Blender 2.5+ beta

[rnojonson]

It's Blender 2.56* beta and it looks...............different, perhaps better functionally. I just put it on my laptop and some docs from a Rapidshare like site. I will have to put it on my desktop machine to work with it. The interface has been rearranged, the shortcuts are intact, but it is still Blender, but a better Blender? I am not qualified to say.

I recommend tutorial videos to flatten the learning curve. I googled "Blender 2.5" looked for the "Back to Basics" series, there are 5 videos of intro stuff. I am going through them now, though I am not committed (gad, I am such a scatter brain!), I want to be. Hey, I like being a wantabe!

This is the link for the first video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuiTxImzpMM
This link is the mug tutorial, it is very cool!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq6UAeoej5E

[rnojonson]

Oh darn, I'm stuck on my laptop down stairs and Blender 2.49 and 2.56 crashes on it. I can get the desktop but can't do anything on it. Have loaded Wings 3d instead. So far so good. Of all the apps I've tried Wings 3d is the most understandable from scratch.

[Jaws]

Ya know rno, when we were researching apps for the forum, I remember running across Wing3D. Never followed through.

You get your chops on Wing3D, give us the low down. Tablet friendly?

[rnojonson]

I like Wings, it is simple in many ways but lacks some things that make 3d fun, like boolean operations. I guess my CAD background is showing. I will keep playing with it, but the real sleeper is K-3D. I heard some off reviews of earlier K-3d versions. I shouldn't be put off if a hadn't tried it. So after getting used to fussing in 3d space via Wings, I gave K-3d a try. I am very impressed. K-3d has loads of options similar to Blender and is less confusing to boot.

I was trying to do a tube loop in Wings. There is tube bending and torus slicing and part bridging. K-3d is next I'll try the same thing. The pipe or tube loop has square sides, rounded corners. I don't know about tablet friendly, I'll have to ascend to the attic, above the eddy currents, to use the main machine.

[rnojonson]

Here is my report so far. Wings 3D is crap on my laptop, but I believe the laptop is slowly setting into the sunset. It used to be good, now it's crap. So I could use a newer laptop. Then as with any graphics application and especially 3D apps you got to have more memory than 512mb.

Wings 3D blazes on my desktop which is a modest HP Pavilion with 1gig RAM and Ubuntu 10.10. Then Wings doesn't seem to be graphics tablet friendly. It is made with a 3 button mouse in mind. Perhaps keyboard shortcuts can compensate.

K-3D started out fine on my laptop, now is crap for the same reasons as stated above. Then because my laptop has Ubuntu 9.10 on it, an older K-3D 0.6.7 was available. Then jumping on my desktop machine, K-3D startled me something terrible. The new 0.8 version is improved and very fast, responsive compared to the laptop episode. Alas, K-3D isn't graphics tablet friendly either, also made for a 3 button mouse.

Boo hoo! I have a hardware deficiency. I even tried to avatar into my desktop with my laptop. The regular apps work but the graphics apps are slow and crash often.

[Jaws]

So, basically you need a laptop upgrade. I find I can't/won't do graphics on my laptop, not that it's a dog computer either, but the screen part (14.1") sucks.

Just prefer the 20" top shelf monitor I got; though I'm halve blind anyways. I'm not sure it makes a difference anyways since both may come out looking the same... don't you know.   

[rnojonson]

So, basically you need a laptop upgrade.

When I say ancient I mean two clicks after the stone and chisel. It has a 15 inch screen which is fine but on the low end, bigger is better. My desktop has a 17" screen, when I am at 1280 x 1024 rez, the text is tiny. Blenders tiny text brings my face close to the screen. My friends tell me I glow, from a distance. Got to get a bigger LCD.

K-3D needs a band of pixel gypsies to go crazy making tutorials to explain everything, then one cool project from one primitive to doing various rendering techniques. Building low poly models seems pretty fast, then what?

Wings 3D is better at tugging and pulling than anything else with no boolean functions handy it's kind of labor intensive. I was trying to do a tube hoop, square sides, curved corners. There is no easy way to do this. I would say if you like working that hard go for it. I will tinker with it but the aggravation is very high.