Blender 3D Creation Suite

Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite supporting the entire 3D pipeline including modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, video editing, and game creation. Originally developed by Ton Roosendaal and NaN (Not a Number) Technologies in the Netherlands in 1995 as a proprietary in-house tool, Blender was open-sourced in 2002 under the GNU GPL after a community fundraising campaign (100,000 euros). Key features: 3D modeling with polygon modeling, NURBS surfaces, metaballs, subdivision surface, sculpting (with 20+ brushes, Dynamic Topology, and Cloth/Position/Gravity brushes), and procedural geometry via Geometry Nodes (node-based procedural modeling system). UV unwrapping with Smart UV Project, manual unwrapping, and live unwrap. Texturing: node-based material editor (Shader Nodes) with PBR (Physically Based Rendering) materials, procedural textures (noise, voronoi, musgrave), and image textures. Rendering: Cycles (path-tracing renderer with GPU acceleration via CUDA, OptiX, HIP, Metal, and OneAPI) and Eevee (real-time PBR renderer for fast preview and final output). Grease Pencil for 2D animation within a 3D environment, combining 2D drawing with 3D camera and lighting. Rigging and animation: armature (skeletal) rigging, inverse kinematics (IK), shape keys (morph targets), constraints, drivers, and the Non-Linear Animation (NLA) editor. Physics simulation: rigid body, cloth, soft body, fluid (Mantaflow), smoke/fire (Mantaflow), particle systems (hair, grass, explosions), and dynamic paint. Compositor: node-based compositing for post-processing renders. Video Sequence Editor (VSE) for video editing. Python API for custom add-ons and automation. Geometry Nodes (since 2.9x) for procedural geometry generation. Cross-platform: Linux, Windows, macOS (including Apple Silicon). GPL-2.0.