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Since asking for tutorials, videos, resources, links to other content or downloads is considered off topic here, this is a specifically created Community Wiki which gathers resources for Blender and it has been approved by the Community.

Just write in the appropriate answer/section. If you have concerns, questions, post a meta question, so we don't clutter the comments, but you can link your meta question from the comments.

Questions regarding such resources are not allowed anymore, except for very specific and on topic requests (ask on Meta if you're unsure about your question). Follow the instructions made in the question about how to post, what can be posted, etc.

Learning

Assets

Tools

Other

Also see the beginner's reference.

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    $\begingroup$ Use sites like: slant.co to collect interested resources relating to a topic. asked here: slant.co/topics/1761/… $\endgroup$
    – ideasman42
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 11:19
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    $\begingroup$ @ideasman42 See meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/410/… and chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/17380369#17380369 $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 18:09
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    $\begingroup$ @ideasman42 We discussed this on meta. Since every few weeks or so a question pops up about resources, we thought it best to just have one community compiled resource and be done with it. Other sites on se have something like this. It's strictly blender and a wiki so anyone can contribute. We have one on meta but new users aren't familiar with se and might not be aware of it so we are porting it to the main site and adding new sources. $\endgroup$
    – iKlsR
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 18:25
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    $\begingroup$ Really think these questions should be disallowed, asking for lists of links which will change fairly often is totally outside SE format. $\endgroup$
    – ideasman42
    Commented Aug 31, 2014 at 21:49
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    $\begingroup$ @ideasman42 Discussion should happen on the relevant meta. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Sep 1, 2014 at 1:53

19 Answers 19

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Every section listed alphabetically

Textures


HDR/JPEG Skydome Images


Stock Photos

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External Tools

  • AwesomeBump is a free and open source program written using Qt library designed to generate normal, height, specular or ambient occlusion, metallic, roughness textures from a single image.

  • CharMorph is an innovative character creation tool based on MB-Lab, offering a seamless and flexible workflow for character artists and animators.

  • GIMP is a free and open source program designed for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

  • Hugin - Panorama Photo Stitcher

  • Inkscape is a free and open source vector graphics editor.

  • JMC2OBJ - Minecraft to .obj converter for makers of MC scenes.

  • Krita is a free digital painting and illustration application.

  • LICEcap is a free and open source program that can capture an area of your desktop and save it directly to .GIF, or its own native lossless .LCF file format. It is available for Windows and Mac only, but the Windows version works remarkably well on Linux, through Wine.

  • MB-Lab is a free and open source Blender add-on up to Blender 4.0 that creates humanoid characters. For Blender 4.1 and newer, take a look at CharMorph. It is based off the popular ManuelBastioniLAB and offers standard skeletons for animation, anthropological phenotypes library, clothing and hair, morphing parameters, Anime Characters, and facial expressions as shape keys.

  • MakeHuman is a free and open source software for creating realistic 3D human models and rigs. The add-on MPFB2 can be thought of as a reimplementation of MakeHuman as a Blender add-on.

  • Materialize Free and Open source tool for creating material layers from flat images. Diffuse -> Height, Diffuse -> Metallic, Diffuse -> Smoothness, Height -> Normal, Height + Diffuse -> Normal, Normal -> Edge, Normal -> Occlusion, Normal + Height -> Occlusion, Normal -> Height, Seamlessly tile your textures, Save and load in a variety of formats, Automate many processes with clipboard commands in xml format.

  • Meshroom is a free, open-source 3D Reconstruction Software based on the AliceVision framework.

  • Peek is also a free and open source program that can capture and area of your desktop and save it directly to .GIF, which it is optimized for, or to .APNG, .WebM, or .MP4. It is made for Linux operating systems.

  • PureRef is a simple and lightweight freeware tool for artists to organize and view their reference images. It is available for Windows, Mac or Linux.

  • Daz 3D The standalone free software can export human models to Blender file format. It also has a paid store of assets for figures like clothing.

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External Render engines:

  • LuxCoreRender (formerly LuxRender) is a physically based and unbiased rendering engine. Supports Blender integration.

  • Yafaray is a free open-source raytracing engine which supports both biased an unbiased rendering methods. Supports Blender integration.

  • TheBounty is a free montecarlo raytracing engine. (fork of Yafaray)

  • Mitsuba is a research-oriented rendering system in the style of PBRT.

  • Appleseed is a modern, open source, physically-based renderer designed for production rendering.

  • Jot is a program that lets designers, artists and animators directly annotate 3D computer graphics models (and animation) for stylized (NPR) rendering [in real time].

    A blender exporter and more up to date info can be found here.

  • Nox is a free stand-alone, physically-accurate state-of-an-art renderer. Windows only
    (open-source since 2014 but seems original authors abandoned).

  • Aqsis is a cross-platform 3D rendering solution adhering to the RenderMan standard.

  • POV-ray is a high-quality, Free Software tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. Supports Blender integration.

  • PRMan Another cross platform integration of Pixar's RendermanProServer 20.0+ (Free for non-commercial use).

  • V-Ray for Blender An add-on that packages a .blend file and converts it into a format that V-Ray standalone knows how to render.

  • B-Maxwell
    The B-Maxwell add-on is a basic exporter from Blender to Maxwell Render (Windows and Linux). "B-Maxwell add-on offers seamless integration with Maxwell Render and Blender"

  • Octane-Render Commercial plugin for blender available. GPU accelerated Unbiased rendering engine.

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Rendering services:

  • rentaflop fast and affordable crowdsourced rendering.

  • Sheep-it is a free distributed render farm for Blender.

  • Ray Pump Closed down in 2016 is a software that provides free, easy and efficient access to GPU/CPU Render Farm. Current version is designed for Blender and its Cycles engine.

  • Blender Grid

  • RenderStreet (highly recommended among blender users)

  • Renderfarm.fi (seems to be defunct, doesn't load)

  • Fox Renderfarm offers free 25 credits for new one

  • Garage Farm

  • Rendicity

  • Keyframez

  • VFXFarm Fast Cloud Rendering Service Supports Major Plugins Maya, Octane, Blender, Houdini.

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Materials

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  • $\begingroup$ I cant find the license in absolutely any place for the materials downloadable from blender-materials.com, any idea? $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 6, 2016 at 3:06
  • $\begingroup$ @AquariusPower No idea. You could try contacting them (perhaps via their twitter? I don't see an email address..). I don't see much recent activity either. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Jan 6, 2016 at 5:46
  • $\begingroup$ A pity, their site is working really well (search/download), but I cant be sure when using those files :(. I found their google+ account and an email there at info icon. thx! $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 6, 2016 at 6:24
  • $\begingroup$ oh, but anyway, as my goal is model for games, and blender-materials.com had some compatible (not cycles), I was interested, but I just found out that we can bake cycles materials into textures, so may be I just give up on it :) $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 6, 2016 at 6:28
  • $\begingroup$ @ gandalf3 blender-material.org website not working? $\endgroup$
    – atek
    Commented Nov 6, 2016 at 6:49
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Models

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  • $\begingroup$ Is it okay if I bring all the websites list from Noob to Pro book? The interface there is kinda hard on the eye. $\endgroup$
    – groundjet
    Commented Nov 19, 2016 at 13:46
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    $\begingroup$ @groundjet hm.. If you want, but maybe put them in a separate "noob to pro" answer and note the date, in case the list changes in the future. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Nov 20, 2016 at 0:40
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Blogs


Communities and Forums

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    $\begingroup$ I understand there are Facebook blender groups, but I deliberately don't facebook, so perhaps others will edit in links. $\endgroup$
    – brasshat
    Commented Jun 25, 2015 at 19:30
  • $\begingroup$ just have done so ;-) $\endgroup$
    – Samoth
    Commented Feb 9, 2016 at 17:44
  • $\begingroup$ Also added Google+ communities for us non-facebookers $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 20, 2017 at 2:05
  • $\begingroup$ What about Discord? $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 12, 2019 at 6:22
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Sounds

Ambient and Songs

Sound Effects

  • Freesound Has a large collection of sound effects.
  • FreeSFX has a medium(ish) collection of free sounds. (Registration required)
  • YouTube Audio Library contains royalty-free sound effects

Game Sounds

  • sfxr Is a simple sound effect generator
  • Bfxr Is is an elaboration of sfxr and has a web interface which allows download of created effect.
  • OpenGameArt.org: sound effects, music, and more. Various licenses.
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  • $\begingroup$ Don't think we should have screenshots for anything, unless we have screenshots for everything. $\endgroup$
    – Greg Zaal
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 11:09
  • $\begingroup$ I agree, at least in this case.. I don't really see the point of this specific screenshot. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 18:13
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Books

NOTE: Check the Blender Store on the books listed below to see if they can be purchased through that facility; doing so helps support the Blender foundation.

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

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  • $\begingroup$ I miss a book which concentrates entirely on animation, especially animating characters, not for beginners but for advanced topics, like building a good posing library. $\endgroup$
    – Brain
    Commented Apr 27, 2016 at 7:37
  • $\begingroup$ It's hard enough to find a book that focuses on animation for begginners. $\endgroup$
    – Millard
    Commented Aug 11, 2019 at 13:04
  • $\begingroup$ i do agree that intermediate books are far to rare. $\endgroup$
    – Millard
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 13:37
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Integration with GIS (Geographic Information Systems (GIS))

There is no direct support for GIS in Blender, but there are a few addons to work with GIS data:

1) https://github.com/domlysz/BlenderGIS (Shapefile and georeferenced raster files)

2) https://github.com/vvoovv/blender-geo (OpenStreetMap, SRTM, GPX).

Also read here how georeferencing can be introduced to Blender.

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Background Mathematics

Linear Algebra

Animation

Raytracing

Physical Simulation

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  • $\begingroup$ This is currently just a quick list that I put together off the top of my head as a response to blender.stackexchange.com/questions/135287/…, hopefully people can make this a bit better. $\endgroup$
    – Sazerac
    Commented Mar 26, 2019 at 0:27
  • $\begingroup$ There needs to be a scripting category. $\endgroup$
    – Millard
    Commented Oct 18, 2019 at 13:39
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Gometry Nodes and Simulation Nodes

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AI

Artificial Intelligence generators

  • meshy.ai (paid; 20 free uses per month)
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