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Blender

A free 3D creation suite.

Blender is a complete 3D pipeline in a single application: modelling, sculpting, rigging, animation, particle and physical simulation, motion tracking, video editing, and rendering with the Cycles (path-traced) and EEVEE (real-time) engines. It also includes a 2D animation system (Grease Pencil), a node-based shader and compositor, and Python scripting throughout. The breadth of capability is unusual: most professional 3D pipelines combine several specialised tools where Blender does everything in one application.

Originally an in-house tool at the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo, Blender went open source in 2002 after a community crowdfunding campaign bought out its proprietary rights — a remarkable moment in free software history. The Blender Foundation has stewarded the project ever since, with the Blender Animation Studio producing open-source short films that double as production tests.

Blender is used in everything from short films and video-game asset production to scientific visualisation, product design, architectural visualisation, and educational content. The 2.8 release (2019) was a major UI overhaul that made Blender substantially more approachable to users coming from other 3D software. Major film and game studios increasingly use Blender in production pipelines alongside or instead of Maya and 3ds Max.

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install blender
Fedora/RHEL:   sudo dnf install blender
Arch:          sudo pacman -S blender
macOS:         brew install --cask blender