Is Blender suitable for me?

Hello!
I have knowledge in programming, but have zero knowledge in animation and whole Blender sphere.
Sometimes I need to create intro or outro or speceffects for my videos but I don’t know how.
Also I have idea to create 2D or 3D movies (I dont know what is easy and fast for first time) for small kids.
I have question: is Blender for me or I must use another software, for example, BlackMagickDesign Fusion or something else?
Thank you.

Hi,

gaining knowledge about any software , or process in general, needs practice and time. You just can’t expect to create great things
without studying the tools you might use.
The only one who can answer your question is you. Since luckily Blender is free, just download it and work your way thrue some beginner tutorials.
When it comes to 2D Animation, it is possible to do it in Blender, but it is not a 2D Drawing/Animation Program in the traditional sense.
So in Conclusion I would say familiarise yourself with the Blender Interface first, then you have the intro, outro and sfx covered.
Try out other software packages as well, so you have something in comparison.
In general production pipelines often are based on more than one Software package. You might need a 2D Pixel based editor for manipulation textures for example. So, check as many tools out that you can, and see for yourself what feels natural to you.
Then of course it depends if you want to get everything for free, or if you are willing to pay money.
Spending money doesn’t mean necessarily that you get a better software package. There are even commercial projects that are based on 3DS-Max where still Blender was used. So just be open minded and select the right tools for the right task, watch or read as many tutorials as you can, and practice a lot.

If you just need video effects, a video editor of sorts or After Effects could be enough, although a image manipulation program will come handy in any case.

Digital hand painted 2D animation is probably best done in a software made for that. It could be a raster or vector based. From free ones, Synfig Studio and Pencil come to mind first. Blender can handle the whole 3D animation pipeline, it’s also possible to do 3D based 2D animation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssd4ZNNpY-s#t=194

Blender is different from other software with its interface and default controls so treat it differently and you get the hang of it quickly, could start here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0AfIdK08E7_PKsXOO_yuAql9b3hdcwPR

It’s different and those differences include http://www.blender.org/features/ in a package that is around 300MB unpacked, new version with new features every 3 months, and a 0 price tag. Available for all major operating systems and for everyone who can download it. Won’t get that anywhere else.

Thing is, even though it has so many tools, that doesn’t mean you’re able to use them effectively right away. Same if someone gave you a long list of software packages and a pc with total value of $10k to cover all that. The progress will be slow and hard, and this is the reason: http://animator.am/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/IMG_88578561594429.jpeg
Most stages require a lot of knowledge and practice, and even if you had many years of experience doing all that stuff, working alone is still slow because there is so much to do. That’s why a professional production has small army of people making it happen.

If we’re talking getting from zero to animating with the shortest learning curve, if you’ve never animated before, you’re probably better off focusing on 2D animation. Can you draw at all?

And of course, some people animate without any computer program at all.

I haven’t done a lot with 2D animation in Blender, though that’s because I’ve more experience with After Effects for that stuff.

Hello!
Thank you for you comments and useful links!
Sorry for my english.

I want to choose the right path from the beginning. It will be a shame if I spend a lot of time learning the program, but it turns out that it can not do what I want from it. Can I do this in Blender http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA8opRBDtJE
I understand that I must to draw the backgrounds, boat, helicopter from this video in Inkscape, Krita or may be in Illustrator. Can I do the remaining work in Blender? Or may be this is better and easy to do in other programs?

I try do video editing in Blender. Before this I use iMovie. I find this is more difficult for newbie. I must to do more step in Blender to do the same in iMovie. Main difficulty that the movies represents as blue and green lines in Blender, without any images. If I have about 20-30 videos I can get lost in them. I think I do not know much in the Blender.

It may be worth mentioning that Blender isnt a movie editing software… its a VFX toolkit… you can do almost ANYTHING in it… but you would need t learn the tools… and sometimes the tools can takes YEARS to learn…