Monday, June 23, 2008

Blender Game Engine

As I begin work on my next CartoonSmart.com tutorial, I decided to give my boy (and co-host of Bits of Blender) a first taste of the Blender Game Engine. Even starting with the very basics, he had a blast. Making something from scratch move, applying physics, knocking things down, what fun!

One of the things that is unique about Blender as a 3d modeling/animating/rendering package is that it also includes a game engine. In fact, if you ever accidentally hit the "P" key, you've experienced the game engine. Even more interesting is that there are two ways to program Blender games that work nicely in concert. One way, is visual using what Blender calls "Logic Bricks". The other way is textural, using the Python programming language. Blender has Python built in and even includes a text editor! Funny how I seem to get more excited over that than the game engine, but really I'm excited about both.

The nice thing about the game engine is that it is useful for gaming but can also be useful for animation. How? Blender allows you to record what happens while the game engine is running. It records it onto the IPO curves of the objects.

I've said it before... Blender is deeeeeeeep. There is so much it has in it. And it is stable. And addictive... ;-)

1 comment:

  1. Hi, I've been watching & learning from your "bits of blender" tuts.
    I think they're great!
    Like you've stated, there are more applications for GE than just games.
    I've recently stumbled upon this site of yours while searching for information how to get avi movies to play in GE.
    I've found a couple. But some how can't seem to get it to work.
    Thanks for taking your valuable time helping others.

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