Matt Ebb organised a Blender demo at the Australian Linux.conf.au last week. Today, he reports on the event.
Matt writes:
Blender was one of the forty or so projects that were exhibiting at the Linux.conf.au open day, held at the University of New South Wales in a nice glass covered pavilion in a courtyard. With me was Hassan, a Blender user and BlenderNation reader who very kindly offered to help out on the day, and also fellow ex-Elephants Dream artist Lee, who made the trip up from Adelaide.
Armed with a Blender-logo-on-white cube for signage that I'd fashioned out of pasteboard that morning, we had two of our laptops out on the desk, which was quite popular, being the foremost one in the pavilion that everyone saw as they were entering. There was always a small crowd gathered around watching Elephants Dream on repeat play, which many of them had seen before or heard of, and a few gleefully trying out the upcoming Sculpt Mode, by defacing a work-in-progress head model of mine.
The day was lots of fun, and according to the official stats, over 700 people came along, with about 400 attendees from the general public (i.e. who weren't already at the conference), ranging from little kids to grandparents. We chatted with a few interesting people throughout the day, including someone that Lee and Hassan talked with from the National Gallery of Victoria, who was interested in using Blender for their new media productions. Unfortunately I had to leave early, but Lee and Hassan stayed around until the end, running into blenderartists.org member 'jumpy-monkey' who also dropped by.
All in all it was a fun day, if only just to hang out with a couple of other blenderheads. Sydney's a big city, but I'm not really aware of many Blender users that are living around here (though I suspect there are plenty more in hiding). Perhaps we'll have to organise more events in the forms of social gatherings or a revived Australian Blender mini-conf to draw you all out of the woodwork!
Matt and Malcolm Tredinnick both submitted some pictures of the event:
- Matts pictures
- Malcom's pictures of the Blender booth
- Malcom's pictures of the rest of the Linux.Conf.au
It sounds and looks like everyone had fun!
9 Comments
What a great effort! Keep it up!
It's a lot clearer there than in the Waag.
More light.
I tried to make it to it but just my luck the week I spent in Sydney 24/7 was the week I was working 24/7... dam work and dam having to have an income. At least I can use Blender where I'm working... mostly cause the people here don't know anything about 3D and aslong as I give the desired results then they're all happy.
OMG! It's a Blender Head!
Continue your good work.
Wishing I was there, while I sit thousands of km's away from my home, behind a computer in freezing Japan. And to the tune of waltzing Matilda I sing:
'once a jolly blenderhead sat by Mattebb,
under the shade of the other three,
and he sang as sculpted,
and defacing Matts WIP,
You'll become a blenderhead, a blenderhead with me!
It's a bit wanky I know, but hey it's good to see some Aussies on these forums, Good job Matt, Lee, Hassan, jumpy-monkey.
Nice work guys! I was really hoping to glt down there for the conference but alas couldn't get out of other committments. Good on you guys for promoting Blender for us.
Goodonya cobbers. Looks like you had a bonza time spinning yarns. If you ever organise anything close to Perth (WA) let me know and I'll see yous there. Hooroo.
Excellent! Hope we have some events in Melbourne one day. I was in that *exact* glass pavillion place for the Australasian Biomechanics Conference a couple of years ago @UNSW! Amazing campus; built a bit like Minas Tirith. Shame I couldn't get up there for this event. Keep up the good work.
Whish I was there. O well, snowboarding in Risoul was also not bad.