Blender: Open Source 3D Animation

Landon GlodowskiDepartment of Computer Science

University of Wisconsin – Platteville Platteville, WI 53818

LandonGlodowski@gmail.com

Abstract

Maya is a 3D animation software that is available for only 3,765 euros which is only 5,073 US dollars. Most people can afford that right? Well no, the average person cannot which is why Blender is a very affordable alternative to the average 3d software. What makes Blender affordable is because it is free to download for anybody. A very involved creator and a vast community of users ranging from beginners to experts are there to support Blender. Also being an open source program gives it the distinct advantage of having the user input and user created ad-ons and features. Unique projects are also created to improve the software by focusing on certain aspects of the program. In the end Blender isn’t perfect but it’s ever changing and free.

The History Behind It

You could say that Blender got its start all the way back in 1988 when Blender creator Ton Roosendaal co-foundered a Dutch animation studio by the name of NeoGeo. Within the studio Roosendaal was responsible for many different aspects of the company including the software development. The studio decided in 1995 that the in-house 3D toolset needed to be reworked from the beginning and that is when the first version of Blender was born. Years after in 1998, Roosendaal founded a new company called Not a Number (NaN). With his new company Roosendaal secured investors to help him develop Blender into a free on-line 3D development tool along with commercial versions. But with the poor economy investors pulled out and in 2002 NaN was no longer in business and that was the end of Blender or so it seemed.

With the user community being so large and the customers’ attitude towards Blender, Roosendaal could not let it just die. So that same year Roosendaal started the Blender Foundation to try and keep the development of the software alive. Since having teams of developers and programmers on staff no longer being an option, Roosendaal had to convince his NaN investors to turn Blender into an open source project. Now under the GNU General Public License, which in a nutshell means that the code was available for editing, Blender is run by two full-time programmers, Roosendaal being one, aong with two part-time support developers and volunteers around the world. [5]

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Blender 2.6

Blender is a completely free to download and use program with many advantages over many 3D software available. With its small installation package you only need an average of 115 megabytes. Installation is not even required and it can even be run directly off a removable drive and is also able to perform a lot of its features on a very standard computer. See figure 1.1

Operating Systems Minimal specs for Hardware

Windows XP SP3, Vista, 7 or 8 32 bits, Dual Core CPU with at least 2 GHZ, and SSE2 support. Mac OS X 10.6 and later    2 GB RAM Linux  24 bits 1280x768 display FreeBSD Mouse or trackpad

OpenGL Graphics Card with 256 MB RAM

Average specs for Hardware Production specs for Hardware

    64 bits, Quad Core CPU 64 bits, Dual 8 Core CPU    8 GB RAM 16 GB RAM    Full HD Display with 24 bit color Two times Full HD Display with 24 bit color    Mouse or trackpad Mouse + tablet    OpenGL Graphics Card with 1 GB RAM Dual OpenGL Graphics Cards, quality brand with 3 GB RAMFigure 1.1 System Requirements [2]

Blender is very affordable for a start up or even a major company.So what can the latest version of Blender software actually do? Blender's features are vast and can create the unlimited. Including but not limited to 3D modeling, UV unwrapping and Texturing, rigging and skinning, fluid/smoke/particle/Soft body simulation, sculpting, animating, match moving, camera tracking, rendering video editing and compositing and a built-in game engine. Those are just the standard options that come standard with Blender. Users also have the option to add to the program by the way of python scripts.

Python

Blender uses the Python programming language. Python is an open source language “that is often compared to Tcl, Perl, Ruby, Scheme or Java” [7]. The language is easy to use and has syntax that is easily read. Blender has a huge library of user-made scripts that can be downloaded to expand the software without actually writing new code. Actually with scripts the user does not have to do anything, as they are sets of instructions for the program to execute without the user needing to interact. [7]

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The Blender Foundation

The Blender Foundation is a non-profit organization that through donations from consumers, companies and the Blender community is one of the few monetary incomes for the Blender software. The revenue is being used to employ Blenders’ few programmers and to fund the open source projects used to target specific areas of the software that the company would like to see improved. The Foundation runs these projects in a unique way, instead of just working on the software code itself, they work with the software and use it to create short films and games that involve using the areas of the software that they wish to improve. For each of the projects The Foundation invites the best Blender artists to Amsterdam to work on the projects.

Project Orange

Project Orange being the first of the Blender Foundation’s open projects the expectations were high. The project included a full recode of the character animation system, upgrades to the rendering system and a node-based compositor. To do this they produced a short animated movie called “Elephants Dream (2006)”

Project Apricot

Project Apricot was the next project for The Foundation and this time they planned to improve Blender’s game engine. “Yo Frankie (2006)” was the final outcome, a game where “the player controls evil rodent Frankie, who explores the forest seeking for other animals to harass“ [2]

Project Peach

Going along with the fruit theme, Peach was the third open project for The Foundation. This project focused on trying to improve the fur and hair animation. It also was used to work on outside environments, which included such elements as grass, and the animation of cartoon characters. The finished project was the short film “Big Buck Bunny (2008)”.

Project Durian

With the open projects actually showing positive results, The Foundation decided to put more money and effort into their third open movie “Sintel (2010)”. Targeting sculpting tools detail, illumination rendering and all around stability of Blender the goals were high but paid off with Sintel getting heavily noticed on the web.

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Project Mango

With the growing success of the films, the fourth and most current open film “Tears of Steel (2012)” worked with Blenders’ motion tracker, among other areas of the software to put animations in the same frames as real actors. Crowd funding and support from the Netherlands film fund the team was able to film with real crews cameras and lights [2].

Blender Institute

The open projects that the Blender Foundation was creating were so successful that Roosendaal started the Blender Institution to help organize the open projects and the goals The Foundation was after. It also provides a physical building for the projects to be created in that a small staff can work with the invited teams of artists for each project. Everything created within the Blender institute uses open source utilities and every finished project is published under an open license to make it available to everyone. This is usually done under the creative commons license and the finished products don’t create revenue and since no revenue is to be made all the projects need to be financed before they start. Projects are funded using the business models in Figure 1.2 and 1.3

Figure 1.2 [1]

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Figure 1.4 [1]

The Blender Institute does not just work on the open projects The Foundation has created, they also have corporate sponsors (included in the business models). These corporate sponsors invest in the exploration of areas such as:

HD movie for HD-DVD codec testing. 3D (stereo or multi-image display) movie rendering. 4k rendering for networking/grids/screening tests. Content with specific effects/tools, as proof-of-concept or development for a studio.

Examples: fur rendering, robotic tools, global illumination for VFX. [1]

Along with the corporate sponsors the Blender Institute also provides training material to help people learn how to produce products. With training available, the Institution can get more people involved with the program and as with everything open source, the people that are interested in the software are one of the biggest factors in its advancement.

Blendernetwork.org

Blendernetwork.org is a website that is partnered with the Blender Foundation. The site provides a place where the users of Blender can be found. They provide an online directory and make it possible for users to socialize with other Blender users. Events relating to 3D animation and Blender are posted along with jobs people and companies can place on a “virtual job board”. [9]

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Blenders’ Negative Aspects

As with all software there are pros and cons and that is no different for Blender One of the biggest problems users of Blender are having is the ability to render the animations. It can be a long and strenuous process for the average home computer, even so on some higher end computers. With Blender files being so small, sending the files to a “render farm” can easily solve the rendering problem. These “farms” will take the file and use their computers that are especially designed for rendering the animations render it and send you the finished product. But that isn’t always a problem lets say for users that have powerful computers but they have other complaints. Andrew Price, a 9 year Blender user who runs Blenderguru.com, and all things Blender website including tutorials, products, blogs and articles, created a survey for Blender users that would give more information about how the users feel. He believes that there is no good way for the Blender community to focus their concerns about what they think needs improving, hence the survey. His survey shows that an average of 66% of users use an external renderer instead of using the internal renderer included in Blender. Figure 1.4 shows the render engine being at the top of the concerns

Figure 1.4 [6]

He also focused parts of the survey on the bigger picture items that Blender is struggling with, for example documentation. See figure 1.5. Documentation has been a known problem for Blender over the years, which makes it harder for inexperienced users to just jump in and use the software. The official Blender website has a wiki form documentation site but many pages are unfinished and some even empty. This is due in part to constant updates and the small core programing team.

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Figure 1.5 [6]

Conclusion

Blender has had its ups and downs during its lifetime but what kept it alive for so long has been the dedication of its creator Ton Roosendaal. He built a program that he was so involved with that he kept it going and kept the community involved also. Without the Community’s support and money, open source software would not work as well as it does. Without the “corporate greed” involved with so many software programs, Blender was able to remain free and is ever evolving. Blender is a great example of how the typical user can compete with the top names in 3d animation.

References

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[1] Blender Institute. (n.d.). Blender.org. Retrieved August 15, 2013, from http://www.Blender.org/Blenderorg/Blender-institute/

[2] Blender Open Projects. (n.d.). Blender.org. Retrieved August 13, 2013, from http://www.Blender.org/features-gallery/Blender-open-projects/

[3] Buy Maya 2014 | Term Rental License | Autodesk. (n.d.). Buy Maya 2014 | Term Rental License | Autodesk. Retrieved September 29, 2013, from http://www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-maya/buy

[4] Features. (n.d.). Blender.org. Retrieved August 22, 2013, from http://www.Blender.org/features-gallery/features/

[5] History. (n.d.). Blender.org. Retrieved August 5, 2013, from http://www.Blender.org/Blenderorg/Blender-Foundation/history/

[6] Price, A. (n.d.). The Big Issues. Blender Guru. Retrieved October 29, 2013, from http://www.Blenderguru.com/the-big-issues/

[7] Python Programming Language – Official Website. (n.d.). Python Programming Language – Official Website. Retrieved August 16, 2013, from http://www.python.org

[8] The GNU Operating System. (n.d.). The GNU General Public License v3.0. Retrieved September 29, 2013, from http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

[9] Blender Network. (n.d.) Blendernetwork.org/ Retrieved August 15, 2013, from http://www.Blendernetwork.org/