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Wow verse finally hit slashdot...

So what is verse?

Verse is a network protocol that is designed to let any apps talk to each other in real-time over a IP network. So if one app changes the data all other apps gets the changes sent to them in real-time. This means that multiple apps, people and developers can collaborate. its all Free BSD and portable.

Verse support can be given both existing and new applications.

It has been around for quite some time. I and i friend was hired to write verse a few years back. (at II) it is one of few apps written from the ground up as open source and the people who wrote it got funded to do it.

Verse used to be on source forge but is now living on at blender.org

Loq Airou, Nil salentinn, and connector are very recently added apps and you can find some screen shots here and here

Ton (head of the blender foundation) wants to base Blender 3 on verse technology.

E

...to manage its projects - right here.

Seems like GForge is all over the place... here is a list of some known sites, and of course - shameless plug - RubyForge.

Hey, that's no joke. These voucher class action settlements are horrible for consumers. When I sent money to the effort to free the sources for Blender I used Western Union. A month or so ago I got a letter telling me that there was a class action suit against Western Union because when they were transfering money to other countries (Blender is based in the Netherlands) they were making a secret profit on the currency conversions. I was entitled to a settlement in the form of a voucher that could be used for future Western Union transactions. I'm sure this is a relevant settlement to somebody, but I have no plans to ever use Western Union again. The lawyers got rich, the company was forced to do unwanted promotional mailings (the vouchers are so small that they're more like coupons than a punishment) and the costs got passed on to consumers. Anymore, class action lawsuits seem more like oil speculation and less like civil justice.

3D Studio Max has gMAX. gMax is usually used as a level editor for games that support it, but it lets you try out most of the things you can do with 3D Studio Max. Saving is in an encrypted format and you can't export anything useful.

Maya, of course, has this free version with huge, annoying "watermarks" on everything and no useful exports. But it's the full Maya. Maya pricing starts at $2000.

softimage doesn't offer a free version of XSI, and the list price is $13,000.

And, of course, there's Blender, which is free, open source, maintained by a community, and incomprehensible. The Blender community is redesigning the user interface, which may help.

Windows
Mac OS X
Linux 386
Linux PPC
FreeBSD
Irix
Solaris
NetBSD

Developer site: www.blender.org

Glad to hear a friendly voice.

Although Blender was always available zero-cost, it only became Free Software in September 2002. Since then, the new developer community have improved the documentation along with the code.

The interface is indeed quite unusual, but when you get used to it, it's very efficient with key bindings for most tasks.

You'll what you're looking for at:
http://www.blender3d.org/Education/

And there's more tutorials, articles, and docs linked from:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name =documentation&file=index

Ciaran O'Riordan

It will pay off. They're giving away nothing substantial - it's a crippled piece of software, and in return they'll get publicity from the watermarking, and more users because people can learn Maya at home now.

Tinkering with an array of apps is cool, but I'd tinker with Blender instead of this piece of cripple-ware. Blender is Free Software (GPL), so you get the full version, no loaded marketing tactics. It works on all major platforms (M$, GNU, MAC, and others).

The diference between Maya and Blender, is that you can give someone a complete copy of Blender, rather than just recommending it. OpenOffice.org is a similarly cool thing to give to people. M$ users always think there must be a catch :)

Ciaran O'Riordan

I haven't used Maya, so I'm no authority, but it looks like it's in the same realm as blender. Blender is free as in freedom (GPL), available for GNU/Linux, M$ Windows, MacOSX, FreeBSD, and a few Unices. It's maintained by it's user community, and it's 100% Free Software, so it'll never be crippled etc.

Ciaran O'Riordan

And of both of Blender's main sites, too for what it's worth.

Blender

As you can read on their new web site, the founders struck a deal with the creditors to buy the software for 100,000 euros.

They reached the goal in about 4 weeks!!! As can be seen in their MoneyMeter report.

As you can read on their new web site, the founders struck a deal with the creditors to buy the software for 100,000 euros.

They reached the goal in about 4 weeks!!! As can be seen in their MoneyMeter report.

Altogether, I think that Blender is a very attractive choice for the 3D hobbyist--someone who enjoys 3D and graphics but is never going to make a living from it. After all, why shell out $1000+ when a little extra effort can get 95% of the features for free? If you plan to have a career in 3D, or have lots of money, it's probably worth it, but as one who's just in it for the fun, the eye candy, and the challenge of making things work, open source offers me four very decent tools to use together: Blender, Wings3D, Yafray, and The Gimp. All of these work to some degree on Windows, Mac, and Linux, sometimes more. There's never been a better time to get into 3D. And aspiring graphic artists shouldn't turn up their noses at such free tools either. Although you could be more immediately useful to a studio by knowing Maya/Max/Softimage/etc, simply using 3D and graphics programs of any kind will teach you tons that can easily extend to whatever programs you use later.

Altogether, I think that Blender is a very attractive choice for the 3D hobbyist--someone who enjoys 3D and graphics but is never going to make a living from it. After all, why shell out $1000+ when a little extra effort can get 95% of the features for free? If you plan to have a career in 3D, or have lots of money, it's probably worth it, but as one who's just in it for the fun, the eye candy, and the challenge of making things work, open source offers me four very decent tools to use together: Blender, Wings3D, Yafray, and The Gimp. All of these work to some degree on Windows, Mac, and Linux, sometimes more. There's never been a better time to get into 3D. And aspiring graphic artists shouldn't turn up their noses at such free tools either. Although you could be more immediately useful to a studio by knowing Maya/Max/Softimage/etc, simply using 3D and graphics programs of any kind will teach you tons that can easily extend to whatever programs you use later.

For all those impatient FreeBSD users out there who went to the binaries page and saw "Soon" (it's not yet made it into the ports tree), I suggest doing a CVS checkout and build of the core code tree, bf-blender.
There's a FreeBSD targetted build shellscript in the main directory, and it works beautifully. (Caveat - I had to copy one .h file into a different location - can't remember what it was, but it worked fine after that).

Also, if you're interested in the bleeding edge branch of Blender, Tuhopuu (lit. "evil tree" - those wacky dutch, eh?), I've posted on the Blender forums a very basic guide.

For all those impatient FreeBSD users out there who went to the binaries page and saw "Soon" (it's not yet made it into the ports tree), I suggest doing a CVS checkout and build of the core code tree, bf-blender.
There's a FreeBSD targetted build shellscript in the main directory, and it works beautifully. (Caveat - I had to copy one .h file into a different location - can't remember what it was, but it worked fine after that).

Also, if you're interested in the bleeding edge branch of Blender, Tuhopuu (lit. "evil tree" - those wacky dutch, eh?), I've posted on the Blender forums a very basic guide.

I wonder what this means to the people at blender who just updated the python API

Some people in the blender.org forums have mentioned making SWF and SVG export scripts. As far as I know, they're still in very early stages of development though.

SWF:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name =phpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=754

SVG:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name =phpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=992

Some people in the blender.org forums have mentioned making SWF and SVG export scripts. As far as I know, they're still in very early stages of development though.

SWF:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name =phpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=754

SVG:
http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name =phpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=992

I was just using Blender this afternoon and was wondering if a new version was available, so I went to check out their website . Lo and behold, I saw this news announcement. Dammit! ! I could have submitted the story way earl ier!

details and a cool chart here http://www.blender.org/bf/

I'm sure someone can fill in more details.

I've heard some people say that Blender was hard to use. They don't know what hard to use means. They should try this version.

Looks like Blender is going multi-lingual! cool.

It's probably easier to do this with a game than it is for some sort of productivity app, but my gut tells me that there's plenty of niches for Unix platforms. Tax preparation software comes to mind, especially in light of recent events. Was it Quicken that tried to coerce folks to upgrade by not provided tax tables?

Every few months someone asks on Slashdot where they can find a good 3D modeller. There's Blender among others. It'd be interesting to see someone could take Blender, build a service or development company around it, and sell a brand of it much like Redhat does with Linux. Redhat is still in business right?

Yes, we Linux, BSD, etc. folks are used to not paying for software. But look at it this way. How many of us Linux nerds have a Windows partition handy for gaming? And we're buying those games (and burning a copy here or there).

Shareware for Unix can be done:

1) Develop a righteous product. Nobody gives a hoot about poorly designed software, free or retail. If what you want to produce and offer isn't good and appealing to folks, if it isn't exciting, don't bother.

2) Perish the thought of nagware. Nothing shaves down your user base like nags.

3) Above all else, empower your user. Sounds stupid, but software companies have walked away from this basic principle. Software is supposed to give users the ability to accomplish something they otherwise could not, not tithe in the name of the shareware gods.

Go for it! Shareware software won't make inroads on Unix platforms unless somebody shows up to do it.

"...i figured out how to make blender do the things i needed for the most part. Its got a wicked learning curve..."

Now that Blender is Open Source the developers are looking for user feedback to improve future releases. One target is the GUI. Go to Blender.org and offer your thoughts.

Blender's render engine has also been on the low end of things, but that is likely to change soon as well. There are numerous efforts to make Blender export to Renderman format, as well as other higher end render programs.

Also for you Poser types, check out the Makehuman Project for Blender.

But the open source version isn't quite buildable yet. The developers are trying to straighten out the sources and clean up the build process. The project is still being set up.

Meanwhile, you can download the old NaN version, EULA and all (you're agreeing to the EULA of a defunct company!), and a keyfile that makes the licensing system happy, from blender.org. Works fine.

All 3D packages have wierd user interfaces. Editing in 3D is so complicated that there's no agreement on how to do it. Blender, though, is unusually wierd; it has a few menus, many buttons, too many control keys, and a little gesture recognition. It has its fanatics, but not enough of them, which is why NaN went bust.

Incidentally, one implication of the wierd user interface problem is that just downloading a 3D app and playing it doesn't get you much of anywhere. These things take a while to learn, typically months.

If you're going to do serious work, and the output is video or film (not games), Maya is probably the way to go. It's the de facto standard in film work right now. 3DS Max leads in games, and Lightwave in TV. Softimage used to be #1 in film, but they blew it, much to my annoyance as a Softimage user. Blender remains a toy, although if the free software community gets behind it and cleans it up, it could be more of a contender.

Ok this is only tangenitally on-topic, but...

I have been (no more than) a 3d-tinkerer ever since Quake was released, periodically fooling around with whatever 3d packages I can find to learn and experiment with, for my enjoyment only, and maybe producing something I can shoot. When blender was GPL'd, I took a look at it, and with today's story, I have downloaded the non-commercial version of Maya. I have about a bagillion questions.

- Are the tools discussed today (Aqsis, Liquid) compatible with the NC version of Maya, or do they require the Pro version? Will I even need them for less than professional rendering?

- Are there things that blender cannot yet do that Maya can that I might conceivably use as a hobbyist?

- Is the level of user support, tutorials, manuals, etc. for blender comparable to that of Maya? From a cursory examination, it appears that Maya has several tutorials and discussion forums on the Alias Community website, and tons of active community websites.

- blender may eventually rival the community size, but I don't think it has yet. The blender "documentation"
appears to be incomplete or incorrect, and comes with this disclaimer: This document is at the current state meant as a example how a possible way of organising and writing documentation could look like. It contains many old and obsolete information especially in terms of license and publishing rights. I have found a few tutorial sites. I have heard that the learning curve is steep, and without a lot of documentation, that kind of worries me.

So, to all who have some experience with one or both of the packages, which do you think will provide the most satisfying hobbyist experience? Power to do the things I will probably want to do, useful learning of 3d modelling, and usefulness of produced files (I noticed the Maya non-commercial version of the "Kompleet" package watermarks its files and is not compatible with the commercial version file-formats), and especially overall enjoyment of the activity.

If you know of any good learning resources for any of the tools, please post them. Thanks from all us 3d newbies...

Ok this is only tangenitally on-topic, but...

I have been (no more than) a 3d-tinkerer ever since Quake was released, periodically fooling around with whatever 3d packages I can find to learn and experiment with, for my enjoyment only, and maybe producing something I can shoot. When blender was GPL'd, I took a look at it, and with today's story, I have downloaded the non-commercial version of Maya. I have about a bagillion questions.

- Are the tools discussed today (Aqsis, Liquid) compatible with the NC version of Maya, or do they require the Pro version? Will I even need them for less than professional rendering?

- Are there things that blender cannot yet do that Maya can that I might conceivably use as a hobbyist?

- Is the level of user support, tutorials, manuals, etc. for blender comparable to that of Maya? From a cursory examination, it appears that Maya has several tutorials and discussion forums on the Alias Community website, and tons of active community websites.

- blender may eventually rival the community size, but I don't think it has yet. The blender "documentation"
appears to be incomplete or incorrect, and comes with this disclaimer: This document is at the current state meant as a example how a possible way of organising and writing documentation could look like. It contains many old and obsolete information especially in terms of license and publishing rights. I have found a few tutorial sites. I have heard that the learning curve is steep, and without a lot of documentation, that kind of worries me.

So, to all who have some experience with one or both of the packages, which do you think will provide the most satisfying hobbyist experience? Power to do the things I will probably want to do, useful learning of 3d modelling, and usefulness of produced files (I noticed the Maya non-commercial version of the "Kompleet" package watermarks its files and is not compatible with the commercial version file-formats), and especially overall enjoyment of the activity.

If you know of any good learning resources for any of the tools, please post them. Thanks from all us 3d newbies...

I think the difference is, useful scientific ideas and such are more difficult to come by. Furthermore, the old ideas are more critical for the creation of new ideas, so there's more danger from a long copyright.

Example: An idea for a useful household product (say, a Blender) isn't something easily duplicated. But with a book or a movie, it's not difficult to change a few names, concepts, and plot twists to get an "original creation." How many clones did "Survivor" and "Who Wants to Beat Up Regis Philbin" touch off? But none of them were sued for copyright infringement.

Should've been from the highly irrelevant-dept I think, especially considering that Blender has now been Open-Sourced! [U.S. Mirror | Dutch Mirror]