The organization
Blender Foundation is a Dutch public benefit corporation, established to support and facilitate the projects on blender.org.
Read more about http://www.blender.org/foundation/
The software
Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports
the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation,
simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video
editing and game creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for
Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized
tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases. Blender is
well suited to individuals and small studios who benefit from its
unified pipeline and responsive development process. Examples from many
Blender-based projects are available in the
showcase.
Blender is cross-platform and runs equally well on Linux, Windows and
Macintosh computers. Its interface uses OpenGL to provide a consistent
experience. To confirm specific compatibility, the list of
supported platforms indicates those regularly tested by the development team.
As a community-driven project under the
GNU General Public License (GPL),
the public is empowered to make small and large changes to the code
base, which leads to new features, responsive bug fixes, and better
usability. Blender has no price tag, but you can
invest,
participate, and help to advance a powerful collaborative tool: Blender is your own 3D software.
Our mission
We want to build a free and open source complete 3D creation pipeline for artists and small teams.
Read the
mission statement about what Blender is by Foundation Chairman Ton Roosendaal.
The license
You are
free to use Blender for
any purpose, including commercially or for education. This freedom is being defined by Blender’s
GNU General Public License (GPL).
Read more about
the license
Development
Blender is being actively developed by hundreds of people from all
around the world. These include animators, artists, VFX experts,
hobbyists, scientists, and many more. All of them are united by an
interest to further a completely free and open source 3D creation
pipeline. The Blender Foundation supports and facilitates these
goals—and employs a small staff for that—but depends fully on the global
online community.
More help is always welcome! From developing and improving Blender to
writing documentation, etc, there are a number of different things you
can do to
get involved.
https://www.blender.org/about/
Requirements
General information
Blender 2.7x works on nearly all operating systems. To use Blender, just unpack the archive you find in the
download section and start Blender!
Graphics card note: Blender runs on all OpenGL-compatible cards, although there are some issues with integrated graphics cards (Intel, Via). We therefore can’t officially support and guarantee that Blender works fine on those systems.
General information
Blender 2.7x works on nearly all operating systems. To use Blender, just unpack the archive you find in the
download section and start Blender!
Graphics card note: Blender runs on all OpenGL-compatible cards, although there are some issues with integrated graphics cards (Intel, Via). We therefore can’t officially support and guarantee that Blender works fine on those systems.
Supported Platforms
Blender is available for Windows XP through 8, Mac OSX 10.6 and above, andLinux. Blender uses OpenGL for drawing the entire interface. This means it’s best if you use a graphics card that is OpenGL-compliant.
The Blender developer team welcomes all efforts to bypass issues with specific configurations, but we can only officially support the platforms that are in use by active developers. Check
the wiki for a list of supported platforms.
Minimum hardware
- 32-bit dual core 2Ghz CPU with SSE2 support.
- 2 GB RAM
- 24 bits 1280×768 display
- Mouse or trackpad
- OpenGL-compatible graphics card with 256 MB RAM
- Recommended hardware
- 64-bit quad core CPU
- 8 GB RAM
- Full HD display with 24 bit color
- Three button mouse
- OpenGL-compatible graphics card with 1 GB RAM
- Optimal (production-grade) hardware
- 64-bit eight core CPU
- 16 GB RAM
- Two full HD displays with 24 bit color
- Three button mouse and graphics tablet
- Dual OpenGL-compatible graphics cards, quality brand with 3 GB RAM
- https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/
This is the list of systems in use and supported by active Blender developers:
Name | OS | CPU | Graphics card |
Andrea Weikert | Windows 7 | Intel Core i7 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti |
Andrea Weikert | Linux 32 | AMD Athlon 64 X2 | Nvidia Quadro FX1500 |
Antony Riakiotakis | Ubuntu 14.04 | Intel Core i5 | NVidia Geforce GT 540M |
Antony Riakiotakis | Windows 7 64 | Intel Core i5 | NVidia Geforce GT 540M |
Bastien Montagne | Debian Testing 64 | Intel Core i7 Q4700m | NVidia Geforce GTX 850M |
Brecht van Lommel | OS X 10.9 | Intel Core 2 Duo | NVidia GeForce 960M GT |
Campbell Barton | Linux 64 | AMD-FX 6-Core | Nvidia GeForce GTS 450 |
Daniel Genrich | Windows Vista 64 | Intel Core 2 Duo | NVidia GeForce 8500 GT |
Diego Borghetti | Linux 64 | Intel Core i5 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 |
Diego Borghetti | Linux 64 | Intel Core i7 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M |
Howard Trickey | Ubuntu 12.04 64 | Intel Xeon E5-1650 | NVidia Quadro 600 |
Howard Trickey | Windows 7 64 | Intel Core i7 | NVidia GeForce GTX 460 |
Howard Trickey | OSX 10.9.5 | Intel Core i7 | Intel Iris Pro |
Inês Almeida | Slackware current 64bit | Intel Core i7-Q740 @ 1.73GHz | Nvidia GeForce GT 330M |
Jens Verwiebe | OSX 10.6/7/8/9/10 | Intel Xeon 6-core@ 3.33 | ATI 5870/7970 |
Jeroen Bakker | Latest Ubuntu 64bit | Dell m4300 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz | Nvidia Quadro FX360M |
Joshua Leung | Windows 8.1.1 64 | Intel Core i7-4700MQ | Nvidia GeForce GT 740M |
Julian Eisel | Linux 64 | AMD Phenom II X4 | Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 |
Julian Eisel | Linux 64 | Intel Core i7 | Nvidia GeForce GT 645M |
Ken Hughes | Linux 32 | Intel Core Duo | Nvidia GeForce GO 7500 |
Ken Hughes | Linux 64 | AMD Athlon 64 X2 | Nvidia GeForce 6600 |
Kent Mein | Linux 64 | Intel Core Duo | Nvidia Quadro FX 1400 |
Kent Mein | SunOS 5.8 | Sun Blade 150 | ATI PGX |
Matt Ebb | OSX 10.5 | Dual Core Intel MBP | nVidia 8600M |
Michael Fox | Linux 32 | Celeron | Nvidia GeForce 6200 |
Mike Erwin | OSX 10.9 | MacBook Pro i7 | nVidia GT 650M + Intel HD 4000 |
Mike Erwin | Windows 7 + Fedora 21 | AMD FX 8120 | AMD Radeon HD 6970 |
Mike Erwin | Windows 8.1 | AMD A8 4555M | AMD Radeon HD 7600G |
Nathan Letwory | Windows 7 Ultimate 64 | AMD Turion X2 Mobile RM-74 | ATI HD 4650 |
Nathan Letwory | Windows 7 Ultimate 64 | AMD Athlon II X4 620 | 2x HIS ATI HD 5550 /w four monitors |
Nicholas Bishop | Fedora 18 64bit | Intel Core i7 @ 2.93GHz | AMD Radeon HD 6950 (Gallium drivers, currently at OpenGL 2.1) |
Nicholas Bishop | Ubuntu 12.10 64bit | Intel Core i5 | ATI Mobility Radeon 5650 (Gallium drivers) |
Sergej Reich | Arch Linux 64bit | Intel Core2 Quad @ 2.83GHz | Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 |
Sergej Reich | Arch Linux 64bit | Intel Core i3 @ 2.10GHz | Intel Sandybridge Mobile |
Sergey Sharybin | Debian Wheezy 64bit | Intel Core i7 920 2.6Ghz | Nvidia GeForce GTX 560Ti + GeForce GT 620 |
Sergey Sharybin | Debian Wheezy 64bit | Intel Core i5 2.4GHz | Intel Sandy Bridge + Nvidia GT 520M |
Thomas Dinges | Ubuntu Linux 14.04 | Intel Core i5 | Intel HD 2500 |
Thomas Dinges | Windows 7 x64 | Intel Core i7 | NVidia GeForce 540M + Intel HD 3000 |
Thomas Dinges | OSX 10.9 | Intel Core i7 | Intel Iris Pro |
Timothy Baldridge | SGI Irix 6.5 (mipspro) | 8 x R16000 | (headless) |
Timothy Baldridge | SGI Irix 6.5 (mipspro) | 2 x R10000 | |
Tamito Kajiyama | Windows 7 64bit | Intel Core i7 2620M | Nvidia Quadro 1000M |
Ton Roosendaal | OSX 10.7 | iMac Intel Core i7 | AMD Radeon HD 6970M |
Ton Roosendaal | OSX 10.8 | MacBook Pro i7 "Retina" | NVidia GT 650M + Intel HD 4000 |
- Get Started with the Basics of Blender
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