Using 3D Rendering and Animation

 

3D Rendering and Animation is No Longer Just for the Professional

If you want to find a way to use 3D rendering and animation you may have that chance very soon. Technology is always moving forward and with 3D becoming a mainstream thing it is taking leaps and bounds towards the next generation. Animation plays a huge role in the development and design of websites, videos, and more online, so why not use 3D animation?

3D animation soon will be able to be used in many different ways. You can thank the open source communities and Google because they have combined to develop two very good 3D modeling programs you can use without paying a single penny for either one of them. They both started in the open source form and have moved steadily to give bloggers, webmasters, and others online the ability to create 3D animation.

Google Sketchup and Blender are the programs out there for use and they both have their pros and their cons. We are about to look into both so grab a cup of coffee, and get ready to take this wild ride with us.

3D Rendering and Animation with Google Blender

3D Rendering and Animation

Blender is simply a free piece of software you can find at the blender website, http://www.blender.org. It was started in 1989 believe it or not and was originally an in-house program for animation. When the animation studio that owned Blender had no choice but to close they decided to release the code to the public under a “GPL” license. This ensures the program will always be free for the public and able to be shared.

The idea was to allow this program to be used by students, professionals, and those just loving to create animation. With the online tutorials that are also available for free you can use this to create many different forms of animation. There is also a community in Wiki that makes it very easy to use the program and get help when you need it.

Blender offers a real-time game creator, a physics engine, and much more for the user. With the video tutorials, the user forums, the Wiki community, and the yearly conference it is very easy to find help getting to know and use the program for all your animation needs.

3D Rendering and Animation with Google SketchUp

The other free choice for 3D rendering and animation online is Google Sketchup. This is currently owned by Google and won the Community Choice Award for how easy the interface is to use. The idea behind this 3D rendering and animation program was to make it very fun for the user to learn how to create great animation.

It was originally created by @Last Software and Google purchased this company in 2006. They were more interested in what they could do to create Google Earth, but they also ended up with SketchUp. With this intelligent and very easy to use program, Google decided to release many versions as they fixed bugs and added more usability.

Even though Google SketchUp sounds like a great 3D rendering and animation software it has many problems. Unlike Blender there is not much support. There are a series of tutorial videos, but no forums or discussion groups for technical support. Some help documents can be found, but without the community helping each other there is a lack of information when you need it.

However, SketchUp does have a Pro version that has more features, but they are not listed on the website. It is also very expensive for the Pro version, but you do get access to professional training if you pay for this license.

Blender and SketchUp are the two best choices for free software for animation right now. They both have many pros and many cons that you can use to help make your decision. Even with the cons these are both great choices and have many great features for 3D rendering and animation.


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