Blender 3D : Ultimate Guide

Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite that supports pretty much every aspect of 3D development. With a strong foundation of modeling capabilities, there’s also robust texturing, rigging, animation, lighting, and a host of other tools for complete 3D creation. This software is great whether you want to deal only with static models or get into the world of animation.

As a bit of background, Blender software was developed out of the Blender Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed in 2002. In 2007, the spin-off Blender Institute was created and now hosts the foundation, which has become a home base for continued development and creative projects.

Even though it’s free, Blender is accessible and valuable for a wide range of users, from the beginner hobbyist to the professional animator. Even NASA uses it for many of its public models! Since it’s continually being refined by advanced users, it may present a bit of a learning curve for the total amateur.

At the heart of it, Blender remains all about access: Giving people creative power so that they can build whatever is in their imagination. For those who are wanting to make their own models for 3D printing, it’s an invaluable tool!

In this article, we’re going to cover all things Blender, starting with what you need to get it up and running on your computer. Then, we’ll dive into the most popular features and give you some resources if you want to get started or need a little help. Finally, we’ll let you know some good alternatives to Blender.

As you may have gathered, one of the best things about Blender is that it’s completely free!

Blender has been released under the GNU General Public License, which allows people to:

use Blender, for any purpose,

distribute Blender,

study how Blender works and change it, and

distribute changed versions of Blender.

This means anything you create in Blender is not only your sole property, but you can also sell and distribute your creations to your heart’s content.

If you would like to support the Blender Foundation, it operates largely on donations as well as merchandise sold through the Blender Institute’s online store.

Another great feature is that Blender is totally cross-platform compatible, so it will run happily on Windows, Mac OS, or Linux.

If you’d like to download Blender, feel free to read the system requirements on their website.

If you don’t want to install Blender on your computer, you can run it off a USB stick as it’s completely self-contained. This means you can take it with you, though you’ll still need a powerful enough computer to be able to handle the program. It may not be as efficient when it comes to rendering on computers with low RAM. (Python 2.5 needs to be installed and it’s recommended to use a USB 3.0 drive.)

Blender doesn’t need a lot in terms of hardware requirements and has the following minimum recommendations:

64-bit dual-core 2GHz CPU with SSE2 support

4 GB RAM

1280 × 768 display

Mouse, trackpad, or pen and tablet

Graphics card with at least 1 GB RAM, OpenGL 3.3

Computers that are more than 10 years old may have a bit of a hard time running Blender. Regardless, you’ll want to make sure your OS is up to date.

Blender is chock full of useful tools, but some will be more relevant to beginners than others. For many coming to Blender, the most popular tools are modeling, sculpting, and texturing, as well as animation. Those creating objects for 3D printing may not even go beyond modeling and sculpting.

However, for those who are interested in exploring the more advanced 3D techniques and tools, you’ll want to check out the 2D/3D hybrid Grease Pencil, physics simulations, scripting, and visual effects.

With that, let’s jump into more detail about the core features offered in Blender.