Blender

What an amazing this this app is.

Any creative out there should toy around with this at some point. Mostly because it’s FREE, and also because it can be delightful when finally get to rendering something.

This quirky app has quickly shot itself into the forefront of 3D modeling discussions. It’s got a very wide variety of tools making it very versatile. Modeling, Sculpting, Texture Painting, UV unwrapping, Shader Design, Geometry Nodes, Animation, Grease Pencil… such a wide array of things you can make with Blender, if not just for the utility of being able to edit and convert most 3D formats there are. The app is open-source… so you could actually build your own version of Blender with the features you need… if you know how how to code. Blender can install countless add-ons… and write your own if you know Python. Blender now has support for having an Asset Library, however that still does not support brushes (soon I think).

Blender does have a very unique user interface that may take some getting used to… so your first interaction with it may be awkward. Talking about the user interface… one thing I like about it is its window pane system. You can divide and subdivide the window, and choose whatever info to be put into any of the smaller windows. You can have several views of you model from different angles if you’d like to. Blender has recently received a lot of funding from several companies, including Apple. Apple also provided Blender.org with some back-end code to get Blender to work their graphics system, Metal.

If you have not used this app, give it a try. There are tons of tutorials out there, but it would be tough for me not to recommend looking on YouTube for the Donut tutorial by Blender Guru. You’ll make a donut, but you learn enough along the way that it’s a good start and you end up with a fun render. It’s a very unique app, and may feel intimidating but it’s ok to ignore the parts the app you don’t use. There really is a lot to it.