What is Blender 3D software?

blender

In this article you will learn what Blender is, who uses it and what it is used for. You will also know where this program can be downloaded from, as well as all available formats for export and import. If you want to learn more about Blender, I invite you to continue reading this article.

What is Blender?

Blender is a tool available on various platforms. This program is aimed at artists and design and multimedia professionals. Blender allows us to create high quality 3D models or videos. Unlike other programs, Blender is a free program that any user can access.

Blender is a widely used and preferred tool by users as it leaves nothing to be desired for 3D modeling tools, but the difference is it’s completely free. Besides being free, it is open source.

We can not only create high quality videos or 3D models in the software, but also digital painting, sculpting and compositing. Also inside the tool we can find a built-in video game engine so that games can also be created through this software.

What can be done in Blender

In the tool, you have multiple functions that you can develop to run your business for commercial or personal use. Here are the main functions that the 3D modeling program allows us to do.

3D modeling

Blender is very popular with users who are dedicated to 3D modeling of scenes, elements or objects. Besides having a very intuitive interface, the program is very simple to use, thus allowing us to work with our 3D parts. Thanks to the keyboard shortcuts that the program has, it helps to make the work of modeling a part much more efficient and saves the user time searching for modifiers.

Digital painting

In the program, we find a part of digital painting, where we can paint our models in three dimensions and in real time. We can do this in different ways, by exporting a template to do it in Photoshop, or by using nodes to create procedural materials.

3d animation

We can make 3D animations of objects or characters that we have modeled before in the program. Blender provides an option that allows you to add bones to the model; this can be done in two ways, either manually or using an included plugin called Rigify.

If we go to the animation part of the tool, we can see different functions for working with animations such as keyframes or animation curves. When we create animations, we can make reusable clips, i.e. repeat a loop so that it’s endless so it doesn’t always animate the same thing.

Digital sculpture

In the software we have the option to sculpt in a simple way. We must take into account that the number of polygons we can use is not as high as in the Zbrush program.

As we enter the digital sculpting mode, we can have all the tools that Blender has given us. Another advantage of the program is that we can take the Blender model to Zbrush and finish it by giving the details you want to the piece or characters.

3d printing

Another option we can find in the program is the preparation of models for 3D printing. We can export the model to OBJ or STL formats with the basic tools it provides, and then open it in our 3D printer. When printing models with our 3D printer, we can find plug-ins that allow us to quickly correct if there is an error.

Comics

Since version 2.8 of Blender we have a tool called grease pencil, it allows us to create a complete drawing and painting kit. This allows us to create comics simply and quickly, giving us tools for the development process. Also in our project we can create props to change the size of the camera options to fit the way we want.

2D animation

The tool that allows us to make comics also allows us to make 2D animations. To make the animation 2D we have to follow the same steps as in the comic, but with the difference we need to move the timeline. We will need to make new beats to create frames.

Video edition

We can edit videos within the Blender program. This process can be a bit complicated, but it can be useful if we don’t have other video editors on hand. With video editing with Blender we can embed, cut and rearrange multiple videos.

Where can I download Blender?

If the modeling program is enough for you and you want to learn how to use it, you can do it for free. To do this, you only need to download and then install. The process is really simple, so you shouldn’t have any problems.

First step to start Blender installation, we will go to the official website Blender. Once on this page, we will see a blue rectangle that says “Download Blender”. We will place the cursor on it and left click with our mouse.

The formats that Blender works with

Knowing the work of the program is very important to know if it is compatible with other programs in order to continue to improve the work. That’s why I decided to include all the formats it works for so you’re clear before installing anything on your computer.

Two-dimensional formats

We can find two-dimensional formats, these are video and pictures. These are all the formats the tool supports.

Pictures

  • Windows Bitmap (.bmp)
  • DirectDraw Surface (.dds)
  • Iris (.rgb)
  • Portable Network Graphics (.png)
  • JPEG (.jpg)
  • JPEG 2000 (.jp2)
  • Truevision TGA (.tga)
  • Cineon (.cin)
  • DPX (.dpx)
  • MultiLayer e OpenEXR (.exr)
  • HDRI (.hdr)
  • Tagged Image File Format (.tiff)

Videos

  • Audio Video Interleave (.avi)
  • H.264 (.mp4)MPEG-1 (.mpg)
  • MPEG-2 (.DVD)
  • MPEG-4 (.mp4)
  • Theora (.ogg, .ogv)
  • XviD (.mpg)

Three-dimensional formats

All three-dimensional formats are those that are compatible with 3D models. The formats that are compatible for both export and import in Blender are:

  • 3ds Max (.3ds)
  • AC3D (.ac)
  • Drawing eXchange Format (.dxf)
  • Autodesk FBX (.fbx)
  • Softimage (.xsi)
  • Cal3D (.cfg, .xaf, .xmf, .xrf, .xsf)
  • COLLADA 1.3.1 e 1.4 (.dae)
  • DEC Object File Format (.off)
  • DirectX (.x)
  • LightWave (.lwo)
  • LightWave Motion (.mot)
  • Mobile 3D Graphics API (.m3g, .java)
  • MD2 (.md2)
  • MDD (.mdd)
  • MilkShape 3D (.ms3d, .txt)
  • Motion Capture (.bvh)
  • OpenFlight (.flt)
  • OpenInventor (.iv)
  • Paths (de 2D para 3D, em forma de linha) (.svg, .ps, .eps, .ai, .gimp)
  • Pro Engineer (.slp)
  • Quake 3 (.map)
  • Radiosity (.radio)
  • Raw Image File (.raw)
  • Stanford PLY (.ply)
  • STL (.stl)
  • rue Space (.cob)
  • VideoScape (.stl)
  • VRML 1.0 e VRML97 (ou VRML 2.0) (.wrl)
  • Wavefront OBJ (.obj)
  • X3D Extensible 3D (.x3d)
  • xfig export (.fig)