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Graphics Software

NaN Closes Shop, The End of Blender? 322

Posted by CmdrTaco from the whats-your-vector-victor dept.
lowell writes "The shareholders and directors of NaN Holding BV, owners of Blender, have decided to terminate all activities of NaN Technologies BV and apply for its bankruptcy at the Amsterdam court. It means that effective today, all technology development and website activities around Blender will be frozen. " Nice app. Too bad really.
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NaN Closes Shop, The End of Blender? More

NaN Closes Shop, The End of Blender?

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  • Anything generally known that was made with Blender?

    • Scenario: company Foo making app Bar figures out they cannot survive by selling free software

      Slashdot: The great people at Foo, makers of Bar, are going to have to close their doors due to lack of $$$. Remember Bar? Nice app. Too bad, really. Yawn. Allright, where's that new DVD I ordered?

    • I find it odd that this announcement comes so soon after Alias/Wavefront began to offer Maya personal edition for free. I wonder how much of the other companies offering "free" or discounted packages hurt NaN in the end. Of course $5695 for a 3d modeller might not be seen as discount prices to most of us compared to $500 but I wonder.

  • Floating point arithmetic improved! (Score:4, Funny)

    by IainHere ( 536270 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @12:37PM (#3162793)
    Wow! No more NaN errors - I've been waiting for the IEEE to fix FP arithmetic for years now.

  • mmmmm.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by cswiii ( 11061 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @12:37PM (#3162795)
    "frozen"... "blender"...

    Thanks a lot! It's not even noon, and now I've got a craving for a good margarita :P.

    • "There's booze in the blender. And soon it will render.. the frozen concoction that helps me hang on.." - from "Margaritaville"

  • Please release the source under GPL (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BroadbandBradley ( 237267 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @12:38PM (#3162802) Homepage
    because you kow if you do, blender will live on no matter what.

    Then you can let users develop the app and stick to making money writing Blender Books.

    I like Blender, anyone got any suggestions for alternatives for 3D animation on Linux?

    • From the article:
      But is there a future for Blender anyways?
      Internally, and on the public discussion forums, a lot of time has been spent on that topic. There are a lot of believers and non-believers for every topic and scenario. But in general there's a unified feeling among everyone - users, employees and shareholders - that Blender still has a warm living heart, still alive, and worth being continued.
      We will come back to everyone with news on the shortest possible term. Thank you all for your understanding,

      Sounds like its a heavy possiblity of being opened up.

      Good news for animators, bad news for those that paid for licenses.

      • Re:Please release the source under GPL (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Dan D. ( 10998 ) <duhprey@nOspaM.tosos.com> on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:02PM (#3162942) Homepage
        bad news for those that paid for licenses.

        How so? I paid for a license (a while back now, so I haven't renewed any) and I'd be delighted in it being open sourced. I paid because I wanted NaN to be profitable and keep working on the product. I don't have time to work on a full 3d modeller myself, but I have plenty of use for one, so I'll pay someone else to work on it.

        Of course now I feel guilty I didn't pay more, hope they do open it and hope someone with more time than I works on it.

        • How so? I paid for a license (a while back now, so I haven't renewed any) and I'd be delighted in it being open sourced. I paid because I wanted NaN to be profitable and keep working on the product. I don't have time to work on a full 3d modeller myself, but I have plenty of use for one, so I'll pay someone else to work on it.

          Exactly right.

          I was going to spend some of my tax refund on a copy of blender (they'd just gone to a "pay and get new features now, or don't pay and get the same features in a few months" model), and I wouldn't have felt cheated if they'd GPLed the pay version a day later. Why? Because if it had been GPLed I would have known that the software would never die, and the hundreds of hours of animation work I had invested ... worth far more to me than the price I would have paid for the software itself ... would remain useful for the forseeable future.

          Indeed, I would pay a fair chunk of change to see it get GPLed.
          • umm..your animation work is not wasted. blender files are just openinventor files (iv). just rename em and any 3D app can import em. ive used blender models with 3DS Max, Maya, TrueSpace and others. they even work ok as VRML files.
            • umm..your animation work is not wasted. blender files are just openinventor files (iv). just rename em and any 3D app can import em. ive used blender models with 3DS Max, Maya, TrueSpace and others. they even work ok as VRML files.

              I did not know that. Thank you, I confess to being very, very relieved. Maybe my libraries of stuff aren't so useless after all.

              • Re:Thank You (Score:2, Informative)

                by manjunaths ( 83313 )

                Ummmm...hello ? Blender file the .blend format is a binary only propriety NaN format. It is not .iv. But it can export rudimentary models (and maybe textures) to vrml 1.0. Which when renamed to .iv works with inventor. But you still have to fiddle around and edit the .iv file manually sometimes (texture file paths etc.,). But no blender's default file format in which the animation is stored is not in .iv format and it can only be viewed by blender.
                • Blender file the .blend format is a binary only propriety NaN format. It is not .iv. But it can export rudimentary models (and maybe textures) to vrml 1.0. Which when renamed to .iv works with inventor. But you still have to fiddle around and edit the .iv file manually sometimes (texture file paths etc.,).

                  You are, regrettably, correct. I took the previous poster at their word that .blend files were in fact open inventor files, but discovered this weekend that you are right ... the format of .blend files is a proprietary NaN format and, as such, my animation work is rapidly becoming worthless.

                  As I said before: never again. I will only use free(dom) software for any future animation/special effects work I do, even if that means I have to write the damn program myself.

                  :-(
    • It's a good wish to get Blender ousted into the open-source domain, but unfortunately unlikely. If they are decalring bankruptcy, that means they have creditors that they owe. And if they owe money, they (usually - maybe not in Amsterdam?) will be encouranged to liquidate their assets, like Blender, to another company who will pay for the technology. So getting it open-sourced is probably not an option on the table.

      -Andrew

      • If they can't find one or if someone like Red Hat buys them, then it's possible to see it being open sourced. Yes, I know, not likely, but still a possibility...

      • Re:Please release the source under GPL (Score:5, Interesting)

        by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @02:09PM (#3163351) Homepage Journal

        will be encouranged to liquidate their assets, like Blender, to another company who will pay for the technology. So getting it open-sourced is probably not an option on the table.

        So, following up with a previous poster that commented that, despite having paid a license earlier, he would be willing to pay to have it open sourced under the GPL

        Why don't Blender enthusiasts contribute to a fund with the express purpose of buying the Blender License so as to GPL the code?
        If you get more money than you need in the bid at the auction, then consider using the extra to pay for some dedicated time by the author, etc.
    • Yes. Alias/Wavefront. [aliaswavefront.com] is a high end profesional package. And it runs on Linux.
      • Alias/wavefront is the company, Maya is the 3D app....see next post
      • If you have $7,500 for the low-end version, sure.

        Blender was a nice shot at 3D for the masses. I downloaded it many moons ago, even bought the manual, but could never quite figure it out.

        I'm sorry their business model wasn't more of a success - they always seemed like a cool bunch of people and I wish them well in the future.

        D
    • Well, Maya is available for Linux, and having used both it and Blender, I think its a little more intuitive, and a lot more powerfull....but its gonna cost you an arm, a leg, and a kidney.
    • NaN makes one piece of software - Blender (and varients of Blender). The Code for Blender is very likely the only thing NaN owns that they can sell to pay back it's investors. You can't sell the code and give it away at the same time. So I doubt there will be a GPL version.

      Also worrisome - If they find a buyer for Blender, there is no guarantee the new company will continue to build Linux binaries.
      • True, but I don't know if Blender's worth much without the developers who created it in the first place. If you bought it out of bankruptcy, who would you have maintaining it?

        Intellectual property is a bit odd that way - it would be very rare that a commercial entity would pick up something like this due to maintainability issues.

        D
    • Other 3d Programs on Linux:

      Alias/Wavefront Maya [alias.com]

      Houdini [sidefx.com]

      Oh? You mean FREE 3d programs. hm. i have no idea. try this, though, 3d linux programs [3dlinks.com]

    • Re:Please release the source under GPL (Score:5, Informative)

      by Error27 ( 100234 ) <error27 AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday March 14, 2002 @02:18PM (#3163388) Homepage Journal
      I personally like tooling around with k-3d [sf.net].

      As a non-animator I first installed Blender and immediately became deeply confused and gave up.

      A while later, I installed k3d. There was no .deb available, but it was simple to install. On start up k3d offers a brilliant tutorial on animating. The tutorial moves the mouse around and shows you how to create new shapes, modify them, and move the camera around etc.

      Within an hour I learned how to make animations with dancing deformed tea pots.

      K3d is GPL. It's available under windows as well, but that's a massive pain in the butt to install.

    • Please release the source under GPL

      Ton Roosendaal has said in the past that NaN woul do that very thing should NaN ever go out of business. I'm hoping that they'll remember their promise if and when the time comes for NaN to close it's doors forever.

      ... One Sad Blender User
    • That's right, the company is bust so GIVE AWAY it's only significant asset & screw the creditors.

      If the users of this application were so deserving they'd have paid what it took to support the costs of developing & delivering the software. They did not do so in sufficient numbers. Maybe someone out there will buy blender, but that seems unlikely to me.
      • selling a great "how to blender book" while giving away the software was the plan from the get-go, but , I doubt they lost any money selling books.

        going OPEN inspires more people to contribute to the code, I think that would've given them a stronger user base letting them sell more great "how to blender books" while saving them some development costs.

  • /me is sad (Score:3, Funny)

    by EricKrout.com ( 559698 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @12:43PM (#3162827) Homepage
    Effective today, all technology development and website activities around Blender will be frozen.

    Are you implying that the classic Rob Malda films "Duckpins [cmdrtaco.net]" and "Hamster Havoc [cmdrtaco.net]" will be the last we see from this budding star in the animation business?

    Surely you jest!

    MONOLINUX :: Get Your GNU On [monolinux.com]

    • Re:/me is sad (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rho ( 6063 )

      If I remember correctly, Duckpins and Hampster were done using Hash Animation Master. Hash is a good proggy--I've played with it a bit.

      Blender is better in a lot of ways, but Hash is tough to beat for ease of use. Blender is tough to beat for difficulty of use. Until you learn the gestalt of it, you do a lot of guessing ("what does this button do....AAAAAGGGH!").

    • He used Animation:Master, not Blender.
  • I'd like to see the source GPLed - if they no longer are going to use it. I would like to pick through the source for stuff and maybe contribute plugins to a new OSS project based around it.

    I used to do a Open GL GUI tk for my modeler too, but I always thought blender's layout was too static to use personally. Agian I'm a developer more than an artist. I was just looking into writing some blender plug-ins over break for a guy I met on OPN. Oh well, more time for my project. =)

  • Lack of Apps. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @12:57PM (#3162909) Homepage Journal
    Owch. This is a bad day to be a Linux desktop user.

    NaN folding will strengthen the argument that there are not enough good desktop applications for Linux. It will also strengthen the claims that Linux users will not pay for software.

    I doubt we will see OpenBlender. NaN may not be able to GPL Blender, as the code for that application is the only company assest they can leverage to pay off it's debt. We also don't know if they licensed any code from external contractors.

    I have a strong interest in 3D animation, I am a Linux user, and Blender was it for me. There are no other 3d programs under Linux with it's level of sophistication. I hate dual booting to Windows to use Lightwave.

    Loki is gone - no games. Blender is gone - no 3d.

    This makes the siren's song of OSX go up a couple of decibles.

    • Re:Lack of Apps. (Score:4, Informative)

      by bjq ( 250686 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:09PM (#3162975) Homepage
      "There are no other 3d programs under Linux with it's level of sophistication."

      Maya [aliaswavefront.com] (possibly the preeminent 3D animation app) is available under Linux. It's just out of your freebie pricerange.

      There's also a free "Personal Learning Edition" [aliaswavefront.com] available, but it's only for WinNT/2k/XP or OSX. So contact Alias|Wavefront and tell them you want to see it for Linux.

      Blender really isn't the end-all/be-all of 3d apps the Slashdot crowd makes it out to be.

      • Maya (possibly the preeminent 3D animation app) is available under Linux. It's just out of your freebie pricerange.

        Freebie? You're making an unfair baseless assumption about me. I do buy software, and did support Blender financially.

        Maya is outside of mine and most people's pricerange because it costs US$7000 last time I looked. If 7 grand is something you can spend on computer software, good for you. For most of us in the real world, that price is prohibitive.

        The free download is crippled, unless you are using a crack. If you are, you have a lot of nerve calling me a freebie.

        • Re:Lack of Apps. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:50PM (#3163234)
          Maya (possibly the preeminent 3D animation app) is available under Linux. It's just out of your freebie pricerange.

          Freebie? You're making an unfair baseless assumption about me. I do buy software, and did support Blender financially.

          You can get your first copy for a mere $5500 or so, you cheap GNU/Linux user you! :-)

          I agree. I've payed for plenty of apps under Linux, including Applix, various games, etc. But Maya's pricetag puts it well out of any hobbiests price range ... and comes with the same uncertainty as blender: if and when the app disappears, or changes and becomes unsupported, what happens to the hours of animation work I've done? Am I forced to spend another $5k for an upgrade I can't afford or, even worse, left with no recourse (and useless, may-as-well-be-randomized data)?

          I will do all my future animation work only under GPLed or BSDed software, even if that means writing modules myself to do what I need. The time I saved by using Blender I just lost, big time, with compounded interest. The animations I've done will grow less and less useful with time, ultimately (in a year or two) becoming worthless as it becomes more and more difficult to get the aging Blender binary I have (the latest version prior to their disappearance) running against current libraries and software versions.

          RMS and the Free Software Foundation were right all along, and I, in my "pragmatism," was very shortsighted and very wrong.

          Never again will I make that mistake.

  • Blender Bitching (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Craig Maloney ( 1104 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:04PM (#3162949) Homepage
    Y'know, I'm a little tired of the people slamming this application. Honestly I think it was, and is a very good 3D application. Sure it wasn't the fastest, or the most intuitive, and it didn't have the bells and whistles of the competition, but it did have some very good and unique ideas. How many other 3D applications had a game engine built into it? The trouble with Blender is it was the first to truly put a 3D plugin of any value into a web browser, and it was one of the first to create a fully 3D game construction set. Being the first as a fledgling company doesn't translate to much, except when the finger pointing comes into play when you fail.

    Thank you Ton and company for the many hours of rewarding 3D creation. Maybe someday the finger-pointers will wake up and realize what they've lost.

  • Figures (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:04PM (#3162953)
    A company makes an innovative software product, and can't remain afloat, thanks in part to the pathological cheapness of the Linux crowd.

    The company goes into bankruptcy and there are already numerous suggestions on /. that the company GPL the source code, with no mention of the possibility that the company could reorganize and become viable.

    Am I the only one who sees how poisonous this attitude is? "Why the hell should we pay for it? If we don't pay then the company will go out of business and we'll get it for free, anyway." Normally you have to deal with professional politicians to see that level of shortsightedness and arrogance.

    Keep it up, cheapskates, and Linux will never grow (in the desktop market) beyond being a hacker toy. You're the ones who all but completely destroyed the Linux book market, sent Mandrake into begging mode, and did who knows what other damage to your own cause and other businesses. I hope you're happy; I'm sure Bill Gates is delighted by how savagely you treat your own.

    • Re:Figures (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AxelBoldt ( 1490 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @02:22PM (#3163414) Homepage
      You got it backwards. People like you, who applaud every commercial app on Linux and want Linux to "succeed in the marketplace", are shortsighted. Every commercial app is built on sand; the company dies, gets bought out or decides to discontinue the product, and it's over. There is never any security unless you have a decent free software license in hand. That's the lesson of the Blender fiasco. Never use nor support non-free software.

      • Re:Figures (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The lesson of the "Blender fiasco" is not that commercial software is wrong or "built on sand". Although the original poster who spoke of cheap Linux users was a bit harsh, he was a bit closer to the truth. The major strengths of Linux are its open source nature and the fact that it is free. There is a plethora of good, free software, but it sometimes lacks a certain polish. The people who write open source software have other jobs and don't always have the time and resources to dedicate to a software project. The GIMP is pretty cool, but Adobe spends millions of dollars and a ridiculous number of man hours from a dedicated team, while the GIMP is a hobbyist project (if skillfully conceived and rendered) where free time after work or class is spent working on it, not the entire work week. The problem is, you have a professional, well made piece of software like Blender released for Linux how do you manage to make make sure that quality is high, generate a profit, and make it attractive to users who rarely have to pay for software? Open source is wonderful; it ensures that software lives on and it allows for user level changes to be implemented, but people who spend all of their waking hours working on quality software should be entitled to some compensation for their efforts from the end users who find their product to be useful. There really needs to be strides made in the Linux community to find a happy medium when it comes to the open source vs. commercial holy wars.
        • There is a plethora of good, free software, but it sometimes lacks a certain polish.

          Well, then sit down and polish some of if for heaven's sake! Linux is not a spectator sport.

          The GIMP is pretty cool, but Adobe spends millions of dollars and a ridiculous number of man hours from a dedicated team, while the GIMP is a hobbyist project (if skillfully conceived and rendered)

          You are arguing my point. All you need for high quality software is a bunch of enthusiastic and knowledgable volunteers. You can flush your millions of dollars and man months down the toilet.

          but people who spend all of their waking hours working on quality software should be entitled to some compensation for their efforts from the end users

          If you make something which volunteers are happy to make for free then you are not entitled to compensation.

    • Re:Figures (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Synn ( 6288 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @02:36PM (#3163483)
      I love how when 100 windows oriented companies go down the drain each day it's because of bad business practices.

      But when a company goes down and happens to make a Linux port on the side, why then it went under because the Linux crowd is a bunch of cheap bastards.
    • A company makes an innovative software product, and can't remain afloat, thanks in part to the pathological cheapness of the Linux crowd.
      No--it's not pathological cheapness. It's an attachment to freedom. To quote Patrick Henry, `Give me liberty or give me death!'
      Keep it up, cheapskates, and Linux will never grow (in the desktop market) beyond being a hacker toy.
      And what, exactly, is wrong with that? So the lusers don't use our software--can that possibly be a bad thing? Look what they did to the Internet. Incidentally, Linux is my desktop at home, and I spend a good 80-85% of my time at work using it (Windows is reserved for Notes and other nasty IBM-internal software).
      I hope you're happy; I'm sure Bill Gates is delighted by how savagely you treat your own.
      But NaN are not our own. They wrote some very interesting code, certainly. I'm sure that they are very good people, loving their mothers, refraining from kicking dogs--that sort of thing. But their software was proprietary and encumbered. Hence, it is alien to what Linux stands for: freedom to code; freedom to hack; freedom in general. While they've all my very best wishes in their future endeavours, I've no intention to ever use their software--unless they write a game[1].

      `Our own' are hackers. Our own are those who appreciate freedom. You, you animal, are most definitely not one of our own. Aures habet, sed non audiet. Or something like that; my Latin is rusty:-)

      [1] I believe that the game industry is the one case in which free software does not necessarily make sense. It does for games such as NetHack [nethack.org], but for Quake and its ilk. Granted, I'm not certain that Quake and its ilk really are games. And I entertain a certain fancy that in a world of free software we'd have the graphics of Quake and the intricacy of NetHack. Still, I am quite willing to pay for the efforts of artists.

      And no, I don't consider programmers artists in the sense that painters are. And I'm a programmer myself [sf.net].

    • A company makes an innovative software product, and can't remain afloat, thanks in part to the pathological cheapness of the Linux crowd.

      Yeah except that you forgot Blender was just as much a Windows app (if not more so - hw acceleration was an afterthought for the Linux version).
      Let's hear you praise the generosity of the Windows crowd and damn Linux users again. Go ahead.


      Now as for whether NaN merited money from either the Linux or Windows community, you seem to take this for granted, but I'll say this: I've never seen a "professional" graphics application of any kind without a fucking UNDO function, mapped to CTRL-Z or somewhere else. Everytime I downloaded Blender there was no undo. That was true at least for a couple of years and still true until fairly recently as far as I know.
      I won't blame anybody for saying that they found Blender a bitch to learn. I agree. I won't blame them for concluding it was not worth the effort to learn: Ctrl-Z is the most frequently used function of any kind of graphics app for new users. Blender ignored this and all the off-putting effects it has on new users. Who was the market for this app? Not 3d professionals who either have borrowed copies of what they use at work, or self-purchased copies. Newbies were the main market. Hobbyists. Blender asked for their money, but they might have done better if they had kept new users completely in the dark about the app's useability problems by offering no free download, and no trial period. Most people don't have the patience to learn a 3d app UI in the first place, Blender was after the market segment least likely to have a reason to adapt to a complex interface, and frankly they behaved in a cavalier manner in attracting their business.
      Sorry.


      I'm sorry to see them go, but they didn't earn my money. I expect I gave them more of a chance than most people would .

      Am I the only one who sees how poisonous this attitude is?
      No, but I bet you got the first dibs on being Grand Inquisitor.
      Normally you have to deal with professional politicians to see that level of shortsightedness and arrogance.
      Arrogance ?
      How about the arrogance of judging others you've never even met? Some would say singling out a group of people to carry the blame of others, calling them "cheapskates" "pathological" "poisonous" and "shortsighted" in the process is a maybe wee bit arrogant itself.

  • Blender's cool, and there's a sad dearth of (affordable) 3D modelling, animation and rendering tools for Linux. Okay, sure, using OpenGL for the GUI toolkit was a bit funky, but you got used to it.
  • Anyone know if the release of the Maya Personal Edition in feburary had anything to do with this?
  • I would pay money to the shareholders if they were to open source blender. This way it would be able to live on as the great tool that it is. Anyone else willing to chip in?

    This is a sad outcome for Not a Number though.

  • This is what you get when you value short-term convenience over freedom, when you get excited over something because it's "cool," when you think that any software for Linux is good for Linux (forgetting what made GNU/Linux special in the first place).

    You're completely dependent on the whims and fortunes of a single vendor, and are now up a creek. By all means, beg them to release it as free software, but don't hold your breath.

    There's a time and a place for proprietary software, but there is also a very real cost that has nothing to do with price. Valuing freedom over features is not just thinking with your gonads [lwn.net].

  • Yes there is an Opensource Alternative... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Wolfier ( 94144 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:23PM (#3163067)
    Let's pull some resources to port it.

    http://www.openfx.org

  • A Sad Day .... (Score:3, Informative)

    by jest3r ( 458429 ) on Thursday March 14, 2002 @01:30PM (#3163102)
    Alot of people here bashing blender. Blender is a FREE and POWERFUL 3D app. It may have a very 'different' interface but after using it for a while it becomes second nature. In fact I thought the interface was the best part .. Blender also has a great online community generating massive amounts of step by step tutorials to help the novice get started. Blender gives you the ability to create work that previously would have required a $3000+ investment in software. All this for FREE .. basically available on any platform .. I hope they can get some funding or find some way to keep it alive ....

    ---
    Blender supports multiple cameras and lighting, which can be used to create very lifelike images, especially when scenes incorporate realistic surfaces. The program even has a plug-in facility that will accept new surfaces and features created by third parties.

    Animation is one of Blender's most impressive features. Not only can objects move along paths, but their attributes can change along the way. For example, lighting effects can increase, decrease, or change color. We were even able to introduce lens flares and motion blurs. Another animation enhancement is particle support, which allows multiple objects to be created and animated based on procedures that can simulate natural laws.

    Blender even handles postproduction jobs that utilize images or videos from other sources. For example, Blender can be used to add an animated, walking lamp, complete with its own shadow, to a video using masking and animation features.

    The printed documentation is definitely worth the price. It's far more extensive than the free, downloadable version and is packed with useful details. The manual sports many colorful examples, even if the font is so small it practically requires a magnifying glass to read. While the documentation adequately covers the program's numerous keystrokes, menus, and mouse actions, a reference card would be nice.

    Whether you need a production-quality 3D system or just some basic 3D scenes for a presentation, Blender fits the bill. If you're prepared to spend some time learning how to use it, the results will be well worth your effort. This is one of the best 3D packages on any platform.

    (Taken from LinuxMag review)
  • Now I wonder if it's worth spending too much time learning it. Yes, I can use the version I've got but learning to master a 3d application is a huge investment in time and without the promise of a future maybe I should rather look at some other apps.

    Anyway it would be sad to see blender go, I hope that somehow the development will continue.
  • This certainly stings. I'm just getting up ~12:54pm because I was up till 4:30am last night learning how to use Blender. I've been meaning to tool around with it for quite some time and finally got the chance. I must have gone through every tutorial on they're web site (which had not been updated yet). Never mind that last week I bought The Official Blender 2.0 guide for $50!

    The same thing happened when I found an interest in Broadcast 2000. As soon as I decided to spend some time with it they pulled it from their site! Quite frustrating!
    • And just to add...

      WTF is up with the new static site? I mean, do what you have to with the product, but why can't we still have access to the tutorials??
    • Bcast2k in the word of Monty Python is "... not quite dead yet!"

      If you want to check out the latest "backups," of the codebase, look for Cinelerra on sourceforge.

      It is still being developed, but you can expect basically no support (compiling it can be problematic).

      Bcast2k is an excellent program. I do feel it is unfortunate that the authors decided to withdraw it from public view.
  • This sucks. I've been in the process of creating a tutorial on blender here [digitalhermit.com]. Blender was featured because it was a relatively powerful package and did many things that much higher priced packages did.
    Many people complained about the interface, but once you learned the shortcuts it was probably one of the easiest to use. Someone had even created a python based blender to POVray script that allowed you to model in blender and render in POV, so shortcomings in the Blender rendering engine were quickly made moot.
    It is not the only package available for rendering, but it was one of the best for animations. Funny that this occurred a day after I saw the QuickTime preview on the Apple site.

  • Mirror of Blender (Score:2, Insightful)

    by baffle ( 144921 )
    I'm mirroring the files on ftp://ftp.stenstad.net/mirrors/ftp.blender.nl/ now, as ftp.blender.nl seems down..

  • I was under the impression that Blender had, somewhere in the website, a comment that said (basically) "if we go out of business, Blender goes open source; If we sell it, we won't sell it unless they promise to do the same thing". (I remember something vague about BSD lisence, but I could be wrong.)

    I certainly hope they won't find anyone to sell it to so we get the thing =)

    Anyway, as a long-time Blender user [www.iki.fi] (but not long enough time, that's for sure), I have to say that it's a shame that they had to go. I hope they keep the word now and Blender will once again be visible, either still as freeware or under DFSG-compliant lisence.

  • And so it goes... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Eric Damron ( 553630 )
    I use to believe that companies that gave their software freely would still receive enough support from the "grateful" thousands (sometimes millions) to survive.

    But with the demise of Blender and the cries for help from Mandrake that are being met mostly by a lot of "I'll use Mandrake but I'll never pay for it. That's what open source is all about so if they fail they fail..." replies, I don't think so anymore.

    I just don't believe that a company that produces free software can make it in a community that is mostly devoid of compassion or common sense or whatever it is that will make a person take out their wallet and send so cold hard case to a company that provides them with a service even though they don't gain anything extra by doing so.

    What should be leaned but won't from the failures of companies like this is that you may not gain anything extra by sending in some of your money but, in the long run, you will lose if you don't.

    I'm just really bummed out to realize that we will always carry the Microsoft yoke because as a society we are incapable of breaking out of the box and doing what it takes to support the people who would empower us all.
  • At least a half dozen times in the past few years, I kindly suggested to the Blender folks that they open source *all* of their software and adopt a services-oriented business model while building a support and development community around the code itself. "You have no market for proprietary 3D software," I told them, "Who is going to spend money on small-name software when highly superior Maya, Lightwave3D, 3D Studio, etc. are available?" But they never listened, "it's not our business plan." Apparently their shareholders had firmly decided that there was no money in Open Source (sounds aweful familiar to the trolls on /. eh?) Even though Blender was free (as in beer), they refused to open the code because they knew that it would kill the (non-existant) market for Publisher. Folks, it's not easy to make money in software no matter what approach you take. However, all things considered, you have far greater chance to succeed with community backing. And if you fail, at least you'll still have something to show for all your hard work.
  • People saying 'Linux users won't pay for anything' should probably note that theire are far more Windows Blender users than Linux users out there.

    Frankly, the reason why they couldn't make money was because their app could not compete with the other, more polished solutions in the market.


  • Looking for Blender discusion forums. Anybody know where there are some good forums besides NaN's site?

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