Development fund raisers are hot these days, it seems. Lukas Toenne is proposing a project to rewrite Blender's particle system to make it much more powerful and versatile, and have it work with nodes. He needs €2500 and wants to present the finished work at this year's Blender Conference.
Lukas writes:
The next Blender Conference is getting closer, and this year i would like to present the new particle system developments. Over the past months i have steadily been developing new node features for nodes in general and tested various particle node approaches. Recently i made another attempt at introducing dynamic buffers in the existing particle systems and, even though maintaining the old system proved ultimately infeasible, it has produced a reusable dynamic buffer implementation that will greatly increase the power of particle systems.
So now i started implementing a new particle system alongside the old one. The main modifier and UI hooks are in place, now the actual work can start!
However, i have to pay bills like everybody else. For this reason i would like to start a little fundraiser campaign over the course of the next three months (until BConf 2011), which will enable me to work on this project full time and finally create a working particle node system. The final targeted result has been split into different stages, to allow a measure of progress.
Link
- Blender Particle Nodes Fundraiser (donation option on this page).
14 Comments
This is a feature so desperately needed in Blender! I have been thinking all along, that Blender is great for smaller studios doing motion design. But this is a key feature that was still lacking from the application. Awesome!
Assuming I have the money (gotta get a new place to live in the near future) I'll absolutely donate to this. Can't wait to see where this goes.
Hooray!!!
Yay!! Let's donate!! :D
what's good about donating and buying the most recent Blender offerings, like B-spaces (which I bought. A fantastic tool for retopology) and Lee Salamani's character rigging (which I also bought), and the Sintel DVDs' (yeah,.. I bought those as well. Great sets, by the way. But now I'll have to start going to Blender anonymous),
is that this all is greatly expediting Blender toward becoming a Real Giant Killer.
Not to mention, camera tracking, a new renderer, plus numerous other things.
And this development is happening ... fast. Real fast!
Watching from the outside for a few years, and being reluctant to take on the quirkiness of Blender, I finally took the plunge when 2.5 was released and have been continually amazed since at the incredible depth that is being developed as well as a much improved user interface.
Moreover, all the development is synchronized and seems to mesh very well. Yet the amazing thing is that after 2.6 is released (not far down the road) the speed and complexity of plug-in development will pick-up EVEN MORE as resources are shifted.
So donating and supporting developer projects only helps expedite that end state where professional companies and designers will look to Blender as a real option, rather than current computer modelling/animation big boys.
Good-by May. Good bye 3d Max. That end state is not far away.
Lukas has done such a deep investigation on the topic and enough experimentation for the past year makes him the man for this very important but complex job. I love the advancements that he has already contributed to trunk, but they are just the tip of the iceberg
Good news !
Hope it's a start for a complex and flexible nodes system like "ICE in Softimage XSI" or "Houdini".
I cannot donate right now, but come September I shall donate for definite.
let's all donate!!! if 1 milion users would donate only 1 dollar/euro each a month imagine that where Blender would be at! :>
Ther is a real good wab site to gate the ward out on small projats funding that I think we at blender comunaty can us for it's advantige.
http://www.kickstarter.com/
Highly recamanded by me.
A lot of donation drives going on, and I plan to support each and every one as soon as I'm able. Of course, I WOULD be moving into a new apartment, getting a new powerful computer, and getting a new buying all at the same time right now--darn!
But as soon as I can, I surely will help! These projects are ALL just plain awesome, and we're pushing Blender to a new frontier with every support we give it. Support them if you can, folks.
A small donation is a small price to pay. By the way, this Blender particles nodes system is gonna rock! ALL these systems in development lately totally rock, and you developers have big respect with me!
Man, Blender's was already my favorite 3D package with me, but now Blender's just taking my love for it to new heights!
Donated EUR 20... Everyone, please do the same!
yeah...what he said...
Definitely a great way to make sure these fantastic tools get completed.
If you do earn a living doing 3d and using Blender, then surely a small donation every now and then won't hurt?
Keep up the great work.
@Moe,
as I got from KJickstarter site they accept payments only trough Amazon. Is it suitable for all countries? Is it better than PayPal?
@AlexDS, as I remember, PayPal gets some fees for their service... and also I remember that a sum below 10$ isn't a good way to donate... Anyway, your main idea is very good! Small payments from all of the community is the ideal way to go.