Looking back on 2006

Books!

No less than four new Blender books were either announced or released this year. As you may know, I’m a firm believer in people who try to build a business around Blender, either by providing services or by producing products such as books. The fact that new books are appearing proves to me that Blender is no longer ‘just’ a hobbyist application, but that it is quickly gaining acceptance in the professional market.

Blender Conference 2006

The BConf was of course one of the highlights of the year! There’s nothing better than seeing Ton run around all weekend with this huge grin on his face, and meeting old friends from the community again. This year there were more visitors than ever before and I don’t think we’ll fit into The Waag again next year.BlenderNation tried to open up the conference somewhat to the community by providing daily video journals. Also, most of the sessions were recorded by the Blender Foundation and are available for download in high quality.

Dear Valentine Music Video

valentine.png The ‘Dear Valentine’ music video was produced by Robert Schober for the Burning Tree Projekt, for their debut on MTV CHI and Asia. It’s one of my favorite videos of this year; even while the animation and rendering aren’t particularly impressive (although I do like the 12fps, flat rendered look), it does show what happens when you put Blender in the hands of a professional: the storyline and editing are excellent and the video is a joy to watch, again and again. Can you believe this was Robert’s first project in 3D?

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