To be fair, the BF actually has gotten quite a fair bit of funding for the previous open movie from the Dutch Film Fund among other entities. They also now get more than 48,000 Euros a year in subscription money based on the development fund subscriptions. Then there’s the new Blender cloud product which will potentially provide major funding for the open movies along with more development.
They also have had funding in the past from commercial entities like Google (directly or indirectly) by way of things like the GSoC program, I’d argue that Blender’s one of the more well funded of the bunch as far as creative FOSS software is confirmed, but it’s still working to be viable against offerings from corporations with millions in disposable income (and it’s simply impossible for FOSS to have that much money on hand without a major commercial sponsor).
Plus, how many bugs that Blender have now that have been around for 10 years, Blender is also likely up there near the top of the FOSS pile in terms of bugfixing.
That last point is exactly what I’m referring to - donating only goes so far, it’s not a reliable source of funding. Autodesk has millions and Blender can’t properly compete against it (if you consider Blender competing). It’s not so much about the money itself but the development it fuels. Ideally, with open source, the lack of money can be made up by directly contributing to development with patches etc. Of course, the hard part is getting companies, i.e. studios, to contribute (by using Blender in the first place).
However, IMHO, I think Blender is getting there slowly. I mean it’s only recently, Blender has become formidable.
One way to look at this is since major commercial studios are not using Blender extensively (practically speaking), Blender has to make up for that foregone resource by asking for donations to fund open movies, i.e. to fund its development. Also the BF is a non-profit and not a for-profit entity which can limit it.
Yes it has. And there is lots of good and logical argument against this. But I think you also have to look at the perspective of the entire industry. And when you consider that the entire industry is all of the various markets there are for CC tools (content creation tools), and you add this up as to what it means to a company like Autodesk it explains a lot of what is happening.
So it is not just about what the large studios are doing. It is schools, freelancers, small and medium shops and businesses.
Look at what is happening with licenses around the industry and you are starting to see a trend.
Eventually it may end up to just be personal preference. As it is we a very far from that and it is more or less you get what you pay for. And Blender fits in. Just the fact that it fits into a slot and fills it very well is enough to have an impact. Without Blender, that slot is wide open. And as Blender improves, the slot widens, this has an impact on the market.
So again this move by Autodesk is very much a reaction to Blender as threat (as well as other market concerns). As Blender improves it can start to encroach on more of this ED market. All it takes is a few schools to decide for budget reasons to teach Blender as an introduction to 3D and it encroaches on that market, even if only a little. And with free AD products, this cuts it off at the pass so to speak.
What Blender continues to offer to individuals and companies is a free license for commercial work. And some companies will still choose this over a paid license product. Schools will start to see this trend. Probably smaller schools or Community Colleges for example. And will also start to offer Blender teaching. It is just a matter of time.
Autodesk move is to try to brainwash enough people into subservience to the Empire to compensate for the inevitable defections (towards Modo/Houdini/C4D/zBrush) of old timers which are going to happen due to the new licensing strategies.
Autodesk is utterly aware of Blender. They’re aware of millions of hobbyists and hundreds of indie shops out there, using Blender. And gaining in competency. The CG landscape across the board is changing.
Gooseberry is going to be a bombshell of an impact to production houses, not from an immediate competitive point, but from a sudden eye-opening awareness to what can be done VERY CHEAPLY. An awareness that good feature length animation works can be done outside of legacy production software. Yeah, Gooseberry will absolutely spark other large scale efforts.
Well VFX houses obviously aren’t going to choose Blender, but smaller studios/individuals like architectural visualizers - I don’t see why you would choose any other software over Blender, it has everything for that.
millions of people learning blender can’t afford to donate, thousands can.
the software is free, the people using it can’t donate until they are making money,
skills start small.
You mix dowloads with useage. I know legions of folks who dowloaded Blender, opened it up, tried to navigate, closed it, and that was it. Means the millions of downloads for Blender are not so easy to count as direct users. Even more when i think that i have downloaded several versions more than once.
The millions of Autodesk users mentioned in their press releases are real customers and users though. Else they wouldn’t have bought the software.
I think Autodesk was constrained by the laws about licensing and would have liked a presence in education before.
If Autodesk products help or not is another question. And it has to be remembered that the tutor must know all the things that could go wrong or improve the students work before it can be used in a classroom.
So I rather agree with Tiles. Complex programs need clear users manuals or else its a long and slow learning curve.
No that is totally wrong. A universities budget doesn’t work like that at all.
Visit your home? What? I for one am happy these products are available for University projects. Autodesk Inventor is free for students and is top notch, but I suppose CAE is another story. Sure you can view it as indoctrination to their software, but companies want to know you can use mainstream software. However, if it is a required tool for a certain course isn’t it better being free?
Autodesk gets right to inspect your house or offices
9.7: “Autodesk or its authorized representative will have the right, on fifteen (15) days’ prior notice to Licensee, to inspect Licensee’s records, systems and facilities, including machine IDs, serial numbers and related information.”
companies want first most people which can deliver in the agreed time frames.
at least in the modelling and Uving section (texturing too) many companies accept pretty much any tool as long as the stuff you deliver is good looking and easy to rig in the main app they are using.
Next to giving it out free to educational institutions, the movement to the subscription model like with Adobe etc. is that it can possibly entice those that could not afford it before. Although, the piraters will always avoid paying for it. The whole subscription model really is like buying a house versus renting one, except with software rent is much cheaper than a mortgage :p, for now.
joahua You’re right about the misperception. By millions, I’m referring to downloads of Blender and the people playing with Blender. But of that aggregate I would easily wager there are certainly a few hundred thousand hobbyists, with tens of thousands of other serious artists plugging away with Blender.
And I still hold by my gut sense - Gooseberry will likely result in several hundred thousand downloads. As well as, numerous idie attempts will get rolling to mirror Gooseberry’s glide path.
While there are more powerful cutting edge software alternatives, Blender now is good enough.
Without delving back into the old Gooseberry arguments, I do think joahua raises a point not being considered by some people. Namely, if there are as many people as they believe using Blender in any serious way (i.e. more than an hour or two before tossing it to the side), it is important to note how many of them didn’t contribute to Blender’s crowd-sourcing campaign.
Gooseberry was after 10K subscribers (a number it did not get). If there was a million users who take advantage of Blender, that’s only 1% being asked to support the Blender Foundation/Institute. Some are saying there are millions (plural), so that desired percentage of users is even lower for their estimates. If there are hundreds of thousands, we’re looking at under 10% support for the Blender Foundation/Institute. And so on. Either there are massive numbers of people using Blender and they don’t want to support the Blender Foundation or we’re looking at more realistic numbers of people using Blender and it’s nowhere near the kind of market that makes it a viable application for schools to look into (given the free license on offer that are used more often in the industry).
Now, it is possible that there are indeed this number of users and they simply don’t want to support the Blender Foundation/Institute. I think it’s more realistic that the number is far lower than being claimed based on the evidence to date. Either way, Blender is for the most part a project developed and maintained by the Blender Foundation and the lack of support for that organisation is more key than number of users when it comes to whether Blender continues to improve in the future.
That’s pretty cool that Autodesk is free for students and teachers. I think Blender should really push their software for use in high schools.
As for pushing Blender in colleges, I don’t think that would work as well. Even though you can learn Blender and apply that knowledge to any software out there, people just won’t want to learn Blender in college. They will want to learn the industry standard software if they plan on getting an industry job.
Comparing Blender to Maya is like comparing Photoshop to Gimp.
Blender is a standalone software. Autodesk Software is like a key to there full product sortiment. All those AD file formats work with each other and also with Adobe products smoothly, while a blender user can´t even import DWG files properly.
Blender is good for hobby but nothing more. Nobody with serious intentions in 3D can live with Blender standalone software.
First Blender should try to work together with Gimp. Until that Blender will be the lone kid in the streets bullied from AD gang of software.
I tried to render an animation with cycles and my 3 years old nvidia graphics card. But Blender foundation kicked me and many users aside and switched their software to brandnew graphic processor units compiler, which only can be used by the creme de la creme of blender user base with their super duper new graphics card which they switch every 6 or so months. All those Blender gurus and Tutorial champions out there. Blender foundation does not give a crap about usual blender users. Blender is exactly like the big CG Industry software they critisize! Only in small and amateurish way.
