Wikipedia，自由的百科全书

Contents 1 Introduction入门介绍 1.1 What is Blender? 1.2 Blender是什么？ 1.3 Blender's History 1.4 Blender的历史 1.5 About Free Software and the GPL 1.6 关于自由软件和GPL 1.7 Getting support - the Blender community 技术支持 - Blender社区

Introduction入门介绍

What is Blender?

Blender是什么？

Blender is an integrated suite of tools enabling the creation of a broad range of 3D content. It offers full functionality for modelling, rendering, animation, post-production, creation and playback of interactive 3D content with the singular benefits of cross-platform operability and a download file size of about 5MB.

Blender是一款用于创造各种3D内容的套件工具，他提供建模、渲染、动画、后期处理及跨平台的3D交互制作等各方面的全部功能，原始文件大小仅5M左右。

Aimed at media professionals and artists, Blender can be used to create 3D visualizations, stills as well as broadcast quality video, while the incorporation of a real-time 3D engine allows for the creation of 3D interactive content for stand-alone playback.

针对媒体专家和艺术家Blender可用于创建3D形象及广播级视频，并可以与实时3D引擎结合来创造可独立使用的三维交互。

Originally developed by the company 'Not a Number' (NaN), Blender now is continued as 'Free Software', with the sources available under GNU GPL.

Blender最初由`Not a Number'（NaN）公司开发，现在已经在GNU GPL许可证下公开源代码，以自由软件的形式继续开发。

Key Features: 主要特征:

• Fully integrated creation suite, offering a broad range of essential tools for the creation of 3D content, including modelling, animation, rendering, video post production and game creation;

完全集成化的制作套件，为3D内容的制作提供了广泛的必要工具，包括建模，动画，渲染，视频后期处理和游戏制作；

• Cross platform, with OpenGL uniform GUI on all platforms, ready to use for all flavours of Windows, Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, Irix and Sun;

跨平台，使用基于OpenGL的GUI，可以在Windows, Linux, OSX, FreeBSD, Irix和Sun等所有主流操作系统平台上使用；

• High quality 3D architecture enabling fast and efficient creation work-flow;

高水平的3D架构带来更快速有效的工作流程；

• Free support channels via http://www.blender3d.org;

通过http://www.blender3d.org可获得免费的技术支持；

• More than 250,000 people worldwide user community;

世界范围内超过25万人的用户团体；

• Small executable size, for easy distribution;

可执行文件体积小，便于分发；

You can download the latest version of Blender here. 您可以在download.blender.org下载到Blender的最新版本。

Blender's History

Blender的历史

In 1988 Ton Roosendaal co-founded the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo. NeoGeo quickly became the largest 3D animation studio in the Netherlands and one of the leading animation houses in Europe. NeoGeo created award-winning productions (European Corporate Video Awards 1993 and 1995) for large corporate clients such as multi-national electronics company Philips. Within NeoGeo Ton was responsible for both art direction and internal software development. After careful deliberation Ton decided that the current in-house 3D tool set for NeoGeo was too old and cumbersome to maintain and upgrade and needed to be rewritten from scratch. In 1995 this rewrite began and was destined to become the 3D software creation suite we all now know as Blender. As NeoGeo continued to refine and improve Blender it became apparent to Ton that Blender could be used as a tool for other artists outside of NeoGeo.

1988年，Ton Roosendaal合伙创立了荷兰动画工作室NeoGeo。NeoGeo很快成为尼德兰最大的3D动画工作室和欧洲领先的动画工坊。NeoGeo为大型团体客户如跨国电子公司Philips制作了一些获奖产品（1993年和1995年的欧洲团体视频奖）。在NeoGeo内部，Ton负责艺术总监和内部软件开发。经过仔细考虑后，Ton认为当时NeoGeo使用的inhouse 3D工具集过于陈旧且不易维护和升级，需要手工进行重写。1995年这套软件开始重写并且最终成为了今天我们所知道的Blender。在NeoGeo继续完善和改进Blender时，Ton认为Blender可以让NeoGeo以外的其他艺术家使用。

In 1998, Ton decided to found a new company called Not a Number (NaN) as a spin-off of NeoGeo to further market and develop Blender. At the core of NaN was a desire to create and distribute a compact, cross platform 3D creation suite for free. At the time this was a revolutionary concept as most commercial modellers cost several thousands of (US) dollars. NaN hoped to bring professional level 3D modelling and animation tools within the reach of the general computing public. NaN's business model involved providing commercial products and services around Blender. In 1999 NaN attended its first Siggraph conference in an effort to more widely promote Blender. Blender's first 1999 Siggraph convention was a huge success and gathered a tremendous amount of interest from both the press and attendees. Blender was a hit and its huge potential confirmed!

1998年，Ton决定成立一个叫做Not a Number（NaN）的新公司，做为NeoGeo的子公司以拓展市场和开发Blender。NaN的核心目标是创建和免费分发一个小巧的跨平台3D制作套件。对于那些要花费数千美元购买的商业软件，这在当时是一个革命性的观念。NaN希望为公共计算机研究领域提供专业水平的动画和建模工具。NaN的商业模式则包括提供商业产品和Blender相关的服务。为了更广泛地推广Blender，NaN在1999年首次出席了Siggraph会议。Blender的1999年首次参加Siggraph会议带来巨大成功，大量的出版商和会议出席者都对它很感兴趣。Blender红极一时，它的巨大潜力已经展现！

On the wings of a successful Siggraph in early 2000, NaN secured financing of €4.5m from venture capitalists. This large inflow of cash enabled NaN to rapidly expand its operations. Soon NaN boasted as many as fifty employees working around the world trying to improve and promote Blender. In the summer of 2000, Blender v2.0 was released. This version of Blender added the integration of a game engine to the 3D suite. By the end of 2000, the number of users registered on the NaN website surpassed 250,000.

借助这次Siggraph会议，NaN在2000年早期获得了450万欧元的风险投资。这一笔笔的现金流入使得NaN迅速地扩展其操作。不久NaN声称世界范围内至少有50名雇员在为试图改进和增强Blender而工作。2000年夏天，Blender 2.0版发布，这个版本增加了一个集成的游戏引擎。到2000年底，在NaN网站上注册的用户数增加到了25万。

Unfortunately, NaN's ambitions and opportunities didn't match the company's capabilities and the market realities of the time. This overextension resulted in restarting NaN with new investor funding and a smaller company in April 2001. Six months later NaN's first commercial software product, Blender Publisher was launched. This product was targeted at the emerging market of interactive web-based 3D media. Due to disappointing sales and the ongoing difficult economic climate, the new investors decided to shut down all NaN operations. The shutdown also included discontinuing the development of Blender. Although there were clearly shortcomings in the current version of Blender, with a complex internal software architecture, unfinished features and a non-standard way of providing the GUI, enthusiastic support from the user community and customers who had purchased Blender Publisher in the past, Ton couldn't justify leaving Blender to disappear into oblivion. Since restarting a company with a sufficiently large team of developers wasn't feasible, in March 2002 Ton Roosendaal founded the non-profit organization Blender Foundation.

不幸的是，NaN的雄心和机遇并不符合公司的能力和当时的市场。这一扩展过度导致了2001年4月NaN在新的投资商下重新开始一个更小规模的公司。6个月之后，NaN的第一个商业软件产品，Blender Publisher诞生了。这一产品定位于独特的Web交互式3D媒体市场。但是后来由于该产品令人失望的销售业绩以及持续艰难的经济形势，新的投资者决定停止一切对NaN的操作，这一停止也包括了中断Blender的开发。尽管在当前版本的Blender中存在明显的缺陷，带有一套复杂的内部软件体系，尚未完成的特性以及一个提供GUI的非标准方式，考虑到来自用户团体和过去购买了Blender Publisher的客户的热心支持，Ton觉得不应该让Blender被逐渐遗忘。鉴于重新开始一个拥有足够多开发者团队的公司不太可行，于是在2002年底Ton Roosendaal成立了非盈利组织Blender基金会。

The Blender Foundation's primary goal was to find a way to continue developing and promoting Blender as a community-based Open Source project. In July 2002, Ton managed to get the NaN investors to agree to a unique Blender Foundation plan to attempt to release Blender as open source. The "Free Blender" campaign sought to raise €100,000 so that the Foundation could buy the rights to the Blender source code and intellectual property rights from the NaN investors and subsequently release Blender to the open source community. With an enthusiastic group of volunteers, among them several ex-NaN employees, a fund raising campaign was launched to "Free Blender." To everyone's surprise and delight the campaign reached the €100,000 goal in only seven short weeks. On Sunday October 13, 2002, Blender was released to the world under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Blender development continues to this day driven by a team of far-flung, dedicated volunteers from around the world led by Blender's original creator, Ton Roosendaal.

Blender基金会的主要目标是寻找一种继续开发并且促进Blender成为基于社区的开源项目的方式。2002年7月，Ton设法使NaN投资者们同意一个单独的Blender基金会计划尝试将Blender开源。这一“自由的Blender”之战致力于筹集10万欧元以便基金会可以从NaN的投资者们那里买下Blender源代码的所有权和知识产权，随后再将Blender发布给开源社区。通过一群热情的志愿者（他们中的一些人是以前NaN的雇员），一场为“自由的Blender”筹集资金的战役打响了。让每一个人都感到惊喜的是，他们只在短短的七周时间里就达到了10万欧元的目标。终于在2002年10月13日，Blender在GNU通用公共许可证（GPL）下向全世界发布了！Blender的开发从这一天起又开始了，推动这一项目的是来自全世界的分布广泛、全心全意的志愿者们，以及Blender的最初创造者：Ton Roosendaal.

Blender's history and road-map Blender的历史和蓝图

• 1.00 Jan 1995 Blender in development at animation studio NeoGeo

• 1.00版，1995年1月Blender在NeoGeo动画工作室被开发出来

• 1.23 Jan 1998 SGI version published on the web, IrisGL

• 1.23版，1998年1月SGI版本在网上发布，基于IrisGL

• 1.30 April 1998 Linux and FreeBSD version, port to OpenGL and X

• 1.30版，1998年4月Linux和FreeBSD版本，移植到OpenGL和X

• 1.3x June 1998 NaN founded

• 1.3x版，1998年6月NaN公司成立

• 1.4x Sept 1998 Sun and Linux Alpha version released

• 1.4x版，1998年9月Sun和LinuxAlpha版本发布

• 1.50 Nov 1998 First Manual published

• 1.50版，1998年11月第一本手册发行

• 1.60 April 1999 C-key (new features behind a lock, $95), Windows version released

• 1.60版，1999年4月带有密钥（新特性被加锁，解锁需95美元）的Windows版本发布

• 1.6x June 1999 BeOS and PPC version released

• 1.6x版，1999年6月BeOS和PPC版本发布

• 1.80 June 2000 End of C-key, Blender full freeware again

• 1.80版，2000年6月密钥版本结束，Blender再一次成为完全免费的软件

• 2.00 Aug 2000 Interactive 3D and real-time engine

• 2.00版，2000年8月交互式3D和实时引擎

• 2.10 Dec 2000 New engine, physics and Python

• 2.10版，2000年12月新的引擎，物理系统和Python

• 2.20 Aug 2001 Character animation system

• 2.20版，2001年8月人物动画系统

• 2.21 Oct 2001 Blender Publisher launch

• 2.21版，2001年10月BlenderPublisher起动

• 2.2x Dec 2001 Mac OSX version

• 2.2x版，2001年12月MacOSX版本

• 13 October 2002 Blender goes Open Source, 1st Blender Conference

• 2002年10月13日Blender成为开源软件，第一届Blender会议

• 2.25 Oct 2002 Blender Publisher becomes freely available

• 2.25版，2002年10月BlenderPublisher可以免费获取

• Tuhopuu1 Oct 2002 The experimental tree of Blender is created, a coder's playground.

• Tuhopuu1版，2002年10月试验性Blender代码树被创建，作为一个编码者的试验田

• 2.26 Feb 2003 The first true Open Source Blender

• 2.26版，2003年2月第一个真正的开源Blender

• 2.27 May 2003 The second Open Source Blender

• 2.27版，2003年5月第二个开源Blender

• 2.28x July 2003 First of the 2.28x series.

• 2.28x版，2003年7月2.28x 系列的开始

• 2.30 October 2003 At the 2nd Blender Conference the 2.3x UI makeover is presented.

• 2.30版，2003年10月2.3x用户接口制作结束，在第二届Blender会议上展示

• 2.31 December 2003 Upgrade to stable 2.3x UI project.

• 2.31版，2003年12月升级到稳定的2.3x用户接口工程

• 2.32 January 2004 Major overhaul of internal rendering capabilities.

• 2.32版，2004年1月详细检修内置的渲染功能

• 2.33 April 2004 Ambient Occlusion, New Procedural Textures, game engine is back!

• 2.33版，2004年4月
• 2.34 August 2004 Big improvements: Particle Interactions, LSCM UV mapping, functional YafRay integration, Weighted creases in Subsurfaces, Ramp shaders, full OSA, and many many more.
• 2.35 November 2004 Another version full of improvements: Object hooks, curve deforms and curve tapers, particle duplicators and much more.
• 2.36 February 2005 More of a stabilization version, much work behind the scene, few new features, Normal and Displacement mapping, mainly.
• 2.37 June 2005 A big leap: Transformation tools and widgets, Softbodies, Force fields, deflections, incremental Subdivision Surfaces, Transparent shadows, and Multithreaded rendering.

About Free Software and the GPL

关于自由软件和GPL

When one hears about "free software", the first thing that comes to mind might be "no cost". While this is true in most cases, the term "free software" as used by the Free Software Foundation (originators of the GNU Project and creators of the GNU General Public License) is intended to mean "free as in freedom" rather than the "no cost" sense (which is usually referred to as "free as in free beer"). Free software in this sense is software which you are free to use, copy, modify, redistribute, with no limit. Contrast this with the licensing of most commercial software packages, where you are allowed to load the software on a single computer, are allowed to make no copies, and never see the source code. Free software allows incredible freedom to the end user; in addition, since the source code is available universally, there are many more chances for bugs to be caught and fixed.

当一个人听到“free software”时，他想到的第一件事可能是“免费”。虽然这在大多数场合是对的，但是自由软件基金会（GNU工程的最初发起者以及GNU通用公共许可证的创立者）所使用的“free software”这一术语的本意是指“自由”而非“免费”（后者的意思可以参考“免费啤酒”）。这种意义下的自由软件是指对于这类软件，您可以自由使用，复制，修改，重新分发而没有任何限制。大多数商业软件包的协议与此相反，您只被允许在单一的计算机上运行软件，不允许制作任何副本，并且从没见过源代码。自由软件给予最终用户难以置信的自由程度；此外，由于人人都可以获取源代码，因此有更多的机会找到和修复软件的漏洞。

When a program is licensed under the GNU General Public License (the GPL):

当一个程序在GNU通用公共许可证（GPL）下授权时：

• you have the right to use the program for any purpose;

您有权将此程序用于任何目的；

• you have the right to modify the program, and have access to the source codes;

您有权修改这个程序，并且有访问其源代码的权限；

• you have the right to copy and distribute the program;

您有权复制和分发这个程序；

• you have the right to improve the program, and release your own versions.

您有权改进这一程序，并发布您自己的版本。

In return for these rights, you have some responsibilities if you distribute a GPL'd program, responsibilities that are designed to protect your freedoms and the freedoms of others:

作为这些权利的回应，如果您发布了一个GPL的程序就要负起责任，这些责任被设计用来保护您和他人的自由:

• You must provide a copy of the GPL with the program, so that the recipient is aware of his rights under the license.

您必须随程序提供一份GPL的拷贝，以确保接受者了解其在此协议下的权利。

• You must include the source code or make the source code freely available.

您必须包含源代码或者使源代码可自由获得。

• If you modify the code and distribute the modified version, you must license your modifications under the GPL and make the source code of your changes available. (You may not use GPL'd code as part of a proprietary program.)

如果您修改了代码然后分发一个修改过的版本，则您必须在GPL下发布您的修改并且使您修改后的代码可获得。（这样您就不能用GPL的代码作为专利程序的一部分。

• You may not restrict the licensing of the program beyond the terms of the GPL.

(You may not turn a GPL'd program into a proprietary product.)

您不能对这一程序的协议加以GPL之外的限制。（您不能将一个GPL的程序转为专利产品）

For more on the GPL, check the GNU Project Web site. For reference, a copy of the GNU General Public License is included in Volume II.

想获得更多关于GPL的知识，请浏览GNU工程的网站。为了便于参考，一份GNU通用公共许可证的副本包含在本书的第二部分里。

Getting support - the Blender community 技术支持 - Blender社区

Being freely available from the start, even while closed source, helped a lot in Blender's adoption. A large, stable and active community of users has gathered around Blender since 1998.

刚开始的时候,甚至在未开源的时候,Blender就已经得到了大批的爱好者的帮助.一个大且稳定而又活跃的社区,自1998年Blender的爱好者,都聚集了在一起.

The community showed its best in the crucial moment of freeing Blender itself, going Open Source under GNU GPL in late summer 2002.

为了更好的社区化和为了Blender的发展,在GNU GPL的领导下,Blender在2002年夏天施行开源.

The community itself is now subdivided into two, widely overlapping sites:

社区自分为2个部分,交织在社区站.

1. The Development Community, centered around the Blender Foundation site www.blender.org. Here is the home of the development projects, the Functionality and Documentation Boards, the CVS repository with Blender sources, all documentation sources, and related public discussion forums. Developers coding on Blender itself, Python scripters, documentation writers, and anyone working for Blender development in general can be found here.

发展社区,Blender社区的基地www.blender.org. 这里是方案实施的基地.

1. The User Community, centered around the independent site www.elysiun.com. Here Blender artists, Blender gamemakers and Blender fans gather to show their creations, get feedback on them, and ask for help to get a better insight into Blender's functionality. Blender Tutorials and the Knowledge Base can be found here as well.

These two websites are not the only Blender resources. The Worldwide community has created a lot of independent sites, in local languages or devoted to specialized topics. A constantly updated listing of Blender resources can be found at the abovementioned sites.

For immediate online feedback there are three IRC chat channels permanently open on irc.freenode.net. You can join these with your favorite IRC client.

The IRC channels are #blenderchat, #blenderqa and #gameblender.

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请珍惜他人为你创造的学习环境.