Article

[red knight]

"Open Source 'Blending' Into Animation"

 

InternetNews.com (05/07/04); Kerner, Sean Michael

 

The latest version of the fully integrated Blender 3D graphics creation suite could help open source software penetrate the animation segment, especially now that the suite comes with features and enhancements previously unavailable because they were originally designed as part of Blender's proprietary, closed source incarnation. Blender3D version 2.33 enables modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, game creation and playback, and real-time interactive 3D, and the program is compatible across multiple platforms. Original Blender programmer and Blender Foundation founder Ton Roosedaal says the software is in a very youthful stage, and is going through the classic cycle of open source projects. "I see there is interest from companies now in getting paid support, so for the Blender Foundation the aim is to build a good support network for this," he comments. Movie Editor.com founder Robin Rowe, who also leads the open source Cinepaint project, says open source software has made significant inroads into the film industry, even though proprietary software such as Maya has held a dominant position in animation. He says Linux is now the leading operating system used by major studios' animation and special effects units. However, Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg sees Blender support as limited beyond a certain point. "At the end of the day for many companies, especially when they are building applications on top of the environments that Blender is providing, those folks are going to want and need a full level of tech support that just isn't available from an open source product," he asserts.

 

Full Article at: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3350861

 

Greetings

Red Knight

Edited May 13, 2004 by red knight

[Deimos]

Now all they need to do is make Blender a little more user friendly and they'll have a killer application on their hands

 

Seriously though, this is good news. Now companies like Discreet and the others will have to start thinking about charging less for their products which is as far as I'm concerned "a good thing tm". Far too long these progs have been way too expensive.

[Vaaish]

hehe not so much userfriendly as usable. they are off to a great start but they need to think about why the major platoforms do things the way they do. Workarounds for necessary functions as edge hardness and deselection of points don't cut it when you need an efficient workflow. I tend to feel that I am fighting the program more than focusing on creating.