I wrote an article about the differences between Blender an trueSpace for a beginning programmer/modeller. It goes in depth on the difficulties you might find when choosing the correct tool to make simple models to be used in XNA. It was just sitting at my blog but since a few people liked it, I thought maybe other people would like to read it aswell. People can find it here: link but the very short conclusion is that trueSpace might be better for beginners and programmers in general, while Blender might be better for the real modelling addict! I hope this is helpful to some people.

It seems to me like your conclusions might be summed up as:

"TrueSpace isn't as exciting as Blender, but it works better."

I mean, I look at the cons of Blender, and all four of them are different views on "the software doesn't work so well". Uncontrollable camera, difficult UI, inconsistent rendering... heck, you said the last one twice.

Meanwhile, the cons of TrueSpace appear to be a wishlist. There's nothing in there about things that don't work, just things that could be better.

Then you get into the meat of it, and when you use Blender, you have to jump through some hoops to make things work in XNA. Meanwhile, TrueSpace drops right in and works. I'm very confused as to why you say TrueSpace is for "beginners", when it seems clear to me that Blender is simply not as high-quality a program. Could you clarify that a little?

Blender is simply not as high-quality a program.

 

Blender is not buggy or low quality at all look at these renders for proof. http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/gallery/art-gallery/    the ui is good the camera works fine when you get used to it it takes longer to learn but blender works great once you learn it

Nice to see a different point of view. I prefer Blender, because of it's interface. There's no clicky-clicky-fun-fun to work around you just learn the keys you need and everything pretty much flows. I've found that now that I've figured out how to get XNA to properly display my FBX exports I have ZERO problems with Blender. AND noone can argue that the guy who does the Blender Underground videos is waaaay more fun to listen to than the folks who did the Truespace vids (no offence).

It's always good to get discussions like this. I especially love the links that come out of them, pointing me towards great resources like those tutorials! Thanks guys!

Hazardous Studios:

Nice to see a different point of view. I prefer Blender, because of it's interface. There's no clicky-clicky-fun-fun to work around you just learn the keys you need and everything pretty much flows. I've found that now that I've figured out how to get XNA to properly display my FBX exports I have ZERO problems with Blender. AND noone can argue that the guy who does the Blender Underground videos is waaaay more fun to listen to than the folks who did the Truespace vids (no offence).

Hey,

Thanks for your views on blender, however for a real beginner Blender is far more difficult. I've heard from allot of people that once you get to know blender, it is really getting better and better, and once you know all the shortcuts you can be very productive.

However UI wise its not really clear when some options are available and when some are not, even though some modes realy shouldnt excluse certain options.
Camera wise I don't really seem to have get the hang of it, how do you control the camrea so good.

Thanks for the Blender underground link! I will certainly check the videotutorials out since I use both blender and truespace! Btw what texturing technique do you use for porting to XNA?

(btw I think we can all agree that the XSI-Modtool videotuts are the most boring :P ) 

 

Edit: Oh and I try to be as unbiased as possible, so if people can point me to the correct techniques for blender and XNA (maybe UV-textureing?) or point me to a tutorial, I will certainly update my blog or post some "Part II the return of blender." Ofcourse if someone has another free modelling tool that he/she thinks is the right tool for XNA, please tell me so that I can look at it.

I started with Blender a few months ago and I'm comfortable with most of the features in the application.  Blender has some great plug-ins that offer some really cool options as well as a strong community.  So I would say if you are willing to invest the time, at least a few weeks to learning the U/I and shortcuts, Blender is a very powerful and free tool.  Look for video tutorials, that is how I learned.

I have spent only a few minutes with Truespace so I can't compare the two, but I can say that Blender became intuitive for me after about two weeks of regular usage.

Don't worry I will keep trying both programmes :). Btw the source code, with a small Camera and GameModel class are now online at: http://rapidshare.com/files/149787437/ModellingTests.rar.html

I am using Blender for my XNA project even though I have access to the so called "high end" 3D packages because after nearly a decade and a half of having to deal with the "high end" packages and their shenanigans for my career as a professional 3D artist, I've had it with the lot of them. (Houdini excluded. It's in a class all by itself and they know it which means you have to pay dearly for it and rightly so because there are things that just can't be done without killing yourself unless you have Houdini.)

Price alone is not the reason to give serious consideration to Blender though. Blender is superior to other 3D packages in so many different ways. For instance, the FBX support in Blender is better then what you'll get with official exporters for the "high end" packages, even from the people who OWN THE FORMAT. Try getting the official 3DS Max or Maya FBX exporter from Autodesk to spit out multiple animation clips in to a single FBX. It simply won't. In Blender on the other hand, each "Action", look it up, gets exported out as separate "animation takes" when one exports out an FBX. You have no idea what a time saver it is! Try merging FBX files by hand and you'll see.

And, don't even get me started on UV unwrapping. In Blender it just works. In every other package I've used, it's a pain in the ass at best.

As for the complaint about the UI, if these folks would bother to read through the online documentation a little they'll learn right away that they can set up Blender to work exactly the way they are used to working. I for instance don't use the default camera control, which is the "Trackball control", but use the "Turntable" camera control which is what pretty much every other 3D package uses. (BTW, trackball camera controls are in other 3D packages too. I don't use them there either.) I also don't use the right button to select. I have my "Select with" button set to left in "Views & Controls". You can even split up the UI so it looks like what ever 3D package you're used to using. I do this all the time where sometimes I might be working in a Maya like workspace while other times I use a 3DS Max like workspace. You can easily save and switch between them as well

Remember, Blender started out as the internal 3D package of a special effects company before it was open-sourced, hence the somewhat intimidating but very utilitarian UI. This is a big plus because while the so called "high end" packages were busy prettying up their UI and over bloating it with useless BS you'll never use, most everything in Blender is there because actual users deemed them useful and have continued to find them useful. Get to know the program. You'll soon be wondering why you've been wasting all this time and money on all those expensive "high end" 3D packages all this time.

Hmm, I used maya a few years ago, and I really did like it :).

I agree blender is nice, and I know blender is super customizable, but the intention of my article was "being able to begin instantly" not if a pro has more use for blender or another software package.

You also state that the UI is very ulitarian, but that doesnt mean that the UI couldnt be a bit more logical, I think a UI redesign + some more consistency between rendering, viewports and exports (at this moment there are some weird glitches there, why do textures show up on the model in the viewport, on the model when exported, but not when rendered?

I wish there was some way of a blender UI wrapper, that would make Blender perfect :).

RoyT:

Hmm, I used maya a few years ago, and I really did like it :).

I've had to use Maya since version 1.0 for my jobs and it's the worst offender when it comes to UI bloat and useless functions.  If  you look past their PR rhetoric, oh yeah this and that movie was made with Maya blechhhh, and see what it actually is, you'll see it's not all they're making it out to be.  I mean, you have to pay money to buy plugins for maya today to get access to polygonal modeling tools which have existed in Blender for several years now.  What Maya PR won't tell you is that these special effects facilities custom write everything only using Maya as a kind of user interface to their internally developed tools and unless you have this kind of money and man power to throw at the problem, Maya out of the box is mediocre at best.

RoyT:

but the intention of my article was "being able to begin instantly"

I've touched pretty much every single 3d packages that have ever come out, even those that have come and gone which most people don't even remember.  I don't ever recall ever being able to use a package to do anything useful "instantly".  3D packages are highly sophisticated special function applications, not magic boxes with a big red button on it that says "do it".  Trying to argue that some 3D package, or any software for that matter, is usable "instantly" is a pointless argument.  Is Photoshop usable "instantly" because you can choose file->new then doodle some line on the bitmap window with the pencil tool?  Not in my book.

RoyT:

the UI couldnt be a bit more logical

Logical according to whom?  There is a big button in the button window which says "Render".  Just because things are not where they are in other packages doesn't make it "less logical".  This is getting back to the same point.  Learn the thing and it becomes logical.  Not learning it and checking to see if where buttons are is not a test of the logic of a piece of software.

RoyT:

I wish there was some way of a blender UI wrapper, that would make Blender perfect

If you're interested in seeing if your ideas about improving Blender actually has any merit then you can post your ideas to bf-funboard, the mailing list open to anyone who's interested at http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-funboard.

That said I doubt a UI wrapper would end up all that high on the list of things to do for the actual developers.  I've found over the years that the ability to configure UI commands to one's exact specifications is actually mostly a detriment to one's overall level of productivity. Besides, the one I always gravitated towards, that of single button presses and minimal control key combinations, is what's already in Blender and is one of the things I found so much more superior about Blender in comparison to other 3D packages in the first place.  Unlike the arbitrary "I gotta get through this boring UI programming task" way UI for most 3D packages are put together, Blender UI's been through many iteration cycles by developers who don't get paid a cent to make it but make it because they are users themselves. Again, this goes back to the point.  The thing is to learn and see.

At the end of the day, it's better because it's different, not because it's more of the same.