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Blender 4.5 discussion from July:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44571917

I have been using Blender for video editing recently, and 5.0 is going to bring compositing nodes to the sequence editor. Now all I need is automatic video stabilization.
This more than doubles the usefulness of Blender for video editing, glad they finally got around implementing it.
> Now all I need is automatic video stabilization

Motion tracking been existing for a long time in Blender, couldn't you use that and move object used to display the footage opposite of the tracked motion and basically get video stabilization?

Yes, but to do that you need to do tracking per clip. It can be a lot of work.
Question for those conversant in blender: I'm pretty good with parametric CAD (solidworks and fusion) but have never touched Blender. I've been curious about Blender but I have no artistic or sculptural skills. I use 3D cad for both 3d printed objects and machining.

Is Blender worth learning for somebody who probably couldn't make a snake out of playdoh?

Blender doesn't use the nice boundary representations that you might be familiar with from Fusion 360 or Solidworks. Everything in Blender is "bag of triangles/quads," so it's lower level than what you may be used to. Getting good CAD-like results requires keeping this in mind. There are addons that are starting to address this. SolverSpace has a blender addon, for example.

What do you want to build? If you're not making CAD parts, the story is much different for artistic / game engine / character or environment design. I strongly recommend checking out Blender and noodling around.

If you're intimidated, the only cost is time, which is offset by the pleasure of learning something new. Here's a particularly good starting point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzHvD9RFrT8

As someone who was in the same boat for a long time, I only clicked with Blender once I had a real need for it: In my case, creating an ad-style video for a product I’d created in Fusion.

I’m not sure there is any point trying to do what you can in parametric software in Blender. Despite both being capable of a range of 3D tasks, they have remarkably little in common.

It depends on what your best hopes for yourself are.

You don’t need a lot of creative skill to model something geometric such as furniture or mechanisms. Having modeled it you would need to texture, light and render it. That can required good visual judgement, but god knows there are lots of examples to learn from.

Making organic forms is another matter and would require some sculpting skills, which are not easy to acquire.

Finally, there is the procedural environment of geometry nodes. With a good mind for maths, you could make some super cool abstract animations.

A lot of people seem to think you need some inherent talent to get into art. But art is a skill that you can practice and get better at.

So go for it!

I learned blender purely to edit borked meshes customers brought in when I worked at a 3d print service bureau that refused to spend money on software.

Now I can just about fix, edit, or make anything I want in blender pretty quickly and have even started making some 3d art. Definitely worth putting the time in

I was a similar path, learned and used Autocad from kid onwards. Being able to visualize things in a top/front/side view is a huge help in modelling. And you can get pretty far in making nice things with just a simple extrude/scale workflow in Blender.

As for being worth it. depends on your goals tbh. For 3d printing/cnc, I'd still stick with cad. Blender can do it, but it's not nearly as good as any cad software. If you're looking to expand into editing videos or making models for something 3d the spatial sense will make life easier in learning Blender for sure.

Personally, I'd say yes. I started out with Merlin 3D and Autocad way back in the day, and of course, Blender is a whole other beast. Took me some time to get used to it, but once I did, I found 3D made a lot more sense than it ever had in those other applications.

Of course, YMMV, but I'd say you should give it a shot. Even just poking around is a start.

Blenders CAD like features is so small. The thing is that 3d Art is just a totally different skill.

CAD is a drafting board: sharp pencils, precise rulers, curve templates.

Blender is in contrast: a giant set of acrylic paints. It just does different things entirely.

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Here is something you can do today. Open up Blender, left click on the default cube. Menu->Object->Quick Effects->Quick Smoke.

Hey look, you turned something into a Physics simulation of (artistic) gas rising. Now play with settings till you are bored and/or your CPU got too hot and your room is too warm. These buttons use a ton of CPU time lol.

Hit spacebar to play the simulation.

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This is Blender. It's animation, it's art, it's imprecise. It's full of random widgets that deeply simulate colors or simple physics or do basic effects.

The only downside is that this doesn't produce a scene that always you render it. You just get to watch it in the composition window. Rendering it is just a static opaque box.
I've never been an artist but I love 3d printing. So 5 years ago I went through the struggle of learning to use Blender. Best choice I ever made. I still struggle to understand even the most basic CAD app.

I probably spend more time for some projects in blender than I would in a proper cad environment, but it's a toolset I understand somewhat deeply now.

So far, Blender is one of the most successful open source projects I've ever worked with in the last 30 years. Even with major changes, every change has mostly been for the better. The introduction of geometry nodes completely changed my workflow a few years ago. So much room for activities after that.

Unlike any other modern software package, I have no regrets or doubt when I upgrade to the latest Blender release.

If you're on the fence about picking up Blender I highly recommend taking the deep dive.

As someone who has modeled in 3DSMax and Blender using the mesh modeling approach and in Fusion360 and FreeCAD using the CAD modeling approach, for 3D printing I really recommend learning CAD modeling in FreeCAD.

The ability to make models precise, constrained and and parameterised more easily allows going back to previous steps to make adjustments.

For 3D printing it is very helpful to be able to change a defined variable and have the whole model recalculated. I often use variables for clearance, screw hole diameters, etc.

Recently FreeCAD has become very good and I have switched to it. And there are a lot of great FreeCAD tutorials on Youtube.

Since blender has Geometry Nodes (and especially the more recent versions of those) I make all my parametrized models in blender.

True, it's a bit more hassle to setup and way less standardized. And it's not really the right tool for the job. And the models are less re-usable.

But.... I use blender a lot for other stuff and it's a joy to use. Freecad otoh feels like a confusing mess to me (probably because I don't use it often enough, but still...)

I'd love if Freecad would go through it's own 'blender 2.5 release' phase where someone would prune the UI.

Au contraire... FreeCAD has a confounding UI, except for the sketcher.
to be fair, I did do exactly as you described, and im glad I had both under my belt. But the amount of bs you can get when doing exactly that, "going back and changing a previous step" can be very annoying. Changing dimensions or previous sketches is usually fine, but anything more complicated often results in everything in your stack breaking with strange errors, leading it to just be easier to re-create the model. For many of my more complex mechanisms, ive made the entire thing three or more times
I think this depends what you're 3D printing. I'm almost always making utilitarian things with specific purposes so CAD modelling makes sense, I know what dimensions I need, and what constraints exist, if I were modelling figures for a tabletop RPG it would be an absolute nightmare though. As ever, right tool for the job.
I found FreeCAD more difficult to learn than other 3D CAD programs, but the 1.0 release that came out about a year ago has improved things a lot. It also looks like 1.1 (being stabilized for release right now) is going to add a lot of nice features.

It seems like the product is having a bit of a renaissance. I'm not sure how much of that is coasting on the work that Ondsel (now defunct) did over the past few years, and how much is sustainable momentum. Hopefully more the latter.

The boundary representation kernel that FreeCAD uses (OpenCASCADE) has some limitations, and it's unlikely that those will be resolved. They make for a bumpy ride sometimes.

I think FreeCAD is almost becoming usable enough that it's reasonable to try to learn it if you want to use free software, or want to create models that you can use commercially.

If you don't care about commercial use, or you are willing to pay, I think OnShape is more powerful and significantly easier to learn and use. It uses the Parasolid kernel, which is more robust than OpenCASCADE. It's free for non-commercial use with the caveat that your models have to be publicly visible. https://www.onshape.com/en/products/free

If you want to learn FreeCAD, here's what I recommend doing:

- Install OpenTheme and OpenPreferences. https://old.reddit.com/r/FreeCAD/comments/1j82svt/i_really_w.... These fix a lot of the sub-optimal defaults that FreeCAD ships with.

- Increase the marker, font, and line sizes in sketcher and display preferences.

- Watch Mango Jelly and Joko Engineering videos on YouTube to learn how to do things. Focus on videos about FreeCAD 1.0.

Good luck!

Another to check out is Solvespace. It's a much smaller simpler CAD modeling program than FreeCAD; doesn't do nearly as much, but I find it much easier to use, more intuitive, and more stable than FreeCAD.
What particular advantages do you feel FreeCAD has over Fusion, aside from the obvious? (price and ethos)
Blender is great, but it still can't replace a CAD program. I tried using it for simple CAD tasks (before geometry nodes were released), but the experience was so poor that I quickly switched to FreeCAD. It was worth it, even though it took some time to learn how to use the new program.

FreeCAD is pretty buggy, confusing, and sometimes limited, but its workflow can't really be replicated with Blender. Once you have worked with a CAD program for a while, you realise that certain things that are almost impossible or annoyingly difficult in Blender can actually be pretty easy.

It would be great if the two programs could be merged. Blender could benefit from better CAD functions, and FreeCAD could benefit from everything else Blender provides.

The CAD Sketcher add-on goes a long way towards making it more usable. I’ve been hacking away at it myself (should go back to finish what I was adding…).
Can you explain more? Which things are impossible in blender
> If you're on the fence about picking up Blender I highly recommend taking the deep dive.

Yes! I have spent my August learning Blender, and it's become one of my favourite pieces of software ever; in my journey of learning game dev, 3D modeling has become one of my favourite tasks.

If one is looking for recommendation on learning material, the Udemy courses by Grant Abbitt are EXCELLENT. I'm totally unaffiliated, but I don't think I would've stuck around without as good a course. The whole course was a discounted $20 for 14 hours of learning material, from the very basics, to UV, texture painting, rigging and animation.

I know enough Blender to be dangerous now, but I am open to recommendation for intermediate and advanced courses. You can do a lot with Blender basic tools, but as a modeling software it is a mile deep and I know I'm just scratching the surface.

> Yes! I have spent my August learning Blender, and it's become one of my favourite pieces of software ever

Same. Started in July with the Donut tutorial and then got completely carried away in geometry nodes and automation.

Once the UI clicks, Blender is super intuitive and downright addictive to use. I realized, while I don’t actually want to work in 3D modeling for other reasons, I could totally live in Blender all day! Can’t think of any piece of software that made me feel so in love.

And don’t get me started on its capabilities. It’s even useful as a video editor and for drawing. I think the only thing it can’t do much is audio editing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one day it’s becoming a DAW, too :D

I recommend to everyone: Learn the basics of Blender! Just dive in for a week or two. For universal creative output, it’s probably the single most powerful and useful tool you will ever encounter. Blender unlocks a whole new skill tree. I promise, you will look at the world, differently, how to express yourself, conceptualize and tackle a variety of problems. Even if you are, like me, not much interested in "graphic art", it’s so versatile for anything 3D, illustration or video. You can use it to visualize ideas for yourself or others, a 3D scratchpad, for 3D printing, illustrating math stuff, even simple physics simulations. Yes, there is a learning curve, but it’s pretty straight forward after the initial complexity shock. The UI is so thoughtful and consistent you get efficient with it very quickly. Totally worth it!

And Blender is free and open source, this skill enablement is permanent and unconditional! It’s an attestation to what’s possible.

Thank you for sharing your experience!

Would you mind sharing a bit more about your workflow? Do you export to obj/stl? What slicer do you use?

Five years is a decent amount of Time, and I'm sure you have much hard-won knowledge (and gotchas) to share.

(Personally, I'm stuck on the mental block of "I know I should just get and learn Fusion360" but I cannot bring myself to knowingly tie myself to a subscription-based piece of rentware.)

Thanks in advance!

Edit to add: my motivation is 100% to use this for 3d printing.

> I cannot bring myself to knowingly tie myself to a subscription-based piece of rentware.

Fusion360 isn't your only option. Several of the larger commercial CAD programs have various maker/hobbyist licences which are either free or low cost, and are suitable for exporting 3D models for 3D printing.

https://solidedge.siemens.com/en/solutions/users/hobbyists-a... → Free

https://www.solidworks.com/solution/solidworks-makers → US$48/yr presently

I was in the same boat as you and sounds like others in this thread, >1000 hours in Blender over the past few years, but learned Fusion360 to be able to get parts lasercut and machined so had to go to proper parametric CAD format. The simple answer is use both - some things like making a simple bracket or fixture are just much easier in CAD. For organic shapes with lots of complexity, sub D modeling is far faster and easier IMO in Blender than the ways to achieve that in CAD (like T splines in Fusion).

The space between those 2 things is where you have to decide what you are really trying to accomplish. The program you use will have an impact on what your result looks like, you see this in the evolution of product design alongside the evolution of design software (boxy cars in the 80s, soap bars in the 90s, and the last few decades of cars with flowing designs with body line defining creases which modern A surface modelers seem to draw you towards). I find parts made in Blender with my workflow often look a lot more interesting and visually pleasing, using edge crease/bevel modifiers and sliding loops around vs. using fillets in CAD for instance, they both aim to soften an edge, but look far different in the end. If you are only ever going to 3D print parts and never CNC, you are already fast in Blender, and part strength vs mass doesn't matter much (especially to a degree where you don't care about FEA), Blender is plenty viable to make printed parts with.

You can footgun yourself easily with both programs, but I find Fusion to be worse for this, half because of the UI, but using tools like sketch projection for me has caused really diabolical issues in the timeline. The whole trick to CAD is being very careful with the design intention as you progress forwards, which is hard to learn coming from 3D modelers where that doesn't matter much and you can just shuffle around non destructive modifiers. This might just be due to my own experience difference in the programs though, I definitely remember going down some roads in Blender I never returned from on meshes when I was learning, normally by either applying subdivision modifiers, doing too many loop cuts, or using a tri/n-gon somewhere thinking it wouldn't be an issue or I would fix it later.

Yah.

My workflow is hard to describe.

Over the years I updated my base project files when new Blender versions require rebuilding my geometry node graph when old stuff gets outdated. That being mentioned, the updates are worth it. It's a hobby so time is free and a learning opportunity.

It's something I accept as cost of learning, which so far has resulted in better end results.

I was totally in the same mental space with Fusion. Here's what I did.

I don't like hard to understand UI.

I don't like a product whose company constantly changes the rules.

I don't like not being in specific control of mission important software I use.

I also tried open source alternatives to CAD. There are non that are anything approachable from a user perspective. Until the FreeCAD project gets some help from Blender, I'll stand by that.

I don't maybe have any specific modeling scenarios to recommend. Not a professional, just a hobbyist.

I tune my printer. Use the 3d toolbox plugin for Blender. Make sure your model is manifold. Get to learn how to spend dozens of hours editing 3rd part "printable" models into something that's actually printable. Ain't manifold, ain't printable. If you "borrow" models from games to print, you'll spend a lot of time making them printable. They aren't yours even at that point. Don't try to sell them or give them away for free. Not yours. Respect the artists.

Geometry nodes have SOOOOO many options. I'm not kidding, it's awesome the team keeps adding nodes that address old and new issues. But figure out a basic workflow wherever you're at. Only update if there is some required or otherwise very specific advantage

Never piss off engineers. So many software cartels went so far in ripping off their customer base that it caused a blistering clap-back. Companies like Maya were just taking the piss with their prices effectively pricing out all but big companies. A group of talented and, let's face it, awesome people built Blender into something not only as good as Maya, but better in most ways.

also see game engines e.g Unity(complete toss pots) and the evolution of Godot.

As for why people use Microscum's products like Excel, when LibreOffice is superior is beyond me.

I spent a good couple of months learning Blender enough to make a 3D model of a real Zamboni of all things for no real practical reason. That was a couple of years ago and I've forgotten everything and I'm pissed about it. I wish I kept at it.
I think you are mixing up general 3D modeling (the act of doing whatever to get a good visual result) and CAD (designing something to be made physically).

Blender is not a CAD tool and wasn’t designed to be. Likewise, CAD tools will never be used to make a movie scene.

Headline is misleading, TFA says it's the last maintenance release in the 4.x series so if anything, big changes are expected in the 5.0 beta whose planned release date was two days ago as mentioned at the end. So are there any news for 5.0 yet? I loved Sketchup and sure looked forward to Blender releases over the years but it's anything but a tool for casual 3D scene modelling or level design, requiring a huge time investment for learning and keep memorizing its awkward UI.
> requiring a huge time investment for learning and keep memorizing its awkward UI.

Have you actually given Blender a serious try? You don’t actually need a huge time investment to get efficient with its basics, maybe 1-3 days with a tutorial.

When it clicks and you memorized just a handful of shortcuts, the UI is mindblowingly intuitive and consistent, pure bliss. To the point where everything else feels wrong.

And let’s be clear, the payoff here is using a fully capable professional tool of nearly infinite complexity. It’s not a toy, niche, or compromise, but widely used across the industry, up there with commercial giants.

>it's anything but a tool for casual 3D scene modelling or level design, requiring a huge time investment for learning and keep memorizing its awkward UI.

It’s a lot better than it used to be, however, your argument that’s it’s merely a casual tool is incorrect. Features films have been made with it. AAA games have used it. Your frustration is your own. Knowing 3D, I find blender extremely welcoming. Sure, it could use some more work on texture painting but it’s got grease pencil which is a god damn game changer.

I have noticed that many of the most used and loved projects use C/C++.

With all of the unpopular press that they get, why has history often proven C/C++ to be the right choice time and time again?

The one thing I really regret is listening to the kind of opinionated people that will tell how a certain popular language is bad and you shouldn't use it.

Twenty years ago when I learned Python, people told me it was a waste of time. Sure it is a nice language but you will never get a job doing it.

When I got into PHP ten years ago people told me it is a horrible language and basically dead already. Still, PHP was key to my career and I am making good money programming with in in 2025.

I used to be a C++ hater because that was the cool thing to do. Then I tried Unreal Engine and had to use C++ and discovered it is... fine. Really. There is a good reason it is heavily used in the gaming industry. I don't totally love it. The compile times are kind of annoying but C++ is not the only language suffering from that. If you need the performance and the ecosystem, C++ still isn't the worst choice.

There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup, The C++ Programming Language

The most used Desktop projects were started before 2015, around which new languages were stable enough to consider app building. Those apps fill their niche well and people don't need to start new projects for these niches, and new developers add to those projects instead of replacing them, which is a good thing. The cloud, AI, mobile (or crypto ..) by example are another story.
Part of the answer is in term C/C++ itself. C is a very popular language because the history around Unix and FFI. C++ builds on that popularity by being sort of backwards compatible with it and being what Microsoft Visual C++ supports if you want more languages features beyond ISO C90. Which brings to mind another factor, that people used to pay for compilers and IDEs. The hobbyist had to consider price as well as functionality, portability, performance and popularity in what programming languages they choose. Given there were several C++ compilers to choose from and the popularity of Windows it makes sense that C++ won.

Why has nothing replaced it? That depends on what you mean by replaced. Python, and Typescript/JavaScript have replaced it in many places. It's just low level programming where C++ has yet to be superceded. For that kind of programming there had not been many that could even approach the space until LLVM-based languages started coming out recently.

Some things come down to the OS system. We're still using the C FFI and other system elements designed around C. So until something better replaces those we're still using C on some level.

Long term stability is pretty important and C/C++ has a pretty good record of that. A lot of the bad press is also for ideological reasons, not entirely practical ones.

Finally, I think it's because the C/C++ manages to stay hidden. You don't need to know that it's written in C/C++ to use it.

Survivorship bias
Don’t trust hype.

”Unpopular press” generally means ”non-expert clickbait opinions”.

C++ as a language is abominable but the ecosystem (compiler support, tooling, libraries, established knowledge) is very hard to beat.