Software product development is a complex process, and to ease the complexity, software acts as a controlling feature to develop these composite systems. Organizations find themselves in confusion on the use of particular software for product development as there are proprietary, classified and open source software’s available in market. The proprietary software’s are considered to be more secure than the open source as the code in proprietary software is not available to modify the functionality of the product. Open source is the opposite of proprietary software as the source code is available to the user to modify or improve, and redeploy it in basic or altered form.
Blender is open source software used in computer graphics for 3D modeling, movie animation, visual arts, sculpting, and video games. Blender has powerful texturing tools for painting the surfaces of the models, and unlike other 3D packages, Blender has its own compositing module, so movie shots can be mixed (Flavell 2010). The recommended hardware for this software to execute properly is a Quad Core processor, 8 GB RAM (Random Access Memory), OpenGL card with 1 GB Video RAM, display size of 1920 x 1080 pixels that supports 24-bit color, and a three button mouse. Another recommended hardware is the pen tablet input device that is ideal for the most intuitive and appealing sculpting interface, but even an inexpensive USB pen tablet device is much better than a mouse for sculpting (Mullen 2011).
Blender was developed by the Dutch animation studio Neo Geo in 1988 and the credit goes to Ton Roosendaal, the founder. The software was initially created as an in-house creation tool; however the feedback of the users and interaction with the developers enhanced the software and it added many new features to make the software robust. Blender’s foundation currently maintains the software and they do not develop any other software other than Blender.
One of the benefits of Blender is that it’s truly “your own software”, and it can be treated equally as in-house software equally to the big powerhouses of film industry (Flavell 2010). Blender has an inbuilt interpreter and application programming interface that help users to use the complex functionalities and assets of the software. A major benefit is that it is openly sourced software and can be downloaded freely, and it saves a huge amount of money on licenses when compared to the proprietary software. There are a few disadvantages too associated with this 3D modeling tool and most of them are associated with the use of the User Interface. Beginners find it difficult to navigate on the screens as it has many duplicate options.
I have been using Blender for a couple of years and I must say it is an amazing 3D modeling tool, better than the other available tools. The version I used was Blender 2.66 and compared to the earlier versions “cycles” feature has been introduced in this version that allows rendering of hair on the objects. In animation industry it is important to make objects move like a living being and I could achieve this by using the “rigid body simulation”. I found it interesting to learn that the use of armatures, modifiers and the simulations can be used as mesh modeling tools (Mullen & Andaur, 2010).
The earlier versions of Blender had many drawbacks and it was tedious to work on some features as they were not supported on multiple operating systems. The latest versions are on par with other 3D proprietary software’s and many complex features are added to the release that makes it one of the best tools to create 3D objects. I have been using this software from version 2.49 and currently I am using 2.66 and there are vast differences in the rendering methods, animations, and creating intricate objects. The latest version is easy to use and navigate and meets the production standards required by the film industry and the tool is a good competitor for the other proprietary and classified 3D software’s.
References
Flavell, Lance. (2010). Beginning Blender: Open Source 3D Modeling, Animation, and
Game Design. Illustrated. Apress.
Mullen, Tony. Andaur, Claudio. (2010). Blender Studio Projects: Digital Movie-Making.
Illustrated, John Wiley & Sons.
Mullen, Tony. (2011). Mastering Blender, John Wiley & Sons.
