Free 3D Graphic Packages for the Mac: Part 2

To follow up on my post of a couple of days ago, the second 3D graphics package for the Mac is Blender which is an open-source software project of quite some sophistication.  This software competes with Maya, 3DS Max, and a host of other high-end 3D graphics packages.  The software is complete and doesn't impose any limitations like watermarks or file saving limitations.  And the software is being frequently updated by a very active programming group.  Check out the software Features here.

Here is a static shot from the home webpage Gallery to show some of the capabilities:

Blender is much more than a static package.  It has very extensive animation and rendering capabilities, game generation, and a host of other features.  But be warned, this package, though powerful, will take some time to learn.  The good news is that there is a lot of tutorial material at the Blender website and even more that you can find via Google and YouTube.  There are also books you can buy that offer instruction. 

Blender has a unique interface which is both a plus and a minus.  It doesn't look or act like anything else on the Mac (because it is ported for Windows and Linux, as well).  

I would put this one in the "future reference" category in case the need should ever arise.  

Free 3D Graphics Packages for the Mac: Part 1

Have you seen Avatar in 3D?  Pretty cool...and the movie even had a story.  What more could you ask for?

If the movie inspired a desire to create your own 3D graphics, I have two suggestions; one easier, one harder.  Both free.  The first is Sketchup 7 from our good friends at Google.  I'll talk about the second, Blender, in a later post. Sketchup was originally conceived to be an architectural program and Google bought the start-up company to allow people to easily put buildings into Google Earth.  But Sketchup is capable of much more.  And best of all, it has a fairly intuitive interface and skads of support.  You can download Sketchup here. You want the basic version, not Sketchup 7 Pro which costs 500 bucks.

So what can you do?  Check out the pictures below (both from the Google 3D Warehouse).

Both the Eames chair and the Arc de Triomphe were built with Sketchup.  Believe or not, the Arc was probably simpler to make than the chair.  And if you like something you see in the 3D Warehouse, you can download it and modify it with your own copy of Sketchup.   I did the yard plan for our house (below) in Venice with Sketchup.  You can see it will also do dimensions which can be handy.  This also shows that it can be used for two dimensional drawings as well. Think of it as a great tool for planning furniture arrangements.

Want help figuring out how to use Sketchup?  There is a ton of help and tutorials at the Google site.  In addition, just type in Sketchup Tutorial into YouTube and see what you get.  Check out this one for modeling and old-time radio.

Reading RSS Feeds

If you're like me and like to read blogs and web news sites (or you want to simplify getting my other blog, Technology Almanac), you could use a good RSS reader application.  It is true that you already have some built-in options.  For instance, if you use Gmail, you have Google Reader which is a fairly sophisticated RSS reader.  I think the interface looks cluttered and hard to read, but that is just me.  If you use Mac Mail, you can have your RSS feeds added to your left-hand menu in Mail -  but that only works for a small number of feeds and then it gets cluttered.

Which brings me to my RSS Reader of choice, NetNewsWire from NewsGator.  NetNewsWire is free (always a good start) and has a host of features.  You can organize your feeds into folders and sub-folders.  You get a very clean reading interface.  You get tabbed browsing (just like Safari).  And you can save your favorite feeds into a Clippings file for later referral.

So let's look at the interface below:

If you use Mail, this should look familiar.  Feeds are on the left, the list of new posts from a specific feed are on the top-right, and the text of the post is in the bottom-right.  Tabbed browsing is on the far right.  This is a very clean and intuitive interface to work with. 

NetNewsWire has a built in browser window which means that if you click on a hot link, it will open right up in the Reader.  If you prefer (and this is what I do), you can change that behavior in the NetNewsWire Preferences so that any link is opened in Safari.  This just seems to keep things a little more organized for me but you might have a different experience.

Subscribing and unsubscribing are dead-nuts simple.  You can set up NetNewsWire to be your preferred RSS reader.  To do that, have Safari be the active window, open Preferences, click the RSS tab at the top and set NetNewsWire in the drop down.  See below:

Now, when you click on the RSS button that appears at the right side of the URL bar in Safari, the Subscribe Window from NetNewsWire will automatically open and give you the option of renaming the feed or using the default.  Click Subscribe and you're done.  

Some added bonuses of NewNewsWire is that you can sync all your feeds with Google Reader so that you can still have them when you are on someone else's computer.  And, if you have an iPod Touch or iPhone, there is a free app by the same name that also lets you read them on the those devices.  

There are more features you can read on the NewsGator homepage for NetNewsWire.  Hope you enjoy it.