The Blender Conference 2008 has kicked off. Here’s the live stream (VLC link)!

Update: Kaveh wrote “I am broadcasting a second feed of just the screen, which is more readable. It is here: http://www.river-valley.tv. It is experimental but seems to be working. In addition, we’ll be uploading higher resolution recordings as the postprocessing is done.”

Second print, on heavy quality paper!

Essential Blender, the latest book from the Blender Foundation, is your official guide to learning the fundamentals of this open and free 3D software suite. The book can be used as a step-by-step guide for people new to Blender or new to the latest changes in Blender.
This book is the ideal companion for the previous 2.3 Blender guide.

Essential Blender will get you working with modeling, materials and texturing, lighting, particle systems, several kinds of animation, and rendering. In addition, there are chapters on the new mesh sculpting tools and the brilliant compositor. For users familiar with other 3D packages, there are separate indices that reference topics using your application’s terminology.

If you have been looking for a way to give yourself a solid foundation in the basic tools and techniques of Blender, Essential Blender is there for you!

The book editor, Roland Hess, is a professional writer and Blender user for almost a decade. He has brought together a team of the best writers and artists in the Blender community to help on creating this new standard Blender guide.

Among the authors are Colin Litster, Ryan Dale, Mathias Pedersen, Andrew Dolphin, Tom Musgrove, Modron and Kevin Braun. Design and dtp is by Sandra Gilbert.

• Written using 2.43, and fully compatible with (current) 2.46 Blender
• 376 pages B&W
• Stitched binding, quality paper, full color cover
• DVD Rom with all necessary files and demos

DVD currently being wrapped up, release expected end of oktober

Yo Frankie! (Project Apricot) is Blender Foundation’s first Open Game project, recently finished in the studio of the Blender Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Three Blender artists, two Crystal Space developers and a Blender developer have been invited to come over to Amsterdam for six months to create an awesome and industry standard 3D game experience!

The game will be based on the bully rodent in Big Buck Bunny, the hilarious 3D furry & funny cartoon movie produced by the Blender Foundation.

Just like our previous Open Projects Orange and Peach, the game itself and all of the production files will be published under the Creative Commons, free to be reused and for everyone to learn from. More importantly, the team is going to challenge Blender and Crystal Space to the max, inspiring the entire development community to prove an open source production pipeline is ready for industry quality 3D game creation. Special attention will be paid to animating cartoonish characters and real-time rendering quality.
You can help us to realize projects like this by purchasing the special DVD Game edition of Yo Frankie!

On the Yo Frankie! DVD you will find:

• A full functional prototype in the Blender Game Engine, running in Linux, Windows and OS X.
• A complete level in Crystal Space, with installer, running in Linux, Windows and OS X.
• All .blend files, models, textures, sound clips, game sources, and so on… all the material used to create the game.
• Documentation and video tutorials by the team members about all technical aspects the game; like how to re-use assets, animate characters, or add new levels.
• The Big Buck Bunny movie in various formats

Visit the apricot.blender.org blog for more information about this project.

Big Buck Bunny – Project Peach – was Blender Foundations second Open Movie project, produced in the studio of the brand new Blender Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Five artists and two developers have been invited to come over to Amsterdam for seven months to create a funny & furry 3D short movie with Blender. Lead by renowned Blender artists Sacha Goedegebure (story and direction) and Andreas Goralczyk (art direction) you can expect this to be a hilarious 3D cartoon!

Just like project Orange, the movie itself and all of the production files have been published under the Creative Commons, free to be reused and for everyone to learn from. More importantly, the team has challenged Blender itself to the max, inspired the entire development community to prove Blender is ready for feature quality 3D cartoons. Special attention has been paid to fur editing and rendering, and animating cartoonish characters.
You can help us to realize future projects by purchasing the DVD edition of the Peach project.

On the Big Buck Bunny DVD (two disks) you will find:

• The movie (10 min) in best DVD quality widescreen format (versions in both NTSC and PAL)
• The HD version of the movie (.avi and/or .mov)
• Commentary tracks by the creators
• All .blend files, models, textures, and so on… the material used to create the movie.
• The original script, breakdown, storyboards
• Documentation and video tutorials by the team members about all technical aspects the movie; like how to re-use assets, animate characters, or add new shots.

Visit the peach.blender.org blog for more information about this project.

Yes, you can easily learn to create 3D graphics using Blender.

But what you need is a resource that shows you how to do things in Blender along with important details like:

• Important keystrokes (and what they’re used for)
• WHY things are being done a particular way
• Effective tricks and tips

You also need to be able to easily and quickly access these resources offline so you’re not hampered by slow or broken internet connections, decreasing hard drive space, and ISP bandwidth caps.

You’ll get what you need, and more, with the BlenderNewbies Tutorial Compilation DVD-ROM.

This special compilation disc is packed with BlenderNewbies Blender video tutorials that cover a wide range of subjects while maintaining a presentation style that allows even beginners to keep up when things get to be more advanced.

The tutorials, presented by Kernon Dillon (Blender Foundation Certified Trainer), are delivered with clear instructions and explanations along with on-screen keystroke overlays when necessary.

In addition to the BlenderNewbies tutorials, you’ll get several important bonuses that will enhance your studies of Blender.

After going through the tutorials and resources provided on this disc, you’ll be confident and secure about realizing your 3D dreams.

Get complete details on the order page.

I’m the developer responsible for the Blender SCons build system. I’ve also created a number of features, of which the latest is the PyNode – scriptable material nodes. I’m working in the ORE project through Laurea Leppävaara to create a set of Python scripts to check scene integrity and upload to the BURP/ORE server. I can help your project with development services to achieve what you need.

Can you create some great looking 2D graphics in Blender? Sure you can! LightningIsMyName explains how.

Continue Reading 'SVG style graphics with Blender' »

After the delay of Yo Frankie a new bug fix version of 2.48 (2.48a) has been released.

Continue Reading '2.48a Update Release' »

The next Blenderart Magazine is in development and so theres a call for articles, tutorials and images to be used in the upcoming issue. The theme will be ‘Rigging and Constraints’.

Continue Reading 'Blenderart Magazine #19 (Call for content)' »

Vladimir Vychegjanin informed us of the latest edition of the Russian Blender magazine Blender-Empire.ru. It contains 40 pages of interviews, tutorials and art. Great job!

Continue Reading 'Third edition of Blender-Empire.ru magazine released' »