I happen to like Blender, since it is both free and packed with features. It's decent for almost any task, but the interface can use some work. I'm not referring to the buttons, but the keys. I use a Kinesis Ergo board, and I find it difficult to switch views. I think it would be nice to have a new [modifier]+[midmouse] combination that would switch top left right and camera views.

I do like blender's output, but it can be somewhat lacking. When you solve radiosity, it uses vertexpainting to create radiosity maps. This also shorts out any patterened texture you have. Currently, radiosity is relegated to stills, since you can only burn the scene by individual frame.

Reflection mapping is also painful to use. You have to take it from an object, and it cannot default to the object calling it. I would think individually reflecting from each surface would be a better solution, and it is a solution used by many other companies.

I haven't tried out the GameBlender portion, and I probably won't. I'm more interested in making small clips than games. The engine examples are very nice though!

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