French publisher FormaCD have released another Blender Videotutorial DVD with 35 hours of instructions in Flash. It's priced at €25 for the DVD version or €20 for the downloadable version. For more information, visit this page and in the top-left click on the DVD's image (the pages aren't reachable by a URL), or download a demonstration video (Windows version / OSX Version)

If anyone's interested in doing a review, please contact us and I'll try to get a review copy!

Blender as a unique selling point of new PC's? Christov Badenhorst wrote:

Just as a matter of fact, I ran into this add on the HP website, and saw a
glimpse of the greatness that is blender.

In some circles it may be seen as an insult, but we know who we are, and what we like. There is honour in being called a BLENDER BOY! So we wear the badge with pride!

If you work for Softimage, contact me and I'll get you a discount!

Macouno is the one man company of Dolf J. Veenvliet B.A. (macouno).

For more information you can visit www.macouno.com.

Fabianne Balvedi writes: Blender Pro is a conference that happens every year in Brasil, bringing together researchers, artists, students, animators, gamers, architects, designers and computer graphics specialists who love Blender and use it as their main tool.
The best Blender works made in Brasil will be presented at this conference through Technical Papers, Posters, Lectures, Video Art Festival and Forum.

Continue Reading 'Blender Pro Conference, Brazil, November 9th' »

Kleber Paiva and Paulo Fernandes wrote to us about the use of Blender at the Colégio Imperatriz Leopoldina in São Paulo, Brazil. Their story includes a showcase of their pupils' work.

Continue Reading 'Blender kids in São Paulo, Brazil - see their work' »

The first batch of Blender Conference videos has been published. More will be added when postprocessing is complete. A big thanks to Kaveh Bazargan for processing & hosting the vids!

This year's Animation Festival rocked! Organiser Dolf (Macouno) reports.

Continue Reading 'The 2008 Blender Conference Animation Festival and Suzanne Awards outcome.' »

"SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Oct. 23, 2008 — Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) and Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVID), announced that they have signed a definitive agreement for Autodesk to acquire substantially all of the assets of Avid’s Softimage business unit for approximately $35 million." (full press release)

Continue Reading 'Autodesk Acquires Softimage' »

Both Blender and the Blender community have been advancing at an incredible pace over the last two years - there is more and more activity and the users are rapidly becoming more professional. Being editors of BlenderNation we're in front-row seat watching an amazing journey!

As a result, more commercial products and services are appearing. In a article which I wrote over 2,5 years ago I was already putting forward my belief that these commercial endeavors are a GOOD thing for Blender (and for Open Source in general) - they give more credibility to the project by providing much-needed documentation, training, support, access to developers and artists.

Still, how do you sell your product or service to a community? So far, getting a post on BlenderNation was the best thing you could hope for - most people will sell really well for a few days but then the effect falls off and you're back in the dark. There had to be a better way.

Continue Reading 'Introducing the BlenderNation Community Store' »

I have been actively working on Blender's code base since 2006. My initial contributions were in providing more advanced selection and modification tools for the mesh modeler such as edge collapse, path select, loop to-region and region to loop among others. Since then I have primarily been involved in the research and development of a new mesh modeler for Blender that addresses the shortcomings of the current system.

Additionally I have been responsible for the maintenance and development of the OpenFlight import and export scripts included with Blender. To complement the enhanced level of functionality now present in these scripts I have also created several applications and utilities for editing FLT data such as palettes, LOD and DOF nodes, sub faces and external references directly inside of Blender.

Contact: gbantle@gmail.com

I Started out as a technical artist in 2003 and became involved in blender development to improve my own workflow by adding tools, fixing bugs and developing an exporter to develop an efficient Blender pipeline for large scenes.

Since then I have worked on a number of commercial simulation projects and more recently the peach open movie project "Big Buck Bunny" in Amsterdam as a technical director and developed the game logic for Apricot open game "YoFrankie".

Key features I have worked on include writing Autodesk FBX export, Wavefront OBJ import/export, BVH Motion capture import, X3D & VRML importers, Fly Mode, Lightmap UVPack, Smart Projections, box packing for uv unwrap.

I have also helped maintain the python api 3ds,lightwave import/export merged UV/Face select into editmode, improved Blender's linked library system, refactored the game engine's joystick support and made various additions to Blender's view navigation and video sequencer.

I'm interested in helping people use blender for specific workflows to meet their needs.

Contact: ideasman42@gmail.com

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.