Blender Foundation

The Blender Foundation is a nonprofit organization responsible for the development of Blender, an open source 3D content-creation program.[1]

Blender Foundation
FormationMay 2002 (2002-05)
TypeNonprofit organization
PurposeDevelopment of Blender
HeadquartersAmsterdam, Netherlands
Region served
Worldwide
Chairman
Ton Roosendaal
Websiteblender.org/foundation/

The foundation produced the animated short films Elephants Dream (2006), Big Buck Bunny (2008), Sintel (2010), Tears of Steel (2012),[2][3] Caminandes: Llama Drama (2013), Caminandes: Gran Dillama (2013), Cosmos Laundromat (2015), Glass Half (2015), Caminandes: Llamigos (2016), Agent 327: Operation Barbershop (2017), Hero (2018) and Spring (2019).

Goals

The foundation is chaired by Ton Roosendaal, the original author of the Blender software. It is funded by donations from entrepreneurs, companies, and the community. One of the foundations goals is "to give the worldwide Internet community access to 3D technology in general, with Blender as a core".[4]

The foundation provides various resources to support the community formed around using and developing Blender. In particular, it organizes an annual Blender Conference in Amsterdam[5] to discuss plans for the future of Blender, as well as staffing a booth to represent Blender at SIGGRAPH,[6][7] a large conference on computer graphics. Donations are also used to maintain the Blender website, as well as hire other developers to work on the Blender software.[4]

Open projects

The Blender Foundation has organized several community-driven "Open Projects" through its affiliated Blender Institute program, including several freely licensed films and a free, open source video game Yo Frankie! (2008).[8] According to the Foundation, these projects are intended "to validate and improve the 3D open source content creation pipeline with Blender". Each project was created using the Blender software and released under permissive license terms, along with the source material. In addition to demonstrating the capabilities of the software, the Open Projects provided detailed production material (sketches, tutorials, textures and models, etc.) to serve as examples for the Blender user community, as well as finished products that could be widely used for other purposes.[9]

On 18 March 2006, the Blender Foundation released its first film, Elephants Dream.[10] In response to the success of Elephants Dream, the Blender Foundation established the Blender Institute to support future software and content development projects. The Blender Institute operates out of a studio within the Entrepotdok building in Amsterdam, where the Blender Foundation is also located, and is headed by Ton Roosendaal.

On 10 April 2008, the Blender Institute released its second film, Big Buck Bunny.[11][12][13] Based on the movie, the Blender Institute released its first Open Game project Yo Frankie!, in November 2008.

On 30 September 2010 the Blender Institute released its third project, Sintel.

In October 2011, Concept/Script Development began for Blender's fourth open film project titled Tears of Steel. Contrary to previous Blender Institute projects, which were 100% computer graphics, the focus of Tears of Steel was the combination of live action footage with computer generated characters and environments. The live action footage was shot with a high-end Sony F65 camera. The project was released on 26 September 2012.[14]

The Gooseberry Open Movie Project is the fifth Open Movie Project initiated by the Blender Foundation. Ton Roosendal announced the project in January 2010.[15][16] The most ambitious project yet, one of the primary goals is for the Gooseberry Open Movie Project to be the first full-length film produced by the Blender Institute. Work on the film, called Cosmos Laundromat, began in 2014[17] (although a release date was not yet announced). A ten-minute pilot, entitled Cosmos Laundromat: First Cycle was released on YouTube on 10 August 2015[18] and premiered at the Netherlands Film Festival on 24 September 2015.[19] The pilot won the Jury's Prize at Animago 2015,[20] an international conference for 3D animation.

In 2013, the second episode of a short animated series Caminandes was released under the Blender Foundation umbrella.[21] In 2016, a third short was released.

Hero, the sixth Open Movie Project, was announced in September 2017 and released on 16th April 2018.[22][23] The technical target for Hero was to use and improve the Grease Pencil tools.

References
  1. "About the foundation". Blender.
  2. McConnachie, Dahna (January 15, 2008). "Open source on the big screen: Matt Ebb tells tales of Elephants Dream". Computerworld. Archived from the original on 2008-02-18.
  3. Rui Paulo Sanguinheira Diogo (December 2007). "Modelling 2.50". Linux-Magazin.
  4. "Blender Foundation - blender.org".
  5. "About Blender Conference".
  6. "Blender documentation 2.4".
  7. "Blender 2.5 progress". Archived from the original on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 2009-12-14.
  8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 5 August 2017.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. Janko, Roettgers. "Blender Foundation Releases Open-Source Movie Sintel". GigaOm. Archived from the original on 2012-08-29. Retrieved 2010-12-04.
  10. "Elephants Dream Released!". Blender Foundation. Retrieved 2009-09-25.
  11. "Project Peach is Pretty Proud to Present…". Blender Foundation. Retrieved 2008-02-04.
  12. Paul, Ryan (2007-10-03). "Blender Foundation's Peach project begins". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2007-10-13.
  13. "Premiere of Open Movie Big Buck Bunny". Archived from the original on 2008-07-25. Retrieved 2008-04-12.
  14. "Tears of Steel | Mango Open Movie Project".
  15. Bart. "Project Gooseberry announced". BlenderNation.
  16. "Blender Foundation – Community Meeting" (PDF). Blender.org.
  17. Amidi, Amid (26 August 2015). "'Cosmos Laundromat: First Cycle' by Mathieu Auvray". Cartoon Brew.
  18. Cosmos Laundromat - First Cycle. Official Blender Foundation release. YouTube. 10 August 2015.
  19. "Cosmos Laundromat". Nederlands Film Festival. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  20. "Congratulations! Here come the 2015 winners of animago AWARD". Archived from the original on January 5, 2016. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  21. "About Caminandes". Retrieved February 26, 2014.
  22. "Hero, a Blender 2D open movie project". Blender Foundation. Retrieved 2017-09-18.
  23. "Presenting Hero - Blender Grease Pencil Showcase". Blender Foundation. Retrieved 2018-05-31.
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