Those of you using Blender for 3D graphics may be interested in Project Peach, the follow-up to the "Elephants Dream" open source movie:
They are currently accepting DVD pre-orders. E.D. led to significant progress in Blender development & I expect the same will be true for Peach, so this is a great way to support open source software that is relevant to WM projects.
Hey Erik,
thanks for the mention of Peach - that does lead me to a question that I've had for awhile but haven't gotten around to asking. The marketing and PR for Blender is like that for most open source projects - largely nonexistent :)
Are there any resources or individuals out there that might be of assistance in improving that? I know that Firefox, Openoffice, and Wikimedia are all foundations that have a lot of skill and expertise in this area.
Thanks,
Tom Musgrove LetterRip
Erik Moeller wrote:
Those of you using Blender for 3D graphics may be interested in Project Peach, the follow-up to the "Elephants Dream" open source movie:
They are currently accepting DVD pre-orders. E.D. led to significant progress in Blender development & I expect the same will be true for Peach, so this is a great way to support open source software that is relevant to WM projects.
On 11/08/07, Tom Musgrove letterrip@gmail.com wrote:
Hey Erik,
thanks for the mention of Peach - that does lead me to a question that I've had for awhile but haven't gotten around to asking. The marketing and PR for Blender is like that for most open source projects - largely nonexistent :)
What exactly does Blender do? Is it the program you could use to make a Pixar animation film? (potentially) Does Commons accept Blender working/output files? If not, should we?
cheers Brianna
On 8/11/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
What exactly does Blender do?
It's a pretty flexible 3D modelling program which can also do keyframe animation. See [[blender (software)]] on enwiki.
Is it the program you could use to make a Pixar animation film? (potentially)
If you had enough processing power, sure. Elephants Dream (11 mins long) took 125 days to render on a 2.1 teraflop cluster of 240 dual-core Xserves. Oh and don't forget RAM, Elephants Dream used up to 2.8GB per frame.
Does Commons accept Blender working/output files? If not, should we?
I believe the .blend format is a container type format similar to ogg. You put model, scene, texture etc information into the one file and it can be read by any version of Blender. I don't know if it can be read by any other programs.
Stephen Bain wrote:
On 8/11/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
What exactly does Blender do?
It's a pretty flexible 3D modelling program which can also do keyframe animation. See [[blender (software)]] on enwiki.
It is a 3D content creation suite (Similar to Maya, 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, Houdini, etc.) - that means modeling, texturing (can paint in 2D, 3D, use images, or node/procedural textures), animation (rigging, skinning, a host of sophisiticated character and keframe animation tools), rendering, particle tools, simulation tools (hair, fluids, physics, cloth and softbodies), rendering - it can also be used for 2D animation; and of course creation of 2D stills. It also has an integrated sequencer and compositor (movie editing and compositing); and an integrated game engine.
It has a fairly comprehensive import and export suite - supporting most major formats to some degree (standard 3D and 3D interchange formats such as Collada, FBX, OBJ, 3DS, DXF; assorted game formats; and other formats of interest such as VRML) also there are tools to export to flash and shockwave 3D format.
Is it the program you could use to make a Pixar animation film? (potentially)
Certainly among other capabilities - movies, game content, web animations, architectural renderings/previz, and content used in illustrations, also fairly decent CAD capabilities.
It is being used as the almost exclusive 3D tool for 'Plumiferos' a commercial feature animated film that should be out by the end of this year or so.
Does Commons accept Blender working/output files? If not, should we?
I believe the .blend format is a container type format similar to ogg. You put model, scene, texture etc information into the one file and it can be read by any version of Blender. I don't know if it can be read by any other programs.
Blenders own format isn't really appropriate for interchange - it is almost a direct memory dump to disk. However Blender, as noted above, exports to a large host of open formats.
LetterRip
What exactly does Blender do?
Here are some additional links that might be of interest/help clarify things
Of course the wikipedia entry :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)
A comparison chart that shows how Blender stacks up versus its major commercial competition as far as major functionality
http://wiki.cgsociety.org/index.php/Comparison_of_3d_tools
And the Blender gallery which gives some idea of the still content that can be created with Blender
http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/gallery/images/
Does Commons accept Blender working/output files? If not, should we?
I think it might be of benefit if it doesn't either Blenders own format (which individuals would need to download Blender to view - a 4MB or so download...) or any of the common 3D scene formats (either web 3D such as VRML, or X3D - or Collada)
cheers Brianna
Thanks for all the answers.
OK I guess my real question is, for the type of diagrams and pictures we use, when would you typically use Blender instead of say Inkscape?
maybe for things like this? (I'm not sure what LadyofHats uses) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Alamosaurus_sanjuanensis_dinosaur.pn...
cheers Brianna
On 11/08/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
What exactly does Blender do? Is it the program you could use to make a Pixar animation film? (potentially) Does Commons accept Blender working/output files?
No, but it could with one configuration change.
If not, should we?
Is it patented?
-UH.
On 11/08/07, Tom Musgrove letterrip@gmail.com wrote:
Uber Halogen wrote:
If not, should we?
Is it patented?
is what patented? None of the formats we support are patent encumbered to my knowledge - and none use any clever algorithms for encoding.
I mean is the .blend format patented? Since it has not been accepted yet then it could be patented in which case it could not be accepted into the Commons.
Tom M. LetterRip
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