Blender Foundation to Create Open Movie, Open Game

Eloquence writes "The Blender Foundation, which maintains the open source 3D tool Blender, has announced two new projects, codenamed Peach and Apricot. Project Peach will be a new open source movie, following in the footsteps of last year's Elephants Dream project (which was initially codenamed Orange). Apricot, on the other hand, will use Blender in conjunction with open source 3D framework Crystal Space to create an open game, thereby showcasing both technologies."

Comments

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

... does it run linux? The game.

Open Source Movie

[NeoTerra]

Could the plot also be open source? I have a few scripts handy. Except they're not movie scripts. :(

Re:Open Source Movie

[LetterRip]

"Could the plot also be open source? I have a few scripts handy. Except they're not movie scripts. :("

Nope the script and concept art are already close to completion.

LetterRip

Re:Open Source Movie

[mikael]

Would those be python scripts rather than pythonesque scripts?

Unless they are python scripts commented in pythonesque style?

name ?

[rupert0]

It shouldn't be called an open source movie ... more like a movie developed with open source tools....

Re:name ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is an Open Source movie. The contents, creation files, final products, etc. are all Creative Commons (or maybe Blender Open Content, not exactly sure) licensed, meaning you can use the actual production files for whatever you like, including a whole new movie.

What's not open about that?

Re:name ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It shouldn't be called an open source movie ... more like a movie developed with open source tools....

All of the content and models will be released at the end. You can recut, remake, and rework the film anyway you see fit. If you wanna redo it as a farcical sex comedy, you can. Thus, it is an "Open source movie." The same was done with Elephant's Dream.
  Personally, I'm happy that the early sketches imply a wacky cartoon style. So many people bitched about the art-house feel of Elephant's Dream, I couldn't stand hearing another round of that.
  Oh, the big push for the game engine is welcome news, too. It's been improving steadily, but without a large game project it's hard for the devs to know what's needed for one. The Elephant's Dream film brought a number of great improvements to Blender as a modeling and animation tool, so the game project should do it for Crystal Space integration.

  (And to answer the guy who's going to say "what about Ogre3D?" Ogre3D is a rendering engine, not a game engine like Crystal Space. If they had used Ogre3D to replace the old Blender Game Engine, they would have had to write a game engine to glue to it first. Anyway, the decision was made long ago; the Blender/Crystal Space integration project started over than a year ago.)

Re:name ?

[rupert0]

A OK I get ...

It just passed to my head that because since it was done with open source tools it was a open source movie ... Yeah you are right about it's under creative commons.. :)

Re:name ?

[Lumpy]

Why??

when you give out the script, and all assets used to make the movie such as t he actors, models, sets, etc... I would definitely call that a open source movie.

Espically when you can take that source and create the movie at home. Or even tweak it so the movie is different in your way.

Re:name ?

[jshriverWVU]

It *could* be an open source movie if they release in addition to the AVI, the actual source files used to render the video. This way other people can take the characters or objects and reuse them in other videos.

Re:name ?

[LetterRip]

"It shouldn't be called an open source movie ... more like a movie developed with open source tools...."

It is open in that it will all be released under a open license (Creative Commons attribution i think?) including all blend files etc. Of course it is also being made with open tools.

LetterRip

Re:name ?

[Hatta]

Are they all provided in a nice .tar.bz2 that you can unpack, .configure, make, and have a shiny new .avi built for you? Man that would be sweet.

Re:name ?

[zippthorne]

I think at least one of those steps will probably take quite a while.. unless you've got a cluster to divy up the work. Blender is nice, but even it doesn't have realtime raytracing, you know. And the audio probably isn't procedural.

Re:name ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's not open about that?"

Music and cover art ;)

Re:name ?

[Yoozer]

And the audio probably isn't procedural.

It also comes from proprietary software, namely Native Instruments Reaktor. You might have a chance rebuilding the Ensembles in Pure Data or something if you wanted to (and if they were published).

should be good

[joe 155]

Elephant dreams was good, but it was really more of a "here's what we can do" rather than a film. I watched the HD version (which was nice to be able to get) and was really impressed. It wasn't really a film though in the sense of story progression, more of a trailer for the technology. I hope that the new film will be film length. The person whose doing it sounds good though, they won an award for their previous project... hopefully it'll be a good film

Re:should be good

[Anonymous Coward]

I liked 'elephants dream', though I agree it was dense and confusing. Not such a bad thing.

There is a lot of art like this, and it's usually people's first attempts.
They start off with huge complex plots, profound world shaking ideas, and amazing vistas of imagination.

What they don't do is think 'hey, how about we animate a lamp on a desk?'. It takes seasoned professionals to attempt something as ambitious as that. :)

You get the same thing in cinema, drama, music. It's not till you have been doing it for years that you start to see how you can affect people with little movements, expressions and cues, and that you don't have to make everything important and huge.

Re:should be good

[Archwyrm]

When Pixar made their lamp-on-the-desk short the technology was not nearly as well developed as it is now. It is hard to imagine what kind of work went into that simple thing, what with the tools they had and just imagine the rendering time.. Ouch.

Elephants Dream was a good opportunity to make a high quality, open source 3D short, which they did do, but they made one that did not make a lick of sense. IMHO, they would have been a lot better off maintaining the quality and complexity of the film, yet portraying a story that was simple and to the point. But nooo.. They just had to make something artsy.

Re:should be good

[AHarrison]

ED was not supposed to be a full length movie...it was supposed to be a short. The story was decided for the main reason that it wouldn't be immediately stale after seeing it once...it had a bit of replay value. Most assuredly ED was designed in an attempt to showcase the power of Blender, but I think that it stands on its own within the genre of weird short films. Also, from what I have seen about this announcement, the next project will be similar in scope...and should probably be enjoyed for what it is, not what people wish it to be.

This will be interesting

[Aranykai]

Can one of these open source movies gain some public eye? Indie films are starting to be recognized, so I think there is a good chance it can be done and receive recognition. As to the game, I wish there was more info available. Too early to judge, but it has promise :)

Re:This will be interesting

[nEoN nOoDlE]

It will gain the public eye if it's any good. It doesn't matter if it's open and people could download the texture libraries - that only interests other artists - it only matters if it's good to watch.

Re:This will be interesting

[Lumpy]

Indie movies have ALWAYS been recognized. Lately the "indie scene" is far less indie and more big studios hiding who they are.

Indie movies do not have a 1.4 million dollar budget like many of the ones listed for this years sundance festival.

Download and watch elephants dream. It is a technical example and not a well written story but it was designed to prove and in essence broadcast a loud STFU to all the maya and lighwave weenies that still proclaim that blender is not a professional tool capable of anything decent.

They produced a pixar quality animation with free stuff that YOU can have in your home. The next project is going to focus on a good storyline and probably get submitted to many festivals.

Re:This will be interesting

[bishiraver]

Doubtful. Last I looked, crystal space was only just achieving what mainstream graphics engines were about 3 years ago. People who are interested in eyecandy will gloss over it, while a minor group of linux users who are gamers as well as sysadmins will cheer and cheer and cheer and.. nobody important will care.

Not to mention, somehow I doubt a game can be crafted with an open-source development model. A game needs some very strong creative forces behind it to keep it cohesive - if a typical OSS app can't even keep their user interface cohesive [ever look at your typical gnome or kde app's config screen?], something tells me it will be difficult for them to keep their: storyline cohesive, user interface cohesive (like I said, most simple desktop apps have a problem with this), game mechanics cohesive and logical, art direction and style cohesive, etc etc etc. Unless it's just TuxRacer 2.0 (maybe make a version named TuxRaver as a DDR clone?)

Considering the typical absurd workflow logic that goes into most OSS apps I've used (beyond your bread-and-water openoffice, etc)...

You will start out as a penguin in the north pole, whereby you will get a letter from your family in new mexico telling you to come quick because your cousin has died during the construction of the great pyramids. You arrive in Sicily only to find that Siberia has been taken over by mutant cyborgs all named 'Bill Gates.' You must travel to antarctica and battle the chair-throwing monster Ballmer in order to gain the GPL of truth, increasing your hit points by 6.02x10^23 while slowing you to a barely managable crawl. Desperately you make your way to florida, where you successfully battle jack thompson in court and gain the Writ of Winnitude. You combine this with your GPL of Destiny (the one you found during the side quest back in new mexico involving the trout and the cliff wren - you did that, didn't you? it's not in any of the docs anywhere, but it's so obvious! - it's NOT the Gpl of Truth - that item is useless) and are magically transported to a land of rainbows and penguins and free software for everyone. Unfortunately, this paradise is shattered by an Ax of Servitude hewn from the yggsadril-apple. It's shiny, but it works good and is simple to use...

Right about here, most people get bored developing the game and it slowly dies, forgotten in the depths of sourceforge. A few people stop by every couple of months and say, "hey.. there's this bug.. is anyone still working on this?" A few people wax nostalgic about the groundbreaking progress they made on the pixel shader they used to put a shine in the main penguin character's eye (but is not used anywhere else). The controls were odd (you used t to go forward, z to turn left, i to turn right, and clicking your mousebuttons realigned your characters eyes with the directions he was looking) and most people who downloaded it wished pain and suffering on the user interface developers, who decided to go with a "Leopard-meets-vista-meets-diabloII motif."

Note: I love open source software, but really.. I can't see it working in game development :) I could see a group of people taking some open source solutions that are released under the LGPL and developing an indie commercial app with it, but you need a solid and non-transitive team to build a good game.

Re:This will be interesting

[Jorrit]

Don't forget that one of the goals of this project is to expand Crystal Space to do what we want to achieve.

As to Open Source not working. We are going to do this with a solid team that will remain for six months in Amsterdam (Blender studios). So while the end result will be Open Source the way to develop it is like any other commercial game (only with less money and a bit more time constraints).

Greetings,

Re:This will be interesting

[bishiraver]

Well then, good luck to you! Hope to see a fine result. When do you expect the design doc of the game to be published?

Re:This will be interesting

[Jorrit]

Not sure yet. Our first real meeting on this game will take place at the Crystal Space conference (http://www.crystalspace3d.org/main/Conference2007 ) on 14-15 july in Aachen (Germany). More concrete details will follow from there.

Greetings,

Re:This will be interesting

[bishiraver]

Aaah It's too bad it's in Germany, it's something that I'd like to attend. Best of luck! I'll be keeping my eye out.

(I have a jar I keep it in on my desk)

Re:This will be interesting

[aichpvee]

That's funny, as a Maya "weenie" I find Blender to have a weird learning curve but seems like you can do some really nice stuff with it after taking the time to learn how it works. Also the interface actually seems to make a lot of sense in a pretty non-traditional way. I still like Maya better and think it's workflow is a lot nicer. But I'd never say you couldn't do anything decent with Blender and it's definite step up from a 3ds max.

I'll have to argue about the "Pixar quality animation" part, though. There's some seriously weak animation in Elephant's Dream (not all of it, just some) and you won't see that in a Pixar film.

Re:This will be interesting

[Scrameustache]

It will gain the public eye if it's any good. You lovable, naive fool.

Re:This will be interesting

[2short]

I generally agree with everything you said, but it's not really open-source that's the problem there. It's poorly focused development. This is certainly more prevalent in the open-source world, but it's not required. "Battle for Wesnoth", for example, maintains a well focused development effort despite being open-source, and is quite excellent.

Re:This will be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Can one of these open source movies gain some public eye?

I can practically guarantee it. "Open source movie" = "somebody will make a pr0n fork of it".

Re:This will be interesting

[Adambomb]

It is a technical example and not a well written story but it was designed to prove and in essence broadcast a loud STFU to all the maya and lighwave weenies that still proclaim that blender is not a professional tool capable of anything decent. You fail to meet the second requirement. No need for the weenie label sir!

Re:This will be interesting

[amchugh]

Wait, yggdrasil is a linux distro, surely it wouldn't generate an ax of servitude ;)

Re:This will be interesting

[5of0]

Some of the weak animation (like at the beginning) was due to lack of time - they had to get it out the door and didn't have time to go back and redo the beginning...now where is that post about that...ah well, anyway yeah - little things like some lip syncing, etc, was due to lack of time - fyi. Not that I'm arguing that it's Pixar quality, just a disclaimer.

Re:This will be interesting

[Lorkki]

Where was the rush, did they have funding issues or perhaps some other reason for an externally-set deadline?

(Not trolling, mind you, merely curious.)

Re:This will be interesting

[aichpvee]

Oh, I'm sure it was due to lack of time. Clearly those guys know what they're doing well enough to have done the rough parts better. I wish someone would smooth it out and release a special edition or something, since it's open source and all.

Re:This will be interesting

[toad3k]

It wasn't funding issues. There was practically no funding. The people who were working on it did each scene in linear order. The progression in quality throughout the film is them getting better at using blender. It is actually pretty interesting seeing how fast they went from beginner to churning out some effects that were pretty decent, all told.

As far as a tech demo, elephant's dream was a massive success. That clip generated an overwhelmingly positive response, increasing blender's profile and triggering developer interest. It is no surprise that they are doing another.

Re:This will be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU BASTARD!!! You just gave away the story line!!!

Re:This will be interesting

[Jeek Elemental]

While I agree its very hard to make a good game, I think youre a little too pessimistic.

Open source can draw from a potentially limitless pool of resources with no money or time restraints.

Lots of games never "grow up" even tho they have experienced, motivated people behind it, the major difference between closed and
open is with open source the assets are still there even if the game fails, added to the pool.

Not the Blender game engine?

[Animats]

It's too bad they're not using Blender's own game engine. Blender has an integrated 3D animation system and game engine.

The trouble with the Blender game engine is that it doesn't scale well. The Blender game engine can be used "without programming", but what that really means is that you have to draw connection diagrams with hundreds or thousands of connections. Then you get to debug the wiring. For a non-trivial game, it's painfully difficult to debug.

It's an occasional fantasy of programmers that wiring visually functional blocks together is easier than programming. Engineers who wire up real hardware know better. That's why we have VHDL.

Fortunately, you can extend the Blender game engine in Python. Unfortunately, it's CPython, which is 60x slower than C. This isn't a hit you can afford in most games.

Re:Not the Blender game engine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Soo... It's good, but it's bad, but maybe it's good, but it's bad...

Re:Not the Blender game engine?

[Lunar_Lamp]

Or perhaps he was giving advantages and disadvantages of a system in an attempt to give an informative picture, rather than just spouting biased fanboisms.

Re:Not the Blender game engine?

[a.d.trick]

You can write CPython modules in C. It's not as easy as coding in Python (of course) and there would be a slight performance hit (I don't know how much exactly, but I don't think it would be significant).

Re:Not the Blender game engine?

[oftencloudy]

It's an occasional fantasy of programmers that wiring visually functional blocks together is easier than programming.

For more information on this subject see virus creation in Swordfish.

Re:Not the Blender game engine?

[Animats]

I was hoping that developing a large game in Blender might motivate the Blender game engine people to rethink the design so that it scaled better. The Blender "circuit diagram" approach might work if it had higher-level abstractions, like components made from other components, or "objects". LabView, which is also a "wiring" oriented programming system, has something like that, and it scales moderately well.

Re:Not the Blender game engine?

[ducomputergeek]

Blender's game engine has been on the way out since it hit Opensource land. If you recall, the first few released after being released Open source excluded the game engine. Blender is now dominated by those of us who use it for CGI/animation and modelling work for videos and fun. Making Blender easy to use with Crystal Space (called crystal blend iirc) has been the project to watch. The idea is to make it simple to create 3D worlds in Blender and then export to Crystal Space as the game engine.

Re:Not the Blender game engine?

[Archwyrm]

Yeah, we real hackers have crazy 3D interfaces and fly through machines and networks in VR. None of this silly GNU/Linux nonsense!

See also: Hackers

A new open source movie

[Anonymous Coward]

They give you a screenplay that you compile in your imagination.

Spoilers

[CouchNinja]

I would contribute to the movie if I didn't hate spoilers that much.

Great!

[saibot834]

I liked Elephants Dream very much. BTW: You can download it here as Avi or Quicktime.

blender advancement

[Speare]

If Peach and Apricot follow the progress made in Orange, you will be sure to see a lot of very useful, general purpose improvements in Blender for everyone. The need for specific features in Orange really focused the developers (some of which were Orange team, some of which were in the general development community) on solving specific creative problems. It's the difference between "scratch an idle itch" and "remove a troublesome splinter."

CS Project Manager Perspective

[Jorrit]

Hi all,

I'm the project manager of Crystal Space. I'm of course very glad that Blender and us will do this project. It is an amazing opportunity to enhance both Blender and Crystal Space to actually make this possible. The plan is to make a really good looking game that can compete (graphics wise) with commercial games. Crystal Space can do a lot already but in some areas we still need some more work (more specifically things related to render2texture like HDR and others). Also for a game like this we need to work on a very good animation system. Having a project like this is of course the best motivation possible.

Another important goal of this project is documentation. As this game is fully open all sources (both code and art) will be made available. And we also plan to release a DVD with a full documentary on the entire creation process. Basically everything will be available (we would release the left-overs of the meals of the participants if we could :-)

And of course the idea is to make a nice and playable game. Six months is not that long but it also doesn't have to stop there. The nice thing about an open game is that it can be extended for a long time to come. Also the game logic will serve as a nice starting point for a new game based on a different setting. So lots of possibilities here.

Needless to say I'm very excited about this project. I think it will be a great thing. Both for us (Crystal Space) as for the Open Source community. If we succeed we will have a commercial quality game but 100% free and open!

Greetings,

Re:CS Project Manager Perspective

[jshriverWVU]

And we also plan to release a DVD with a full documentary on the entire creation process.

Sweet! where can I sign up. Seriously I'm anxiously awaiting the release.

Re:CS Project Manager Perspective

[nsebban]

Please, for the love of god, don't let it be a First Person Shooter :/

Re:CS Project Manager Perspective

[dbcad7]

In looking at your website, I saw that you are accepting ideas for topics for the conference. Does this include ideas for this game project ? or has the game concept already been decided ?

Not that I want to see you swamped with a million ideas, but I am sure there are plenty of people out there that have workable ideas for a game... just saying, not that I have one or anything... ok I do,.. but just saying.

Open Source Movie?

[oyenstikker]

What is an Open Source movie?! It comes with a script and blueprints for a set, and I am free to make modifications to them and make my own movie and distribute it, so long as I make my script and blueprints available?

Re:Open Source Movie?

[radarsat1]

Yes.

Re:Open Source Movie?

[Speare]

What is an Open Source movie?! It comes with a script and blueprints for a set, and I am free to make modifications to them and make my own movie and distribute it, so long as I make my script and blueprints available?

No, that's more like a GNU movie. With the blender Orange project (aka Elephant's Dream), it came with a script and blueprints for a set, and you're free to make modifications to them and make your own movie and distribute it, but you don't have to make your script and blueprints available. Anyone can build on Elephant's Dream all they want, but it's up to you whether you want people building their own movies on top of your Oyenstikker's Dream movie. The community might appreciate your continued generosity, but the Orange group (aka Blender development and artists) don't deign to tell you what you can do with your creative works, just their own.

Ewwww, grossss!!

[Anonymous Coward]

we would release the left-overs of the meals of the participants if we could :-)

That's just gross! And it will probably smell bad too!

Machinima?

[Jonah Hex]

After attempting to use a couple of "Machinima Toolkits" several years ago I had pretty much given up on the idea of making a short 3D film. However the recent BioShock previews using the new Unreal engine are incredibly cinematic and gotten me thinking that it may be possible to do Machinima using some of the more recent engines. Is Blender suitable for use in creating such movies by itself, or would it be better to stick with a game engine?
Jonah HEX

Re:Machinima?

[bWareiWare.co.uk]

You seem to be asking this backwards. Blender is a 3d animation package with a simply game engine thrown in. It is far more suited to doing an animated film then a machinima toolkit on top of a game engine.

The huge difference though is it doesn't include all the models and textures you would find in a game. You can find a lot on the net, but you are not going to get the cohesive art design of a commercial game without a lot more work.

This is one of the goals of their 'Open source' films and games, building up a library of resources you can reuse in your own work.

Re:Machinima?

[Jens Egon]

Far more suited, yes. But also far more difficult.

When you use a 3d animation package you can make much better animations than machinima, but not as easily.

You would essentially be forced to learn animation

Meh...

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds boring.

Also Essential Blender book

[LetterRip]

Also a quick offtopic - 'Essential Blender' a new book to make it easy to learn Blender is being published by the Blender Foundation and ships tomorrow.

LetterRip

Re:Also Essential Blender book

[jshriverWVU]

Will this be sold in the states? I took a look and it's price is in *guessing* British pounds.

Re:Also Essential Blender book

[Anonymous Coward]

In the upper right corner of the page, change the currency from 'Euro' to 'US Dollars'.

applications other than software

[veganboyjosh]

I've seen several stories on /. about open source hardware, and now with this one (I must have missed the first project), I'm wondering if there's not a place for open source type "politics" or methods in things like designs for buildings, cars, bikes, etc. Granted, with something like a car, at this point, there's all kinds of prior art which would be off limits, but with the right development team, couldn't someone(s) come up with an effecient design that could be built by diy'ers, or by some company that would play a role similar to red hat, etc?

Whats the plot?

[Realistic_Dragon]

I actually liked Elephant's Dream... but it was a bit high brow. A few car crashes/pirate ships would have broadened the appeal of the movie and gained a wider audience, which is the point of a tech demo, no?

Re:Whats the plot?

[tehcyder]

I actually liked Elephant's Dream... but it was a bit high brow. A few car crashes/pirate ships would have broadened the appeal of the movie and gained a wider audience

It was supposed to be a proper film, not an adolescent's idea of a cool video game.

Why not Ogre instead of Crystal Space?

[CompSci101]

Ogre3D

It looks like Ogre is at least as fully featured, and has some commercial games being developed on it right now.

By the way, this is a legitimate question -- I'm not a developer using either suite so I'm kind of curious if people out there have used both or if there was some rationale for the choice of one or the other.

C

Re:Why not Ogre instead of Crystal Space?

[Jorrit]

Ogre would have been a perfectly valid choice as well. It is just that we have closer ties with Blender at the moment. We have an excellent blender2crystal project and our connections with Blender developers are very good.

Greetings,

Re:Why not Ogre instead of Crystal Space?

[cching]

Your link is bad, you meant this http://www.ogre3d.org/

Re:Why not Ogre instead of Crystal Space?

[CompSci101]

Thanks. The fingers go too fast today.

Re:Why not Ogre instead of Crystal Space?

[CompSci101]

Thanks for the reply -- I didn't go through your site in much detail before, but after about 2 clicks on the second visit I came to the "Ogre vs. CS" comparison page.

I guess you guys get this question a lot ;)

C

Re:Why not Ogre instead of Crystal Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, get the Vegastrike folk to switch to Crystal Space instead of Ogre, and you'd have scads of blender models and a 70% made game. That, and Vegastrike might get a few more developers. And, they'd finally finish porting to _something_ . ;)

Re:Why not Ogre instead of Crystal Space?

[Archwyrm]

Fantastic idea! The Ogre port of Vegastrike seems to be just about dead in the water/vacuum. I am not sure how Vegastrike decided they would do the port and then have one guy work on it. *sigh* Well, I suppose the Blender/CrystalSpace people will want to start from scratch anyway..

Re:Why not Ogre instead of Crystal Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the main criticism is the lack of documentation. As long as the CS developers spend their six months documenting all the things they had to explain rather than adding new features, they might have a winner.

Maybe Lara Croft will star in it?

[smellsofbikes]

I wonder if they can get Lara to play the lead character. That'll get the public to show up in droves, and I've heard she works inexpensively and has almost infinite patience for redoing scenes.

I don't remember any Elephants...

[MS-06FZ]

I actually liked Elephant's Dream... but it was a bit high brow. A few car crashes/pirate ships would have broadened the appeal of the movie and gained a wider audience, which is the point of a tech demo, no? It wasn't just a tech demo - part of the idea, as I understand it, was to use the project as a shake-down for Blender. People don't do major projects with programs like Blender every day, so there's not the kind of in-depth feedback on advanced topics that there should be. By applying Blender to such a task in Orange Project, they were able to see for themselves what went well and what didn't. As a result they identified some things to improve and (more importantly) how to improve them in order to make character animation better.

I had heard they were considering some kind of game project in order to give the Blender game engine a similar overhaul - I don't know if that's still the plan (since they're now using a different engine, I guess?) but I think the basic idea is still the same: a shakedown to help them improve the code.

As for the subject matter - you have to consider the time and energy it takes to make a film like that. Let's say you were going to make a short film, right? Only it takes so much time or effort or money or whatever that you don't know when, or even if, you'll be able to make another one. Do you make what you think people want to see, or do you make what you want to make? Which you choose is a matter of personal taste, of course - but if I weren't in it for the money I'd choose the latter, no question.

Re:I don't remember any Elephants...

[Workaphobia]

Elephants Dream, contrary to the opinions of thousands of slashdotters and countless others, actually had a plot. The old man constructed an elaborate fantasy world governed by his particular set of rules, and its existence depended on someone else believing in and acknowledging them. When the younger character abandoned him his existence was threatened, so he attacked his protégé and destroyed his own world in the process.

The voice acting was annoying, and some details that could've made the plot clearer were missing, and the opening scene was poorly animated. All these details could've been improved with more time, but when you're on a budget and a schedule you have to sacrifice some creative effort and freedom (in this case more the former than the latter). So I hope they allot themselves more room to complete the project this time around.

Funding?

[maxx_730]

Pardon me for asking, but where exactly does th Blender foundation get the funds from to just be able to say 'we'll make a movie and a game this year'?
Last time i checked, most (low-key) open source projects were dirt poor. How come this is different with Blender?

  Nonetheless, still very cool that they actually have got the funds to open an office in Amsterdam (where housing is the most expensive of the whole of the Netherlands)

Re:Funding?

[LetterRip]

Pardon me for asking, but where exactly does th Blender foundation get the funds from to just be able to say 'we'll make a movie and a game this year'? Last time i checked, most (low-key) open source projects were dirt poor. How come this is different with Blender?

The Blender Foundation sells printed high quality versions of its documentation (and commissions new and up to date documentation - ie see the link to Essential Blender earlier); it presells DVD versions of the movie projects; and enough users use it commercially that they can afford and are willing to 'give back' to the foundation. Also the Blender Foundation has support from both commercial and government entities. All of those are possible through both the efforts of Ton (the project lead and chairman of the Blender Foundation); and through the work of volunteers.

LetterRip

Re:Funding?

[wzzzzrd]

Pardon me for asking, but where exactly does th Blender foundation get the funds from to just be able to say 'we'll make a movie and a game this year'? Last time i checked, most (low-key) open source projects were dirt poor. How come this is different with Blender? the question how they fund all this is already answered, but an interesting thing i want to add: did you know that blender is only open source because the community raised EUR 100,000 in 2002 to buy the source from NaN, a dutch company formerly owning the blender code?

should be good-Tech demos

[Anonymous Coward]

"Elephant dreams was good, but it was really more of a "here's what we can do" rather than a film."

Blender's the iD of 3D software. Great technology, poor movie.

hmm

[El Lobo]

My grandmother used to say: "too many cooks on the kitchen are seldon a good thing".

Where will people learn that appending an "open" before any project is not necessarly equal with a a good thing? I really don't want to even imagine a movie where 45 people all add a part or the script and modify parts of it ad nauseum... "Sherlock opened the door and said with his energetic voice "I have scrambled eggs". Next day he came to a taverna and with his always lazy voice spoke to Watson while eating his favorite scrambled eggs"... bleh.

Re:hmm

[Jorrit]

Open does not mean that everyone will be able to add stuff like that. Open means that a limited number of people (6 for movie and 6 for game) will do the actual work and the community will be able to have input on it. Also open means that the end result of the movie and the game will be available. Including sources and everything needed to produce it.

Greetings,

Gameplay Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

"The plan is to make a really good looking game that can compete (graphics wise) with commercial games. "

What!? No "it's the gameplay posts?" What's the matter with this forum?

"Crystal Space can do a lot already but in some areas we still need some more work (more specifically things related to render2texture like HDR and others)."

There's a little matter of physics.

"As this game is fully open all sources (both code and art) will be made available."

*cue picture of artists strapped into chairs with armed guards standing in the background*

Re:Gameplay Perspective

[Jorrit]

"There's a little matter of physics."

We actually have support for physics using the ODE physics engine.

Greetings,

New open source movie

[Anonymous Coward]

"Elephant's Dream" was an amazing achievement visually. The script left a lot to be desired.
Script, script, script, script, script. Everything else flows from the script. If they get a good solid compelling script, Peach will be great almost regardless of how the animation looks.
But if the script fails to emotionally grip us...then even the most dazzling graphics will prove useless.
99% of the effort on Peach should be spent on the script, 1% on the graphics.

Movie project

[gr8_phk]

I never saw the last blender movie, but heard the graphics were good and the story was bad. I'd really like to see them take a proven story (public domain like one of Grims fairy tales - poke around Project Gutenberg) and make a movie out of it. If they choose one that Disney has already commercialized that would be even more interesting - and may get some free publicity if they threaten the team.

Re:Movie project

[beyondkaoru]

count of monte cristo. if they could put it in space and make an anime, we could make a 3d rendered version :)

it's not something that would require any trippy visuals, and has a strong story already. they can focus on details, as mentioned in other posts, to convey emotions to the viewer.

well, that'd be my suggestion.

name ? - Bondage movies.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's not open about that?"

Will it come with a change in license preventing Tivoization or Googlization?

Direct Ripoff of Digg's Post

[Khyber]

This was copied straight from the Digg source and they left out a detail - "In addition, a for profit corporation 'Blender Institutue' will be set up to provide commercial support and development of Blender." At least the submitter could've included that in the summary as well, FFS, while you're ripping off a Digg story. Even reddit hasn't picked up on it yet. Or at least /. Editors could read other sources and check them like REAL news sites would, to help avoid direct ripping off of someone else's material.

Art license

[gr8_phk]

It would be nice if the code AND artwork are all licensed in such a way that the game can be bundled with most Linux distributions. I'm not sure if (CC) would be OK with Fedora for example - who are talking about trying to meet the FSF definition of a completely Free OS.

FOSSie projekts, now revealed!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, an open source movie and open source game. I've found out what both FOSSie projects are about:

FOSS Movie: follows the adventures of Lunis Torvballs, as he desperately tries to defeat teh evil Mikkkro$loth Empire by creating a platform which will allow three hundred million different text editors. As for how that will accomplish anything... that part is still being worked on. Delays for completion of the script are being blamed on Bill Gates.

FOSS Game: The player works on the revolutionary, cutting edge LUNIX(tm) platformer, and each level you try to assemble the code to build a newar and bettar text editar before teh evil Mikkkro$ofties get you! Also, if (IF? WHEN!!!) you manage to finish the game, you unlock a new, never before seen text editing program.

Best... game and movie combo... EVAR...

Suddenly, the dungeon collapses.

[glindsey]

Your comment was hilarious. However, NetHack.

Better be a better story this time

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully the story will be a lot better than the last one...

As my guess to what Elephant's Dream was about? It's more or less a highly abstractified representation of the internet and the relationship between an admin and user. (Scary worms, pipelines, routing centers, random bits everywhere, and some idiot wanting to click on a shiny button that lets bad things happen. How could it not be that?) And of course you weren't in the mood to be sober, there's always the Emo drinking game.

correction

[doti]

None of this silly GNU/Linux nonsense! It's GNU/Linux gNewSense.