Create Digital Art with theBlu
Do you have strong conceptual design skills? Do you like collaborating on an international basis? If so, then this project might be of interest to you. This is an open call to generate content through Blender Nation. We received a beta access code which will enable 50 users to participate.
Code: theblu0104
Please read the following announcement made by Annette if you are interested and check out their website at: www.theblu.com
Annette Vitkievicz writes:
Imagine: You’re browsing online when suddenly a chat message pops up.
To your amazement, it’s two Academy Award-winning filmmakers, Louie
Psihoyos (Director, The Cove) and Andy Jones (Animation Director,
Avatar). They reveal a visually captivating, fully CGI entertainment
project, telling the amazing stories of every sea creature in the vast
ocean, created by 3D artists from around the world. Hundreds of the
world’s best digital artists and Oscar winners are already working to
bring this vision to fruition. They pause and then say: “We want you
on the team.”Inspired by the ocean, theBlu is a global mission to create the
world’s largest globally shared art and entertainment project of its
kind on the web. It is a beautiful interactive online world where
every species and habitat is a unique work of art created by global
digital artists and developers from all walks of life. TheBlu is a
geosocial web app where people connect across the Internet and explore
a vast and growing ocean gallery on the web.See more, including an introductory video, at www.theblu.com.
TheBlu is currently in private, invite-only beta. We’d love for you
contribute to this global project and gain early access in theBlu.
Please let me know if you’d like an access code and I will send you
one. I look forward to your thoughts.Best,
Annette
Link:
Links don’t work ….
Proprietary software (Unity3D), Proprietary License (Copyright © 2011 The Blu Inc., All Rights Reserved), no guaranty on authors rights…
Look like exploiting artists to make money, that all : Don’t fall in the trap… !!!
On the contrary, if it have been GPL licensed, I’d have tell it is wonderful…
o_O
Thats a bit scary.
hmm… is the fbx file format an issue to use blender in this project?
The fbx file is a problem. There is no importer in blender, although there is an exporter (can’t quite figure that one out). I’ve got as far as downloading a template of an asset I would like to try, only to discover it can’t be used.
What!
Andrew Price, did you know about this? Underwater Competition ;-)
yeahs says a portion goes t the artist and a portion goes to ocean conservation. But it doesn’t say how to get involved as a seller and it doesn’t say what the percentages are. But it is defiantly a For Profit outfit. Not that I have anything against it but I think that they are coming off a little misleading.
Why is FBX a problem?
Hello, my name is Hugh McGinley, and I am the Community Manager for Wemo Media, creators of theBlu. Being a Maker myself before I joined Wemo Media (and I still am one), I wanted to try and answer a couple questions that some of you might have in case the post was misleading.
To start, yes, this is a for proprietary platform. TheBlu is open to everyone; every artist in the world can contribute to the project to bring the ocean to the web. Each “Maker” gets paid for what they create as well. As Mr. Barnette pointed out from the article, a portion of the funding goes to the artist and a portion goes to ocean conservation. This is an equal opportunity and you will get paid for what you make.
Other advantages to becoming a Maker for theBlu is that you get to showcase your work globally. Everyone around the world will be able to see an asset you personally created, and you will be increasing the size of your portfolio at the same time. Before that asset is in theBlu, it will get feedback from mentors; top-tier artists like Kevin Mack and Andy Jones will directly comment on what you’ve created! How cool is that? And finally, a Maker will become a part of a global community of peer artists, helping one another and giving suggestions on how to make an asset the best that it can be. More information about this can be found on our site when you become a “Maker”.
FBX. files should not be an issue, again as Mr. Barnette alluded to. We’re creating walkthroughs for each 3d package to allow Makers to have as much information as they need to create their assets. Makers from around the world are already creating tutorials for the asset creation process in order to help other Makers through the process as well.
All but one link in this post seem to work, but if you’re interested in checking out theBlu, just doing a simple web search for theblu will turn up our site too. Signing up with the beta code, you will be able to find out more information about the “Maker Platform” and what it means to get your art into theBlu. You can also provide comments and suggestions on theBlu as well through our “Feedback” section located on the site.
Thanks to everyone for their interest! If there are any questions that you might have, please don’t hesitate to contact support ‘at’ theblu.com and we will be happy to assist you. We look forward to seeing you dive into theBlu soon!
Hugh McGinley
Tomas, thanks for the trouble taken to try it on Linux. I will know not to bother.
Would prefer something other then .FBX :/ otherwise I can not help
Thanks for the information Hugh McGinley.
If you want support from a community you have to support their tools and methods, and from the sounds of it the Blender community is currently excluded. Sorry, but you will not find me making assets for a closed community such as this.
You’re welcome Giovanny! Any time. :)
Bryce my friend, again, we are absolutely committed to supporting Blender and everything it brings to the table when creating 3d work. As we continue through our Beta process, we will gain more knowledge on each and every software package out there in hopes of providing the easiest pipeline for each user. Until then, it is to be expected that there might be a few bumps along the way.
As I mentioned above, anyone can start from within Blender creating their asset. We only provide fbx templates for a small portion of the immense number of species that are known within the ocean today. Do not limit yourself to just what we provide. We only ask for an fbx export from Blender in order to bring the files into our engine, in this case Unity. We’re looking into a smooth process to utilize COLLADA as well, which Blender supports (http://www.blendernation.com/2008/09/10/blender-collada-141-importer/).
Thank you to everyone for your comments and interest in theBlu! We’re really excited to be working with the Blender community and look forward to seeing everyone dive into theBlu soon!
Thanks again.
Hugh
Thank you for your reply Tomas! We also appreciate the screen shot as it is very helpful. As we work through our Beta process, we will look into every issue that users might have and do what we can to resolve them. This includes working on various operating systems. I’ve forwarded your issue to our support team and they will look into resolving the issue as soon as possible.
Thank you again!
This is the response I received from our support team:
“Unity has absolutely no plans to support a native Linux webplayer. They are currently working on both a Flash and Chrome export option, both should be out within 6 months. We will support these in the future, but unknown as to when. We will try to support them quickly as they get made available to the public.””We will fix the formatting on the web page, this is unrelated to the unity player.”Thanks again Tomas!Hugh
Okay peeps, Hugh has been pretty smooth so far in responding to everyone and there are a lot of platforms to support. They can’t know what is needed unless we tell them. Keeping open communication with their team in what you need to be able to contribute will let them know what they need to work on if it’s not available right now. Again, it’s BETA.
If my only exposure to the fantastic Blender community was this page of comments I’d go running for the hills. Over and over again we’re trying to prove that Blender as an open source program can compete with industry standards and now that we have an opportunity it seems like we’re kicking Hugh and theBlue in the groin.
We’ve been invited to help out with the project.
Blender Artists have been invited.
There have been obstacles that weren’t immediately known *cough* beta *cough* and Hugh is doing what he can to accommodate. There aren’t going to always be immediate or easy answers but let’s show Hugh and theBlu a little appreciation? Even if we can’t contribute?
Thank you for your reply Alexis. Both myself and everyone here at Wemo Media thank you for your comments. We are definitely doing what we can to accommodate Blender and everything that the wonderful software has to offer. We’re very excited to be working with you and everyone else in the Blender community.
Again, thanks to everyone who has commented and shown interest in theBlu. If there are any more questions, concerns, or suggestions, please feel free to email support ‘at’ theblu.com or myself directly (hugh ‘at’ wemomedia.com). The more feedback on our Beta and thereafter, the better in order to make this world wide project the best that it can be for everyone.
Thanks again.
Hugh
First of all thanks to Hugh McGinley for being so thoughtful and inclusive about the Bender Community. Thanks!
Secondly, I already registered and there is a tutorial section in the site with lots of info about how to get started with theBlu. Everything seems very exciting and I can’t wait to get started with some models (as soon as I catch a break from work and college)
One suggestion, if I may, is that the presets could came in OBJ format as well once Blender doesn’t import FBX (only exports) I didn’t had the chance to take a look at the models yet because of this little issue.
I don’t know what could be done about that, but is really a piety that Unity Web player doesn’t support our dear Linux…
Lets model something pretty and scaly ;P
Hi Francisco!
No problem and thanks for your post! Personally I’ve only heard great things about Blender, and all of us at Wemo Media are super excited to be working with the Blender community on theBlu.
That’s a good suggestion regarding the OBJ file availability, but you will lose the rig and whatnot that we provide as well. If you’re just looking for a really basic mesh to begin the modeling from, then we could probably provide that. We’re actually looking into offering .blend files alongside the .fbx files, but this is just preliminary as we want to observe all of our options for the Blender community so that it is as easy and straightforward as possible. We will definitely keep everyone posted, but until then, please bear with us as we work through this Beta phase.
Looking forward to see what you might have in mind to create for theBlu! :)
Thanks again.
Hugh
Just a quick update, we now accept .blend files for theBlu! If you want to create an asset for theBlu, you can submit that asset as a .blend file or .fbx file. Just go to maker.theblu.com to choose and/or submit your asset. Pretty cool stuff!
Coming VERY soon: downloadable .blend file templates, Blender asset creation walkthroughs, and Blender video tutorials!
Thanks again to the Blender community for being so awesome! We’ve gotten some great feedback from everyone and we’re looking forward to seeing what the Blender community can create for theBlu.
Thanks!
Thanks Hugh! I’ll announce this in a full post later today.