Finally some more good news after a week of anxiety. It is official, Nick Porcaro, one of the founders of the NYC Blender User Group, is confirmed to present at our 3rd Annual New Media conference. I had been working on getting Nick to present for awhile. This week he emailed me and graciously agreed to give an overview of the Blender application at our conference. Nick’s talk will be an introduction to computer graphics using Blender. He will address topics such as, mesh modeling, texturing, rendering, animation, and real time interaction.
The reason that I have been so interested in getting Nick to speak is because I am proposing the introduction of a 3D modeling course into the New Media curriculum. It is my hope that I will be able to solidify interest in Blender at LaGuardia. For those that don’t know, Blender is an open source 3D animation program that can be used for everything from modeling and animating, to creating interactive 3D gaming applications. It is available on all the major operating systems and is similar in scope and depth to other high-end 3D software such as Softimage|XSI, Cinema 4D, 3d Studio Max and Maya. The main difference between Blender and the other applications is that Blender is totally free.
One of the issues with implementing a 3D animation course is that the software can be extremely expensive. This can be a serious barrier for students looking to acquire software for use at home. This won’t be the case if Blender is the application that we use. I know that students are really good at getting their hands on software, but the use of open source software would allow them to acquire the software legally. And yes, believe it or not, that is a good thing.