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Blender is a professional-grade free and open source 3D computer graphics package that was first released in 1995. It is proof that the Open Source model can produce software that competes with the very best proprietary packages on the market.
This software is used for just about any conceivable application of 3D modelling on a computer. Blender has been used to create short films, commercials, visual effects, models for video games and 3D printing and more.
Blender encompasses the entire 3D modelling and animation pipeline and as of its most recent version is an almost complete solution,making it ideal for small and independent studios to create competitive products.
SYSTEM RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BLENDER:
As you can imagine Blender will take as much computing power as you can throw at it. However, different specifications are of importance depending on the specific part of the pipeline a given computer will be working on. If one computer will be used for everything from modelling, rigging, animation and rendering then it needs to have everything: multiple CPU cores, multiple GPUs, lots of RAM and high-speed storage.
It may however be a good idea to have a more midrange workstation(s) to handle pre-rendering jobs and build one system that handles rendering and is specialized to that job. Blender can make use of multiple GPUs to reduce rendering time when using GPU rendering mode. For example, by adding a second identical GPU you will cut rendering times in half since the workload is divided between the two cards. Adding a third or a fourth GPU will not scale quite so perfectly, but comes quite close to doubling speeds again. It is very important that GPUs used for rendering have adequate RAM which in this case means about 8GB if possible.
GPU Rendering
GPU Rendering makes it possible to use your graphics card for rendering, instead of the CPU. This can speed up rendering, because modern GPUs are designed to do quite a lot of number crunching. On the other hand, they also have some limitations in rendering complex scenes, due to more limited memory, and issues with interactivity when using the same graphics card for display and rendering.
Cycles has two GPU rendering modes: CUDA, which is the preferred method for NVIDIA graphics cards; and OpenCL, which supports rendering on AMD graphics cards.
Configuration To enable GPU rendering, go into the User Preferences, and under the System tab, select the Compute Device(s) to use. Next, for each scene, you can configure to use CPU or GPU rendering in the Render properties. CUDA
NVIDIA CUDA is supported for GPU rendering with NVIDIA graphics cards. We support graphics cards starting from GTX 4xx (computing capability 2.0).
Cycles requires recent NVIDIA drivers to be installed, on all operating systems.
For more information on this application please visit their website at: https://www.blender.org/
Operating systems supported by Blender:
Windows 10 64-Bit
Windows 8.1 64-bit (pro)
Windows 7 64-bit (Professional and Ultimate)
Linux Based OS
LIST OF COMPATIBLE WORKSTATIONS
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