Blender Gets Audio Sequencing

Qbertino writes "The universal GPLd 3D tool Blender that was bought free by the Blender community not so long ago, has gotten audio sequencing added to its feature set. This has been missing ever since the integrated Video NL (Non-Linear) Editor/Sequencer was introduced. The only other 3D package known for its integrated Video NLE is the proprietary Houdini, which also runs under Linux but comes at something like $3000 for its small featureset. This finally gives the OSS community a lightweight alternative to this and eases syncing 3D animation and audio a great deal. Audio sequencing will be integrated in the upcoming 2.28 release of Blender. Early adopters can download here."

Comments

But can it still

[Anonymous Coward]

Make smoothies? I hope so! Mmmm, smoothies...

It doesn't make too much sense

[Samir Gupta]

Just like those all-in-one cell phones, or printers/copiers/scanners/faxes, I suspect that they will have to compromise on quality, lest they end up with some bloated software product.

I'd much rather have separate best-of-breed software packages, than an integrated one that does everything OK, but not great.

Counterparts to Photoshop, Maya

[digitalhermit]

Blender is definitely a great success story. Like Gimp is to Photoshop, Blender is to Maya. Though Photoshop is still the heavyweight tool for photo manipulation and though I'm an experienced Gimp user, I know that there are things that Photoshop can do that Gimp cannot do as easily. But the $500 price tag for Photoshop makes me a big, big Gimp fan. It does everything I need. Same for Blender. It is not in the same class as Maya but with a little work, can do many of the same things. In fact, it's at the point where it competes well against many of the lower end commercial packages costing hundreds of dollars.

It *does* make sense

[AsparagusChallenge]

Blender's primary target is to be able of making ready-to-publish video from scratch. Composing audio is a priority, unless you aim to recreating the beginnings of cinema.

Bloated?

[metalhed77]

Blender may be crap, but at 2 megs it is hardly bloated.

missing functionality, but adding new toys?

[SuperBanana]

Maybe it's just me, but they seem to be rather confused between the "About Blender" pages, the Changelog, etc...2.2.7 specifically says cartoon shading doesn't work. "About Blender" says it does. Which is it, guys?

Then, note that a lot of file formats don't work on Linux- only Win + MacOS X. None of the plugins work in OS X yet...so on. It's beta quality stuff, like walking into a house and the owners keep telling you "no, don't open that door, it's not on the hinges!" or "watch your step" when you pass by the 3-foot hole in the floor. Oh, but look at the MARVELOUS sun porch they just finished!

See this all the time- developers working on the bright+shiny things, while leaving behind major, glaring problems. Guys, fix it up so existing stuff works, THEN add new toys. What good is a car that has a really sweet stereo setup, but only 3 wheels?

I get the distinct impression Blender developers have bitten off more than they can chew, but are back in the kitchen for dessert regardless...

Re:missing functionality, but adding new toys?

[FunkyChild]

Maybe it's just me, but they seem to be rather confused between the "About Blender" pages, the Changelog, etc...2.2.7 specifically says cartoon shading doesn't work. "About Blender" says it does. Which is it, guys?

Blender already has basic toon shading capabilities - it can render toon-style 'edges' on models, and with a bit of fiddling with textures and normal-dependent falloff gradient textures, you can get a reasonable result (as is on the left in this thumbnail image, however this isn't dependent on light sources.

One of the new volunteers, Cessen, has been working on an updated shading system which adds on an Oren-nayar blinn shading and a toon shading method to the current phong shading. Cessen's new work is a much easier and more accurate way of toon shading (works based on light sources, specularity etc), not to mention the obvious improvements in adding blinn shading too. Unfortuately there wasn't enough time to integrate Cessen's changes for the 2.27 release, but it should be in the next.

Also keep in mind that Blender has only been open source for a relatively short time, and want' originally developed in an open source context (a la netscape->mozilla). It will take some time for developers to properly familiarise themselves with the huge amount of code in there, and start to re-organise it into something that facilitates an open-source model rather than the previous.

Kudos to the Blender community!

[stox]

The Blender project is a major milestone in the progression of open source software. For the first time, a closed project was brought into the open by the users. Compared to others, they have been remarkably fast at bringing a working product to market. They have also been extremely responsible in respect for copyright, and are currently helping to bring more closed work into the open. This project is one class act, and I hope that their model is extremely successful.

bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Adding useful features is such a waste of time!

Now, rewriting it in Java, That would be a REALLY good use of development time!!

Re:How in the ... ?!

[digitalhermit]

I started a page here. I'm preparing a section on shaders and animation that should be ready in a couple weeks.

Re:How in the ... ?!

[FunkyChild]

This should get you started. There's a good community site at www.elysiun.com - they can help answer questions in the forums if you get stuck.

Re:OSS is feature obsessed

[Hamster Of Death]

Simply because fixing bugs is boring and often tedious. Not many people get their kicks bug fixing. Writing new features is much more appealing since it is a) new and b) makes Open Source Project X that much more comparable to Closed Source Project Y

So new features are added first because they are fun and increase product visibility. Bugs often take a back seat due to the drudgery associated with them.

Undo?

[Tyler Eaves]

Okay, and UNDO is going to be implemented when? Seriously, I can't take a graphics package without an UNDO feature seriously.

Re:Now that that's taken care of

[sharph]

You want to make music in linux?

Ever heard of audour?
Or audacity?

You want an audio sequencer? Check out soundtracker.

Or if you like to mess with oscillators and stuff, spiralsynthmodular.

don't you DARE tell me we have no sound apps in linux.

if you're STILL unconvinced, check out http://linux-sound.org/