First Go at Blender

I’m a huge fan of Open Source software, and one in particular, Blender,  has recently re-kindled my interest in 3-D modeling and animation. Blender is a full-fledged Open Source 3-D modeling and animation software that’s been making quite a few headlines as of late, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I’ve used 3D Studio Max before but there’s no way I can afford to buy that, so I downloaded the latest version of Blender (2.49 as of this writing) and started to mess with it.

I’m one of those people who HATES reading software manuals (or any kind of manual for that matter) and I usually just like to tinker with things and figure them out. But I have to admit that the first time I ran Blender, I was completely lost. I think that initial startup screen can really drive some people away immediately because it’s just so different than any other software that I’ve ever used. You get a window staring back at you with a cube in the middle of it. You left click thinking that it will select something, and it doesn’t. Then you look at the bottom of the screen and there are tons of buttons, and panels, and dialog boxes, and buttons. It just freaked me out. I wanted to create something and finally found the menu to add a sphere. But then I had no idea how to select it, scale it, or do anything else to it.

After my first fruitless encounter, I was still determined to give Blender a fair try, so I got on blender.org and started searching for some tutorials. Fortunately there are plenty of great tutorials out there for Blender, as well as a huge community of active and friendly users. I was able to quickly find some excellent tutorials that got me started on my way.

So I started my second session of Blender with a focus on learning the user interface and getting the hang of the way Blender “thinks” and operates. After about 15 minutes, I was thoroughly amazed. Frankly, it’s a beautifully designed program. Once you understand how it works, you realize that it’s really very intuitive and efficient. I’ve only spent about 15 minutes with it so far and was able to make the following experimental geometry which started out as a simple cube:

I still can’t believe that this is Open Source software and free to use. I think it can easily hold its own against most of the high-end commercial 3-D apps. I will definitely be messing with it more and posting my progress here, so keep your eyes peeled!

New Home Music Studio

I love playing music. I have been playing the tablas off and on since I was around the age of 7. I have never had any formal training and I don’t even remember how I started playing the tablas. I just remember that I used to have a set and somehow knew how to play them.

For years, the only thing I ever played were the tablas, but in high school I developed an interest in playing keyboards. Coming from a background in Afghan and Indian music, naturally I gravitated towards the harmonium. But finding a decent harmonium in the U.S. was no easy task at the time. But as luck would have it, my brother was getting married in Pakistan, so when he was heading out to get married, I made a request that they bring me back a harmonium. Pakistan isn’t known for great harmoniums as most of the good ones come from India, but my brother and my Mom were able to find a decent one for me. I was ecstatic when I got my hands on my first harmonium. In fact, I still have that one, although I now prefer a newer one that I acquired from Afghanistan when I myself went there to get married! But that’s another story (and a good one)!

The Korg M3, My First Real Synth

Anyhow, I’ve acquired quite a lot of musical instruments since my high school days. I’m now 35 and out of college and working, and spending most of my hard-earned cash on musical instruments and computer hardware. My most prized musical instrument at the moment is my first ever synth, a Korg M3. I had been eying this bad boy ever since its introduction, but could never muster up the cash to get one. But that’s when ebay came into play. Read more »

Welcome to my brand-new shiny blog!

Howdy folks. I know I’ve made an attempt at a blog before, but I promise that this time I’m going to actually keep it updated! In fact, to show you how committed I am, I’ve actually given it a dedicated domain name (www.tamim.net). But if you’re here, then you already knew that!

So welcome aboard and stay tuned for my ramblings to come.