Blender: A FOSS 3D creation suite

Published by Zidan Mohammed

ARE YOU INTO ANIMATION, 3D RENDERING, VISUAL EFFECTS OR GRAPHICS?
Ever Tried BLENDER ?

It’s more than you think it is....
A Free Software never looked this awesome!!

About:

  • Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases.

  • Blender is cross-platform and runs equally well on Linux, Windows, and Macintosh computers. Its interface uses OpenGL to provide a consistent experience.

  • As a community-driven project under the GNU General Public License (GPL) , the public is empowered to make small and large changes to the code base, which leads to new features, responsive bug fixes, and better usability. Blender has no price tag, but you can invest, participate, and help to advance a powerful collaborative tool: Blender is your own 3D software.

There are many other similar software like Maya, 3ds max, Cinema 4D, Modo, etc. But they are all PAID software. Whereas BLENDER is absolutely free and open-source. To this day, it stands as one of the greatest open-source development projects ever conceived.

Checkout features of Blender 👉 here

Installation guide:

Support Requirements

Blender is available for download on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Always check that the graphics drivers are up to date and that OpenGL is well supported. Blender has a set of minimum and recommended requirements ; so make sure these are met before trying to install Blender.

On Windows:

Download the zip-file or Windows Installer File from here

  • Install from Windows Installer File:

    The Windows installer when run will let you choose where to place Blender and configure Windows to have an entry to the start menu and to open blend-files with Blender. Administrator rights are needed to install Blender on your system.

  • Install from Zip:

    When choosing the zip-file you have to manually extract Blender to the desired folder, where you can double- click the executable to run Blender.
    There is no installer to place Blender on the menu, but there is also no need for administrator rights. With this option, it is possible to have multiple versions of Blender without conflicting, as they are not actually installed on the system.
    However, if you want a particular version to be registered with your computer the simply run blender -r from the Command Line.

  • Install from Microsoft Store:

    Blender can be installed from the Microsoft Store by searching for Blender in the Microsoft Store and installing it.
    Blender can now be launched from the Windows Start menu.

For Linux:

  • Install from blender.org

    Download the Linux version for your architecture and uncompress the file to the desired location (e.g. ~/software or /usr/local).
    Blender can now be launched by double-clicking the executable.When using this method of installation, it is possible to have multiple versions of Blender installed.
    For ease of access, you can configure your system by adding a menu entry or shortcut for Blender. You may also associate blend-files with Blender so that when selected from the file browser, they will automatically open in Blender.
    These settings are typically found in conjunction with the Window Manager settings(Gnome or KDE.).

  • Install from Package Manager:

    Some Linux distributions may have a specific package for Blender in their repositories.
    Installing Blender via the distribution’s native mechanisms ensures consistency with other packages on the system and may provide other features (given by the package manager), such as listing of packages, update notifications and automatic menu configuration. Be aware, though, that the package may be outdated compared to the latest official release, or not include some features of Blender. For example, some distributions do not build Blender with CUDA support, for licensing reasons.
    If there is a specific package for your distribution, you may choose what is preferable and most convenient, otherwise, the official binary is available here

  • Install from Snap:

    Snapis a universal package manager designed to work across a range of distributions. Assuming snap is already installed, Blender can be installed through snap with:

    snap install blender

    Installing from this method has a benefit that updates to Blender are automatically installed. Blender from Snap should have a more consistent distribution then individual package managers.

  • Running from the Terminal:

    See Launching from the terminal.

Avoiding Alt+Mouse Conflict:

Many Window Managers default to Alt-LMB for moving windows, which is a shortcut that Blender uses to simulate a three button mouse. You can either have this feature disabled Preferences ‣ Input ‣ Emulate 3 Button Mouse or you can change the Window Manager settings to use the Meta key instead (also called Super or Windows key):

Gnome:
Enter the following in a command line (effective at next login): 
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences mouse-button-modifier ''
KDE:

System Settings ‣ Window Management ‣ Window Behavior ‣ Window Actions, Switch from ‘Alt’ to ‘Meta’ key.


For Mac:

  • Install from DMG:

    Blender for macOS are distributed on disk images (dmg-files). To mount the disk image double-click on the dmg-file. Then drag Blender.app into the Applications folder.
    Depending on the Security and Privacy preferences of your Mac, before opening Blender for the first time, macOS will request your approval.

For updating the software and other info:

  1. For Windows:- 👉Click here
  2. For Linux:-👉 Click here
  3. For macOS:-👉 Click here