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Comment by slezyr | Hacker News Reader

3D modeling in Blender3D

I don't use blender, so I'm not sure if it is highly specialized for a particular application. However, Autodesk Fusion 360 is a perfectly capable program as well, and has very favorable licensing if you are a hobbyist. They've done a really good job with first party tutorials, both in written copy, and videos. It seems to be one of the hottest tools in the 3D printing community right now, so the community is robust for support as well.

Where it really shines though is that anything you can make happen in the GUI, you can also make happen in python. In fact, I believe it is possible to simply "trace" what you are doing in the GUI, and use that as a guide for how to do it in your own custom code. Thats the "Fusion" part of the name. You can do the actual modeling with code. You can also create more gui features. For instance, you can make a button on the toolbar that, once clicked, checks for user selected geometry. If any is found, do operation X upon that geometry. This pattern alone makes me think that Fusion 360 is an excellent tool to approach CAD from the perspective of a coder.

I shouldn't have said "3D modeling" there. I'm more interested in "3D art" than in CAD models.

I've found some books about preparing models for 3D printing in Blender. Also it has quite big number learning materials about it.

> This pattern alone makes me think that Fusion 360 is an excellent tool to approach CAD from the perspective of a coder.

While many people hate blender's UI, I really liked it because it fells like writing text in Vim. At first it is hard to understand it, but then you learn hotkeys and you stop calling actions from toolbars/menus and simply input action using keyboard.

As simple example: <TAB> (To switch to edit mode) e (To duplicate all selected points) g (To move selected points) x (along X axis) 2 (by 2 units)

5 keys and I've made duplicate of current object and moved it a little. Without touching mouse. I really like blender for all these hotkeys they make modeling much faster and easier.

Blender Guru on Youtube has a good set of video tutorials:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOKHwx1VCdgnxwbjyb9Iu1g

I came across his channel when an interesting interview he did with Blender's founding creator was linked on here a while back.

Thank you. But I prefer learn from books.

Read "Blender 3D Basics"[1], this book is pure garbage. It's 70% of offtopic and author clearly doesn't have experience with blender and can only make some basic things. Author clearly have been paid for number of words and didn't even attempted to fill with useful information. Pure waste of time.

Then tried more advanced book "Blender Master Class"[2], it was actually easy to follow and understand until some point when it went from one pic of blocks to fully modeled temple. (Just make the rest of owl)

Next book I want to try is "Blender 3D Incredible Machines"[3] this time I made quick read of it. It looks like perfect place to learn blender.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Blender-3D-Basics-Fisher-Gordon/dp/18...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Blender-Master-Class-Hands-Sculpting/...

[3]: https://www.amazon.com/Blender-Incredible-Machines-Christoph...

I started doing this recently, but I want to use a laptop. Blender seems better suited to a full size keyboard and proper mouse. Does anyone use it with a laptop keyboard and trackpad?

You mean requirement for numpad and middle button click?

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/124/how-to-emula...

I would say that in the abstract, if this is a skill you want to learn, don't let the specific tool choices get in the way of the education. Give yourself every opportunity for success, by choosing the recommended tools, as you can afford them. A better way to think of good tools is that they get all of the bullshit out of your way so you can work at maximum efficiency. Thus, until you actually learn the skill, trying to impose your own preconceived notions of the right tools for the job is complete guesswork.

Once you understand the basic logistics, then you are positioned to judge specific characteristics of your tools, and make educated decisions about which accentuate your craft, and which cause you endless grief to just perform their basic tasks.

Blender heavily relies on numpad keys and middle mouse button so there is small "hardware" problem to use it on laptops

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