Looking back on 2006

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Test Builds

afbeelding-2.png With Blender’s increased development speed, more and more people are impatient to try out the new features before a release is done. There are now two well-maintained websites that host testbuilds: Graphicall is a free-for-all place to upload their custom builds and the BlenderBuilds crew prepare their own builds.

BlenderNation

afbeelding-1.png We won’t pretend to be modest: BlenderNation has quickly become an integral part of the Blender community. We’ve been collecting news from around the world to showcase how people are using, developing and promoting Blender, and we are rewarded by more than 7,000 visitors *each day*.It’s been big fun to run this website and to build a team of dedicated editors to run it. To me personally, one of the most rewarding experiences was meeting people at Siggraph and the Blender Conference, telling me they like the site and that they read it every day.

I’m currently working setting up a network of sub-sites for other languages.

Blender Summer of Documentation

Google’s surprising decision to only fund three Blender projects this year (as opposed to TEN last year) inspired the Blender Foundation to organise their own Summer: the Summer of Documentation. The BF offered 10 grants of €500,- for people providing a substantial addition to the online documentation.We covered a few of the contributions on BlenderNation:

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    • Cubedude04

      It was a great year for blender

      It was the first year i started using it actually =D

      I believe i started about February

      I also found blender nation which i check every day

      Thankyou for providing updates, Tutorials and interesting news every day.

    • http://filipp.name filipp

      Good job everyone!
      Happy New Year!

    • shul

      Great summary :-) Lot’s have been done..

      I wonder what is planned for 2007..

      Happy new year

    • http://anicator.awardspace.com AniCator

      Blender is doing great. The game engine is getting improved. The renderer get’s new features. Blender now also has a sculpting tool.
      Blender is really doing great!

      I’ll have to wait 24-9=15 +/- 15 hours before it’s new year here.
      Gtg to church.

      Have a happy new year!

    • Johan

      Bart and the other contributors of Blendernation, thanks for the effort in writing new and interesting things about Blender. Wish you all a happy and inspirational new year !! See you in 2007.

    • zooley

      Great year.
      Thanx for this wonderful (blender) community. Thanx also for BlenderNation (which i check every day).
      Happy New Year all of you.

    • http://welcometochrisworld.blogspot.com Chris Stones

      Who did the music for the Siggraph 2006 Blender Demo Reel. If I could find out I would ask permission to use the music in a movie of mine. Anyway, I appreciate everything blender and the good blender folk have done. Blender his helping to make my dreams come true. Thanks you everyone and thank you blender nation for keeping me in the loop. face loop that is.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      @Chris: that music was composed by Jan Morgenstern (who also did the music and sound for Elephants Dream). You can contact him here: http://www.wavemage.com/contact-en.html

    • http://www.emergencyart.com ZoltanPL

      Right, good job. I think Blender is now a little bright star (and it’s grow up all the time) – Blender Power!!!! hihihih Happy New Year!!!

    • r3615

      Great resumé of a busy year for Blender enthustiasts…
      Let’s enjoy the New Year’s Eve, The future is bright !
      Wishing the best for 2007 to the whole BlenderNation !!!

    • http://www.cginsomniac.com Brian

      Its been a great year. You forgot to mention the excellent new editors you added this year! ;) *Cheers all* Lets have another good year.

    • http://www.blendernation.com Bart

      Indeed I did! Gosh…

      Hooray for all our editors!

    • http://www.gorilla3d.com/plantperson PlantPerson

      You forgot to mention the Bullet physics engine and upcoming OGRE integration! ;)

    • http://www.yobro.eu Jasper

      Happy New Year !

      My good plans for 2007 are:
      More working with Blender.(2006 was a lazy year for me and Blender kept on develloping; and i was standing still !)
      Stop making meself crazy by wanting to make moving animation, but concentrate on the design and make nice rendering of one frame.

      Best wishes to the blender community; respect to all the developers!

      @Cubedude04
      Februari is a good time to start with Blender!
      I looked back to my first Gingerbreadman (gus) in my old blend files.
      And it was from 9 march 2005; So it must be around februari that I had really started with Blender.

    • Joeri

      Happy newyear blendernation!

    • http://www.osysi.net Bmud

      Hip hip hoooray for Blender Nation. Thanks so much for posting every day. Thanks to all the people that helped at the Blender conference this year and the amazing quality of the video taken there. Thanks to all of YOU that commented on this post. I never feel like I’m alone when I run blender.exe in an empty room

    • Chris E

      i second that last statement.
      it’s been 3 years since i first downloaded blender and I finally know how 2 use it now!!

      i’ve been thinking, maybe Blender could establish a new world order. . .

    • Tynach

      Hmm… Blender World Domination…

      I say Ton should take over the world and force all the 3DS Max users to use Blender.

      “Time for ‘Reprogramming class!’”