Blender?

[Blue Falkon]

How efficient is Blender when it comes to making games? Just a simple question, does anyone recommend it?

[bjgil2]

If you have any finances go for one of the professional packages like Maya, 3DSMax, etc. If you don't have the cash, then Blender is probably the most fully featured free 3D graphics tool. If you don't need lots of features then something like Milkshape or Wings3D will let you knock out models in no time.

How efficient is Blender when it comes to making games?

As efficient as you/your artists are at working with it I suppose...

Cheers,
Brett

[Blue Falkon]

Thanks, that helps. I'll try looking into Maya sometime when I have the funds.

[svero]

Softimage xsi 5.1 at (the most basic edition around 500$) is a great great deal for budget 3d, and has almost everything you'd ever want for game dev.

[Gnatinator]

Each 3d package has its own advantages and disadvantages. But for the most part, it is going to come down to the skill of the actual artist and their experience in any specific program.

There are professionals out there using almost any 3d package you can think of.

[edit]
As for your question, are you going to be doing pre-rendered 3d or real time 3d?

[RoadMaster]

hmm, actually this is something I'm a bit interested in as well... are there nice ways to get Blender-created models into a 3d game engine? File types that it will export to that are easy to import or that already have libraries? I haven't looked up Blender very much... been keeping to more low-poly programs like milkshape which pretty much exports to almost any file-type under the sun (Mmmm... quake models make good placeholders, heheh).

[Fost]

are there nice ways to get Blender-created models into a 3d game engine?

Blender has loads of import/export tools, including several 'standard' ones like .x and java xml, and others that are easy to read like obj and ascii plus OGRE and torque have tools for it.


I have to admit, Blender drives me nuts, as it's all backwards to the way I've learned things, but it is a very powerful app, and if you look, there's lots of features to help you if you've migrated from other apps.

I still model in another app, and I'll probably buy one of the 'big 3' for our next project, but if you want a free modeller, with a very professinal ui, that can also do animation, then there's not really any competition as far as I can see.

[Coyote]

Grain of salt department: I'm a programmer, and I'm just a beginner at modeling myself. I've pretty much learned in Blender (my previous experience was in SoftImage - VERY LITTLE, and in Milkshape), and so I am not so good at comparing it with other packages.

My opinion? The major commercial 3D packages out there (read: Lightwave, 3DSMax, and Maya) are VERY motivated to stay ahead of what's available for free. So you will never have a time where Blender is as fully featured as those packages.

But we've hit a state now where Blender is REALLY full-featured, and offers most of what the big three were offering five years ago. It's very powerful, and the only real complaint I hear from people about it is how the interface is very difficult to get used to if you are used to the other programs. I think the only reason more studios don't use Blender is that it's too hard to bring in modelers who are experienced with it. Blender can't market and recruit and run workshops like the commercial products do.

[scotths]

I have, so far, used Blender for all the projects I've worked on. I have found it to be incredibly versatile and works well with other 3D programs. I even find it to be faster than Max or Maya, but that is probably because I am most comfortable with it. As far as exporting goes, it depends on if there is an exporter for your engine. Generally, engines that have great community support, such as the aforementioned OGRE and Torque, have exporters that keep up with newer versions.

I am, quite simply, a dyed-in-the-wool blender supporter, though, so my word may not be the most objective.

Scott

[Blue Falkon]

Each 3d package has its own advantages and disadvantages. But for the most part, it is going to come down to the skill of the actual artist and their experience in any specific program.

There are professionals out there using almost any 3d package you can think of.

[edit]
As for your question, are you going to be doing pre-rendered 3d or real time 3d?

Take Ragnarok Online for example, something like that. I suppose that's pre-rendered.

[RoadMaster]

Take Ragnarok Online for example, something like that. I suppose that's pre-rendered.

Okay... like... no... not in the least...

Pre-rendered is like the old Myst games. Things have been fully rendered, and picture(s) have been taken of the 3d object and loaded more as images or sprites. Ragnarok online is real-time using software or video card rendering. This is a fairly basic 3d concept. Pre-rendered today is used for extremely high-poly figures which would exist in something like a pinup image, or somewhere where you don't need full-rotational freedom. It's just a picture of the 3d model pretty much. For someone who has been gaming since he was a youngin I'm surprised you don't know this term... :/

[Blue Falkon]

Haha, I did say gaming, not studying graphics. I don't know technical terms or anything to do with graphics, that's why I'm studying them now. And, I'm a fast learner so I'm already making a lot of progress in Blender.

[dmikesell]

Haha, I did say gaming, not studying graphics. I don't know technical terms or anything to do with graphics, that's why I'm studying them now. And, I'm a fast learner so I'm already making a lot of progress in Blender.

Not sure why you're asking, then. If you like it and are making progress, stick with it. I use it for my game's simple graphics. Can't beat the price.

[Sysiphus]

I use xsi , max and Blender+wings3d. (plus many other helper tools)

All can perfectly do needed work for indy games.

XSI is perhaps harder to fully learn, even more than Blender.

[ProgrammingFreak]

Blender is a great tool for modeling, it can export to many formats and is good for game dev. They are working on its game engine,but its better to use a different game engine

[vjvj]

Do a search on this topic and look for posts by Sysiphus, he's made several VERY informative posts on art packages that I found to be extremely helpful (and influential enough to make me buy XSI, hahaha).

[Laser Lou]

Haha, I did say gaming, not studying graphics. I don't know technical terms or anything to do with graphics, that's why I'm studying them now. And, I'm a fast learner so I'm already making a lot of progress in Blender.
That's the best path to take; get comfortable with a free or inexpensive modelling program before moving on to the more expensive ones. Once you know Blender, you'd be able to make an informed decision.

[Sysiphus]

wow, thanks, vjvj.

Yet though is been long time since I talked here about packages, so I guess most of that info is oudated, and am now of a different evolved opinion (the older I get, the easierly I don't see my own posts written in stone ;) )

Glad you bought XSI, specially if 5 version; seems way better interface than my 4.x.

In my opinion , XSI is way more powerful than Blender , and that's not a bad thing, many of really advanced old time blender users agree with me in this, even more, is more advanced than many other comercial packages. But also to say that Blender 2.41 made such a huge advance in animation and other matters, and the route taken lately, is the tool itself is becoming really serious even if it were comercial of the mid range. Imho you can't compare with Max8, maya 7, XSI 5, but if speaking of very high levels. There are problems, like smoothing groups not really existing, no multiple UV channels , no lightmap solid solution, etc. Which anyway can be faked, but not to uber profesional game level . That said, the Blender output with faking what it does not have, can have totally pro result. is just that when I compare to other highe end packages, I think on the speed and ready to go features that speed up all. This is key in production environments like a busy/stressed game company.Not so important for indy or shareware production where very tight deadlines arent in.

So, you can bake ilumination into channel 1 (you can even use gameblender with multiple UVs in certain build, if I remember well) , you can use a bake through vertex colors of the radiosity, you can even render hair in latest blender(and is evolving), you can split the dges you cwant to be hard (fake for not having smooth groups), and so on.

The fakes make it all slower that simply using the very evolved full feature in Max, Maya, XSI.

So, I don't say use this or that. All of them are good to go. Blender will require more time if certain stuff is really needed. XSI have the problem of a very different philosophy (blender has this issue to) than other 3d packages, or even standard Windows UIs..Max is not rock solid stable, and at jobs I have been able to test that at hi polycount levels and meshes, free modelers like metasequoia, simply deal much better the heavy meshes. (pros tend to have so good hardware that becomes almost unnoticeable (but they'd really fly with metasequoia ;) ))

So, all these tools can do. I'd though would check ,like you do with the game engine, what I'd need formy project, and then decide.if know the usual projects I'll be in usually, is better to decide: ie, if I know my works is allway gonna be prerendered stuff, maybe Cinema4D(not having much real time 3d animation export formats) is going to be a great solution. And so on. And in this matter to say that Blender is a general good round tool. Just hard to learn . And harder to make it become productive in time used for tasks need to be done. But certainly achievable with work.

edit: last note: While XSI is best hair out there, blender has now hair, not with the physics, fi I read well, and animation quality of XSI,not even by far, but is a solid start, and XSI Foundation (500$ version) does nto have hair. Stuff like this , for people using the package for prerendered games, become important factors.

yet though I yet prefer to handle an IK 2d chain in XSI than in Blender ;)

[svero]

I've used both now.. was considering really learning blender seriously when xsi came out with version 5.0. Proper support for lower res screens etc.. convinced me and I havent looked back. It's a great tool. For me the main problem with blender was the interface, which I really felt was too non-standard and unappealing.

[dmikesell]

FYI, to the OP, the Blender forums (which you can find at blender.org) are extremely helpful. I'm not doing advanced stuff, but whenever I stumble on something, I do a quick search there and usually find multiple threads that get me on my way again.

[Blue Falkon]

Thanks a lot you guys, you've helped me a lot. I'm working with the "Noob to Pro" tutorial book on Blender and it's going pretty good. Sometimes a bit confusing but the tutorial is mostly straight-forward and easy to understand.

[kjs335]

From what I know, Blender was used in Spiderman the movie.
So probably Blender has the potential to be used in commercial business.

[vjvj]

Yep, I bought XSI 5.0. So far my experience has been great. It's a complex tool, but even I have been able to make and animate models (and I'm not an artist). Granted, I'm not doing any complex rigging or parametric stuff, but that stuff is more for the film guys anyway :D All I need are triangles, IK chains, and modern materials.

There were a couple other reasons I ended up going with XSI:

- Commerical backing. Sure, Max and Maya rule in the US, but Softimage/XSI is used by a lot of the top studios in Japan (Capcom, Konami, the ex-Sega teams, etc.). Some US devs are moving to XSI now as well, with Valve being a noteworthy example. I always feel better knowing that big studios are keeping a tool developer in check :)

- Interchange file format support. Since I'm not using an engine like Torque, I need a good interchange file format. X files lack multitexture support, Milkshape lacks multiple bone weights, FBX's file toolkit didn't friggin' compile, and COLLADA is still quite early. That leaves XSI. I imagine XSI's import/export for XSI files should be quite good if not the best.

For those of you interested in free tools, Softimage has a free version of XSI called the XSI Mod Tool, which you can download here:

http://www.softimage.com/community/xsi_mod_tool/default.aspx

It has pretty much everything the commercial 4.2 version does, and you can download exporters for Half Life 2 and Unreal. Only thing that doesn't work is XSI export (it doesn't export the animation data, only the mesh). But it's cool to try out and learn the tool with.

Anyway, there's another 2c.

[Sysiphus]

"From what I know, Blender was used in Spiderman the movie."

Well, somebdoy correct if I'm wrong, but I think I read it was used for the preview storyboard.For pre- camera travelling and place holder stuff you can use almost whatever ;)

That said, Blender can be used for any indy game,imho.



@vjvj

yup, well, I'd even say both Max and XSI are here to stay. Maya, I don't know..has been way too long the enemy of Max, and now discreet(sorry, Autodesk ) purchased it. I guess there's still long life for Maya, but I don't know if they'll merge with max in the future... Max 9 is told to be a revolution in the UI it has been having..

Max is massive in many game companies around the world, and Max been used entirely for film movies, or part of them (max with Brazil plugin for matte renders done for The Incredibles)

Maya keeps being used for films, as well as XSI. I guess Lightwave follows being so strong in TV and video companies.

Maya, XSI and LW are used a lot for TV adds, etc.

I'd say more...any tool with an strong user base will have things quite ensured. Even if company days, some clever guy will mount a similar UI that will perform just like the dead tool...As user base is business, imho.

Blender rarely will ever die, as...it has the smallest cost to be maintained...Even if Blender Foundation came with problems, I'd bet comunity would help again there, or would mount similar thing, etc. The user base is already enormous. maybe is not made of people working in game companies or movies (I mean, masively, at least I have talked two 2 or 3 that work for very strong companies, even using Blender. But are very rare cases.)

So, I don't see a real danger on choosing one or another. XSI 5 is a great decission. It's more powerful than Blender, but it allways depend on what each opne needs and personal UI preferences. :)

I have use all these except Lightwave (though used a modeler very similar long ago) , and Maya, only used a bit for level handling...

At the end, all do 3d ;) It also depends on where is the weight in your everyday workflow, and the type of game art you prefer to make (or is more profitable for your relation time/money or engine limits) .As not all packages are the greatest for each task... Ie: I do love XSI bone ssystem. I also am able to do character animation with it. Yet though I prefer Wings3d speed and flexibility for modelling. For a quick task in character animaiton, I prefer Max Character Studio, but that package is a bit expensive. I use it at jobs, though. For export to a real load of engines, Blender is becoming surprisingly useful. And in general , for character animation, it's turning to be quite good, even more for the price. I would not model or uv map with it. I prefer to uv map with Ultimate Unwrap, by far, than with any of these.

About formats, vjvj... Well, the fact is many of those formats are very well supported by xsi also. If your engine does support x format(with bones and weights), you can already output perfectly with Blender 2.41 (but need to grab the latest x export plugin from Ben Omari's Blender site) , or with XSI (going to Softimage site, there's something called net.. something...there are a bunch of plugins there. The x i tested to work perfectly, specially tested the export. )

Collada format is not well suported(edit-- I mean, bones and weights animation, yet not there) in Blender, but is well , very well supported, I guess, in XSI. (I have my suspects on why this is so...)

I think you refer to dotXSI exhcange format? well, I know there's a Max import plugin, and that there's a nice sdk for game developers in the XSI CD (and noticeably a linux version of XSI with it all, a bunch of vid tutroials, etc...) ...but other than that, the success seen in the format and spread factor, is even lower than fbx...

Anyway, if you are a coder, probably would be interesting for you use the game format sdk to do a perfect bridge xsi -->your engine.

But to mention that curiously, even in xsi 4.x, I experienced the OBJ and x I/O be perfect. (x has its tricks, though.But allways happen with that format)

You made me envy you an svero for having purchased the right one, 5.x...

[oldschool]

How efficient is Blender when it comes to making games? Just a simple question, does anyone recommend it?


I like blender myself(I even bought the first book), but I have to wonder are you talking about using game blender http://www.gameblender.org/modules/news/
to maker 3d games with its projector?

I'd like to here about anyone using the projector in a commercial game myself.


or are you talking about modeling version of blender http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Home.2.0.html



btw if like to use Art Of Illusion for my mockups then go into blender, because I like the way it does booleans.

http://www.artofillusion.org/

good luck


ps. To the other posters are you saying that Maya and XSI have game engines? If so I've been in the dark all these years:(

[Gnatinator]

A couple other good modellers nobody has mentioned here yet which you may want to consider:
truespace (http://www.caligari.com) / truespace 3.2 free (http://forms.caligari.com/forms/ts3all_free.html)
silo (http://www.nevercenter.com)

gameblender is pretty slick, i've used it here and there for prototyping. I would also love to hear if anyone makes a full quality game with it.

btw if like to use Art Of Illusion for my mockups then go into blender, because I like the way it does booleans.Heh that is the exact reason I am doing my low poly stuff in truespace atm. ;) I find Blender's current boolean ops too messy and even a little limited as you cant use them on non-closed meshes.

[Sysiphus]

ps. To the other posters are you saying that Maya and XSI have game engines? If so I've been in the dark all these years


Nope, but good exporters for game engines. Specially heard good things of the XSI possibilities for this.(I only use old formats like x, obj, ase, etc.or some newer ones like md5, which I am loving lately. )

After all, they've been game art making tools for big game companies for long time, same as Max(well, not exactly the same ;) ).

The xsi mod tool is something similar to gmax, maya ple, etc. Learning versions crippled and non usable legally for comercial purposes. Though there's an old discussion about the legal details in gmax EULA, but well...

[electronicStar]

btw if like to use Art Of Illusion for my mockups then go into blender, because I like the way it does booleans.

http://www.artofillusion.org/

good luck


Wow, I didn't know about this program but it has some really cool-looking features, I have to check it out. Thanks for the link.

[Savant]

Thanks to this thread, I decided to try some of the Blender tutorials this weekend and I have to say - it's pretty nice! The interface is, sadly, very non-standard but it works well enough to get work done.

[jankoM]

Yes blender is really good... and interface is IMHO no longer problematic... I feel the most at home with it (and I tried quite some commercial packages). It has very natural flow with shortcuts and all the menus and panels now (5 years ago I didn't even know how to quit - that's where the interface fame came from) so you can do stuff when you are there for the first time and very fast when you learn the workflow a little more.

The problem to me is that 3d modeling by itself can be pretty hard task... I basically just don't know how to get to some shapes I want without screwing stuff :/.

edit: The biggest new addition to me is that arrows by axis so you can quickly manipulate selected faces/vertices...

[Savant]

Oh, I like the UI for the most part. When you're editing your mesh it's really nice and intuitive. However, when saving files and doing basic operations outside of your modelling it's fairly hackish.

[jankoM]

Yes 100% agree .... I would add the word geekish... I can't think it would be much work (after all those versions and millions of improvements) to open a file if you doubleclick it in open file menu - but no. Well nothing catastrophic :)

[Sysiphus]

"edit: The biggest new addition to me is that arrows by axis so you can quickly manipulate selected faces/vertices..."

the manipulators...yep, another big advance towards more standard ui...I think is a good step. Some blender old users don't think so. Funny is, while I have been using it a bit since years(a bit more seriously since 2.28, specially character animation, maybe 2002...had a taste of it at 1.6 or 1.8...), but never got really in love with it totally (knowing well how to use it, though, in all which I was needing) , I tend to use old shortcuts (g for move, rxx for rotate local x , gestures for change from scale, rotate, grab.. etc) No, I rather prefer Wings or Metasequoia for modelling, but is funny how shortcuts are so productive in most tools..(I use em with all, specially Max...)

[wazoo]

(5 years ago I didn't even know how to quit - that's where the interface fame came from)

So it's the 3D modeling equivalent of vi?

"Now to quit is it ctrl+x+2+j?"
"No that's in a leap year. It's ctrl+x+3+j. GAWD! You're such a n00b!"

Back to the OP, I personally like Blender and it does what I need it to do, which is all I ask of my software. :)

[jankoM]

So it's the 3D modeling equivalent of vi?

Hehe, you are right... when I was playing with linux a little the most important thing NOT to do was not to start that (mighty I know) vi again because I had to reset the computer to get out of it.