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Creative Commons Video Challenges Hollywood's Best

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-giant-rabbits-in-this-one dept.

Supercharged_Z06 writes "A short film entitled Sintel was released by the Blender Foundation under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (YouTube link). It was created by an international team of artists working collaboratively using a free, open source piece of 3D rendering software called Blender. No Hollywood studio was involved in its making. Pretty remarkable what can be generated these days with open source software and some dedicated, creative talent. If a short film of this quality can be produced without Hollywood right now, imagine what will appear a few more years down the road."

24 of 455 comments (clear)

  1. That is fucking awesome! by airfoobar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Holy crap!

    1. Re:That is fucking awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      WTF? This comment isn't informative. It's completely worthless.

    2. Re:That is fucking awesome! by sammyF70 · · Score: 5, Informative

      You do realize that the point of the Open Movies isn't just to show off Blender's capabilities, but to actually improve it, right? Elefant Dreams, Big Buck Bunny and now now Sintel all resulted in a better Blender.

      --
      "DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
    3. Re:That is fucking awesome! by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1, Informative

      The GIMP is an image editor roughly comparable to Photoshop and Paintshop Pro. That's truly a hilarious statement.

      Hardly. GIMP really is a good, basic pixel editor. It ISN'T Photoshop, much to the dismay of millions of users everywhere. It IS frustrating to use (just like, wait for it, Photoshop) and it does lack a number of very important features for professional work. But it's perfectly competent within it's limitations. I don't use it, I use Photoshop because I need some of those important features and I've used it since version 4 so I'm intimately acquainted with it's little weirdneses.

      But it's certainly roughly comparable.

      /Start GIMP-Photoshop flame wars ...

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    4. Re:That is fucking awesome! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Informative

      and it does lack a number of very important features for professional work

      Sadly, that describes a lot of the open source software for artists and musicians.

      Maybe I'm missing the point, but I often wish that the developers of some of the big commercial applications for media production would put out Linux versions. I use Linux boxes a lot in my music studio, but for fileserving, streaming samples and offloading some processing cycles. The main recording and editing software is still either Mac or Windows-based. I need to use those VST, DirectX and AU plugins. I also need a professional audio layer and what's available for Linux still isn't ready for prime-time. Certainly, jack isn't ready.

      I keep buying licenses for Cockos' Reaper because of their work on a Linux version. I'll keep supporting it because goddamn I'm tired of having two companies, both dicks, ruling the creative desktop market.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    5. Re:That is fucking awesome! by ZosX · · Score: 4, Informative

      Uh....the gimp can work with adjustment layers and 16-bit and 32-bit color? Oh wait...it can't? Crap. You might as well forget about working with camera raw files (12-14-bit) in glorious 16-bit color. Well at least the gimp allows you to mix color in cmyk. Oh wait. It doesn't? Crap. I guess you can forget about using it in any kind of real production environment where colour conversion is critical so you can send out files to print that should have the converted to within cmyk's limited gamut. When you go to print you need to know what your output is going to look like and potentially adjust things in that colorspace. Of course you obviously don't work in graphic design or the printing industry so you don't see the value of these features. Photoshop does so many more things than the gimp and it does them all very, very well. Even the panorama stitching features are above and beyond hugin and it gives better results too. HDR is nicely integrated as well. Yeah you can do a lot of that stuff with open source software, but not in the gimp and not all in one piece of software. For low res, 8-bit web graphics, sure the gimp is good enough, but outside of that it starts getting pretty ugly and quickly becomes the ghetto-fabulous image editor. Even Photoshop Elements kind of blows it away. The interface sucks too. I could go on and on, but if you can't see why the gimp is drastically inferior to photoshop, you really don't know much at all about what you are whining about do you?

      --
      zosxavius photography
    6. Re:That is fucking awesome! by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Informative

      Holy crap!

      Yes. But here's the real "holy crap!" part:

      Next on our todo is wrapping up the 4-dvd box release, NTSC/PAL discs with extras and documentary, and 2 DVD-ROMs with tutorials, and all the data to reproduce the fim entirely.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    7. Re:That is fucking awesome! by ATairov · · Score: 3, Informative
      Three words: Layer Blending Options.
      I could hand-light every layer in GIMP, or use the bumpmapping feature to achieve some semblance of artificial depth needed for textures, or I could just, you know, use something that allows me to do what I need to do 4-10x faster.
      I used GIMP for about 10 years. I know what I'm talking about.
      I bought myself a student PS license. To this day, I still do not even in the slightest regret that purchase.

      GIMP isn't bad per se, (except for the name,) but the fact of the matter is that I get things done measurably faster in Photoshop, even though I had years of GIMP experience and no Photoshop experience until recently!

    8. Re:That is fucking awesome! by Ja'Achan · · Score: 2, Informative

      I, for one, miss the tree-organized layers that Photoshop has. I get a number of PSDs from the designers, which have multiple webpages (of the same design, so they have the same header etc) in them. They're set up by organizing layers into trees, which means you can view a page design by setting that tree to visible. GIMP doesn't have these trees (not the last time I checked, a few months ago, anyhow). It's a relatively simple feature. I'm not a designer, I can't use GIMP or Photoshop for anything else than crop/resize, but the lack of this feature means I still have to use Photoshop just to work with other people's designs.

    9. Re:That is fucking awesome! by QaDN · · Score: 3, Informative

      No it isn't.

      There is a bunch of different schemes going about.
      - There are the national health insurance countries (like the uk) where it is all paid by the goverment and you can just walk in. (there is still a healthy market for extra insurance and private clinics)
      - There are some which have a mandatory minimum insurance scheme with privatised hospitals (like in the netherlands). You are obligated to have insurance, but the goverment limits the price of that insurance. At the moment it is around 100 euros a month for basic (Everything you really need). Plus offcourse huge amounts of tax money going to the hospitals (However that last bit is not different in the states).
      - There are some in-between forms of that. I.e. no insurance, NHS like systems with co-pay, etc.

    10. Re:That is fucking awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      For over ten years now, whenever GIMP is compared to Photoshop somewhere on the net, invariably someone comes out of the woodwork claiming that GIMP lacks "certain professional features". Every time, I inquire politely what these features might be. What is it that "professionals" do or need that the GIMP can not do or provide?

      I have never gotten an answer. Not once.

      The one thing that is invariably mentioned is that Photoshop somehow allows you to work in a cmyk space. Which is of course the mark of the UNprofessional hack, since real professionals worry about light. Composition. Art. And leave the technology details of the print process to a bit of code that does the cmyk separation after the fact (which the GIMP has been doing for many years).

      For the most part you are right. However there are good reasons to work in CMYK rather than doing the separation afterwards. One of these is coloring comic books. The colors of the most iconic things (Superman's cape and so on) have been specified exactly. In CMYK. If the final color values are off even slightly, you have failed. Trying to match these with a RBG-CMYK conversion thingy is a crapshoot.

      In comic books you also need to work with CMYK to get things such as rich black and underdrawing. It can't be done in RGB, because it deals directly with how the color plates are processed in the printing press.

    11. Re:That is fucking awesome! by marsu_k · · Score: 3, Informative

      FYI you can run VST plugins in Ardour, provided you compile it yourself. This is due to licensing restrictions by Steinberg. Haven't tested it personally though.

    12. Re:That is fucking awesome! by horza · · Score: 3, Informative

      Aw man! Could you have at least put a *spoiler* caption at the top of your post?

      Phillip.

      --
      Property for sale in Nice, France
    13. Re:That is fucking awesome! by siDDis · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually you don't have to pay taxes to get free health care. At least not here in Norway. If you have a norwegian social number you get free health no matter what.

      If you make money, you have to pay taxes. If you don't make money and live in the forest, you don't pay taxes. And you still have free health care.

      I'm not really sure how the health care work in details for the rest of europe. But I know it's basically "free" in most european countries compared to the US.

    14. Re:That is fucking awesome! by evilviper · · Score: 3, Informative

      16-bit and 32-bit color? Oh wait...it can't?

      CinePaint (aka. FilmGimp) most certainly DOES support 16 / 32-bit, and full color managed workflow. As for adjustment layers, there is some Script-fu to give you most of this:

      http://the-gimp.deviantart.com/art/Adjustment-Layers-1473128
      and
      http://registry.gimp.org/node/20340

      Apparently, not enough people really cared, otherwise there'd be more contributions and improvements from others.

      Additionally, Krita (http://www.koffice.org/krita/) also supports 16 / 32 bit, adjustment layers and full color managed workflow.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    15. Re:That is fucking awesome! by syousef · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sorry.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  2. Re:Theatrical short? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is licensed as Creative Commons-Attribution. They made a 35mm print for the premiere at the Dutch Film Festival. You're also perfectly free to make your own or show it on a 2k digital cinema projector. You don't even need permission to show it thanks to the cc-BY license, though films like Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues (under a similar cc-by-SA license) have done quite well this way by allowing theaters to show it. Audiences frequently appreciate knowing if a certain film like this is receiving a certain portion of the proceeds, even when it's not legally required.

  3. Re:No need to imagine... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is need to imagine, because at that link, I only get the information that this video is not available in my country.
    Unlike the Sintel video, which is available, and even in HD.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  4. Re:Rendering alone can't make a movie by wardred · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm pretty sure many of those details are up there on the site. I know that Blender actually has some built in stuff for video editing, so a lot of the editing may have been done in Blender. Check the site for more details, they tend to be pretty open about what they're using.

  5. Re:Theatrical short? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.sintel.org/news/get-blender-graphics-on-35mm-film/

  6. Re:Rendering alone can't make a movie by LetterRip · · Score: 2, Informative

    But what software did they use for the editing the video sequences? What software did they use for the music composition? Did they edit the script in OpenOffice? Did they manage the project using OpenProj?

    Blender was used as the non-linear video editor, compositor, color correction tool, and all other 3d and video related aspects. The music was done in various proprietary software. Script don't know, probably openoffice and MS Word (It was worked on by different folks, I think the BI folks probably used Blender but the outside writer likely used MS Word). For project managment they used the OO spreadsheet and notecards, and paper, etc.

  7. Re:2048? by 91degrees · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'd guess for digital cinema projectors. They're based on horizontal resolution of 2048 or 4096, and 2.35:1 is a common aspect ratio.

  8. Re:Neither did Photoshop by Rich0 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Uh, Photoshop supports all the stuff he listed.

    Or, are you talking about the past? Sure, 15 years ago we didn't have 16-bit color, raw digital images, or any of that stuff. Can it be done? Of course. Is that the current state of the craft - no.

    This is like arguing that the features in Blender are irrelevant because in 1982 you didn't need digital rendering software to make an animated movie. Of course you didn't - and you still don't. However, if you want something like the subject of this article, then you need it.

    You can always settle for less, and in many cases this is a better use of resources. However, appealing to the past isn't the way to win this argument...

  9. Re:Rendering alone can't make a movie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    It is more interesting to ask if the the music and dialog *could* have been done with open source tools. This kind of work is quite demanding.

    There has been a lot of work to integrate JACK support into blender, so now it can synchronise it's timeline with Ardour. Blender also has it's own audio timeline that could be used for spot effects, output to the Ardour mixer.
    Linuxsampler could be used for samples, as it supports Gigasamper and Akai programs. Rosegarden would sync up with jack transport for midi work.
    There is just enough plugins, some Jack convolvers for the reverb, and the usual eq/compression etc are available.
    Ardour does support 5.1, though it's pretty crude.

    I reackon it could just about be done. It would probably overall be less pleasant for me than doing it in Cubase, but the transport integration with blender is not available with Cubase, so some spot effects and tweaking might actually be easier with open source.