What is Blender?

Blender 3D is a full featured 3D creation suite. It has everything you need to create, animate and render 3D masterpieces. It even comes with a video editor and game engine, all integrated in a single package and totally free! It is Open source software, which means that it has been created mostly by volunteers and funded by donations. One day, you could even contribute and make it better for all of us :)

Preparation

You will need to download the Blender program from the Download Page. Make sure it runs on your system before the day of the workshop. It most likely will run without problems, but if you encounter any issues, we will not be able to spend time figuring it out during the workshop.
Make it easy on yourself and bring a 3 button mouse to plug into your laptop. Blender can be used with a trackpad, but it will slow you down considerably. For maximum speed, also get an external numeric keypad like this one. A wireless one would be even better.
If you have the time, I recommend trying to follow some of these Blender tutorials. You will find a staggering amount of tutorials for Blender on Youtube and sites like Blender Cookie and others.

The Plan

We'll take a tour of some of Blender's most popular features:
  • Box modeling techniques: Manipulate vertices, edges and faces to create a model.
  • Operators and modifiers: A variety of ways to transform your entire model or portions of it with a few clicks and key presses.
  • Material system: Adding color and texture to your models.
  • Sculpting: Adding fine details to your model.
  • Basic animation: Enter the fourth dimension and set your model in motion.
  • Rigging: Attach your model to a skeleton for more advanced animation techniques.
  • Skeletal animation: Bring your rigged models to life.
  • Basic programming: Create Python scripts to extend Blender itself.

Contacting me

I'm the current organizer of the Boston Blender User Group. You are welcome to join the group to learn more about this fantastic piece of software. We frequently have workshops (in person and virtual) and other Blender related events. Feel free to contact me directly by email at engel.sanchez at gmail dot com.