I’m old enough to vividly remember floppy discs – and Blender fitting on it! That was Blender 2.04, in 2000. For fun here’s a graph showing the growth of 32 bit download zips (the release binaries). It’s a graph growing nicely with Moore’s Law. Roughly double size every 2 years. 
Expect a 100 MB Windows installer in 2015.
Thanks Dan ‘troubled’ for the graph work!
26 comments
eibriel says:
Dec 17, 2011
I remember! The first version of Blender I ever download was 1.4Mb and fit perfectly in a floppy disk. The promotional image was a giraffebird
raok says:
Dec 17, 2011
You people are so old. Thanks
Lars Kemmann says:
Dec 17, 2011
I don’t exactly have a clean install folder anymore (many, many versions of Blender installed over each other), but it’s interesting to see in my 2.60 folder (~36 MB) that python takes up ~25 MB, scripts ~7 MB, and datafiles ~5 MB.
Once we get over 50 MB, I think it’ll be time for the download to go on a diet. A lot of the python and scripts components, for example, are probably not used by the majority of users, so maybe the add-ons and scripts could be downloaded on-demand? That would make community-based publishing and promoting of add-ons/scripts easier too, with a single place (plus mirrors) instead of having them scattered around forums and websites.
Light says:
Dec 18, 2011
When file size increase but bandwidth still limited, Blender.org will suffer more load on every later release. More reason to have later releases on BitTorrent.
Reynante Martinez says:
Dec 19, 2011
Wow, that’s surprising! Yet relieving in another way. I could just probably equate the additional space to additional features and usability. Sadly, I couldn’t remember what version of Blender I used first though.
-Reyn
AniCator says:
Dec 22, 2011
First I opened was 2.34. First version I actually used was 2.37a. XD
Lukas says:
Dec 20, 2011
The progression looks linear to me.
Rylan Grayston says:
Dec 26, 2011
I completely agree with Lars Kemmann
about the scripts being download on demand.
Scripts give blender alot of added functionality and this would allow for the rapid development that scrips enjoy to be experienced seamlessly by the end user.
This single place could host beta scrips that are not packaged with blender and would be a breeding ground for creativity
I would love to donate time to this endeavor anyone els interested?
Campbell Barton (ideasman42) says:
Jan 4, 2012
Scripts make up a very small part of blenders overall size is 2.6mb compressed, 7.4mb extracted.
So far I think they are small enough to be included, but if for some reason they go beyond ~10mb compressed or so, it could be good to look into download on demand for some larger scripts.
Fable Fox says:
Dec 31, 2011
I think a “differentiator” utility is better when Blender got bigger. It look for what has changed, and download accordingly. Both for installed and stand-alone directory.
I mean, I could just copy Blender262, paste, rename the new directory to Blender263, and run the “differentiator” from there, it check for what changed, and now the Blender inside \Blender263 IS Blender 2.63.
Fable Fox says:
Dec 31, 2011
That can save a lot of the bandwidth too, I think.
ZanQdo says:
Jan 1, 2012
This also affects graphicall, blender got so massive that our bandwidh has exploded and become expensive
Lawrence D’Oliveiro says:
Jan 7, 2012
You mean the 162MB Blender binary I’m getting from my CMake builds (on Debian Unstable AMD64) is a bit big …?
Wray Bowling says:
Jan 11, 2012
I wonder how much of that file size is plugins that come pre-packaged with 2.5+ I don’t advocate not including plugins… but then again… it might cut down on size? Think about how big Firefox would be if, when you downloaded it, it came with every plugin already installed. Instead, you can search for them, there’s a list of recommended ones, and you install them if you want them.
That applies for Graphicall too. How many peoples’ builds come with a full folder of plugins?
Daniel Wray says:
Jan 11, 2012
Infinite possibilities from only 35 million bytes.
Nabil Stendardo says:
Jan 14, 2012
100MB Windows installer? In 2015? It might seem like a lot, but look at the competition. I am pretty sure any of the Autodesk stuff (3DS Max, Maya, etc.) fills up a full DVD, if not more. Hey, even LibreOffice is over a hundred megs (And takes much longer than Blender to compile – compilation time is IMHO also a metric for bloat). You probably cannot find any mainstream professional software under 200 Megs, so in the light of that we cannot call Blender “bloated”. It’s one of the most lightweight software (Based on Features per line of Code – or FPLOC, as I call this “metric”) while staying very maintainable.
dams says:
Jan 24, 2012
Maybe it’s time to think about splitting Blender into several plugins:
- Game engine
- Modifiers
- Render engines
- Compositor
- …
Thorhian says:
Apr 22, 2012
Blender is fine the way it is, 100 MB isnt even that big XD.
cilitweni says:
Jun 16, 2012
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Jul 2, 2012
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Jul 3, 2012
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Avier says:
Jul 15, 2012
Try maya, It takes several gigabytes and its slower than a snail.
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Aug 20, 2012
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Zsolt Stefan says:
Nov 22, 2012
Yeah I also remember, the first few versions of Blender I had fit on a floppy. And only four files in the install if I remember correctly.
C-key, anyone?
fsmgnfwbj says:
May 6, 2013
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kdvbdimoz says:
May 9, 2013
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