"Blender" Rendering

[LP]

I just saw Blender mentioned in another thread. I just downloaded the software last week. I haven't had a chance to study it yet. Looking at the online documentation, I don't see whether it's possible to import into Blender for other sources. Just the fact that it's mentioned here makes me believe it is so.

Does anyone have experience with Blender? Is it worth the time investment to get proficient at it? Does it accept CAD based 3D files? How?

THX

[CGN]

Hi LP,

Blender is really good and for the price is kinda the equivalent of freeship on the marine area but for 3D polygon modeling and rendering, i have to say that the interface is painful and not even close to what most of us are used to, but as a render only solution is very good, also is supported by renderfarms which means that instead of using your PC for rendering you can upload for a small fee the file and have it render by a network of machines, so you save some time, or just render on your PC.

You can import .obj files or 3Ds, no nurbs all has to be polygons.

again is not fancy, it takes some time to get used to, but is free and works just as fine.

I always mentioned becouse is free and works so for anyone on the forum that wants to render their models there is no excuse to wait to christmas....

I should mention again that Rhinoman is an excellent interface for 3Delight or BMRT both runs inside rhino and are free (long renderings but amazing quality)

cheers

[nero]

Blender is a powerful animation software also. So you could render a sailing video clip.

In about the same time it takes to do all this wonderfull rendering, you could probably have built the hull. ... or a scale model hull.