Blender Editor's Review

You can get an idea of Blender’s capabilities by listing some of the projects that have used it. For example, the makers of ‘Spiderman 2’ used Blender for 3D and character animation; it was used for the special effects in the film ‘Vendredi ou un autre Jour’, movies ‘Elephants Dream’, ‘Big Buck Bunny’, ‘Sintel’ and ‘Plumiferos’ a 3D CG feature film were made in Blender; as was the 3D game ‘Yo Frankie!’

Blender comes from the not-for-profit Blender Foundation. It is open-source, free to download and use but requires a considerable investment of time and effort from the serious user and rewards her with the flexible software and skills to model in 2 and 3D, animate, render and process images and videos to an award-winning professional standard. It includes related functionality: a game engine, fonts, motion capture and many, many more.

A good place to start is to become familiar with the interface which has been reworked in the recent 2.61 version. Support comes in the way of texts, models and tutorials from the official website. A CMS gathers background information and lists many websites and groups maintained by Blender followers, (Blender Art Magazine, Blender Nation, and so on). If that is not enough a shelf of specialist commercial books offers guidance through the Blender product.

As for the software, by its nature it is resource hungry, but bug-free. Learned and professional users consider Blender to be a match or more for other pay-for packages. 

Pros: Undo and Redo support at all levels; immensely capable toolset; ardent community; fully configurable user interface. 

Cons: Size and complexity. 

Conclusions: This is a conceptual product whose primary audience is the professional designer. Its focus is 3D animation, but it extends beyond. It demands a commitment to learning it. It may be free to download and use, but unless you prepare for the road ahead you may find yourself unable to get the most out of it; and there is a great deal to get from this product.