Whoa!
/ by Ton
Got no other words really now…. apart from a big THANK YOU! to everyone who has been there on the premiere and party, to everyone who helped out making it happen, and to everyone who’s still working on the last project details. :)
More detailed reports on last friday will be here too – and probably pictures and stories are popping up on other websites already. Last friday it was of course way too late, and we all had to be in Montevideo the morning after to prepare the weekend show (imagine zombies!). Because yesterday was also the last day the team was complete, we did the ‘commentary video’ for the DVD together, and had a very *lekker* dinner in our favorite Indian restaurant around the corner.
Basse will leave today. Matt goes monday morning. Toni leaves wednesday, Lee and Bassam thursday and Andy on friday the 31st. And then it’s back to normal again…. oh, how much I will miss this, and how much I’ll miss you guys. We’ve become a real family the past 7 months!
No time for tears… back to Montevideo now, we still got a DVD to complete and then an interesting backlog of website/admin/documenting/coding/bugfixing job is awaiting for me.
Laterz,
-Ton-
« Progress Update | Premiere + after party: SOLD OUT! »
*sniff* Im so proud of you guys. *sniff*
Congratulations!
Download ready???
I can’t wait for my dvd :)
Heh, Ton, an ‘interesting’ backlog ;-) I remember how ‘interesting’ your comments about your mail backlogs always were… ;)
Have fun… and congrats on this unique, innovative and successful project. You’ve – again – made history.
When will it be available for download?
It was a great evening, thanks alot for organizing it, Ton. I won’t ever forget cruising through A’dam with the limo ;)
I’m glad to hear you guys still managed to record the DVD commentary that day – it’s a shame I had to depart so early, I admit you had persuaded me to take part in the end ;) (for the others: the original plan was to record the commentary on saturday noon, but most of us were tired and a little hungover at that point, so the signal-to-noise ratio of this would have approached zero).
Anyway, I thought about taking a week of vacation to recover from the deadline crush in the last weeks, but actually, I’m finding myself itching to get behind the faders again. Perhaps that’s not a bad idea anyway, there’s a DVD to be made after all! I hope you can get and enjoy your recovery time, though – it’s well deserved.
I cant wait to see the DVD !
Thanks, thanks , thanks TON and Team !
Hi,
Besides the ones mentioned on /the-movie , to which festivals do you plan to submit ED ?
Is the Annecy animated film festival ( http://www.annecy.org/home/index.php?Page_ID=2 ) one of them ?
And, by the way, congrats for this amazing project!
Congratulations to all of the Orange team!
Take a well deserved break, you guys deserve it!
Looking forward to viewing the video…
Mal
Congratulations to Orange Team.
I had a great time! The movie was awesome :respect: to you guys! Great great quality!
Party was cool. Good music, nice food and good crowd! Thanks for everything!
Congratulations Orange Team. Can’t wait to see the dvd.
Congratulations guys.
I can’t wait for the DVD I ordered last year so I’m going
to go around in circles digging a whole down trough my
floor through the neighbors roof waiting and anticipating.
Pant pant….
:)
/JoOngle
I heard someone saying there were more polygons involved then there are stars in our galaxy.
Katmai,
[QUOTE]There are about 10 billion (10^10) stars in an average galaxy,[/QUOTE]
So looks fairly doable 13,000 frames of animation – 1 million polys per frame – which is fairly small for an animation frame…
LetterRip
Congratulations!
BTW, it says that DVD will be shipped in the week of March. Since you’ve mentrioned something about recording something for the DVD I believe that it won’t. When will we get it then?
Regards,
rjc
WOW!
Really cool!
Congratulations for you (Ton) and the rest of team orange.
I CAN’T WAIT!! :D
p.s.
In the future we can hope a ‘elephants dream 2’?? XD sorry… joke!
Glad to hesr it all went well. Congratulaions and really, very well done.
I don’t see it yet, but… very well done! Congratulations! :)
I guess this is just the start of incredible things coming for all of you Orange team…
All the best!
Congratulations. This is an exciting time in your lives.
thanks who? ton! wake up! THANKS TO YOU ORANGE TEAM!!!
Hi,
I’ve posted a review on blenderartists.org!
Roel
And here are my photos and a short compilation of some movie clips. Enjoy.
http://www.funnyfarm.tv/elephant.html
Congratulations, guys! I can’t wait to see it. :-)
Many congratulations to the entire Orange team!!!
Thanks for doing such an excellent job to all of you showing what Blender and you guys are capable of!
I was in Amsterdam that week of the premiere, but couldn’t make it:-( …but can’t wait until the DVD is there:-)
Hi Ton and Blender Developers:
I am surfing the web and I enconter a API for rigid body dynamics. The name is Open Dynamics Engine (http://www.ode.org/) and is open source and is on C/C++ (platform independent). This API is used by commercial Apps and games like SoftImage XSI 4.0, Pedal To The Metal, Sarge Animation SDK and others. I think that this API can be integrated on blender for rigid body and the Game Engine.
An now ‘LET’S BLENDER THE WORLD!’
Javier,
we have two rigid body solvers that are native (Bullet and Sumo). Also a dev has been working on integration of ODE into Blender. (ODE has already been integrated twice via python… pyODE and BlODEd).
LetterRip
Congratulations! I can’t wait till I receive the movie. I really hope that there is another Orange project. I’ll buy it without hesitation.
I Would but it to!
Too bad I couldn’t be there. Hope you can be here someday !
Congratulations to everyone in the Team, and thank you for giving me your time these last busy months ! :-)
I’m very excited to read from people who went and have written reviews that the premier was a stellar experience. I’m hoping to show my copy of the DVD to many of my friends that currently use 3ds max in hopes of converting their thoughts. If another Orange project comes along some time or not, I hope to be versed enough to really help push Blender forward in the future like you all have.
Keep up the great work.
So proud to have been an early donor for this project…and can’t wait to get the dvd in the mail. I’ve followed this since the beginning and have been impressed with how all of the work has been handled. Nice job Team Orange!
Now, on a different topic, after working on something like this…I think we’d all love to hear about the behind-the-scenes details of collaborating on an open project like this. It’s going to be so interesting to see what comes from having all of the project materials included along with the final product. We’ll have to see if Proog and/or Emo show up in other stories…
Truly great ideas & work! And a special kudos to Ton! You may be starting a revolution here…
Congratulations guys!
GO ORANGE TEAM!!!!!!!
Wybren, thanks for the beautyful pictures and the short clip, they really gave me the mood of the happening, I wished I was there!
I had the opportunity to tag along to the premiere and I’m really happy I got the chance to – you’ve really made a beautiful movie. Well done!
Well, I’ve seen it! Finally, after all that waiting!!!
First of all, congrats, it looked great! You are really pushing Blender to the limits! Alas, I did not get the storyline yet, I’ll just have to wait for the DVD to play, replay ad infinitum. :)
Congratulations Orange team. I’ve been following from the start and have been really impressed by the work you’ve all done. I wish I could have been there for the premiere (could have visited a bunch of my relatives too). I’m a new Blender user, coming from a varied 3D background (3DS Max, Caligari, Hash), and I’m just so impressed with what Blender can do.
Thanks
Simply congratulations Orange Team.
It was a great experience.
snifff, i was just at 200km from the premiere.
Congratulations Ton and Orange Team!! :D
Congradulations Orange Team, and Everyone else that was involved!
From what I hear, this is one movie that I’m really going to enjoy! (Can’t wait!)
Sweeeeeeeeeeeeett dude !
Can’t blame ya if you deside to run away for months to recoupe.. That was a lot of work and leaving the team behind will be a quiet development progress… Heres to the next Challenge !
thank you :)
Congratulations on a job well done !
The movie looks fantastic and you guys really have pushed blender to the limits. Enjoy a well earned rest for a few dys at least anyway….!
i think someone should also make an imdb entry for it!
there already is a short movie called “elephant dreams”. the s is at a different place. :) -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0269188/
Congratulations on the premiere! :-) I was geeking out at a friend’s house showing them pics. :-P Out of curiosity, what’s the official runtime for Elephants Dream? (Last I heard it was 10 minutes +/- 20 seconds.) /Me now waits for DVD…*fingers tap expectantly*.. ;-) :-P
Big BIG BIIG congratulations to everyone involved. Well done!
Could we get a confirmation on the proposed shipping date for the DVDs?
sciboy:
Not a real confirmation. We are trying to get the golden disc done this month. Then it goes into reproduction and on the mail, somewhere in the first week(s) of april.
For the link collectioners:
http://www.bright.nl/
Dutch only yes… this site is from a techie-lifestyle magazine.
Whoa! :)
What “polder” does it mean?
Auff, my bad english… I meant: “what does “polder” mean?
“Polder” means land that is below sea level.
Anyway I had a great time at the Ketelhuis, After-party and at Montevideo!
Well… We don´t have other words too. THANK YOU for making this!
=D
Thanks!!…. for the Links and Photos from Premiere “Elephants Dream” and Afterparty Photos made by Thoro,Goofster,…and Wybren van Keulen!
PS:also nice T- Shirts ….elephants Dream!
Waiting for DVD to see the 3D Animated Film and Explore the Blend files…!
seeyA
buena voz Felicidades, from the other side of the world, exactylity in Arequipa From PERU, I say your´s very Congratullations, my english is some bad, sorry for this, but in my native languaje i say YOUR´S “Son lo maximo Felicitaciones”, this is “YOURS Amazing, Congratulations”, and we are wait for the DVD
Extracted from bright.nl
“Volgens de makers kun je met Blender een film maken die kwalitatief gelijkwaardig is aan die van grote studio’s als Pixar”
Calm down :), maybe soon, but not at the moment.
Tot ziens
AAAAARRGH CAN’T WAIT FOR THE DVD!! AARGH
Big congratulations for the spectacular work.
Congratulations for your work on this wonderfull project. I see that you are all enjoy of these past months, I am too to read this blog and to see how this project, and so blender evolves. Thanks
Congratulations indeed!
And a lot of respect to you Ton, and all the others for making this possible! Your devotion is great, seeing that you’re already creating the DVD!
Good luck and I can’t wait to see the finished DVD!
The boys are working their socks of to get the dvd ready…
Only a few more days till reproduction.
I have been wondering, are the Orange guys going home with any money in their pockets from Project Orange, or has all the money gone into production and into the general blender fund? I sort of feel bad that they do all this extra work and don’t get anything, but I know that having this in their portfolio is a huge benefit for them to get a CG job (or any job probably). Just wondering how exactly the business model is set up. Joeri, maybe you know.
As far as I know everybody except Ton and Jan are paid on a monthly bases. And if they have money in their pocket I don’t know, I guess so, they did not realy had the time to spend it.
What do you mean by “all this extra work”? I think they could have known from day 1 that there was going to be a dvd. As far as I’m concerned thats what they signed up for; a straight to video.
That they choose to ignore that is something I can understand. Maybe I should confort myself with the idea that at least the movie must be slightly better then if they had also made the dvd assets within the production time. Personaly I’d rather had send the dvd’s a week before the premiere, so the movie would have been online today. I think a week less of quality would have been hard to detect. On the good side the dvd interface is now an extension of the movie, and not some abstract design made while waiting on the script to be finished.
Morris; all Orangers received a reasonable monthly ‘expenses’ fee, all travel expenses, and housing in Amsterdam. Not very decadent, but definitely enough to compensate for not having a job during the period.
The week before the premiere was meant to start working on the DVD, but Murphy’s law decided we had to work on the movie until the very last minute. Then we had a deal with Montevideo to do trainings and presentations as well, which took place on friday, saturday and sunday. So only last monday we could make a start with the DVD.
Take your time O’Team.
A DVD with all the assets isn’t such a thing easy to make, if in fact, it’s a great dvd which you really want. :)
Let’s be patient.
This may seem a bit of a strange request. In fact, I’ve never even seen this done before but, there’s never been an Open Movie before either.
Is it possible to have the DVD setup so that when it is run on a computer for the first time, it will go directly to playing the movie? My concern is that since the DVD menu system is an extension of the movie, there will certainly be “spoilers” with respect to graphical elements, atmosphere, characters, etc. It would be great to have the same experience as the actual premiere where viewers showed up, sat down, and Wow! They didn’t have any real previews of any aspects of the movie. I think that makes for a better experience when seeing it for the first time.
After the first viewing of the DVD, anytime the DVD is inserted into the computer, the viewer would then be taken to the menu system as normal.
Wouldn’t “simply” checking for the existence of an empty text file do the trick?
Just a thought…
Creating a file on the computer might actually be problematic for the different OSs and, it could trigger some antivirus software. How about creating an initial screen that has the movie logo (and/or the green-tinted picture that we all have already seen) along with two buttons. One button for continuing to the menu system, the other for playing the movie immediately. Maybe also a drop-down listbox to select the desired language to play the movie.
Kernon, stop being superstitious. It won’t spoil the movie if you see 3 or 4 seconds of intro. In fact, I am sure you will be watching it at least 5 times when you first see it. Remember, this is not the first CG movie you have ever seen, so nothing will be particularly revolutionary from a CG movie standpoint. Just relax. Nothing is going to ruin it, and you will enjoy it the second time as much as the first. Just let the Orange guys make a good DVD that will be professional. I don’t mean to chide you, but I think you are overconcerned about it getting spoiled.
@Morris:
It’s responses like yours that cause people to just stand in the wings and not really participate because really, who wants to interact with an ass?
Remember, it was “just a thought”.
BTW, if you had actually read my post, I wasn’t talking about an “intro”.
I don’t think that reasonable statements lead to a non-participating community, but making such a noise on this blog might…
I think it’s fun if all the little previews from posters, teasers and trailers get linked together while watching a movie. Sometimes it makes surprizes even bigger because everything turns out to be totally different…
Kernon – actually if you use VLC media player yes you can skip intros. It spoils movies for me to see major plot points also (I close my eyes and plug my ears at theaters and do ‘la la la’; or come deliberately late to miss previews).
LetterRip
Kernon, please don’t call other people an ‘ass’.
Not nice.
If you just want to play the movie, the first time you put in the dvd, just set up your system to not automatically load the dvd-player software. Browse to the VIDEO dir and load the vob file for the movie. Easy
Felicitaciones
Aunque solo he visto el corto que estan en el sitio para ser descargados me parece que esta muy bueno.
Es un gran trabajo el que han realizado, espero poder adquirir una copia DVD, donde puedo comprarla en internet que cobren en $ no en Euros?
Thank You LetterRip! You may be the only adult to actually respond to my comment. I appreciate the info.
Tino, it’s equally not nice to actually BE an a$$ to someone. What? Am I supposed to just lay down and take it? Maybe that’s your template but don’t try to enforce it upon me. I still don’t think my original post is being understood. But, whatever…TOPIC CLOSED Please.
Thanks again LetterRip.
Kernon, I’m sorry you took my comment so personally. I was actually planning to mention playing the .vob in VLC when I started the response, but I had to run to work and I didn’t get to it. I figured the others would tell you, as they did. I think most of us would rather the DVD be “normal”, so I just thought I’d give my opinion for the record. I probably shouldn’t have directed my comment directly at you, but rather to Ton. Anyways, I hope you have an enjoyable “premier”.
Most commercial DVDs with animated Menues show some scenes from the movie that look good but tell no story OR they have some animations especially made for the Menue. In Both cases i think you won´t get enough info about the plot so no spoiler issue i think.
Ton said the DVD will be an extension of the movie.. so just trust those guys that they do it right, Kernon. Perhaps you will ruin the first impact by skipping the Intro/menue (whatever there will be)…
Personaly i like animated menues and intros if they are well made. They are like the Red curtain and the lowering light in a cinema..
@Orange: Keep posting a status of the progress. Helps to keep the adrenaline level down in the “waiting for this DVD” time ;)
@Alvaro Jesús Hernández Arteaga:
Hola!
Pudes comprar una copia DVD allí:
http://blender.org/e-shop/product_info.php?products_id=84
Pienso que pudes pagar en dollares y euros.
Soló una causa más: por favor escribir en inglés porque no hay más gente que hablar espanol ;)
Hasta luego!
Genscher
———————————–
English:
@Alvaro Jesús Hernández Arteaga:
Hi!
You can buy the DVD here:
http://blender.org/e-shop/product_info.php?products_id=84
I think you can pay in dollar or euros.
Only one thing left: please write in english because not everyone understands spanish ;)
Whoa! ^^
cant wait for the download..
i am really interested in this.. it reminds me of Half-Life 2 ^^
i just cant wait!
Again…my post was not actually read with clear understanding. Perhaps it is my fault. My concern is NOT “spoilers” for the plot but, as I said before:
“spoilers” with respect to graphical elements, atmosphere, characters, etc.
TOPIC CLOSED…again.
@Morris:
How could I not take it personally? You made it personal by calling me “superstitious”. Talking down to me as though I’m some 13-year old or maybe some Blender fanboy. You clarifed your intentions in your last sentence with “I don’t mean to chide you, but…”.
Anyway, it’s water long under the bridge.
Cheers
Hey boys:
We have a saying here in Wales.
“Get a Grip” : lets put this in perspective.
We are all waiting patiently for the product.
Ok.. you´re right. but usually a spoiler is about plot and story, not images or artwork stuff..that´s why i missunderstood this..
Another Tip: I have a button on my DVD player remote that jumps directly to the movie as long that is not made prohibited. You could try that..
Joeri
Are you using OSS for the DVD authoring? Perhaps DVDAuthor?
Today is friday and the last of the Orange team artis (@ndy) is heading home. It make me think about the morning after the party where everybody goes their seperate ways and pick up life again.
I’m ashamed to say that I still didn’t order the DVD, but I will :)
The whole Orange project gave Blender/ Blender users more than we ever would expect in terms of development. Now more than ever Blender as a 3D package is treated more seriously by its critics.
Thank you Orange Team.
I have some questions though. Maybe it had been answered already? It concernes the open license of Elephant Dream. Is it OK for anyone to exploit the characters? Like for example, a major studio making big bucks out of them? Or will using Elmo for example render the whole project open source just like in software? If I’m not mistaken, in software, if you use open source code, one is compelled to publish the code, even if it was closed before? The music is opensource too? So will there be wav files, sequence files, instruments etc on the DVD? The voices of the actors are open source too now?
@Toon: The term “open source” only applies to software – the movie itself will be published under a Creative Commons license, the exact details of which I don’t know (but I *guess* it’ll be a CC-Attribution license, which is the most liberal of the CC flavours and allows you to use, modify and re-publish all material to your liking). There’s no “viral” extension like in the GPL involved, so if commercial usage is allowed at all, it’s allowed with no strings attached – well, except the “Attribution” part, which requires that the original content creators are specified.
The DVD will most likely contain a submix of everything but the voices in the data section, which will allow people to make their own dubs. We cannot publish the isolated dialogue due to licensing restrictions, though.
As for the (isolated) score, I haven’t decided yet – I will definitely publish it under a CC license, but it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to finish the required re-mixing and mastering before the DVD goes into production. I think it’ll be up for download in a few weeks, probably under a CC-Attribution-NoCommercial license.
(posting not logged in)
All material on the DVDs will be the CC-attrib yes, so only giving us a credit is sufficient for using the material on the DVD. The attribution does have an added clause however, which is that if you screen or broadcast the entire movie, you should include the credits roll too.
I’d like to know how will you do the dvd menus and navigation?
Are you going to use opensource too?
How?
tx
How is the DVD process going? When do you estimate that it will be available?
Kernon:
With playing the dvd on you pc you should be okay.
Just make sure it does not open a dvd player and look for the HD version on the dvd-rom. I’d like to think the menu’s add to the movie, not break it down. But it’s your choice. The dvd starts with white text on black background, so time enough to quit your player if it did start. I can make the movie start directly when pressing enter in the license screen… I’ll have a thought about it…
OSS dvd:
We are using a special feature with extended scripting that made me decide not to go with dvd-author. I tried to de-compile several dvd’s I made, to see how to create them in opensource authoring tools, but the things I want for the dvd are to complicated *for me* to create with dvd-author. You will not see much of this scripting once your dvd is in your machine, but it is there. ( sorry kernon, that was a spoiler :P ).
Ton wrote…
> The week before the premiere was meant to start working on the DVD, but Murphy’s law decided we had to work on the movie until the very last minute.
It’s good to see that an Irishman ( Murphy ) was involved with the project! :P
Mal
joeri:
>As far as I know everybody except Ton and Jan are paid on a >monthly bases. And if they have money in their pocket I don’t >know, I guess so, they did not realy had the time to spend it.
at every month i was still paying my rent back at finland and other bills, so there was not much left to party with. now back in finland, I have -25euros on my account :)
but this was not “just another job” or about money in any way. i would’ve done it for free, if possible.
.b
Will we have a new version of Blender released on the DVD’s?
basse: I guess you have +25euros on your account, April the 1st :)
Congratulations!
p.s. this one is the best joke I ever heard:
http://www.blendernation.com/2006/04/01/ton-roosendaal-leaves-blender-development-gets-offer-of-24m-from-autodesk/
Hello :^)
do we really have to wait till may to download the movie?
If you order now, you can get the DVD in a few days. Think of it this way: a lot of people may not have ordered the DVD if it was going to be available at the same time for download. And if people didn’t order the DVD, then no movie at all! Besides, the movie for download will not be nearly the same quality as what comes on the DVD. Don’t wait till May, ORDER NOW!!
Actually, I sort of imagine that once a few people get the DVD the movie will be online in no time. So if you know how to, you’ll be able to get it. I’m not sure how Orange feels about this, but I guess its okay since it’s an open movie.
Hopefully Blenderheads who sprang 35 euro for the dvd will be loyal to the Orange cause and not make it available to others before time. I am sure Blender could make good use of additional dvd sales by controlling the release a bit.
If there has been a fault with publicity given to Orange it has been not maintaining interest with the fan base with wallpapers, screensaver and posts of the premiere etc.
I know all the work that is going on still but this aspect is an important part of it.
Old rubbleman was right we need to get our act together for the big time. Still a lot of valuable things were learned with this project – roll on Orange 2.
Great work guys! I’m really excited to see the movie as well. Thank you for all of your hard and dedicated work.
****Next Project**** Blue Steel – The Open Video Game!
ya that would be so cool
To have an Open Video Game!
actually there are quite a lot open computer games. open movies are rarer. :)
…
so, what’s the status of the dvd? will it ship soon? :)
Or think of it this way:
Normal movie productions you don’t hear about untill the PR machine wants you to. And then the only free download is the trailer.
John:
Ton is watching the binairy compiling now.
There will be blenders on the dvd to read the files.
I hope bassam will have time to write a small document to explain how to get the files to work (lib link paths etc.)
Basse:
“i would’ve done it for free, if possible”
I don’t see how that would be possible, I don’t even know if that would be desireable. Break-even is okay untill your washing machine breaks down.
One of the objectives of Orange was to show one can create animation with blender as good as one could with commercial software (If I understand correct). I’m not sure this point is proven. From an artistic point of view I’m not fully convinced, but from an economical point of view I’m not convinced at all.
BigFan:
The idea is to release everything the moment the dvd buyers get their copy. There is no other reason to pospone the online release then to give the sponsors a first view, a personal premiere.
All content is released under CC2.5, so everybody can release it.
Elephants dream is a bit strange as an open movie. It’s not made open (online collabaration). It’s a bit like blender, it becomes free and all files needed get released. Even for a closed production it was hard to meet the deadline, I wonder how that would be on an online creation.
If you say so Joeri, I just think more could have been done to stage the release so that there were as many dvd sales as practical.I am sure there are quite a few people who could be tempted if they did not have the immediate prospect of obtaining content for free very soon afterward.Really I don’t think I would bother again if there are no advantage to purchasing.How will you raise funds for another project if people get the idea all they have to do is wait a week or two and it is free anyway? Seems to me nothing wrong with capitalising a bit on a major undertaking like Orange. IMHO a good opportunity has gone begging for lack of promotion and marketing whatever the status of ‘open’ involved.I bet we could have sold another 500 copies. oh well.
even when the movie / the production files are on-line, it still makes sense for some people who want it all to order a dvd: close to 10GB is a lot to download..
but the actual movie of course will be on line soon and also in smaller formats.
How long until the DVD ships? This week?
Ideally the on line version would only be a smaller format like 480×270 with mono sound- which would be a great incentive to get the dvd and experience the full version.
i still have to mux the 5.1 audio to the HD (1920×1080) mp4 file that goes to the dvd, otherwise i think it is pretty much done .. some menu animation renderings are missing still. but the making of was dvd encoded today, and the svn repo has been prepared fully by Bassam. he may still add some documentation to it.
[quote}I’d like to know how will you do the dvd menus and navigation?
Are you going to use opensource too?
How?
tx[/quote}
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=117709
hope this helps, others, cause i think that orange already know even more than this ;)
Big Fan wrote:
> with mono sound
Over my dead body!
Jan… are you use also Waldorf microWave in your Studio??
…or in Music for “Elephant´s Dream”?
I Love Waldorf!
seeya
Jan,
no problemo, when we kill Wu we can process you at the same time :o)
You artistes will never make good salesmen and accountants.
Show biz, my boy, doesn’t happen without an expectant audience.
We have a whole lot of cg people aware of Orange/Elephants Dream after 6-7 months publicity of the studio work and you guys want to give em the whole works before they are even in the door let alone sitting down.
Peanuts!, popcorn!, DVD!, t-shirt sir? ;o)
Big Fan:
> We have a whole lot of cg people aware of Orange/Elephants
> Dream after 6-7 months publicity of the studio work and you
> guys want to give em the whole works before they are even in
> the door let alone sitting down.
Well, for the record, I didn’t say I like the idea of putting the movie up for download on the very day the DVDs will leave the production plant. I really hope the people who pre-ordered know that they have been the key factor in making this project possible, and that everyone involved is *very* grateful for that, and I’d love to see them getting a head-start in watching it, if just as a little gesture of appreciation. Then again, let’s be realistic: this is a short movie with a license that permits free re-distribution, and once 2000 people have it in their mail, I would be a little surprised not to find it on the net within, oh, about pi minutes. Releasing artificially trimmed-down versions at this point will only encourage people to make and spread their own rips. Which is perfectly fine, of course, but I think I’m speaking for the whole team when I say that we’d rather have some control about the quality of net releases to make sure it meets our standards.
> You artistes will never make good salesmen and accountants.
Thanks, we love you too ;)
I hate these kind of ‘me too’ posts, but I just want to say I totally agree with Jan, he hit the nail right on the head. BTW hello again from outside the dark depths of jetlagged zombification! :)
As for my side of a status update, I’ve been asleep for the first few days arriving home, but the DVD menus should be just about ready to render when I get a final confirmation on what subtitle translations made it through. I ended up making a complete alphabet of the ED title typeface, will release it with punctuation on here, if I can figure out how to get the SVGs into fontforge.
I hope my subtitles, spanish(american), were able to “make it through”. I worked so hard on them :)
The final list of languages is done.
> You artistes will never make good salesmen and accountants.
I thought that was part of the point. I’m glad these artists made a watchable movie, instead of becomming good salesmen.
> which would be a great incentive to get the dvd and experience the full version.
Short term marketing thinking. In the long run, the current bussiness model works best for Ton. Also, I know current labels like to stick to this cripleware thinking because they made tons of dollari out of reselling LP music rights on CD. (cinema-movies on dvd). But current technology make this thinking dangerous. Sewing your customers because they like to play the content they want when they want (and not when the DJ/TVChannel wants), is just not making friends.
Today I got some more dvd’s with lots of pngs on them.
(15691 for the NTSC and 15691 for the PAL encoding)
Turning them into raw-avi and this night into m2v.
Luckaly I have some external harddisks to spare,
I’m glad I’m not in the movie bussiness, these files eat space.
MV boys will send the docu’s tomorrow. Matt is on the menu’s, and Jan is compressing the music to your home cinema system. Ton has set the CC. The train is at full speed.
Good work guys… now i’m eagerly waiting for the DVD to arrive by post. :)
Well ok guys but I only want some control to generate more income for future Blender projects.You guys want total control of artistic content.A common trade off between artists and business- somewhere is a happy medium.In fact no one suggests altering the content only removing some of the audio/visual detail for a smaller version initially available on the net in the hopes of stimulating interest in sale of the full goods for a few more weeks.Think of it as a trailer able to reach a much larger cg audience.
People will be free to do what ever they like with Orange anyway (including goof on it) so you won’t be able to preserve it just the way you want it :o(
Hi guys,
first post for me after having followed the project quietly, to say I loved your reply too, Jan. Leave the peanuts to whoever can sell them, it’s all bad grease after all :-)
peace to all and good luck to all of Orange team, it would be interesting to follow where all of you end up working in the next months.
BTW Joeri the point is making the most out of the artists work now for the benefit of future artists.
And in this case there is only a short term need and opportunity.Get real about the world.
I really don’t know why but you come across as a guy who would be a problem in any organisation.Who are you anyway?
Big Fan,
Joeri is a 3d artist, who worked together with Ton at NeoGeo iirc .. he compiled the 10 years of Blender DVD for the last years Blender conference, and has been Orange along the way — especially taking the main responsibility of the DVD. and forum posts, occasionally.
nowadays he uses also Maya at work, but as you all know, we like her. Joeri also has a life, even tho we missed his birthday party ’cause were working or something.
Big Fan,
It’s pretty much been announced that the internet version will be available for download not long after the DVDs ship, so it would be unethical for them to push the internet distributed version back very much. (Last I heard the tentative schedule for the internet release was 2 weeks after the DVDs shipped. Maybe that’s changed, though.)
It’d be nice for everyone to buy their DVD to support the project, but not everyone has money to spare, or the inclination to buy the DVD, so they can wait for the version on the internet. I bet after seeing the movie they wish they would have bought it, and donate big bucks to the Blender Foundation to ease their consciences. ;-) :-D
Toni,
didn’t Joeri cofound Neogeo or was it NaN with Ton?
BigFan,
joeri does come across a bit abrupt on the net :)
DwarverFury,
[QUOTE]It’s pretty much been announced that the internet version will be available for download not long after the DVDs ship, so it would be unethical for them to push the internet distributed version back very much.[/QUOTE]
It certainly wouldn’t be unethical, the only individuals which are ‘owed’ anything are those who have purchased the DVD and those who contributed to its development both directly (ie actually worked on it or contributed textures etc) and indirectly (ie contributed to the development of the software0.
Hopefully the short will be available first via google video or itunes but that seems unlikely to happen. Also the movie being open doesn’t mean the final product is available free of charge.
Ton will do it however suits him best (or however his energy and interest and time allows :) ).
LetterRip
:)
Yes my boss loves me.
Ofcourse companies need to make money. They need to pay their employees (and not like nedcar laying of 1000 people, euhhh, I bet they did not had a open source bussiness model, so that does not seem to be a garantee for success.)
But the blender foundation is not a company.
Open movies is not a common thing. Not something that has alot of examples lying around. Projecting Disney bussness models on a project like this is just not what this project is about. Film creation is the Netherlands is not equal to film creation in hollywood. It was not about making money to start with.
LetterRip: (sorry, for clumpy block of text)
Ton and Frank started NeoGeo. I became partner some time later when a 12 minutes b2b had to be made (Morkramia, won golden bear in Berlin). All was made with inhouse software, mainly created by Ton. With the introduction of PS we wondered into the world of 3d gaming. Introducing game creation in blender. 3 captains on a ship proved to be tiering, so Ton incented a split. We sold the animation studio/activities and Ton could keep blender if he did something usefull with it. The software was released as gratis download. Ton started Not a Number, a one man company living on selling manuals. He had Daniel as an intern for some time, who started to implement various bits and pieces. Then a bussnessman came along: Ian. He wanted Ton to become head of development on a bussness plan of his, and Ton said: Why don’t we make a game creation kit for the public? So be it. Not a Number became big, very big in a booming .com time. Ton asked me to join, I did. First as game art director (lots of kids around the world where going to create games with this wonderfull blender 2.0, and Not a Number was going to sell them, blender would stay gratis). Blender 2.0 did not realy happen. At some point a milestone was about to be missed and Ton put the NeoGeo game engine in blender (in a weekend what 32 developers where not able to do in 6 months) So the logicbricks changed and changed and changed. Gbuc came. Top artist where invited to come to Amsterdam to see who could create these games. Later some of them joined Not a Number to be able to create inhouse games and exhibit demos. Then the internet bubble bursted, so did Not a Number. It had a restart, Ton found another investers, NaN was created. Main game programmers left, I for one stayed. It had a silly bussness model: give away blender, and let 4 content people create a game box that would sell so great that it financed 24 people for a year. That failed. Gratis blender no more. Website down. Ton in a small depression, beaten. So, then didn’t he made a promise to do something good with the code? He hoped for a more relaxing time and started a fund raising. Ofcourse he never had it so bussy then from that day on.
> or the inclination to buy the DVD
Ownership of a copy is something in my opinion that has to be put in the past.
The “What if people came in your house and took your tv, you would not like that now would yah?” campaign we got here does not realy work for me. More interesting would be if the analogy was correct: “What if people came in your house and took a copy of your tv….”
Now we are talking.
Well, then i´m a man of the past. I hate copies of movies. No menue, crappy looking jewelcase and DVD (even if you print them)… i rather have fewer DVDs than a big collection of copies…
@jan: I Hope you managed it to get some stuff on the making of. Such as Jan rattling PC cases and keep walking on one Spot making Foley, sweating on his desk while mixing and so on… ;o)thats a aspect of the moviemaking that was topic too rarely…
excellent work!
question: will there be a movie trailer?
Carsten:
> Well, then i´m a man of the past. I hate copies of movies.
> No menue, crappy looking jewelcase and DVD (even if you
> print them)… i rather have fewer DVDs than a big collection
> of copies…
Lots of people, including me, feel that way, but I think Joeri meant something different – namely, that the times of artificially equaling the distribution of content with the distribution of tangible goods will be gone for good soon.
In the near future, all content providers who want to stay in business will have to adapt to the simple fact that they’ll have to give their customers a good reason not to go the easy route and pull their stuff from a nearby P2P network. A part of the target audience wants an easy and fairly priced way to get legal, uncrippled content from the net, the other part wants to have lovingly crafted, tangible media with uncrippled quality content on their shelves. And call me hopelessly naive, but yes, I do think that the better part of the target audience is perfectly willing to pay fair prices for this if they’re given the chance.
In my opinion, a lot of traditional content providers currently fail to appeal to any of those people, but instead opt to bend the law in a desperate attempt to violently lobotomize their customers into forgetting that yes, we have arrived in the 21st century, and no, there’s no reason anymore to help fat suits paying the rates for their 5th Maserati in order to get their watered-down content on DRM-crippled media that quite possibly won’t work on half of your players, will fuck up your computer, and cost a fortune for the simple fact that 90% of the money will be directed towards artificially prolonging the life of a semi-dead business model.
Well, sorry for the rambling, I admit this topic is kind of a red tag to me ;) I just wanted to say that there’s nothing wrong with disliking copied media, in fact, both artists and distributors should thank their respective deities for the fact that there are still people who think this way, instead of taking it for granted. I’m afraid lots of big media companies are currently doing a great job in alienating those people.
Wauw.
sgrgc:
>will there be a movie trailer?
Sure, lots of them. And spoofs, and re-edits, and re-renders…
At least I hope.
apologies for my own abruptness before..
In a way Blender is a business. It just depends how you frame it up. -It is an organisation for a specific purpose. It has assets and staff. It takes income from sales.
Universities take fees and also sell intellectual property to companies.Their business is organised education even if their funding comes from taxes.
A purpose, people, and money mixed together to be self sustaining.
There is nothing wrong with thinking of Blender as a business.
It is exactly this issue rubbleman was trying to get across I think when he called for Blender to get organised. People seem to think getting organised is having Enron come to occupy Ton’s office.Just say I am right and we might have sold another 500 dvd sets in an extra few weeks- that might be 10000 euro in the Blender bank. I am sure Blender could make good use of that and yet this seems to be a disease to avoid at all costs.
Sorry but sooner or later you realise you have a family to support and money is important and what exists exists out of practical necessity. In this case we had a good bunch of people willing to work stupid hours for little personal return.
If they were doing this for a real living Ton would have had to have a big wad of cash for it and he would be very conscious of producing something that an audience would pay to see to recoup his investment.
We should have tried to maximise the return on this artistic investment by controlling the release. Just like major studios handle their asset before the pirates get hold of it Blender should be guarding its property too.
Sure the internet has changed commerce but people still need to protect their patch and particularly artists and musicians and the like.I fully support people like jan who want to be rewarded for their talents rather than everyone thinking their work is free for the taking or copy.
@Jan… Thanks. You said what we all know is true.. except those guys from major companys. ;o)
BigFan: I know whats your point. But its a “open movie”.. so it should be handled open. You won´t get people to buy the DVD if they only get a downgraded version. They will simply wait untill they can get it for free, as usual like every movie of interest someone will put it into p2p.. and in this Case this is absolutley legal, so why buy that DVD anyway?
One point that shurely would rise the number of sold DVDs: Lower the price. From Europe its more than 40 Euro.. you get up to 3 Hollywood Movie Special Edition 2DVD Boxes for that price. I know its worth that money, i ordered it last year… but many people don´t want to spend THAT amout for a short movie of 11 Minutes. You won´t get those people with a downrated or delayed download… but i think if you lower the price to 10 Euro after half a year or so.. perhaps for Christmas.. that could work.
But i bet that won´t happen.. it never was the goal to sell x copies of that movie on DVD.. the journey was the goal..
Actually, I distinctly remember a thermometer that seemed to indicate that it WAS a goal to sell x copies of the movie!
However, the goal WAS MET. The world’s first open movie was made, and there is no sense trying to milk every last cent from people, especially since using big-industry, annoying tactics ruins the effect of “open movie.”
We want as many people as possible to experience the first open movie in as high quality as possible. We want to inspire artists around the world that they can make great animations without over-priced software. We want people to come into the open source community fogetting the “what’s the catch mentality”. By not using bully-business tactics, Project Orange becomes an even bigger event and an accomplishment that stands as an inpiring model for the future. Errors were made, sure, but the fact is, while many wondered if it would actually happen, Ton and his team have established a milestone, a point of reference, and a model for any aspiring director to make his dream movie a reality.
here is the moneymeter:
http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/moneymeter/index.php
1360 paid and 402 pending at the moment. not too bad in my opinion.
bigfan:
Orange made a free open movie, and their sponsors get a dvd to remember they made it possible for artists to make it happen.
Isn’t that good enough?
Each sponsor has his/her own reason to support a project like this, just as all the artists/developers have theirs to be part of it. How more reallife do you want to get? They all know they contributed something real, that has good changes to last, and add joy to the world.
I think that’s more important then wanting blender to be a bussiness, or to be disapointed that it’s not. Sure i’d like a job at blender, managing director sounds nice :)
LetterRip,
My point was that since the internet version was announced, and announced that it would be available not long after the DVD release, it would be unethical to push to intentionally push the internet version back to generate more revenue from DVD sales.
As far as those waiting for the internet version “not being owed anything”, Ton did give an estimate on how long it would take for the internet release, so that’s what I based my point on.
My point was based off of this quote:
[quote: Ton]”Since we still like it that our dvd-sponsors get their personal premiere, we will wait with offering the DVD contents (and movie itself) for download until 2 weeks after we’ve shipped them. That’s somewhere in 2nd half April… can’t promise the exact date yet, but this official internet premiere should be pinned down soon too.”[quote]
( Certainly the internet version could be delayed, I know that things like that can and do happen, so it would be ridiculous to get upset if it’s not online exactly two weeks after the DVDs ship. Timetable estimates are hard to give accurately, especially on things like that. I receieved the DVD as a gift, and I’m eagerly waiting for it, so I wasn’t trying to push up the internet release so I could see Elephants Dream more quickly. ;-) :-) )
aarghh!! Can’t wait for the DVD!! If you not are too busy
please, PLEASE post somthing!!!! Naah.. just kidding ;D
Congratulations all around on the premiere.
I have a technical question. One post mentions an HD resolution mp4. To that I say great, it sounds like you’ve already finished a version of the movie that is HD-DVD ready. Is this the case, and are you planning to publish to HD-DVD when that disc format is finally ready?
Looking forward to DVD!!!
-J
i was wondering – where did you render the movie?
—
elveo
(lookin each day into the mail box for the dvd)
yes, interesting question. how/where did you render? did you use a render farm? since contrary to the schedule on this page it looked like rendering did start two weeks before the premiere. :)
Joeri,
Blender should aim to be as self sustaining as possible.
There are not many saleable items that the Blender Foundation produces.So it is not enough just to do a little bit and and give it away at the same time.Just like some people see potential in colour,sound or code some of us see potential in order and barter.
Sure Hollywood etc. over do their hype and the culture may be alien to Europeans but they invest maybe 200 million dollars in their projects.They make sure they get their money back and also allow enough to cover the box office flops.
Strategically speaking we, Blender, should have been more on the ball and made the most of the situation for future projects.
Possibly Ton deserves a paid for holiday…
I bet there are a few people who would love to work for Blender
but I bet you also want to eat once a day, not be there 16 hrs a day and have shoes on your feet ;o) Without good organisation – being business like -and some form of raising a stable income it won’t happen.I don’t see that there will be an endless supply of sponsors and favours from commercial companies coming Blenders way.
rubblemans proposal of small team of paid specialists is a realistic and desireable goal for Blender IMHO. I am sorry we seem divided about it but I think Blender should face up to being a little different in composition than it is now or forever be the marginal curiosity of the cg world.
Blender can find its own style and spirit of interacting with the outside world – much like those who choose to live in a commune if there is an element of social rebellion about it.
I don’t see there is any great thing to be feared in getting organised and raising income. We are not talking about making Blender into Autodesk just getting peoples heads moving in larger circles.
Carstens idea of a lower price after a while has merit – especially for youth who are a major sector of Blender followers.Also Blender could come to some worthy arrangement with a prominent cg magazine to include a dvd in a few months.
Anyway at the risk of boring people in this blog I will give it a rest.
I too am hanging out for the dvd to arrive…
BigFan,
lets not be too hard on them eh….
this being the first big blender project that i know of i would say they did exceptionally well. it is a good learning process. i’m sure in the future they will take what they learned and change a few things.
it seems to me the decisions are made and final now so no real scense in trying to change things. however, their is good reason to make a good point and point out how to make it better in the future…..which you have done.
in my opinion they could have done things a little different too. but i think they only had the man power to get the dvd created and published. not a lot of extra man power. yes they could have posted here more often, maybe added a web cam or two so we could watch them work…..and shower…what? yes they could have posted more pictures of them at work, and of the characters and settings to build more attention and sales. and yes they could have done lots of things to build more sales for the dvd.
but it is a learning process, cant be perfect the first time. so lets give them a break……..
by the way does anyone notice that the people who have not paid for the dvd are complaining and the people who did pay for the dvd are patiently and happily waiting……..
dont worry BigFan…….i still love ya……
Jim,
Yes, the movie was rendered in HD 1920×1080 24p. The final OpenEXR frames are still sitting on a hard disk somewhere in Amsterdam (I hope somebody makes a copy of that disk as a backup ;) So from the original files, it’s possible to convert into whatever format. I don’t think anyone involved with Orange has even HD-DVD viewing equipment, let alone creation equipment, so we won’t be making an HD-DVD any time soon. But it might be very cool if someone that does have that capability would make a version – it’s an open movie after all, all that’s needed is getting a copy of the original HD frames.
To the others:
Yes, we used a render farm, the BSU Xseed who were very generous and gave us their services absolutely free. I hope Toni can find the time in the future when we’ve had a rest to post about the farm a bit (and our interesting way of controlling the jobs :)
thanks Wu ;o)
kakapo,
they had time on a renderfarm that was donated (it was donated before Orange started).
Big Fan,
[QUOTE]Just say I am right and we might have sold another 500 dvd sets in an extra few weeks- that might be 10000 euro in the Blender bank. I am sure Blender could make good use of that and yet this seems to be a disease to avoid at all costs.[/QUOTE]
There are numerous opportunities for funding. There are numerous ways to ‘monetize’ blender without ‘alienating’ the base. Total DVD sales are in excess of the minimum as shown by the above link.
It isn’t that it is ‘a disease to avoid at all costs’, but that there are considerations other than profit maximization. For instance that the original schedule for shipping will be about 2 months beyond the pre project timeline.
[QUOTE]Strategically speaking we, Blender, should have been more on the ball and made the most of the situation for future projects.[/QUOTE]
It isn’t that these things haven’t been strategically considered, it is that maximizing spread of the materials and exposure is deemed a higher priority than the profits. My understanding is that the project was ‘completely paid for’ prior to it beginning. There may be a press to sell more DVDs (wanting to see the movie is only a marginally good reason to purchase the DVD – purchasing it for that reason you really are paying too much – supporting Blender Foundations development of Blender, ‘wanting your name in the credits’, wanting to learn from the models and rigs, and access to the textures and materials for ones own projects are all ‘good reasons’).
[QUOTE]Possibly Ton deserves a paid for holiday…[/QUOTE]
I’d assume he will get one.
[QUOTE]I bet there are a few people who would love to work for Blender but I bet you also want to eat once a day, not be there 16 hrs a day and have shoes on your feet ;o) Without good organisation – being business like -and some form of raising a stable income it won’t happen.[/QUOTE]
Well getting Blender Foundation to hire them is the problem :) Funding could probably be easily had. The organization is ‘mostly there’ it just isn’t a focus of BF right now.
[QUOTE]I don’t see that there will be an endless supply of sponsors and favours from commercial companies coming Blenders way.[/QUOTE]
Eh I suspect that raising quite a bit of funding wouldn’t be overly challenging. The sponsors would be primarily government and arts institutes. Game companies could quite likely be approached to sponsor development as a ‘mod tool’. Or a fund raising campaign for specific development could be done etc.
[QUOTE]rubblemans proposal of small team of paid specialists is a realistic and desireable goal for Blender IMHO.[/QUOTE]
Well right now BF doesn’t appear interested in doing so.
[QUOTE]I am sorry we seem divided about it but I think Blender should face up to being a little different in composition than it is now or forever be the marginal curiosity of the cg world.[/QUOTE]
I think you understimate Blenders growth potential even with its current development method. While changes to enhance growth I agree are desireable, we are on pace to gain huge amounts of marketshare.
[QUOTE]Carstens idea of a lower price after a while has merit – especially for youth who are a major sector of Blender followers.Also Blender could come to some worthy arrangement with a prominent cg magazine to include a dvd in a few months.[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
ttyl,
LetterRip
What is the next step for Blender? One of the most exciting parts of this project was the posts leading up to Blender 2.41. I’m sure Blender 2.42 is comming by May :) and maybe by Christmas we’ll have BlenderCloth! Softbodies and driven deformation is great, but I think a robust cloth solver would be a HUGE reason for people to switch to blender. We’ve got amazing liquid, so surely we can get cloth. Give Ton 5 weeks focused on this one project, and there can be no doubt that it would be there. Please Please Please!!!
but it seems that finally there was much less time than planned for rendering. wasn’t it scheduled to start at half of the project? how did this all work out then? i hope this blog will get some more entries about such things once the stress is over for everyone. :)
Morris,
A new cloth simulation is currently in the works. The two developers working on it are hoping to get it committed for the next Blender release. They have a wiki-page here: http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/ClothSimulation
I can’t wait for a demo video of what it can produce. :-)
Morris, have a look at this:
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/BlenderDev/ClothSimulation
kakapo,
[QUOTE]but it seems that finally there was much less time than planned for rendering. wasn’t it scheduled to start at half of the project? how did this all work out then? [/QUOTE]
They had a huge amount of ‘excess’ rendering capacity relative to that required in the initial timeline. Which allowed rendering turnaround time to be greatly compressed.
Regarding cloth, we will probably see it committed this weekend or so.
LetterRip
oops, too late ;-)
and who are the guys behind cloth simulation? how did you manage to attract developers who can do such things?
if i remember correctly ton said something about a baking api. will texture baking (+multiple uv-sets?) come for 2.42?
Cloth in the next version of Blender!?! I’m speechless. That is so impressive. And sorry for insinuating that if anything gets done in blender, Ton has to do it. I realize that there is a whole community of very creative and skillful programmers out there each contributing to blender. Keep up the good work! (my high school days were filled with programming, but now I have too much fun USING blender to try to go back to programming)
There’s no effort going on to attract developers. Mostly they just show up out of nothing.. The cloth devs seem to be making good progress, but a cloth commit this weekend is probably too optimistic, no code or testing build has been released yet.
Texture baking will not be in 2.42, since no one is working on it. Multiple uv (and vertex color) sets will be in the release after 2.42.
Happy 01:02:03 04/05/06 !
Jim:
Windows has a HD-DVD format that is ready and approaved.
Anyone can publish Elephants Dream in that format.
Big Fan:
You are surely not boring me, and I think I understand your point.
I’m not in the blender foundation, but know Ton a bit, although we don’t talk alot lately, except on creating the dvd.
Hollywood made a profit of 2% last year from invested money, if you where an investor you had better put your money in the bank.
Sure IceAge2 is doing okay, but CG is not a garanty to success.
So if the blender foundation decided to go commercial with this (what you insist on calling a) product, then it might have end up with a stock of 1000 dvd’s and a loss.
If you are good for that loss then please contact the foundation and I’m sure they will produce that amount of dvd’s. ;)
Previous year Ton had made a research by the Amsterdam Univercity, and one of the outcomes of that was that people are willing to contribute for free if it’s for a cause they support. But they most likely don’t want to do that if an ‘elite’ gets paid and they are not…
So how does that work out for blender? Management gets paid, but developers don’t? The hart of Orange is software development, hundreds of people contributed to the code. Anyway. This beast is a little bigger then the “having to eat” issue, nobody is starving from project Orange, Ton lives in the centre of Amsterdam.
Then there is an ugly edge on what I read in your post:
If it was not told that it would be released for download then more people would have bought the dvd.
How ugly is that? These marketing ideas are not new to the foundation, and surely they create money, but the blender foundation does not want to be like that. Does tactics can seriously harm your reputation.
But,… nothing is stopping you from duplicating Elephats Dream sec to a dvd (or rerender a native NTSC, thats not on the web). Order 1000 copies from your local replicator, sell them, take a profit and maybe donate to the blender foundation.
Or,… as I was saying to rubbleman: Start organizing things instead of telling others to get organized… And I mean this in a friendly manner.
The blender foundation is more then happy to support these initiatives.
What would help, is a “seal of approaval” or something, I’m not sure where Ton stands in that.
Wu:
“by the way does anyone notice that the people who have not paid for the dvd are complaining”
Some even already know the dvd sucks.
dvd update:
– Blenderfiles/Textures are cleaned up and put in a disc structure.
– HD version is compressed, sound needs to be added.
– NTSC and PAL anamorph png streams are converted into 25 & 30 fps Mpeg2.
– Subtitles are retimed from 24 to 25fps and 30fps.
– Foreign (Malayam, Bangla) subtitles have been implemented.
– Dvd Menu background animations are made. Text overlays are being rendered.
– Dvd dummy structure is layed out.
– Sound is currently being compressed (sound space) to home cinema systems.
– Making_of is mpg/ac3 and in the snail mail.
– Voice_Actors are in the mail.
– Commentary tracks (yes multiple) are being edited.
– Easter Egg is mpg and programmed.
– CC is written, png, mpg.
All assets are comming along nicely, just a matter of days until the master is burned.
joeri,
[QUOTE]Hollywood made a profit of 2% last year from invested money, if you where an investor you had better put your money in the bank.[/QUOTE]
eh don’t believe the reported profits of Hollywood – they have usually presold enough rights, and done creative tax breaks that the movie is close to break even prior to production.
[QUOTE]Previous year Ton had made a research by the Amsterdam Univercity, and one of the outcomes of that was that people are willing to contribute for free if it’s for a cause they support. But they most likely don’t want to do that if an ‘elite’ gets paid and they are not…[/QUOTE]
That seems a pretty questionable result – and is contradicted by both Blender (ie Ton is paid to work on Blender) and about every significant open source project out there. I suspect that the research was unintentionally flawed – for instance did it in fact survey active contributors; did it frame the coders being paid as being paid by a foundation or being paid by a corporation; etc.
If it is the survey I’m thinking of then the sampling was not properly done, nore was adequate demographic data gathered.
The big determinants of open source participation are the culture of the project – how it handles community participation (are all contributors valued based on their contribution or are the corporate interests dominate; does the corporate hackers use the same channels as other developers or is their a lot of internal only communication); the type of stuff being hacked on (cool and sexy 3d stuff versus mind numbing stuff which is many corporate projects); is it something the individual will use/needs; is it a replacement for something they would otherwise spend a ton on money on; is it understandable enough to hack on and ‘dive in’ (or do you have to have weeks or months of time investment to even begin).
LetterRip
Maybe a last-minute idea for the DVD: Wouldn’t it be nice to include a ‘frozen’ state of this blog on the DVD? The community response has been overwhelming, and I think it really adds to the atmosphere of the time before the movie got started…
ehm… sorry, meant ‘released’ not ‘started’!
[QUOTE]- Easter Egg is mpg and programmed.[/QUOTE]
AAAAH! SPOILER! :D
Ton Wrote:Vassilios: we’ll put all final .blend files and textures on the disk, so you can re-render the entire movie if you like. In the space that’s left we’ll put older test files, deleted scenes, funny experiments, surprises, etc. :) It’s going to be very complete.
Joeri Wrote:- Blenderfiles/Textures are cleaned up and put in a disc structure.
QUESTION:Are Really all Blend files Included in the DVD like in Tons Comments???
If NO….can we found Somewhere to Download the Rest Production Blend files??
…waiting for DVD!!
Joeri….GREAT JOB!!!
Thanks!
seeYa
Vassilios
> Are Really all Blend files Included
All? No. Not the whole svn tree.
All needed to rerender the movie? Yes. and more.
Lots and lots of blend files, and big big big texture files.
Ton is looking into ways to get the svn online.
>AAAAH! SPOILER!
:) hihi. Now I have people pressing the menu button all over the place… hihi.
>That seems a pretty questionable result
I agree.
>Wouldn’t it be nice to include a ‘frozen’ state of this blog on the DVD?
Yup, already wrote a grabber/cleaner that does that. It removes as much spam as possible and removes the reply box. Bassam was worried the spam remover would erase his comments ;)
Thanks for the cheer Vassilios.
Joeri we are poles apart in thinking :o)
I think you have a rather tainted view of ‘business’ and ‘marketing’ as something somewhat evil. I am not sure when you speak about what the Blender philosphy is and what Blender is happy to do you speak with any authority other than your own determination but I accept your view is probably more common than mine.
As far as funding goes I don’t see why Blender should cling to the benevolent coat tails of govt and arts institutes. If Blender really is as capable of being a useful tool as big ticket commercial wares then surely it can become self supporting through various sales and charging for services.Even if Blender took 25 euro a year subscription off people for the program it would be amazing value.I can hear screams of anguish already for that idea…
Why would any sensible company sit on its hands and let me sell 500 copies of their product for a nice profit. Why should Blender Foundation leave off after just enough sales to cover today’s groceries while looking for continuation or expansion of grants next year from govt.? The real test of openness could be to see if Blender is capble of standing on its own feet with not only voluntary contributions but voluntary financial support as well.I don’t really see any logic in what you are saying other than it seems to violate some belief of yours that ‘open’ is somehow a more righteous or virtuous way of functioning. Yet as I point out, the overview of what transpires be it open or commercial is little different. In fact no where did I mention profit maximisation or underhand tactics. I was merely pointing out how a good opportunity had been cut short. Also worth stating is the likelihood that a reasonable number of those sales might have been to non Blenderheads so I wouldn’t just be skinning poor students for every penny they could cough up ;o)
Personally I find a lack of organisation to be a turn off to my involvement as much as you relish the current environment. No offense but we probably couldn’t agree to do anything together :o)
BTW If you can find a whole bunch of highly educated people willing and able to work for free on Blender for 40 hrs a week I will be very surprised. Ton gets ‘pay’ for his efforts and so should people like LetterRip for his time and expertise.
later..
BigFan,
Just a short question. Have you been to http://www.opensource.org ?
take a look @ the definition section
It’s not very interesting if my view of ‘business’ is evil or not. I’m just saying I don’t agree with your opinion that blender would be better if it was a business.
>why Blender should cling to the benevolent coat tails of govt and arts institutes.
That is a mix up. Orange was sponsored by govt, art institutes and
people. That is what govt and art institutes are for. This to keep freedom in art expression. To create things that don’t need profit to be made. Thats how the alphabeth evolved. Best invention ever.
>Even if Blender took 25 euro a year subscription
Tried twice, failed twice.
>BTW If you can find a whole bunch of highly educated people willing and able to work for free on Blender for 40 hrs a week I will be very surprised.
And what about 10x as much that work 4 hours, is that feasable?
Or 200x that work 2 hours…
>I was merely pointing out how a good opportunity had been cut short.
You don’t know that. You don’t know how many would be sold. More important, the bf did not want to take that investment risk.
>Why would any sensible company sit on its hands and let me sell 500 copies of their product for a nice profit.
I think you’ve got the answer to that. Goal is to get as many people in touch with blender as possible. So if you reach 500 more people then thats closer to the goal. But first you need to prove you can sell 500 dvd’s of a 10 minute short made by an unknown director at an unknown dutch studio before claiming this lost profit for the bf.
But main reason is because the content is open, it’s CC 2.5, with all the reasons attached to that. In the end that’s better for everyone.
>Ton gets ‘pay’ for his efforts and so should people like LetterRip for his time and expertise.
‘pay’ as in money or ‘pay’ as in that we really love them?
How did you guys made the D.O.F effect, in Elephants dream?
Joeri, possibly that is a European definition of what govt is for.Indeed many people would say they want less govt to preserve the freedom of expression rather than enforce it. Myself I don’t see that govt should pay to have someone write code that no one apparently wants to buy.It is not like there are no other suppliers of cg programs even low cost ones within reach of the poor populace. If the will of society is to support pure artistic endeavour then they could just as easily pay for people to produce masterpieces with Max and probably get better artistic results.
I don’t recall saying Blender should be a business. I said, and agreed with rubbleman it should be better organised -business like. I see nothing wrong in giving a small group of people financial reward for full time services to Blender.Some areas of Blender would benefit greatly from full time staff because it is becoming well developed enough to be taken notice of in the cg world and its popularity is rising…we hope.That doesn’t mean Blender suddenly becomes just like every other commercial cg enterprise.Even for instance a voluntary organisation like the Red Cross has a core team of people.No shame with that.Blender still remains open for people to contribute to with code and ideas.The vast majority of contributors can do so voluntarily to any extent they desire or have time for. The program and resources remain free to access.
Really I don’t see the point of throwing ideas back an forward.You personally seem quite closed to exploring paths to improvements to Blenders organisation.I can’t seem to get an idea out for consideration without it coming back distorted and with superfluous arguement.I see why rubbleman got so frustrated in some of his posts.After all he was/is over 80.He was only contributing ideas for others to action.Telling him to go away and do it himself is obviously not practical or respectful but I hear your conviction to your principles.
As far as the extra dvd sales- every thing was set up and publicity was rolling along and then at the crucial time it dried up.There is no sense in me trying to sell 500 or 1000 dvds after the wave has passed. There was only marginal cost to produce more dvds and monies would have gone largely into the bank from just a little more time and effort.In the analysis I think you will find people were simply doing other things than paying attention to promoting dvds to the cg community. Possibly with better organisation that base would have been covered better.
All said and done Ton obviously has no will or interest to do any thing differently with Blender at this time and that unfortunately about ends the matter. and so will I there.
good discussion.. :o)
Silverframe: It was all done in comp, by splitting up render layers, and using the Blur node.
Big Fan: The point Joeri is trying to make is that Ton has had experience trying to build businesses around Blender but that didn’t work out for him. So his goal now is to keep the actual Blender Foundation as small and lean as possible, but support other people to build projects, businesses and enterprises around Blender.
There are plenty of opportunities for this, as mentioned in Bart’s blog post here: http://www.BlenderNation.com/2006/02/28/where-are-the-blender-products-and-services/ . Ton has repeatedly said he’s not interested in it himself, and doesn’t have time for it anyway, so all that’s needed is for some enterprising person to step up to the plate and do so. Rather giving ideas for Blender’s organisation, be Blender’s organisation. Start an Orange project, sell support services, publish an art book. One thing that Orange has shown me is that with ambition and perseverance, anything like this is possible, and anyone can do it. It just needs the will to do so.
Matt,
a big issue is credibility – Blender Foundation and Ton have credibility, any other entity trying to setup services and products around Blender will have a credibility gap, and likely be viewed with suspicion by the current user base. This will affect ability to attract funding from potential investors, and affect growth both in terms of timeline and ultimate potential.
Also, there is currently not a big enough market even with those two barriers to entry removed for a business to take off. Realistically it will be at least Siggraph, and possibly two Siggraphs before an entity can reasonably hope to setup a business around Blender that relates to Blender development or support (an entity can use Blender for content creation such as Plumiferos is doing but that is a different although still valuable consideration.)
Also as regards Blender not succeeding in the market previously – I think that had a lot more to do with timing, technical as well as strategic and marketing issues.
LetterRip
joeri- any chance we can get a hint of what the easter egg is?? would it have anything to do with goofing??…..hopfully!!
by the way i think people who bought the dvd would love to read your dvd update, you should make another blog entry….if possible.
Re. credibility, the myriad other companies that provide services around other software also suffer a ‘credibility gap’ from not being Autodesk, or Softimage, or whatever, but they seem to be getting by. Of course I understand that users of those apps are used to paying for things, but it’s a chicken and egg problem. Ton has mentioned plenty of times that he’s interested in providing support for people to set up businesses around blender, I’m sure that could involve some sort of ‘official blessing’ or logo system. Someone just has to step up and just do it, instead of endless internet discussions about professional forums, or marketshare, or trying to match point by point feature checklist comparisons with other apps, or Blender Foundation organisation critiques from afar. The only way things will happen is if people bite the bullet, work hard and actually do something to make it happen. I think Orange is a good example of this.
Matt,
[QUOTE]Re. credibility, the myriad other companies that provide services around other software also suffer a ‘credibility gap’ from not being Autodesk, or Softimage, or whatever, but they seem to be getting by. Of course I understand that users of those apps are used to paying for things, but it’s a chicken and egg problem[/QUOTE]
Eh, we don’t have probably more than a dozen or so users who could even afford the full versions of those products historically. Realistically we are compariable to older versions of Caligari TrueSpace and of Hash Animation Master, in terms of the type of user base, and how likely a services market can survive.
Neither of those have a services market to speak of (their are a few 10 – 20$ plugins you can get for Truespace). They both do all of their own training materials, all of their own significant plugins (they do have some generic plugins ported from other higher end programs – ie Darktree).
I’m really not a pessimist :) but expecting that a viable services market can be formed around Blender by any entity asside from the Blender Foundation just seems entirely unrealistic at this point and isn’t born out when comparison to software of similar market segment and market strength is examined.
LetterRip
All of this debating by a handful of individuals seems to have taken over this blog. A few people have tried to get it back onto the main topic of interest for the VAST MAJORITY of blender supporters. Could we PLEASE have some other more interesting technical points on some aspect of the project that is to do with modelling, textures animation, video editing or something other than this current thread which only leads to kicking the people who have done such a fantastic job in coming together, sacrificing 6 months of their time, and those Blender developers who do such an amazing job and have such vision for this product.
Please, some other aspect of the project!!
Baratare:
Pfff. The topic of this entry is Whoa. Not interesting technical points.
It’s very important to discuss future development of the bf and Orange-like projects. And how to improve on them. So I say hooray to contributions like Big Fan has. Financing projects is a big part of projects, and also of project Orange. And is hardly discussed on the many pages of this blog.
I don’t believe Orange effort is being talked down at all.
( Wait till you see my review on the movie :)
And Matt gave a good view on what direction to expect from the BF. I’d say that’s at least as important as how to move a vertex.
I agree this blog could need a new entry, but I guess Ton wants to win the Orange “most response” contest. ;)
LetterRip:
“I’m really not a pessimist :) but expecting that a viable services market can be formed around Blender by any entity asside from the Blender Foundation just seems entirely unrealistic .”
I agree.
So how to turn that around? Is it as easy as Matt says? “Just do it”? I don’t expect the BF to do it, maybe in 5 years if then there still is nothing, but not soon.
Wu:
It’s not really an easteregg. It will be right in your face, and it does not hold any vrooom.
Baratare,
sorry if the conversation brings you down man – certainly not my intent and I’m sure not the intent of others here.
joeri,
“most response contest” – heheh. Actually maybe you could post the comment you made on the DVD progress as a new entry :)
[QUOTE]So how to turn that around? Is it as easy as Matt says? “Just do it”? I don’t expect the BF to do it, maybe in 5 years if then there still is nothing, but not soon.[/QUOTE]
No I don’t think ‘just do it’ works. I don’t expect BF to do it either – although I will try and convince Ton anyway :) In 5 years time it will definitely have ‘solved itself’ just due to blender growth. To ‘solve it’ Blender needs to grow into where price isn’t the primary reason that users are choosing Blender over other ‘full featured’ 3D tools. I think with the current direction Blender is heading it is definitely set to do that.
LetterRip
I should point out that the part Joeri quoted – I meant ‘in the near future’ after Siggraph or by next Siggraph I think the viability of services around Blender will steadily grow. Not sure when I think they will be viable (darn discount crystal ball – :) ), but probably not much beyond a year and a half at most.
LetterRip
I think a key aspect of getting Blender into the mainstream is simply education- at my university it takes quite a bit of persuading to get people to look at something other than 3ds Max or Maya for animation. Once they see stills from Elephant’s Dream or some of the renders from the gallery, things change. I think Blender needs to establish a presence in education, which is happening to an extent already. The tools you learn first are the ones you tend to use, if we can teach Blender to as many people as possible, we are on the right track. In fact, training is probably the first ‘supporting product’ that will be economically viable.
Peter:
You are definately right, at least concerning college students and artists interested in 3D. It will be a while before big companies would “risk” using blender, but individual artists and students could be persuaded IMO by some well-done video tutorials backed up by well-organized HTML tutorials. But apparently no one wants to do video tutorials because blender is scheduled to be able to do scripted tutorials within blender. For now, we can just personally demonstrate blender to people to get them hooked. I’ve already gotten one M.F.A. student here at college hooked. He’s just beginning, but by next year maybe he’ll have something in the Gallery :)
LetterRip:
I, for one, use Blender not because of the price but because it runs better on my computer and because blender is so straightforward when it comes to modeling and basic animation and rendering.
Joeri,
If you have room you gotta put the “My name is Ton Roosendaal and I pronounce Blender… “Blender”” animation on the dvd ;)
http://download.blender.org/documentation/oldsite/oldsite.blender3d.org/46_Blender%20tutorial%20Lip%20Syncing.html
Peter,
I agree 100% with you about the key role of education in making Blender more popular. As an art teacher I use Blender for more than five years now, and I have been teaching some hundred youngsters in Blender. Most critics from them is about the “strange” user interface. Many of the kids also miss “simple” things like a intuitive snap/align-tool. I think, Orange brought us a lot of nice new features for animations while some basic things could be better, means easier to understand and to handle for beginners. A good idea could be to have less buttons but more context-sensitive and pop-up-menus. Maybe there are only two or three kids in every class, using Blender outside of school too and probably will use it for a longer time, but these new users will spread Blender more and more, for sure!
Peter,
I have some good news. Blender is playing a role in education. I am currently a Junior in HighSchool, and have been taught Blender through my school’s “Tech Connect” club. By the end of the class everyone was able to model, and some even were into animation. Given this was relatively short course, these results were very impressive. I am now personally using Blender to create some models for a game mod level.
Don’t you dare take away any of my precious buttons :)
About the DVD, I haven’t seen any “minimum system requirements” so I am wondering whether you could, for example, open the .blends for a scene on a notebook with only 128 MB of RAM. Obviously you’d have to lower all the render settings to very low res/quality. I am wondering because I plan to use the DVD as a teaching resource, so I need to know where to draw the line as far as “don’t even bother trying to look at these blends on that computer.”
I’ve looked through as many of these posts as I can, and haven’t found the answer I’m looking for. The DVD’s were supposed to ship the last week in March. Were they? If not, can we get an updated estimate of when they will be shipped, and maybe an announcement on a new blog topic posted. I just can’t wait to see it!
I cannot wait to see the movie. But I’m desperate to know when! :)
I realise that you guys are going as quick as you can and I’m not trying to say, “Now, now!” or anything. I was just wondering what the new delivery estimate is?
All the best guys.
:)
Don´t know exactly, but joeri posted on April 5th that he was working on the DVD.. and that it´s only a matter of days till the DVD gets to production. So the DVD should get shipped next week or the following week… so i think we have it in mail at the end of april oder begin of may.
About waiting for DVD! i have ……no Problem!It comes when it comes..!
we have so many Amazing New Features in Blender to learn (or to learn to use better)…. (Developed during Orange Project Production Period)! some of them in new Testing Builds in Blenders Developers Forum!
So better i dont think about when the DVD comes…..but learning this new Amazing New Features in Blender is the Best Way i think!
so we have something to do and waiting for dvd is not so Hard!
Thanks again for this Amazing 3D Application and Orange Project!!
i forgot to say…as example the new “Cloth simulator”….go in BlenderWiki…and Download Testing Build for(linux,Windows)and Examples to try Out!!
I thought that the DVD would be shipped in the first week of april… but okay then :(
Do they know it’s christmas time again!
Installed @ the letterbox and not leaving.
Thanks!
I saw that the Blender e-Shop says that it will allow you to check the status of orders. It claims that my DVD has shipped…is this true?
The Blender E-shop status page has been claiming that my DVD has been shipped since forever :) . It still hasn’t arrived, though.
Chris,
email the eshop master – that is an error probably.
LetterRip
hey i just got my dvd today and watched it
it was awsome!!!
oh wait……it wasnt the orange dvd, it was
a dvd advertising a new improved bald-head cream….
but it was still awsome!!!!
Wu it could have come from Orange studio – are you sure it isn’t Bassam in the pictures, before he had to wear bags on his arms? I noticed he had got a lot hairier by the time of the premiere photos.
Will you guys please stop saying nonsense! Do you realize that the more space you use up with the blog, the less space there is on the DVD for .blends and textures?!!! :(
;o)
I’m with half the commenters in that
I Want To Know When I Can Download it
If anyone on the team could comment on this it would be great
Yes I agree.
Not all of use can purchase the DVD due to logistical issues such as living at the ass of whe world where no one supports the method of paiments required to pay for the DVD.
Would be realy nice if someone can just set out a date and say well chaps, you can expect to see the download at the: Date?
Hey Ton et al, have you guys gotten any responses from the different places/events that you submitted ED to?
[QUOTE]Would be realy nice if someone can just set out a date and say well chaps, you can expect to see the download at the: Date?[/QUOTE]
Sure – you will see the download by January 2007 ;) But probably sooner :)
LetterRip
Hey guys,
calm down, really good things take alot of time to accomplish.
The better that DVD and all around gets the more you can learn from.
For me it will even be a great pleasure to hold that silver disc in hand if it ship in 2007.
I don’t really mind when it ships, but I’m very excited about it. So excited, in fact, that I check this site about 10 times a day for information. :) I’m neglecting food and exercise. For my own health and sanity: An estimate… please!!!
Just kidding. Take your time folks. We’d all rather see the project an amazing success than a rush. Make a DVD to show up the Hollywood studios. All the best.
I see the text in the eshop has changed.
The Blender E-shop states untill when the content will not be released and when to expect the dvd to be shipped.
For some reason the dvd production time is as big as a star.
/production-planning
But, also,… The final renders should have stopped 2 weeks before that star. See, if that had been the case, then the composer could have been ready where his square ends, Orange could have been making animated menu’s etc. etc. I’m not sure Orange took this planning serious and it might be nice if some Orange member makes a drawing on how that the production fases really went.
ya, the real evolution of the production would be nice, we can learn a lot just from it;
about taking the plane serioulsy, I believe that the team take it very seriously; but a plane is nothing static, it is made based in previtions, and sometimes things don’t go as expected and the plane as to be reviewed to fit the new reality.
in this project in think that what happen is simply thats things gone pretty well so they have allocated another month to improve even more the “product”.
A suggestion :
This thread is being just awfully long to download. Why not start a new one ? call it Whoa!_2 ;)
Don’t split it! We’re trying to set a record here. =P
I am so psyched to recieve my DVD is what i’m guessing will be a few more weeks. =D
Hey, they are good at party, but cant
keep the promise, so dont expect they
can finish the product!
I’m really just wondering one thing:
What they gona do with all the hardware!? Humm!!! That nice computers and the “no crying eyes” Big monitors…
Colecting dust until Oranje project 2 !!? ^_~
Let me help you guys to expand this thread into something awfully big…..
It’s been kind of a long time since the last blog update…If some of the Orange team members aren’t too busy, maybe they could post their impressions of the premiere?…..
yes please Orangers….
There are also a few technical questions people have asked that have gone unanswered.
Guys, usually the silence is a good thing, more time spent actually cranking out the dvd for us.
Sing-a-long people.
A little less conversation, a little more action please
All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me
A little more bite and a little less bark
A little less fight and a little more spark
Close your mouth and open up your heart and baby satisfy me
Satisfy me baby
rogper,
[QUOTE]I’m really just wondering one thing:
What they gona do with all the hardware!? Humm!!! That nice computers and the “no crying eyes” Big monitors…
Colecting dust until Oranje project 2 !!? ^_~[/QUOTE]
Nope not collecting dust, they have been/will be sold to Blender.org partners and artists according to a discussion at the last meeting.
LetterRip
Distribution was mentioned before… Any plans for trying to get it into public libraries/institutions? That would be great exposure, as it would show not only what the software is capable of, but also provide an all-in-one learning tool.
Dvd update:
menu images are rendered. -> need to be mpeg and implemented.
ntsc audio is remixed. -> pal is being made.
subtitles are getting assigned. -> Still some weird character issues.
file structure document is getting written.
dvd rom content page for dvd video to be made.
dvd credits to be made.
yea something like that would be cool – and also some more media….
why not make a trailer? or is there one that i am missing somewhere?
Oh I just can’t wait. It is going to be awesome to get the DVDs. Thanks Joeri and Orange team. Even my mom and friends say “Hey, James, have you gotten that ‘Blender’ movie.” :)
I like the library idea. Our library at PCC (my college) has the Blender Book, so maybe I can convince them that they need the DVD too.
If the community can get a good tutorial system together soon, I think we could see thousands of new users this year.
Viva Orange, Viva Blender!
Hasta la vista