How does it compare?

Hi James.
Blender, like many other FOSS (Free or Open Source Software) programs is completely free. Not only you are not required to pay for it but the source code of the program is available to anyone. That is the meaning of OSS. There is no catch, there is no watermark, you are free to use Blender for commercial use. If that makes you shake your head in disbelief :), think that Ton Rosendaal, the main developer and head of the Blender Foundation, actually raised about $100,000 in 2002 to pay for the right of the code from the original owner, a Dutch company called "Not a Number". So, Blender is actually a $100,000 donation to the world.

How does it compare to Maya? I cannot give you a feature-by-feature list but the two applications overlap for a great part. Blender has actually features that are missing from Maya, like symmetrical modeling, the ability to model one half of your object and have Blender generate the symmetrical half in real time.
UV Mapping is also better than in Maya, in fact several Maya users export their models from Maya to Blender, UV map them and then re-import them in Maya.

It's not always a matter of features. Maya is very well established in the pipeline of big studios and VFX houses. It's hard for *any* application to take that market because it would force the users to upset a crucial part of their workflow. Unless an application has something to offer that others lack, like what ZBrush has done, adoption is tricky.
But for us, the small, indipendent artists and studios, Blender is a perfect fit. It's very capable, it's fast, portable, well supported and it has more features than most MoGraph artists will ever use.

If it seems impossible that such power comes for free think that what we are using now, the Internet, also runs mostly on FOSS. TCP/IP is an open standard, the webserver that the COW uses, Apache, is OSS, the OS that runs the server, Linux, is also OSS, the browser that I'm using, Firefox, is OSS, most email in the world is managed by Sendmail or Postfix, both OSS. Google itself runs on a highly customised version of the premiere FOOS OS: Linux.
It's safe to say that without FOSS the Internet as we know it would not exist.

There is no "loophole", Blender is a majestic gift to the community, and the best part is that it keeps on going and getting better :)

Happy Blendering.




--
Paolo Ciccone
Pret-A-3D
http://www.preta3d.com
http://www.paolociccone.com

James.
BBB used only FOSS programs. I think they have processed some of the texture in The Gimp but with the CS4 Suite you're all set to do anything you want. The real issue here is the time. Pixar does what it does because it employees an army of people. When it comes to animation time starts running out of control :)

Blender's presence at the COW just started. This forum was created after I asked for it on Dec 12, so we barely warmed up :)

The problem with Blender is that, by being a FOSS, it has virtually no marketing dept that makes the program known. Realizing that situation I decided to add my humble voice to the choir but this time with a special slant: push Blender in the MoGraph field. I am convinced that FOSS and commercial application go well together. They are not necessarily antagonistic and Blender couples now with After Effects at the same level of other commercial apps and at a higher level then some.

I don't believe in radical posturing about FOSS, I love the idea, I have been a FOSS evangelist for a long time, but always backed up by the fact that some FOSS application stand out on their own merits,not because they are free.
Blender is such application. I am thrilled that more and more people are discovering it here at the COW. I thought this was an ideal place for it and messages like yours give me the confirmation that I need to keep on going.

Thanks for posting and happy Blendering.

--
Paolo Ciccone
Pret-A-3D
http://www.preta3d.com
http://www.paolociccone.com

James, for hints on rigging and animation I think that the developing Durian project, at blender.org, is a great resource to learn how a full 3D animated movie is created. On top of that, the complete projects files, including the rigged characters, will be released.

I'm not planning a rigging tutorial in the near future because my focus is on MoGraph so I will be covering more subjects related to that area. I will definitely talk about modeling and texturing a lot.

Thank you very much for your great feedback.


--
Paolo Ciccone
Pret-A-3D
http://www.preta3d.com
http://www.paolociccone.com

Blender 2.49 only accepts Triangles or Quads. So, you can't have a polygon with 5 or more vertices (n-gon). You can split an edge in two by selecting the two verices, pressing W and then selecting "Subdivide".
Or you can add an edge loop to a series of faces by pressing Ctrl-R + Click + move the mouse + click.
Blender 2.5 lifts the limitation for n-gons but for character creation tris and quads are a requirement.
The book that I show in part 7 is actually one of the best resources about character definition in Blender.

Another thing that you might look into is DAZ Studio: http://www.daz3d.com
The basic version is free and so are all the base models (V4, M4, G4). With the current beta of Studio you can export via Collada. I tried it and I was able to import the fully rigged character in Blender 2.5.
It's still pretty rough but when both programs will be finished character migration from DAZ Studio to Blender will be a reality.

In the meantime you can download V4 from DAZ andd load the .OBJ in Blender. That will show you the full mesh , which is an interesting study on character modeling with quads. It's about 70,000 polys :)


--
Paolo Ciccone
Pret-A-3D
http://www.preta3d.com
http://www.paolociccone.com

>So triangles aren't as bad as one tutorial made them out to be? It
>seemed like those areas didn't react as well to being coverted to
>sculpt mode.

The advantage of quads is that you can simply subdivide them, while tris are more challenging. As a rule you use quads during modeling/sculpting, ZBrush love quads too, and then you can triangulate in the final result if you need. Keep in mind that every program store polygons using two sets of data. One set stores the vertices, like this:

verts = [
x1, y1, z1
x2, y2, z2
x3, y3, z3
x4, y4, z4
x5, y5, z5
x6, y6, z6
... and so on
]

Another dataset defines the faces, polys, as a group of vertices referenced by their index:

quads = [
1 2 4 5
4 5 6 7
]

In this case we have two quads, one defined by vertices 1 2 4 5 and another defined by 4 5 6 7. Splitting a quad into a tri is simply a matter of re-arranging the indices, so quad #1 becomes two triangles by simply re-writing the geometry like this:

tris = [
1 2 4
4 1 5
]


I'll try to write it in ASCII:

 1   2 

 -----

 |   |

 |   |

 -----

 5   4



Becomes

 1    2 

 -----

 |\  |

 | \ |

 ---\

 5  4

All this to basically say that you can model in quads to make it easy to work and then convert it to tris if the rendering engine requires and it's a trivial transformation.

Regarding render power keep in mind that Pixar very rarely uses raytracing so, if you do the same you get to speed up your renders quite nicely. Every movie production uses literally hundreds if not thousands of cores for their rendering. I have a MacPro too and it's a fantastic machine. A little "render farm in a box" but, of course, it only provides 16 rendering threads so it there is just so much that it can do. For many animation it's perfectly sufficient, it's a matter of putting together a strategy and being careful with the resources.

The good news is that Blender, being FOSS and multiplatrform, allows you to install it on low-cost render nodes and you can expand your render queue considerably. For example you could use Amazon's EC2 cloud, which costs pennies per CPU, to do a rendering of portion of your animation. By creating a Linux-bases CPU image that includes Blender you can off load a lot to an additional 30-40 nodes at a very cost-effective price. Blender can render in batch mode from the command line so the RC2 solution would work just fine because you don't need the GUI to run the render node.


--
Paolo Ciccone
Pret-A-3D
http://www.preta3d.com
http://www.paolociccone.com

Don't worry about my time, I don't see your arm coming out of my screen and holding me at the keyboard :) These are all good topics that I'm sure are of general interest.

>I am starting to wonder why I invested in putting 16 GB of RAM in my Mac,
>though. I haven't found anything that uses it yet. I suppose it >isn't utilized in Blender either?

When you'll start rendering you will see the benefits. Rendering in one thing that uses all the available cores and it's very, very memory hungry. In fact render-nodes are usually configured with poor or no video cards but lots of memory and high number of CPUs.

>I thought I heard in one modeling tutorial that you can recalculate the
>mesh into all quads. Does that mean it's possible to work up the model
>without worrying about tris & quads and just have it reorganized, or is
>that likely to cause unwanted results?

Today we have tools that make the old "polygon-pushing" a thing of the past. You can freely sculpt in Blender, ZBrush or 3DCoat (voxels) and don't worry about topology. When you have the shape that you want you use re-topology tools to create a well-defined and well-aligned topology.
Here is a demo of retopology in Blender:

Blender retopology tutorial from Niosop on Vimeo.

By far the best retopo tool for the money, IMHO, is 3DCoat:

3D-Coat Training Series - Mesh Topology & Retopology Tools - Human Head Pa... from Javis Jones on Vimeo.

Retopo might seem like an additional step but it's really the key to creating good shapes without having to compromise on the result. The two videos above should give you an idea of the process involved.


--
Paolo Ciccone
Pret-A-3D
http://www.preta3d.com
http://www.paolociccone.com

I included the 3DCoat tutorial because it can make the process a bit clearer. The concept is the same, it's just that 3DCoat's retopo tools are amazing. It was worth the cost of the app for me, but I understand your financial constraints, the financial downturn affected all of us.
Yes, Blender can be used for retopo and yes Blender will be free for the time being.
Tris or Quads are not really a concern, quads are generally better but the idea is that you can create your figure without thinking about the topology. Then, when you're done you recreate the topology to flow correctly, to use the right amount of edge loops so that it will deform during animation as expected.


--
Paolo Ciccone
Pret-A-3D
http://www.preta3d.com
http://www.paolociccone.com

Ah, that is starting to make things clearer. The one on subdivision is illuminating as well. It gives the impression that the final mesh can still appear a little angular but the model will be smooth and rounded. For artists used to having control over the most minute details, this can mean having to learn how to set things up so the software puts the right finishing touch on it.

Perhaps a good analogy is if a sculptor chisels a bust and leaves the exact surface still a bit chunky, then it gets dipped in a solvent that softens and smoothes the surface. You lose that last little bit of fine control, but as you get experienced doing it you learn how to set it up just right before dipping it to get what you need. Of course, that's part of how you get that impossibly smooth look of computer graphics.