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About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

17 Comments

  1. This is how I felt back 12 years ago trying to learn 3D graphics. Dodgy software crashing, $5000 dollar price-tags that I couldn't afford Working at the chicken factory and racing to get on a Mac at Kinkos to learn Photoshop and blowing all my money. Then I remember reading an old magazine '3D Artist' with a favorable review of Blender! Button panic! lol Anyone remember the first time you rotated the cube with the middle mouse? "Duh, Now I see!"lol

    • No because i ran away the first time i opened blender over 10 years ago :) , except my into knowledge of blender was a bit smaller , a simple line in a web page started it all "Blender is now open source" (was looking for an opensource GE to learn game programming)

    • The first time I ever moved the camera view in Blender with the middle mouse button, I immediately thought, "This makes far more sense for navigation!"

      I've always thought that camera navigation should largely be a one-handed operation, since it's so frequented, while leaving the other hand free to be placed on other keys that might not be so comfortable if I had to pinky-reach for Ctrl or Alt all the time. It's one of the things I think makes Blender one of the fastest modellers around, in terms of workflow.

      • I Totally agree with Brian Lockett, the navigation in blender was probably the only thing I could understand and feel comfortable with after a few minutes using blender for the first time. I'd never used 3D software before, so when I pressed the middle mouse button on an impulse and the view began to rotate I was intrigued. I also know how mfoxdogg feels. I wanted to learn CG and animation, and wanted the cheapest option possible. I had the audacity to ask google "Free 3D Software" and found blender. It was free! Installed it, thought to myself "Let's animate something!" But ended up starring at the screen for about 5 minutes. Should have known it was to good to be true. For the first few months I stumbled fearfully around blender in a frugal attempt to learn something. Didn't know what the hell I was doing!

    • Yes I remember, there weren't hardly any tutorials back then and I think it took me a couple of months to figure out the middle mouse button had to be pressed. What a wonderful 11 years it has been, seeing all the growth of Blender and the community. There are so many great tutorials now. Back then BC (Before CtrlZ) if I messed up I had to start over from scratch!

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