maya - and no need to steal it, too.
Blender is also the answer to the guys who were protesting against sculpties, as the reason of their protest was that Maya costs too much. Blender does not.
You can find sculpties FAQ here.
You can make this with Blender, too!
I think it showcases Blender's potential quite well.
Blender 3D Animation Tutorials
How to make animations using Blender
- User Guide: Animation
- This is an animation tutorial from the Blender documentation project that was written for an older version of Blender. Still, it's good to learn about keys and what to do with them, before you proceed, because in the next tutorial those things are not explained.
- Noob to Pro: Basic Animation
- After you've learned about keys, proceed with this tutorial. It goes on from basic to not-so-basic animation and is actually pretty good.
Blender Resources
- Blender Artists Forums
- Excellent place for people who use Blender.
- Blender Art Magazine
- It's a free, downloadable magazine for Blender artists.
- BlenderNation
- Blender news and events.
- free factory
- A very artistic Blender blog.
- Blender User Community
- All or most of Blender links and resources.
Blender books on Amazon
Blender: the T-Shirt
Well, what do you think?
Was this page helpful? I'll keep updating it as I learn to use Blender!
(You don't need to register to post your opinion here.)
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GeeeeOhhhh
Apr 30, 2012 @ 2:47 pm | delete
- Awesome lens! I use IllusionMage and it's pretty easy to setup some 3D animations. Check out my lens to learn more about it. http://www.squidoo.com/illusionmage-easy-3d-animation-software-program
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Arijit
Apr 16, 2012 @ 2:17 pm | delete
- Three cheers for BLENDER! such a nice software for everyone. Guys take steps to promote it to a large scale.. who are blaming on it just spend some time to learn it then you will get what can you do on this! blender surely beat the commercial 3d products! best of luck blender!
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Searat24
Jan 12, 2012 @ 1:15 pm | delete
- I love blender!! I'm a newbie in SL and Blender but it's so easy. I can't believe people are complaining about the speed of it and the memory. I only have a 1GB memory on my computer and it runs fine even with my 4 mmorpg games I have running on it at any one time. My only problem is I have the newest version and can't fined many good beginner tutorials. But you know that seams normal even for the other free 3d software.
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yoga2009 Nov 8, 2009 @ 12:44 am | delete
- It's amazing what sort of ideas one can come up with when on holiday, that can make
you a very rich person :)
Blender Tips click here for free
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Shadow
Jan 22, 2010 @ 4:15 am | delete
- Yeah just read the bit about releasing your work as source only then its free :)
No one does it but it is in the documentation that comes with!!
Thanks but no thank, I'll stick to something industry proven for me that is 3ds Max.
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