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Blender 2.42 Has Been Released
bartv writes "Blender 2.42 has been released. It features an impressive list of new features for professional users. The most important improvements are: a new render pipeline, node editors for compositing and materials, support for anisotropic materials, improved fluid simulation and new character animation tools. Most of these features are the result of the production of Elephants Dream, the first Open Movie. During this project, Blender's lead developer Ton Roosendaal was coding the features that were required by the artists to produce their movie."
I've tried Maya (evaluation), 3DS Max (cad), AutoCad and Friends (cad), etc. They all have very different interfaces. These are the few that would seem to define "convention," yet they are totally different. They are also hardly within the "hobbyist" price range. Blender is well within the hobbyist price range, has some decent, free documentation. The "getting started" range of documentation is actually quite good.
Not to mention people are free to, for example, fork the project and make it how they wish.
If you watch "The Making of" for Elephants Dream, you'll see that they looked plenty productive and the new node compositing (think Shake) looks down-right sick!
In future they should try to get better writers. I saw the Elephant's Dream movie, and technically it's not too bad. The models seemed fairly on-par with most "real" 3D animation feature movies. The animation was worse, but at least still around what you get on those 3D animated kids' shows or in-game cut-scenes. I was more impressed than I thought I'd be.
But did anyone think that story was any good? I didn't. And with all the stories and fan-fiction out there surely there must be hordes of aspiring writers out there who would like nothing more than a movie based on one of their scripts, even if it means making it creative common licensed. If nothing else, it gets their name on IMDB. That's a decent foot-in-the-door these days, if they're looking for a career. Then you perfect it with collaborative writing, TV-show style, where a whole team of writing staff have input (or in this case the whole Internet.)
Couldn't get open-sourcier than that.
But get WRITERS to do it. I'd bet good money this thing was written by animators and modelers. If you're a professional-level animator/modeler you're probably not a professional-level writer. No one's good at everything. Get over your egos and suck it up.
I guess it's the same problem open source programmers have with, for example, user interfaces or documentation. "It's just a minor detail, what really matters is this other aspect. Besides, how hard can it be? I'll do it myself."
Hate to point this out to you and ruin a perfectly good rant against hobbyists and open source jacks-of-all-trades, but they hired a professional screenwriter to write the script. They asked him for "artsy" and that's what he gave them. Sure, it's not Pixar by any stretch of the imagination, since Eddy Murphy's not providing the voice of a wisecracking fax machine, but there's a hell of a lot going on in ED. It's crafted like a puzzlebox, with multilayered symbolism hidden in the imagery and dialogue. It wasn't meant for saturday matinees, it was made for the art film festivals. If that not your cup of tea, that's fine, but don't decry it as "crap" and insist that just because you didn't see it, there must be nothing there. Film is subjective, not objective.
(Disclaimer: I'm not really a huge fan of arthouse films. I know 'em when I see em, and I'll give 'em the respect they deserve, but I usually end up watching Hollywood's output.)
Oh, and it's completely open. If you can do a mean Eddie Murphy Fax-machine voice, you're free to render your own Dream.