Blender

**Blender** is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software toolset used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, motion graphics, interactive 3D applications, virtual reality, and computer games. Blender's features include 3D modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, raster graphics editing, rigging and skinning, fluid and smoke simulation, particle simulation, soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, rendering, motion graphics, video editing, and compositing.

## History

The Dutch animation studio NeoGeo (not associated with the Neo Geo video game hardware brand) started to develop Blender as an in-house application, and based on the timestamps for the first source files, January 2, 1994 is considered to be Blender's birthday. The version 1.00 was released in January 1995, with the primary author being company co-owner and software developer Ton Roosendaal. The name *Blender* was inspired by a song by the Swiss electronic band Yello, from the album *Baby* which NeoGeo used in its showreel. Some of the design choices and experiences for Blender were carried over from an earlier software application, called Traces, that Roosendaal developed for NeoGeo on the Commodore Amiga platform during the 1987–1991 period.

On January 1, 1998, Blender was released publicly online as SGI freeware. NeoGeo was later dissolved and its client contracts were taken over by another company. After NeoGeo's dissolution, Ton Roosendaal founded Not a Number Technologies (NaN) in June 1998 to further develop Blender, initially distributing it as shareware until NaN went bankrupt in 2002. This also meant, at the time, discontinuing the development of Blender.

In May 2002, Roosendaal started the non-profit Blender Foundation, with the first goal to find a way to continue developing and promoting Blender as a community-based open-source project. On July 18, 2002, Roosendaal started the *"Free Blender"* campaign, a crowdfunding precursor. The campaign aimed at open-sourcing Blender for a one-time payment of €100,000 (US$100,670 at the time), with the money being collected from the community. On September 7, 2002, it was announced that they had collected enough funds and would release the Blender source code. Today, Blender is free and open-source software, largely developed by its community as well as 24 employees employed by the Blender Institute.

The Blender Foundation initially reserved the right to use dual licensing, so that, in addition to GPLv2, Blender would have been available also under the *Blender License* that did not require disclosing source code but required payments to the Blender Foundation. However, they never exercised this option and suspended it indefinitely in 2005. Blender is solely available under "GNU GPLv2 or any later" and was not updated to the GPLv3, as "no evident benefits" were seen.

In 2019, with the release of version 2.80, the integrated game engine for making and prototyping video games was removed; Blender's developers recommended users migrate to more powerful open source game engines such as Godot instead.
Suzanne as a 3D model

### Suzanne

Around February 2002 it was clear that the company behind Blender, NaN, could not survive and would close its doors in March. Nevertheless, they put out one more release, Blender 2.25. As a sort-of easter egg and last personal tag the artists and developers decided to add a 3D model of a chimpanzee head (although it is called a "monkey" in the software). It was created by Willem-Paul van Overbruggen (SLiD3), who named it **Suzanne** after the orangutan in the Kevin Smith film *Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back*.

Suzanne is Blender's alternative to more common test models such as the Utah Teapot and the Stanford Bunny. A low-polygon model with only 500 faces, Suzanne is included in Blender and often used as a quick and easy way to test materials, animations, rigs, textures, and lighting setups. It is as easily added to a scene as a cube or plane.

The largest Blender contest gives out an award called the **Suzanne Award**.