Blender

What it is

Blender is a complete 3D creation suite maintained by the Blender Foundation and a large community. It covers modelling, sculpting, UV unwrapping, texture painting, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering and video editing. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Licence

Blender is released under the GNU General Public License. According to blender.org, you are free to use it for any purpose, including commercial work, and what you create with it (images, models, .blend files) is your sole property. The GPL applies to Blender itself, not to your artwork.

Is it worth learning as a programmer?

Enough of it, yes. You do not need to become a 3D artist. Learning to make simple low-poly models, fix imported assets and export correctly lets you:

• Build props and simple characters for a low-poly game.
• Adjust free assets: change colours, merge parts, fix scale and pivot points.
• Understand what artists hand you, which matters in studio roles.

What to learn first

• Navigating the viewport, selecting and transforming objects.
• Edit mode basics: extrude, inset, loop cuts and bevels.
• Flat shading with simple materials or a small palette texture.
• Exporting to glTF or FBX with the right scale and forward axis for your engine.

Time

A week of evenings for the basics of low-poly modelling. Blender's own manual and the many free beginner tutorials on YouTube cover these steps.

Free vs paid

Free. The Blender Development Fund accepts donations.

Common questions

Which export format? glTF works well with Godot and is widely supported; FBX is common with Unity and Unreal. Check your engine's import docs.

Is Blender too hard for beginners? The interface has a learning curve, but low-poly modelling uses a small set of tools you can learn quickly.

Where it fits in the Sefism roadmap

Blender is a reference pick in the art and audio stage and one of the roadmap's tools. Members who chose 2D can skip it until they need a 3D asset.