I don't think any other free apps come close to blender as a complete, modeling, animation and rendering tool.
I remember when Blender was a commercial project. When I went to my first games industry convention, close to 10 years ago. Was about $200 initialy and was featured as the next best thing whilst doing the rounds at all the Games industry trade shows. Came with printed manual and everything. This was around the time 3dsmax 1 or 2 was out and I was using that at Uni.
It showed promise, but couldn't hold its own against lightwave, softimage original maya and 3dsmax and they went bankrupt soon after.
I think it was soon after that it was released for free. It's come a long way since then, but still has a rubbish GUI, which was its biggest problem a decade ago. Some things just don't seem to change much.
I probably still have the original brochure for blender in the attick back home, I left for the US soon after the trade show.
I remember when Blender was a commercial project. When I went to my first games industry convention, close to 10 years ago. Was about $200 initialy and was featured as the next best thing whilst doing the rounds at all the Games industry trade shows. Came with printed manual and everything. This was around the time 3dsmax 1 or 2 was out and I was using that at Uni.
It showed promise, but couldn't hold its own against lightwave, softimage original maya and 3dsmax and they went bankrupt soon after.
I think it was soon after that it was released for free. It's come a long way since then, but still has a rubbish GUI, which was its biggest problem a decade ago. Some things just don't seem to change much.
I probably still have the original brochure for blender in the attick back home, I left for the US soon after the trade show.