This training note intends to describe what Blender is all about.  www.blender.org

What is Blender?

Blender is a 3D content creation software package free to download and to use. It can be used to create large projects like motion pictures or smaller projects like games.  Although it is free of charge, it is a professional grade package due to a large user customer base and continual development efforts.   Blender is good for creating these types of artworks:

• Videos or effects for videos
• Images, and sculptures
• Games

How does Blender help in the content creation process?

Blender provides a variety of tools for creating artwork. Primarily it provides sculpting and geometry definition tools. Using a sculpture, lights and materials/textures can be applied onto the object to adjust properties for rendering.  Blender provides tools for:

• Motion paths and tracking
• Rigging
• Scene layout
• Texturing
• Lighting
• Sculpting
• Geometry definition
• Physics simulation

Performance improves with:

We tested Blender using some 3D models downloaded off the internet to review its viewport performance. We also found a previously official rendering benchmark to test Blender’s CUDA performance. We discovered that for a model of sufficient complexity, a better GPU improves viewport performance. For GPU renderings, a better GPU also provides better performance.

Blender’s supported formats:

• Blender supports the most popular 3D media file formats; Collada, Wavefront, and X3D. This gives Blender excellent interoperability for artistic projects.

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