What Blender does
Blender is a free, open-source suite for creating and rendering three-dimensional content, developed and maintained by the Blender Foundation. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and covers the full production pipeline within a single application rather than requiring separate tools for each stage. On the modeling side, Blender provides both polygon mesh editing and sculpting tools. Surfaces can be shaped using subdivision, multi-resolution sculpting, and procedural modifiers. UV unwrapping and a node-based shader editor allow artists to define physically based materials and textures. Once geometry and materials are ready, scenes can be rendered with Cycles, a physically accurate path-tracing renderer, or with EEVEE, a real-time rasterization renderer designed for fast interactive feedback. Both renderers share a common material system, so switching between them is straightforward. Animation tools include a rigging system with bones and weight painting, a non-linear animation editor for blending action clips, shape keys for facial animation, and physics simulations for cloth, fluids, smoke, fire, and rigid and soft bodies. Grease Pencil is a distinctive Blender feature that lets artists draw and animate in two dimensions within the same three-dimensional scene, making it useful for concept art, storyboarding, and stylized animation. A built-in compositor lets users apply color grading and post-processing effects to rendered images and sequences. A video sequence editor handles basic cut editing and mixing. An extensive Python scripting API exposes nearly all internal functions, which supports a large community-maintained add-on ecosystem. Blender is licensed under the GNU General Public License, which means it is free to download, use, modify, and distribute, including for commercial projects. The full standalone installer is hosted on download.blender.org and can set up Blender on a machine without an internet connection. Always download from the official publisher domain listed on this page.
