Getting to Know Blender
Blender is a free and open source 3D modeling and animation suite. Yikes! What a mouthful, huh? Put simply, Blender is a computer graphics program that allows you to produce high-quality still images and animations using three-dimensional geometry. If you've seen an animated feature film or watched a television show where they go behind the scenes and explain how they made an actor look like he's being chased by a giant monster although he's really just standing in a big green room, you've seen what can be done with 3D computer graphics. In the right hands, Blender is capable of producing this kind of work. With a little patience and dedication, your hands can be the right hands.
One thing that makes Blender different and special compared to other comparable 3D software is the fact that it is free and open source. Being free and open source means that not only can you go to the Blender Web site (www.blender.org) and download the entire program right now without paying anything, but you can also freely download the source, or the code that makes up the program. For most programs, the source code is a heavily guarded and highly protected secret that only certain people (mostly programmers hired by the company that distributes the program) can see and modify. Because it's open source, anybody can see Blender's source code and make changes to it. The benefit is that instead of having a small group of paid programmers work on the program, Blender can be improved by programmers all over the world!
Because of these strengths, Blender is an ideal program for small animation companies, freelance 3D artists, independent filmmakers, students beginning to learn about 3D computer graphics, and dedicated computer graphics hobbyists.
Blender, like many other 3D computer graphics applications, has had a reputation for being difficult for new users to understand. At the same time, however, Blender is also known for allowing experienced users to bring their ideas to life quickly. Fortunately, with the help of this book and the recent improvements introduced in the latest version of Blender, that gap is becoming much easier to bridge.