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Blender Foundation Releases Open Source Movie Sintel

Janko Roettgers — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 16:41:50 +0000

The Blender Foundation has just released Sintel, its third animated short film after Elephant’s Dream and Big Buck Bunny. The film can be downloaded for free on the Sintel website or streamed via YouTube, the DivX site or the embed below. Downloads are available in DivX HD, H.264 as well as OVG (Ogg Theora plus subtitles). Users can also separately download subtitles in English, Spanish, French and five other languages.

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Sintel is a Sci-Fi / fantasy short film, starring a little girl that befriends a baby dragon, only to face off against a much larger variety of its species to save her unusual friend. The movie was produced with the Blender 3D open source software, and the result as well as all of the raw material is being released under a liberal Creative Commons license that allows commercial reuse. The idea of this approach is to promote Blender as well as give aspiring film makers an idea of how animated movies like these are made.

But we can expect that Sintel will be used in many more contexts as well. Big Buck Bunny and Elephant’s Dream quickly became reference movies of choice, thanks to their liberal licensing terms, and were used to demonstrate pretty much everything from P2P streaming software to video codecs.

Sintel was produced with a total budget of nearly €400,000 ($550,000), and the production involved a team of up to 14 people working full time. Finishing the movie took more than a year.

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4 Free Open-Source Tools for Working With Video and Audio

Samuel Dean — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:00:19 +0000

Increasingly, many of us are working with video and audio online, not just text and still graphics. From video-based marketing materials, to online tutorials, to videocasts and podcasts, multimedia offerings are a great way to engage your audience. Here are four good, free open-source audio and video software tools, including some available in brand-new versions.

Audacity is very widely used for recording and editing podcasts and other audio recording tasks. We covered the new beta version on the OStatic blog. Improvements in the new version include better noise removal tools, faster equalization, support for recording more than 16 channels, and a new “Mixer Board” that provides graphical mixing tools. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux machines.

Simple Theora Encoder is a very easy video encoding tool for Mac OS 10.4 or higher. It can convert multiple files at once from several different formats, including .avi, .mov, and mp4. Using it is as easy as clicking “Encode,” and that’s it. The application provides a status bar that keeps you posted on the encoding progress and lets you know when your files are ready.

VLC Media Player is one of the best-loved open-source applications. It supports almost every video format under the sun, even the more obscure ones. I recently covered the new portable version of it here, which you can carry on a USB thumb drive. The full application is also out in a new version 1.0. I’ve been using it; it’s outstanding. You can also use it for broadcasting media, rather than just consumption. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems.

Blender is not only one of the best graphics and animation programs from the open source world, it’s one of the best open-source applications of any kind. Widely used in the professional video and animation communities, it’s great for 3D modeling, animation, rendering and playback. You can also use it on Windows, Mac or Linux systems. You can find a free, online book on it here, and I covered some of the newest features here.

What open-source video and audio tools do you use?

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3D Graphics/Animation App Blender Gets an Upgrade

Samuel Dean — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:00:43 +0000

In early April, I wrote about Blender, a free, robust open-source application that can be used for 3D modeling, eye-catching logos and other still graphics. As we covered on OStatic, Blender is now out in a much-improved version 2.49. You can find announcements of the many new features here, and videos of the new features in action here. There is a lot to like.

Blender is an excellent 3D modeling tool. You can find a gallery of the types of still graphics that Blender is capable of here. It has even been used to create full-length animated movies. There is also a free, online book on Blender that will give you a good sense of whether it may be a useful application for you. Many people use it to create splashy logos for use on web sites and blogs, including animated logos. Here’s a good tutorial on using it for logos, including illustrating how to create the logo seen in the screenshot above.

The new version of Blender includes Projection Painting, which lets you paint directly onto 3D models you create without taking the intermediary steps that were previously required. Blender has always had a healthy set of extensions, and for the new version, you can get many scripts written in Python that automate graphical tasks in the application. Also, if you use Blender for video tasks, there are a number of video improvements. The new version also supports the high-quality JPEG2000 image format throughout the application, and is noticeably faster than the last one.

In addition to being a useful addition to anybody’s graphics arsenal, Blender is a lot of fun to use. You can download the new version here.

What do you use Blender for?

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Use Blender to Create Eye-popping 3D Graphics

Samuel Dean — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:00:13 +0000

Who doesn’t like to get something good for free? The open source community offers all kinds of resources that go beyond free applications, including free books on mastering the top open-source applications.

In this post, I’ll cover an excellent book about Blender, available for free online. Blender is a robust 3D graphics and animation application that can help you create eye-popping graphics for web sites, blogs and documents.

If you’re unfamiliar with Blender, take a look at the gallery posted here for the quality of graphics you can produce with this free application (available in Windows, Mac and Linux flavors). It’s actually been used to produce respected full-length 3D movies but is also more than capable of helping you give a web site, a blog or documents a distinctive, eye-catching look with still 3D graphics. The screenshot above was created by a member of the Blender community, and it’s a drawing, not a photo.

Learning to use Blender is a lot of fun and adds a useful tool to your graphics repertoire. “Blender Basics, Second Edition” is an exhaustive, free online book, downloadable as a 120-page PDF here. It takes you through 2D and 3D graphics creation, how to add lighting effects, and much more. The animation aspects of the book won’t necessarily be of interest to all web workers, but still might be fun to try out.

On OStatic, we also recently covered Linuxtopia, a site that houses a huge number of tutorials. Don’t let the name fool you if you’re not a Linux user. The site includes very complete guides on many free, non-Linux applications and platforms.

For example, you can find thorough guides on virtualization (useful for running dual operating systems), beginning Java programming, the GIMP (a powerful open-source graphics application), web development tools, and much more. Look down the left rail of Linuxtopia for the many free online guides that are available.

Share your Blender tips and tricks in the comments.

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Vid-Biz: thePlatform, Adap.tv, Obam-ads

Chris Albrecht — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:38:02 +0000

News Corp.’s News Limited Picks thePlatform; the Australian subsidiary will use the white-label video provider across 50 different digital media properties, including news.com.au and Vogue.com.au. (emailed release)

Adap.tv Partners With EyeWonder; two are teaming up to allow advertisers to create one ad that can run on multiple players across Adap.tv’s ad network. (release)

Advertisers Pony Up for Obama Ad Placements; Sprint, Cisco, Audi and Paul Blart: Mall Cop among those purchasing spots on live-streaming outlets. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Canadian Broadcasters Picking Up Digital Rights to Popular U.S. TV Shows; broadcast Astral says new digital rights won’t be a big money-maker, but will generate interest in the brand and drive people back to linear TV. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Dems Pushing for DTV Delay; efforts so far have been blocked by Republicans. (Variety)

Pixsy Launches Premium Feed; new service allows publishers to search through video clips that already have ads and embed them for a share of the revenue. (TechCrunch)

Sundance Shorts on iTunes; ten films will be available free during the ten days of the festival. (CNET)

Clips From the Inaugural Concert Being Taken Down; songs like those from Pete Seeger during HBO’s free show being pulled from the site. (Talking Points Memo)

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Free Tools for Site Designs, Logos, and Prototypes

Samuel Dean — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:34 +0000

A while back, a friend of mine and I had an idea for a new e-commerce web site we were thinking of launching. We eventually shelved the idea after digging up a couple of sites that were too close in spirit to the same idea, but one of the things I remember we worked hard on was mocking up a good looking design for the site, complete with a slick logo. This can be more dificult than it seems at first, but is an important first step in moving from your vision of a web site to execution.

Here are some free resources that can make the process easier, and provide good prototyping results.

Are you familiar with the free, open source applications Blender and Gimp? The former is one of the most respected 3D animation and graphics programs, and the latter is one of the best loved graphics programs. The web abounds with useful tutorials for creating slick logos in Blender as seen here, and here. You can easily learn to make animated or still logos for a web site with Blender. For Gimp, too, there are many tutorials for making slick logos. Try searching at Gimp-Tutorials.net for examples.

You can also find free logos at LogoInstant. The site shares slick looking logos every day, and they’re free to use as either inspiration for a version that you modify, or you can just use the logos as they stand.

Back in June, Mike covered Open Source Web Designs, which provides over 2,000 free web design templates that you can work with for free. Most of them are XHTML- and CSS-based.

Finally, if you are collaborating with another web worker on a prototype for a site design, one of the best loved, free tools for doing so is JumpChart, which I wrote about here. It lets you build and save versions of your site through several iterations. The free version only gives you 10 pages to work with, but that’s usually enough for a basic prototype that you can build out from.

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Exploding Microwaves, User-Generated Haircuts: NTV Station Today

Liz Shannon Miller — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 01:19:17 +0000

When YouTube user lamedust needed a haircut, he took to the streets, implementing a wiki-style approach to grooming by offering passing strangers a shot with his scissors. The results? Judge for yourself…

And how do you top blending random objects? By putting them in a microwave and filming the results. Jory Caron has conducted over 80 “experiments” to determine “is it a good idea to microwave this?” — but if what you’re after is pure entertainment, the answer is always yes. Check out the mayhem on NewTeeVee Station!

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Weekend Reader: Microsoft, Vyke, Snocap & Innovation

Om Malik — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 07:24:00 +0000

Microsoft Launches Unified Communications Portfolio. Jeff Raikes, President of Microsoft’s Business Division tells CNET “The era of dialing blind, the era of playing phone tag, the era of voice-mail jam…that era is ending.” Good sound byte but far from truth. Aswath rightfully points out that problem is not that of technology but of social behavior. Anyway lets sit back and watch them duke it out with Cisco Systems.

Vyke, another VoIP Client for Nokia S60 phone. The options for making VoIP calls from Nokia S60 phones with WiFi keep on increasing. Vyke is the latest to join the party. I still like Truphone.

Why CD Baby popped a Snocap. Derek Sivers, CD Baby CEO outlines why his company cut the cord with Shawn Fanning’s start-up, Snocap. It seems like a case of too much expectations from a Silicon Valley company that seems to have drink too much of its own kool aid. Sivers didn’t say that, but should have.

Jim Robbins, former CEO of Cox passes away.

Life imitates art: The bizzare saga around the death of Seth Tobian, a hedge fund manager who often appeared on CNBC. He was found dead last month in his pool in Florida. It was then said, it was a heart attack. But now seems like foul play.

Who’s an innovator? Motorola CTO Padmasree Warrior (my interview) has some thoughts on innovators and innovation on her blog. My favorite bit about her post is this bit of sage advise: Know when and what to stop doing. This is probably the hardest thing to do….it is next to impossible to get people to think about what not to do.

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