Blender UV Image Editor Freeware For Animators And Professionals

When you need to map a 2D image to make it appear to be 3D, Blender UV Image Editor is a simple, free application that has all the features you'd expect in an expensive software package.  It is compatible with Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Linux, AmigaOS, BSD, BeOS, IRIX, MorphOS, Pocket PC, Solaris, and SkyOS operating systems.

Blender UV Image Editor rivals commercial studio 3D animation suites. It is wildly popular for third party game developers, and many iPad and other games were built on it. Since it is freeware, countless people from all over the world have generously donated their time and expertise in not only maintaining and upgrading the software, but training others to use it through free tutorials, forums and blogs, as well as developing countless features and add-ons.

Blender 3D can be used to create animation and video games as well as for lighting effects in the movie industry for both animated and real life films. It is also widely used for modeling and visual 3D effects as used in many industries, including architecture, engineering, earth science, medical (for anatomical and organ modeling) and the chemical sciences (for detailed models of chemical compounds) and to create 3D models for various uses, including education and sales or marketing presentations. It can also be used for rendering and texturing, instead of importing images that have already been altered. It imports from and exports to an extensive list of compatible programs.

UV mapping, where U and V are the names of axes on the plane instead of the X, Y, and Z as used for coordinates in 3D, is used to unwrap a 2D image onto a 3D surface. There are several ways to do this in the software, and the best method is determined by the effects you are wanting. You can also choose to split the work surface into several sectors, treating each one differently.

Blender UV Image Editor supports unwrapping onto several geometric forms, subdivided surfaces, and metaballs, as well as outline font. For more sculpting capabilities, digital sculpting allows the creator to manipulate a digital object as if it were made of clay. Bézier curves for animation and interface design is a tool to control motion, including velocity over time and allows the effects to be intuitively modified. NURBS (non-uniform rational basis spline) allows for the addition of analytic and freeform shapes like curves and irregular surfaces.

Further animation features are available for free (technically for mentioning the creator's contribution) at the Blender site, including skins and fur, as well as plants, grass, metals, organic substances, car paints, and many other surfaces to make animation more real and easier. Additional meshes for architectural features from beams to staircases and windows make building animation and other 3D worlds fast and fun.

Like many other free operating systems, software and computer applications, such as Linux, Mozilla Firefox, Open Office, and countless others, the ardor of the users (who become developers) builds superior products that rival or outdo their expensive corporate-produced counterparts. Blender UV Image Editor is another open source computer application that will exceed your expectations.