Okay, so I decided to explore Blender again. Since POV-Ray and Moray don’t work as they should on Vista I need a replacement, and preferably a free one. I had tried Blender before, and while it’s incredibly powerful, it’s also difficult as hell. Dev.Mag, a South African game development magazine, has an excellent series of tutorials, so let’s try that out.
But that’s not the main point of this post. What this is about is this: a Blender hotkey map. Since Blender relies heavily on keyboard shortcuts, something like this is a must have. It has a full reference for both object and mesh edit mode. Before I can print it I have to change a few details, though. The problem is, here in Belgium a querty keyboard is rarely used. Instead, we have azerty keyboards, and it turns out Belgium and France are the only countries in the world where that layout is used. I have no idea why that is. It has nothing to do with language, because the Dutch use querty keyboards and they speak (more or less) the same language. Nothing to really worry about, just switch a few keys and the problem is solved.

For creating vector drawings, Inkscape is an excellent, free application. The Inkscape tutorials blog hosts lots of excellent tutorials on how to draw and create all sorts of great effects. It has tutorials about text effects, drawing shapes and 3D objects. And if you have a tutorial you would like to share with the rest of the world, you can submit it!
Another good collection of tutorials can be found at Screencasters, wich has video tutorials. These are really great! Currently, there are 47 tutorials, starting with some very basic stuff and moving on to more advanced techniques. The guy who created them explains everything he does while he’s doing it, making it very easy to follow.
And finally, there’s the Inkscape Forum, where you can show off your work, post your own tutorials or ask for help if you’re stuck. It’s quite active, so you should have no problem finding help there.

• The Inkscape tutorials blog
• Screencasters
• Inkscape Forum