Learning Blender: A Hands-On Guide to Creating 3D Animated Characters

Blender has quite a remarkable story, as open-source software (OSS) works in a very
different way from typical commercial software. It is helpful to know this if you intend
to use Blender professionally, as it may give you insight into how powerful its concept
is. In this chapter, you’ll learn about how Blender was created, how the development
process works, how it is funded, and what type of community surrounds the Blender
world.
What Is Blender?
Blender is OSS that provides one of the most complete 3D-graphics creation suites.
It includes tools for modeling, texturing, shading, rigging, animation, compositing,
 rendering, video editing, 2D animation, and more. Since the development of
version 2.50, which marked a big milestone, Blender’s user base has grown signifi-
cantly, and more professionals have started using it. It has reached animation studios
and has been used for some purposes in top movie productions such as Life of Pi,
Spider-Man 2, and Red Riding Hood; it was used to animate and compose a creature in
Warcraft; and in 2018, it was used to create an entire animation film for Netflix (Next
Gen, by Tangent Animation). More recently, Blender version 2.80 has brought a lot
of professional attention to the software because of things like the new 2D animation
tools (Grease Pencil), the real-time render engine (EEVEE), and a complete redesign
of the user interface.