I’ve been keeping busy with my day job, so unfortunately, that means less time modeling. Figuring that $2000 (plus the cost of future updates) was a bit much to get my own copy of Maya, I’ve switched to Blender for my 3D program of choice, which is great because it’s open source — meaning it’s free! And it includes everything from modeling, animation, and texturing to compositing, physics simulations, visual effects, and even a game engine. It’s a bit of a speed bump, particularly in learning the interface, but if you recall, there’s a $2000 reason for me to learn it. I was a pretty stubborn Maya user before; I swore by Maya ’til the end. But the more I coerce myself into using Blender, the better it gets. There’s plenty of resources to learn Blender online. Some parts of the Blender interface I like much more than Maya now, but of course, vice versa applies still as well. I’ve been working the last couple months (in whatever free time I have) to write and test a Python script to make the Blender GUI more user-friendly … erh, or should I say more “me”-friendly. My Blender workflow is definitely improving, and I hope to eventually make some tutorials to join in on the really awesome Blender community.

I’ve also switched over to OpenOffice, GIMP, and Inkscape to replace Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Additionally, I’m running all this on Ubuntu Linux (yay!). It feels great to run a system built on free software :), although I will admit, some of the options are still limited. For all my purposes today though, all of these programs pass with flying colors.

Check out my gallery for some of my first Blender models.  Cheers.