Just a little over two years after the release of Elephants Dream, the Blender Institute have today released their second phenomenal accomplishment: Big Buck Bunny. Aimed at further developing Blender by providing it with great new animation tools and high-end fur rendering (both available in the recently released Blender 2.46), it will undoubtably put both Blender and Open Source in general on the radar of more 3D hobbyists and professionals around the world.

You will find in-depth information about the project on their new website www.bigbuckbunny.org, and more importantly, you can download both the full version of the movie in HD quality and all the production files right now!

To everyone involved: respect!

Something's afoot on peach.blender.org, and we all know what :-)

From the Blender Foundation:

Big Buck Bunny Internet release Friday 30th May, around noon! [UTC/GMT +2 hours]

The official release of the BBB movie files will be friday at noon. Will be big fun!

If you would like the HD version and also support the Blender Foundation, go to the E-Shop to purchase the complete BBB kit.

I know you are probably waiting for your Big Buck Bunny DVD or the internet release, but don't forget about the Apricot project, which is still running. If you want to take a look at some of the new tools, developed for Apricot, a few test builds are starting to appear!

Continue Reading 'Apricot builds available to download' »

Ton just posted the following dates on the Peach blog:

• May 17 or 18: Release of Blender 2.46
• May 20th: DVD Arrival, shipping
• May 30 or 31: Internet release of Big Buck Bunny

Last night's interview in the Dutch TV show 'De Wereld Draait Doort' with Ton and Sacha is now online!

Update: Dutch transcript is ready. If you want, you can log in and help to translate now. Thanks!!
Update 2: English translation is ready. Thanks for all the help!

Continue Reading 'TV Interview with Ton, Sacha Now Online' »

Tonight at 7:30pm on NL3, Ton and Sacha will be interviewed in the popular Dutch TV program 'De wereld draait door'. I'll upload the interview to dotSUB tomorrow so we can have it properly subtitled for all non-Dutch speakers.

Oh, and I see that 'The Big Lebowski' will be on at 8.30pm - it's gonna be a great TV night :)

Het Parool, one of the larger Dutch newspapers wrote last Saturday: "Big Buck shakes up the movie world". The full article (2 pages!) is available online (scan on the Peach site, or Parool website).

Update: translated version, thanks to kimme and rpgsimmaster

Martin Pyka was at the Big Buck Bunny Premiere this week and he made a great video report in which he gives a good impression of the event and interviews Nathan, William, Nathan and Ton. . You'll also find some photo's on his site.

Continue Reading 'Big Buck Bunny Premiere - Video #2' »

Last night I went to the premiere of Big Buck Bunny in Amsterdam and it was a blast! The movie was amazing, the audience loved it (they even laughed - imagine THAT! ;-), the Peach team looked extremely happy and the party was great. I decided to have fun and talk to everyone instead of doing interviews etc, so all I can offer is an impression of the evening. Oh, and I didn't tape the movie - you'll have to wait just a little longer for that!

Continue Reading 'Big Buck Bunny Premiere' »

You just MAY have noticed that the Blender.org webserver has been giving lots of 'Internal Server' lately. The server, which also hosts the Peach and Apricot blogs, is experiencing high traffic levels lately because of all the attention for Big Buck Bunny.

Continue Reading 'Blender.org Problems' »

Pablo Vazquez [VenomGFX] will be joining the Apricot team next week as their new Lead artist. Former lead artist Qareeb left the project for personal reasons. Adding Pablo to the team should definitely increase the project's wackiness! With some luck, he'll be in Amsterdam just in time to be at the Peach Premiere. Looking forward to meet you there, Pablo!!

At blender.org we are updating the sections of the site that list professionals, artists, communities and educational sites related to Blender.

The guidelines for the sections are as follows

Continue Reading 'Submit sites for inclusion in the Blender.org artist, professional, educational, and community listings.' »

The sole purpose of this post is to make y'all jealous!

Continue Reading 'Big Buck Bunny VIP Invitashun - I Has It!' »

As you may know, Bassam Kurdali's excellent ManCandy FAQ DVD is published (like everything else the Blender Institute produces) under a Creative Commons license. Among other things, this means you're free to distribute or download it. Some people did this and the reactions were, well, not good. I talked to Bassam to find out how he felt about us offering download links.

Continue Reading 'Watch the ManCandy DVD Streaming or on BitTorrent' »

While you can't see the movie yet, you can now at least put a bunny-sized poster over your bed! Just grab the new press kit from the Peach site. Oh, and you'll need a bunny-sized printer as well, I guess ;-)

Watch it online below, watch the HD streaming version here, or download a high-resolution version from the Peach site.

Awesome! I keep getting goosebumps :) Excellent job guys, good luck with the last bits!!

The Apricot team have posted some SWEET new screenshots on their blog.

Continue Reading 'Apricot Early Screenshots' »