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NaN Closes Shop, The End of Blender?
lowell writes "The shareholders and directors of NaN Holding BV, owners of Blender, have decided to terminate all activities of NaN Technologies BV and apply for its bankruptcy at the Amsterdam court. It means that effective today, all technology development and website activities around
Blender will be frozen. " Nice
app. Too bad really.
Wow! No more NaN errors - I've been waiting for the IEEE to fix FP arithmetic for years now.
"frozen"... "blender"...
:P.
Thanks a lot! It's not even noon, and now I've got a craving for a good margarita
because you kow if you do, blender will live on no matter what.
Then you can let users develop the app and stick to making money writing Blender Books.
I like Blender, anyone got any suggestions for alternatives for 3D animation on Linux?
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
um, with all due respect, "a couple times" isn't enough to understand a 3D design app.
As any real blender user will tell you, once you learn the interface it's one of the fastest modelers out there.
Scenario: company Foo making app Bar figures out they cannot survive by selling free software
Slashdot: The great people at Foo, makers of Bar, are going to have to close their doors due to lack of $$$. Remember Bar? Nice app. Too bad, really. Yawn. Allright, where's that new DVD I ordered?
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Effective today, all technology development and website activities around Blender will be frozen.
:: Get Your GNU On
Are you implying that the classic Rob Malda films "Duckpins" and "Hamster Havoc" will be the last we see from this budding star in the animation business?
Surely you jest!
MONOLINUX
FP arithmetic still sucks. At least five people claim FP per thread, when there can logically only be one. Just read at -1 and you'll see.
I'd like to see the source GPLed - if they no longer are going to use it. I would like to pick through the source for stuff and maybe contribute plugins to a new OSS project based around it.
I used to do a Open GL GUI tk for my modeler too, but I always thought blender's layout was too static to use personally. Agian I'm a developer more than an artist. I was just looking into writing some blender plug-ins over break for a guy I met on OPN. Oh well, more time for my project. =)
If they can't find one or if someone like Red Hat buys them, then it's possible to see it being open sourced. Yes, I know, not likely, but still a possibility...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Owch. This is a bad day to be a Linux desktop user.
NaN folding will strengthen the argument that there are not enough good desktop applications for Linux. It will also strengthen the claims that Linux users will not pay for software.
I doubt we will see OpenBlender. NaN may not be able to GPL Blender, as the code for that application is the only company assest they can leverage to pay off it's debt. We also don't know if they licensed any code from external contractors.
I have a strong interest in 3D animation, I am a Linux user, and Blender was it for me. There are no other 3d programs under Linux with it's level of sophistication. I hate dual booting to Windows to use Lightwave.
Loki is gone - no games. Blender is gone - no 3d.
This makes the siren's song of OSX go up a couple of decibles.
Thank you Ton and company for the many hours of rewarding 3D creation. Maybe someday the finger-pointers will wake up and realize what they've lost.
The company goes into bankruptcy and there are already numerous suggestions on /. that the company GPL the source code, with no mention of the possibility that the company could reorganize and become viable.
Am I the only one who sees how poisonous this attitude is? "Why the hell should we pay for it? If we don't pay then the company will go out of business and we'll get it for free, anyway." Normally you have to deal with professional politicians to see that level of shortsightedness and arrogance.
Keep it up, cheapskates, and Linux will never grow (in the desktop market) beyond being a hacker toy. You're the ones who all but completely destroyed the Linux book market, sent Mandrake into begging mode, and did who knows what other damage to your own cause and other businesses. I hope you're happy; I'm sure Bill Gates is delighted by how savagely you treat your own.
No joke. I tried one of the early windows versions, and couldn't figure out how to even get started with it. I'm looking for primitives and different views, and all I've got is one frickin window and few if any tools I can recognize.
I'm sure back in the days when little was available to compete with it on Linux, it could have won some fans, but those days didn't last terribly long, did they?
Blender's cool, and there's a sad dearth of (affordable) 3D modelling, animation and rendering tools for Linux. Okay, sure, using OpenGL for the GUI toolkit was a bit funky, but you got used to it.
-- Alastair
Anyone know if the release of the Maya Personal Edition in feburary had anything to do with this?
I would pay money to the shareholders if they were to open source blender. This way it would be able to live on as the great tool that it is. Anyone else willing to chip in?
This is a sad outcome for Not a Number though.
Version 2.23 can be downloaded from here :/ 2.2 3/
http://www.download.blender.pl/mirror/versions
I think version 2.25 was the latest but it got wiped before they could release it to the public and the mirrors could catch up.
real pity -- i really like blender.
Yah, and Dvorak is faster than Qwerty. Big deal. If the learning curve is too steep, it doesn't make any difference, it won't catch on. Except that Blender isn't just trying to win over people already used to something else, it IS genuinely less intuitive.
It took me virtually no time at all to get used to the traditional 3 or 4 port view in other modellers. I tried poking around with blender for at least an hour without getting anywhere.
With the traditional interface, you don't have to learn much to get started. This was apparantly not the case at least with early versions of Blender. And you only get one chance to make a first impression.
This is what you get when you value short-term convenience over freedom, when you get excited over something because it's "cool," when you think that any software for Linux is good for Linux (forgetting what made GNU/Linux special in the first place).
You're completely dependent on the whims and fortunes of a single vendor, and are now up a creek. By all means, beg them to release it as free software, but don't hold your breath.
There's a time and a place for proprietary software, but there is also a very real cost that has nothing to do with price. Valuing freedom over features is not just thinking with your gonads.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
As any real blender user will tell you, once you learn the interface it's one of the fastest modelers out there.
...
That is absolutely correct.
I've been working on a film project using blender for some time, and have tried other 3d animation products on other platforms and blender was, hands down, the best at nearly everything one needs to do to make good, high quality animations. There were, of course, failings, and some things for which one would choose to use another tool, but for the vast majority of tasks it was excellent and, as you say, once you learn the interface, the most intuitive without sacrificing power and features.
This is really tragic. I really, really hope they GPL the source so that the project may live on, but I have a feeling this is going to be an example where the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman's much maligned stance of "avoid proprietary software at all costs, you'll pay in the end if you don't" may very well be vindicated, in the form of hundreds of hours of animation work that will become less and less usable as the existing binaries age and become more and more difficult to get running (as glibc and other libraries change with time).
If anyone from NaN is reading, please, please, please GPL the blender code.
As an aside I am surprised they didn't go with the "you pay for the release today, or wait 12 months and get the features in the GPLed version." Many would have paid, and the delayed, GPLed version would have been insurance against this kind of thing happening. Oh well, twenty-twenty hindsight and all that
:-(
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I'm not sure if it is the latest or if it plays well with Nvidia, mostly because it has been ~6 months since I last had time to play with it but Debian has a package for 2.23. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/blend er.html
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
The OS X port was a rough alpha, and there hadn't been any work done on it for months. I checked their message boards last week, and they were blaming all their problems (on the OS X port) on Open GL bugs.
The alpha was usable, but just barely.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Let's pull some resources to port it.
http://www.openfx.org
Alot of people here bashing blender. Blender is a FREE and POWERFUL 3D app. It may have a very 'different' interface but after using it for a while it becomes second nature. In fact I thought the interface was the best part .. Blender also has a great online community generating massive amounts of step by step tutorials to help the novice get started. Blender gives you the ability to create work that previously would have required a $3000+ investment in software. All this for FREE .. basically available on any platform .. I hope they can get some funding or find some way to keep it alive ....
---
Blender supports multiple cameras and lighting, which can be used to create very lifelike images, especially when scenes incorporate realistic surfaces. The program even has a plug-in facility that will accept new surfaces and features created by third parties.
Animation is one of Blender's most impressive features. Not only can objects move along paths, but their attributes can change along the way. For example, lighting effects can increase, decrease, or change color. We were even able to introduce lens flares and motion blurs. Another animation enhancement is particle support, which allows multiple objects to be created and animated based on procedures that can simulate natural laws.
Blender even handles postproduction jobs that utilize images or videos from other sources. For example, Blender can be used to add an animated, walking lamp, complete with its own shadow, to a video using masking and animation features.
The printed documentation is definitely worth the price. It's far more extensive than the free, downloadable version and is packed with useful details. The manual sports many colorful examples, even if the font is so small it practically requires a magnifying glass to read. While the documentation adequately covers the program's numerous keystrokes, menus, and mouse actions, a reference card would be nice.
Whether you need a production-quality 3D system or just some basic 3D scenes for a presentation, Blender fits the bill. If you're prepared to spend some time learning how to use it, the results will be well worth your effort. This is one of the best 3D packages on any platform.
(Taken from LinuxMag review)
Now I wonder if it's worth spending too much time learning it. Yes, I can use the version I've got but learning to master a 3d application is a huge investment in time and without the promise of a future maybe I should rather look at some other apps.
Anyway it would be sad to see blender go, I hope that somehow the development will continue.
True warriors use the Klingon Google
How so? I paid for a license (a while back now, so I haven't renewed any) and I'd be delighted in it being open sourced. I paid because I wanted NaN to be profitable and keep working on the product. I don't have time to work on a full 3d modeller myself, but I have plenty of use for one, so I'll pay someone else to work on it.
... worth far more to me than the price I would have paid for the software itself ... would remain useful for the forseeable future.
Exactly right.
I was going to spend some of my tax refund on a copy of blender (they'd just gone to a "pay and get new features now, or don't pay and get the same features in a few months" model), and I wouldn't have felt cheated if they'd GPLed the pay version a day later. Why? Because if it had been GPLed I would have known that the software would never die, and the hundreds of hours of animation work I had invested
Indeed, I would pay a fair chunk of change to see it get GPLed.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Sorry to disagree, but this "pig" had the smallest footprint of any decent modeling/rendering application out there. Until quite recently, it fit on a single floppy, was available for a bunch of platforms (even IPaq!), and had a growing grassroots community that extended its capabilities and supported the product in a way superior to even the most high-end graphics applications. Unfortunately, their business model wasn't the most solid, and I genuinely believe they over-extended themselves when they decided to get into game engines and web applications. Keep it lean and mean, fellas.
Find an app you really like and then refuse to buy it until it goes out of business then try to get the owners of the source to donate it to the 'community' that put them out of business. ;)
4 5&mode=thread
Find an app you really like, and buy the manual because they say they'll free the program if people buy enough manuals; then when they sell out of manuals they take it proprietary.
See http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/03/23/08252
and other early slashdot.
That is very true. Blender confused the hell out of me until I figured out how its interface worked. I absolutely love it now. I can get things done in it much faster than I used to be able to in 3D studio Max.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
He used Animation:Master, not Blender.
This certainly stings. I'm just getting up ~12:54pm because I was up till 4:30am last night learning how to use Blender. I've been meaning to tool around with it for quite some time and finally got the chance. I must have gone through every tutorial on they're web site (which had not been updated yet). Never mind that last week I bought The Official Blender 2.0 guide for $50!
The same thing happened when I found an interest in Broadcast 2000. As soon as I decided to spend some time with it they pulled it from their site! Quite frustrating!
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
You should have stuck it out, Andy. I too came from other programs and was disoriented by the product, but it was the only one available on a range of machines I was likely to use that had most of the features I wanted. So I worked through the tutorials and eventually found the environment very useful for developing and animating models.
Of course, now I've also spent a lot of time on an application that may never see another update again...
umm..your animation work is not wasted. blender files are just openinventor files (iv). just rename em and any 3D app can import em. ive used blender models with 3DS Max, Maya, TrueSpace and others. they even work ok as VRML files.
I did not know that. Thank you, I confess to being very, very relieved. Maybe my libraries of stuff aren't so useless after all.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Because powerhouse graphic workshops like ILM and Henson Associates like Linux. And they can afford $8,000 pieces of software. Of course just because it's built doesn't mean they will come. Henson's Creature Shop is rumored to be quite fond of Maya on Linux.
Regards,
Lee Irenæus Malatesta
This sucks. I've been in the process of creating a tutorial on blender here. Blender was featured because it was a relatively powerful package and did many things that much higher priced packages did.
Many people complained about the interface, but once you learned the shortcuts it was probably one of the easiest to use. Someone had even created a python based blender to POVray script that allowed you to model in blender and render in POV, so shortcomings in the Blender rendering engine were quickly made moot.
It is not the only package available for rendering, but it was one of the best for animations. Funny that this occurred a day after I saw the QuickTime preview on the Apple site.
They own Alias|Wavefront!
D
I'm mirroring the files on ftp://ftp.stenstad.net/mirrors/ftp.blender.nl/ now, as ftp.blender.nl seems down..
- Baffle
Actually 3D Studio, Lightwave, Softimage, and Maya all have free versions that are not very limited at all for people to try. There are time limitations on some, a watermark on Maya, and the free version of 3DS is stripped down, but for someone wanting to play around with 3D there are certainly better alternatives.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
I find it odd that this announcement comes so soon after Alias/Wavefront began to offer Maya personal edition for free. I wonder how much of the other companies offering "free" or discounted packages hurt NaN in the end. Of course $5695 for a 3d modeller might not be seen as discount prices to most of us compared to $500 but I wonder.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
I was under the impression that Blender had, somewhere in the website, a comment that said (basically) "if we go out of business, Blender goes open source; If we sell it, we won't sell it unless they promise to do the same thing". (I remember something vague about BSD lisence, but I could be wrong.)
I certainly hope they won't find anyone to sell it to so we get the thing =)
Anyway, as a long-time Blender user (but not long enough time, that's for sure), I have to say that it's a shame that they had to go. I hope they keep the word now and Blender will once again be visible, either still as freeware or under DFSG-compliant lisence.
I use to believe that companies that gave their software freely would still receive enough support from the "grateful" thousands (sometimes millions) to survive.
But with the demise of Blender and the cries for help from Mandrake that are being met mostly by a lot of "I'll use Mandrake but I'll never pay for it. That's what open source is all about so if they fail they fail..." replies, I don't think so anymore.
I just don't believe that a company that produces free software can make it in a community that is mostly devoid of compassion or common sense or whatever it is that will make a person take out their wallet and send so cold hard case to a company that provides them with a service even though they don't gain anything extra by doing so.
What should be leaned but won't from the failures of companies like this is that you may not gain anything extra by sending in some of your money but, in the long run, you will lose if you don't.
I'm just really bummed out to realize that we will always carry the Microsoft yoke because as a society we are incapable of breaking out of the box and doing what it takes to support the people who would empower us all.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
All this is interesting but everybody seems to be ignoring the fact that Blender also made a version for Windows users. In fact they marketed the Windows version a lot more, and when I last saw a demonstration (at Siggraph) the Windows version was a later revision than the OS9 or Linux versions indicating that development was done there first.
No, it is far more like:
They tried to sell ideas. Selling ideas comes with an implicit contract with the public: you get to make money and we eventually get your product as public domain.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
At least a half dozen times in the past few years, I kindly suggested to the Blender folks that they open source *all* of their software and adopt a services-oriented business model while building a support and development community around the code itself. "You have no market for proprietary 3D software," I told them, "Who is going to spend money on small-name software when highly superior Maya, Lightwave3D, 3D Studio, etc. are available?" But they never listened, "it's not our business plan." Apparently their shareholders had firmly decided that there was no money in Open Source (sounds aweful familiar to the trolls on /. eh?) Even though Blender was free (as in beer), they refused to open the code because they knew that it would kill the (non-existant) market for Publisher. Folks, it's not easy to make money in software no matter what approach you take. However, all things considered, you have far greater chance to succeed with community backing. And if you fail, at least you'll still have something to show for all your hard work.
The first 3D modeler I ever used was Blender so I approach other programs from the vantage point of only knowing how to use Blender. I sat down at a fiends computer with Lightwave and thought, oh my, this thing is a pain in the ass. I guess it all comes down to personal preference and what you are used to doing.
'Same speed C but faster'
Here are the same files, closer than Poland.
Check out any decent open source app, apache, php, imagemagick, gcc, emacs, perl, tex, and you will see that it compiles on any platform out there. The problem of OS dependency has been solved long ago by GNU configure. I agree that non-free software is not as evolved, but who cares?
People saying 'Linux users won't pay for anything' should probably note that theire are far more Windows Blender users than Linux users out there.
Frankly, the reason why they couldn't make money was because their app could not compete with the other, more polished solutions in the market.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Well, 3D graphics has barely ever even qualified as a hobby for me.
And by not getting anywhere, I mean EVERYTHING seemed totally opaque. With every other modeller I've seen, all the information you could want, and all the basic tools are right there in front of you...the learning curve between installation and figuring out how to stick primitives exactly where you want them is exactly as long it takes to figure out what icon means what.
Blender...is...completely...unintuitive. (Or was...I should speak past tense because it was...98? 99?...last time I tried it.) Maybe it got better, but I'm sure they made a lot of bad impressions before it did.
And you know, if that wasn't the case, they wouldn't be discontinuing it.
Looking for Blender discusion forums. Anybody know where there are some good forums besides NaN's site?
Blender file the .blend format is a binary only propriety NaN format. It is not .iv. But it can export rudimentary models (and maybe textures) to vrml 1.0. Which when renamed to .iv works with inventor. But you still have to fiddle around and edit the .iv file manually sometimes (texture file paths etc.,).
.blend files were in fact open inventor files, but discovered this weekend that you are right ... the format of .blend files is a proprietary NaN format and, as such, my animation work is rapidly becoming worthless.
You are, regrettably, correct. I took the previous poster at their word that
As I said before: never again. I will only use free(dom) software for any future animation/special effects work I do, even if that means I have to write the damn program myself.
:-(
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy