I’ve been playing around with open source 3D software, namely the Blender modeling and animation suite, to see what I can squeeze out of it for possible use in school projects and beyond. Here are some of my first experiments:
These two are the slightly jazzed up products of Blender tutorials, the latter involving a “parametrically” generated corkscrew (no, I haven’t gone over to the dark side, in case you’re worried). By the way, Blender’s internal rendering engine is pretty fabulous – every bit an equal of Maya’s, raytracing options and all.
This next one is my first foray into the external Yafaray renderer:
BTW, the texture on the wall is Margo’s fantastico spaghetti sauce:
So far I’m getting really grainy images from Yafaray, though I know it’s possible to make it produce baby-smooth stuff like this, too (take a look at the linked file):
Not that baby-smooth is something I would necessarily strive for, but it does show the impressive capability of this free software package.
And there’s a kicker too: In addition to being a world-class visualization tool, Blender also includes a game engine that can be used to build self-contained, fully interactive three-dimensional “walk-through” presentations. I’ll definitely play around with it at some point, but there’s a lot of other territory to cover before that. Stay tuned.