Blender Demo Reel Released

James Cho writes "The Blender demo reel has been released, showcasing some of the best artwork made with what has become the most powerful open source 3d content creation software. It will be later shown at SIGGRAPH 2004, the premier international computer graphics exhibiton and conference."

Interface

[Television Set]

Blender is one tough program to master. I've meddled with it a bit, but I found the interface cumbersome.

Re:mirror

[caino59]

siggraph_movie.avi [cainsconsulting.net]

someone want to set it up as a torrent?

direct link and mirror

[yruf]

use the direct link [blender3d.com] which is mentioned on the blender.org page.

if this doesn't work, try my very own mirror [mediaautomat.de] (which hopefully doesn't die within the next seconds...)

--
[adv]
schoene Klamotten [ilmenau-textil.de] fuer Ilmenauer und andere nette Leute

Re:Interface

[Deusy]

Blender is one tough program to master. I've meddled with it a bit, but I found the interface cumbersome.

Ergo, a large focus of the development since becoming open source has been to make the UI more intuitive and consistent.

The Blender UI is no longer that difficult, just different to 3DS or your other favourite 3D editor. I'd be surprised if your comment applies to the most recent version unless by "a bit" you mean 5 minutes.

If you go through the the blender3d.org tutorials [blender3d.com] then get back on the "cumbersome" UI.

ed2k link

[Anonymous Coward]

help distribute the load
remove spaces from filename (slashdot adds them)

ed2k://|file|Blender.Siggraph.reel.(2004) .DivX4.avi|41623564|95E0365F40991923D741201B170312 33|/

AVI File Information:

File and Container Information:
File Name : Blender.Siggraph.reel.(2004).DivX4.avi
File Size (in bytes) : 41,623,564
Base Type (e.g "AVI") : AVI(.AVI)
Subtype (e.g "OpenDML") : AVI v1.0,
Interleave (in ms) : 40
Preload (in ms) :
Audio alignment : Aligned
Total System Bitrate (kbps) : 0
Number of Audio Streams : 1

Video Information:
Video Codec Type : DIVX
Video Codec Name : DivX 4 (OpenDivX)
Duration (hh:mm:ss) : 00:07:50
Frame Count : 11738
Frame Width (pixels) : 320
Frame Height (pixels) : 240
Frame Aspect Ratio (e.g "1.3333") : 1.33
Frame Aspect Ratio (e.g. "4:3") : 4:3
Pixel Aspect Ratio ("SAR") : 1.#IO
Display Aspect Ratio ("DAR") : 1.#IO
Frames Per Second : 25.000
Video Bitrate (kbps) : 2
B-VOP ("B-VOP" or "No B-VOP") : No B-VOP
QPel ("QPel" or "No Qpel") : No QPel
GMC ("GMC" or "No GMC") : No GMC

Audio Information:
MPEG Stream ID (e.g. "0xbd") :
MPEG VOB file Substream (e.g. "0x80") :
Audio Codec (e.g. "AC3") : 0x0055(MP3, ISO) MPEG-1 Layer 3
Audio Sample Rate (Hz) : 48000
Audio Bitrate(kbps) : 128
Audio Bitrate Type ("CBR" or "VBR") : CBR
Audio Channel Count : 2

Re:Your Opinions Please?

[TheQwe]

Thanks to blender's python interface, you can write import/export scripts for just about any format. This guy [servebeer.com] has written the exporter you're looking for... along with an OBJ exporter, quake2 md2, quake3 md3, and doom3.

Re:Nice

[Duositex]

The official SIGGRAPH file is over 400MB. This is compressed. For those of you looking for Blender demo material, the Blender 2.3 guide comes with a CD-ROM that has several demo movies and images on it. All are great to look at. In addition it comes with the sources for the manual. The manual itself is fantastic and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to start learning or for experienced folks who want a reference. Covers technique and technical which is good.

Re:Interface

[FunkyChild]

But I think the main Blender developers are too attached to the whole RMB for cursor positioning/LMB for selection thing to ever change that.

Blender 2.34, due to be released in the next week or so, contains a user preference to choose between LMB or RMB for selection.

--> http://mke3.net/blender/interface/interaction/mous esel_pref.png [mke3.net]

Re:This is probably the right time to ask

[Anonymous Coward]

blender is a extremely powerful and capable tool. i haven't used it too much and am still learning the ropes. but you will not make a mistake in choosing it and letting children fool around with it. i've fooled around with many 3d packages before. mostly 3ds, maya, rhino 3d etc (mostly trials or the learning editions). from my experience blender is just as capable as any of the packages mentioned above. just give teaser tutorials on capablities of the package and basic usage of the UI.. and let the kids do stuff on their own. plus switch to other open source packages. gimp, inkscape, scribus etc are very capable tools. dont make people use tools that they will be locked into and not afford at a future point. promote open source software. and let them know there is a difference between open source and proprietary.
the key to get them used to it is to show some easy examples and letting them experiment.. u will get great results. best of luck.

Re:Amazing

[barista]

A good place to start would be to look at the Elysiun forums [elysiun.com]. It's a great place to learn the ropes. A lot of the works in the demo reel were created by people who regularly hang out there, and some of the works were first displayed there. Check it out.

403

[chocolatetrumpet]

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /siggraph_movie.avi.torrent on this server. :-(

Just me?

Re:Interface

[Mr.Zong]

For 3d modeling (not animating mind you), might i recommend http://www.wings3d.com/ [wings3d.com]. Wings 3d has pretty much the best GUI i've ever had the pleasure of using. It's learning curve is really only about a half hour, and you can do some amazing modeling with it. Also open source.

Re:This is probably the right time to ask

[Rxke]

I just started dabbling(sp?) with Blender, and the tutorials are a great help to get you up to speed real quick.
If they have basic understandig about how to work with a computer (saving files, using the mouse etc.) I think, if you can get them over the initial learning curve, it might be very rewarding.
Download the blender tutorials, they're esp. made to use in a classroom enviro (but you can do it on your own, of course) they cover the very basics, and get more complex during following 'sittings' you advance from basic things to stunning stuff (for kids, at least)

I suggest you take the 'course' yourself first, the basics take less than an hour.
Then make something simple in Blender, to show the kids. Like the house example in the tutorial for instance... Then you ask them if they'd like to give it a try, etc etc...

A scanner or cheap digital camera could come in handy, for digitizing their hand-drawn artwork, so they can use it as textures, backgrounds etc.

Kids have an amazing fantasy, and if they'd be able to put their ideas into 3D, you may be quite impressed. And other people might be too.
Originality is a big asset. And if they learn the skills young, they may grow up as real virtuoso's in their area.

Try it. It's free. You can't lose, that's the beauty of open sourse. Even kids in poor orphanages can use it, to make a better future for themselves. That's one good reason to make the fine people that contribute to this project happy.

Re:This is probably the right time to ask

[O2dude]

Well, I;ve used Maya, Mirai, Houdini and Lightwave. The truth is that all Real World(tm) 3D apps are very hard to master. Master=feel totally comfortable with so that it feels like writing with a pen or pencil. This fluency is essential to any artist. Casual 3D dabblers really haven;t got a clue about the level of 'mastery' proper artists have in their favourite 3D tools.

In my experience Blender simply 'makes sense': use the mouse to select objects and vertices, use a hand on the keyboard to select a feature. R for rotation, B for box select, G for grab and move, S for scale, the list goes on and on. Zooming, panning, view selection, all of it is very compact, and direct. Yes, it takes time to learn, but once you 'get it' it's fantastic.

Even on a older 400Mhz SGI workstation, Blender is responsive enough to be a completely reasonable choice. All in all, Blender has proven to be a capable, incredibly fast, productivity enhancing 3D 'pencil' for me. All I needed to do was learn the program and support it with a couple of euro's as a donation to the Blender Foundation.

As Linus is so fond of saying: like Sex, Software is better when it's free ;)