Basic Animation Primer
Tutorial – Blender
Blender is a complex piece of software, but it's relatively simple to get into using it for animation. We show you the basics of moving things around and applying physics in Blender.
Blender is a fantastic, free application for creating and animating 3D graphics. It ranks as one of the most extensive open source applications, and it offers tools that can put you in the realms of the pros. However, it is also one of the most complex open source applications. As soon as you've got the hang of one section, it's time to explore the tools offered by yet another tab, menu or window. It's fair to say that the Blender developers haven't exactly gone out of their way to simplify the application for beginners.
In this article, I will take a look at the animation tools offered by Blender. In particular, I'd like to show beginners the basics of moving objects around within Blender with an eye to creating a finished animation. This is the sort of animation you could use for a YouTube video or similar. It could be your logo, or it could be a call to action such as telling the viewers to subscribe to your channel.
Installing Blender
Last year saw the release of Blender 5.0, but like the Linux kernel, Blender development has always focused on incremental improvement rather than version number milestones. Version 5.0 of Blender did bring some improvements but nothing that radically changes how the program works or looks.
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