Blender

Official website

www.blender.org

Blender is a free and open source 3D animation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Blender is cross-platform and runs equally well on Linux, Windows and Macintosh computers. Its interface uses OpenGL to provide a consistent experience. To confirm specific compatibility, the list of supported platforms indicates those regularly tested by the development team.

Features:

Photorealistic Rendering
Blender now features a powerful new unbiased rendering engine called Cycles that offers stunning ultra-realistic rendering. The built-in Cycles rendering engine offers:

GPU & CPU rendering
Realtime viewport preview
HDR lighting support
Permissive License for linking with external software

Fast Modeling
Blender’s comprehensive array of modeling tools make creating, transforming and editing your models a breeze. Blender’s modeling tools include:

Keyboard shortcuts for a fast workflow
N-Gon support
Edge slide, collapse and dissolve
Grid and Bridge fill
Python scripting for custom tools and add-ons

Realistic Materials
With Blender’s new rendering engine the possibilities for materials are endless. Key features are:

Complete Node Support for full customization
Physically accurate shaders like glass, translucency and SSS
Open Shading Language (OSL) support for coding unique shaders

Fast Rigging
Transforming a model into a posable character has never been easier! Blender offers an impressive set of rigging tools including:

Envelope, skeleton and automatic skinning
Easy weight painting
Mirror functionality
Bone layers and colored groups for organization
B-spline interpolated bones

Animation toolset
Whether it’s simple keyframing or complex walk-cycles, Blender allows artists to turn their still characters into impressive animations. Blender’s animation feature set offers:

Automated walk-cycles along paths
Character animation pose editor
Non Linear Animation (NLA) for independent movements
IK forward/inverse kinematics for fast poses
Sound synchronization

Sculpting
Experience the joy of sculpting organic subjects using the built-in sculpting feature set of Blender. Sculpting in Blender includes:

20 different brush types
Multi-res sculpting support
Dynamic Topology sculpting
Mirrored sculpting

Fast UV Unwrapping
Easily unwrap your mesh right inside Blender, and use image textures or paint your own directly onto the model. Blender allows for:

Fast Cube, Cylinder, Sphere and Camera projections
Conformal and Angle Based unwrapping (with edge seams and vertex pinning)
Painting directly onto the mesh
Multiple UV layers
UV layout image exporting

Full Compositor
Blender comes with a fully fledged compositor built right in. That means no more exporting to third party programs, you can do it all without leaving the program. The compositor comes with:

Impressive library of nodes for creating camera fx, color grading, vignettes and much more
Render-layer support
Full compositing with images and video files
Ability to render to multiLayer OpenEXR files
Multi-threaded

Amazing Simulations

Whether you need a crumbling building, rain, fire, smoke, fluid, cloth or full on destruction, Blender delivers great looking results. Blender’s simulation tools include

Fluid – Realistic water and fluid simulations.
Smoke – Billowing smoke with flames and scene interaction.
Hair – Beautiful wafts of hair that blows in the wind and interacts with collisions.
Cloth – Amazingly realistic cloth simulations for clothing and environments
Rigid Body Physics – Makes any object destructable and collidable
Particles – For creating things like rain, sparks and shrapnel

BlenderRecent articles

Creating a Painterly-Like and Stylized Environment Inspired by Howl's Moving Castle

Frankie Povarchik talked about the pipeline for the Howl's Cottage project, sharing how it was a transition to Unreal Engine 5, building the scene entirely from scratch, and detailing how he made the texture materials with a painterly look.

Create 3D Worlds Easily with This Procedural Nature Assets for Blender

Get Andreas Dürr's Nature Generator today.

Modeling & Texturing a Kiosk Inspired by East European Towns in the Early 2000s

Daniil Gibbs talked about the Kiosk project, explaining how the idea started as an asset, detailing how the objects were modeled, adding details like corrugated sheets and window bars, and showing how he textured every element of the scene.

How to Design an Environment Mixing Coziness with Cyberpunk Vibes

Göktuğ Yılmaz discussed the workflow behind The Fabricator's Apartment project, explaining how he started the scene by placing the camera and adding basic figures, which Blender add-ons he used to model the robotic arms, and how to light a dark indoor environment.

Make Your Modeling in Blender Easier with This Useful Toolset

Artist Leôn brings Maya, 3ds Max, and Hammer Editor closer to Blender.

Artist Unveils Procedural Cathedral Made with Blender's Geometry Nodes

IRCSS shared the node setup.

Create Vibrant Cyberpunk Scenes with This Blender Add-On from iCity

iCity Cyberpunk Edition includes assets and dynamic lighting.

Check Out This Weight Painting Blender Tool Designed for "Lazy Rigging Artists"

Hamdi Amer makes weight painting more enjoyable.

Old Man Stylized 3D Character Made With Blender & ZBrush

Ariel Chen joined us to walk us through her process of creating a 3D version of Jules Rigolle's The Professor, sharing valuable tips and techniques for crafting stylized 3D art.