Merging Blender with the Blockchain

I admire the open-source nature of blender, especially the digital community that’s developed around it. I’m not a blender artist, although I’ve toyed around with the program for some 3D printing projects I worked on. It was enough exposure for me to understand how powerful the software was when combined with the community resources.

I am immersed in the blockchain world, it does for money and commercial interactions what blender does for digital artists. The blockchain is a digital tool that has barely been experimented with regarding how useful it can be to our economic lives. For obvious reasons the financial services have been the quickest to adopt it’s use, but it’s magic applies to almost every other aspect of our digital lives too.

The term Blockchain and what it does is very abstract, but that’s how I like to think. Probably why I am drawn to it so much. One of the ways I think the blockchain can improve our quality of life is by allowing geographically decentralized groups the ability to autonomously monetize content over time.

By the time that wordy and mind bending paragraph makes it into actual practice, it means a community like the Blender Artists Forum could create a platform which automatically assigned and distributed value for any project created within it. A feature length movie could be constructed in many small parts by many different people who were assured of earning a known portion of the movies earnings for the entire length of it’s existence.

To give an example of what that might look like, an artist who creates an awesome character as a part of his tutorial or education in graphical design could submit the file to the platforms library. If a another group wanting to create a video liked the character and featured it in their youtube series, the character’s artist would earn income from his model based on some preset equation. Maybe total character file size / movie file size x duration present in the movie = artists percentage of revenue from youtube monetization.

There was a specific reason I was thinking along these lines and specifically of the digital artist profession. There is so much crap television made for children that it’s almost disturbing. I have two children and I really wish there was better shows they could have access. Specifically, I wish there were well done animations of many of the old European fairy tales that are a part of my own heritage. Stories that big studios like Disney have severely altered to the point where they don’t contain the same deeper messages present in the originals.

So the basic structure of this Blender Blockchain I’ve been thinking on would start with an education class. An instructor with some amount of experience would be responsible for taking a less experienced group through the process of learning blender. Keeping in line with the original open-sourced software and community this could be a no cost class (using steemit students could actually earn some cryptocurrency through it). The only barrier to entry would be effort on behalf of the student and availability on behalf of the instructor.

The instructor would be a part of a larger project so they could direct the class to produce useful scenery and characters as they learn the program. These first characters and objects that are produced, along with all subsequent files used could be kept in an open sourced library as well. The coarse figures used in free youtube series could be taken and further refined to be used in more serious productions. Each member knowing they will receive income from their work as they build upon what’s freely available in the library.

Once the student shows sufficient competence, they are able to access the full design studio. Story developers, digital artists, and animators then collaborate to work on whichever productions they choose, each task or job along the way automatically assigned a value and paid out as the finished product began earning. Each job they complete adding to their reputation, experience, and becoming potential passive income for years.

What I’ve described is basically and open-sourced owner-less business. A place where people who desire to do work gather and are able to be productive without the overhead of an unproductive Boss, PR Department, Accounting Department, etc. This is one of the really beautiful aspects of the blockchain, it allows people to cut out a lot of the inefficiency in current economic models.

So I’ve laid out a bare bones concept of how the blockchain could be applied to a digital arts studio. There are many discussions and brainstorms needed to get an actual platform like this set up and working, but the ball is at least on the field now.

Does the Blender community see any value in this? I’d really enjoy developing the idea further with some people more experienced in the profession and with an understanding of the whole process of film creation.

I don’t have much to add but to echo your sentiment that yes, children’s entertainment is in a dire state, especially if you’re brave enough to delve into the “Elsa-Gate” stuff (that’s all I’ll say on that).
I love your idea, though I would have no idea how to integrate it. There’s lots of foundational stuff that would need to be put in place, but the idea of “smart contracts” on the blockchain doing the paperwork for us is something I can get behind.

Where the whole concept of Blockchain falls down is how the size of it only gets larger. When you add enough links to the chain, it becomes an enormously unwieldy beast that requires a spectacular amount of processing power to fully parse through (see the stories of people needing half an hour to perform a simple Bitcoin transaction).

The point to consider, does the Blockchain thingy have a dire need to get larger indefinitely, or can there be a point where older links get disconnected so as to keep things manageable?

I went down the spirit cooking rabbit hole as far as I cared to venture during the whole wikileaks emails a few years ago, I don’t need to see any more of that sort.

There are a few projects that may already do most of the leg work for setting up the smart contract specific foundation. Things like CreativeChain and Theta are getting closet to what I’m imagining. They are still in early beta testing as far as I’ve seen, so nothing to work with for now.

Pixar’s studio is constantly expanding it’s digital memory requirements, as is nearly every other business connected to the internet. I think a blockchain like we’re discussing would have fairly low volume but high memory requirements due to the large files that would be stored on it. Things like this could be done with mining methods that use storage space in lieu of processing power so the community could be encouraged to contribute enough computing resources to handle this.

There would have to be some sort of method to keep unnecessary files and data off the chain though, you’re right about that. Maybe only the object and scenery files get stored on the chain while specific projects are spun off and kept isolated? I’ll spend some time putting together a schematic of what I’m thinking. Thanks for the thoughts.

As far as I know, project management in open source software is a nightmare. Adding another layer of complexity in the form of blockchain - I don’t really see it. Especially while involving not only software but movie production, where artistic vanity is so easily bruised.
Yet, I can see blender + blockchain = love. If (big if!) blockchain algorithm can be adapted to work such that mining will not be (as it is now) just a waste of computing power. Maybe the mining rigs can render random frames from a spool of render jobs thus becoming not only the “BlenderCoin” infrastructure but also a huge distributed render farm. Until then, I personally can’t wait for this tulip mania to end so the graphic card prices and availability return to sane levels.

There’s another thing to consider here. If anyone who contributes gets paid, and the idea is the list of contributors getting longer and longer, then that would assume the amount of revenue produced should only get larger.

Otherwise, you will have a situation where more and more people are to receive a piece of a pie that is staying the same size or (possibly during some periods) a pie that is getting smaller. The founding artists might get a nice payment at first, but revenue will have to increase or otherwise (barring the artist increasing the amount of content produced per day), the payments will shrink continually (to where the virtual business is no longer worth signing on to).

hmm… only if it’s CC-0
otherwise, there will be war - kings & capital need it

Blender is built on a git repo. Both Git and Bitcoin are based off Merkle Trees, git just isnt based off blocks though. So in essence, there is a form of what you are talking about with the code creation of blender.

what I see…

Block Chain opens up a new way to keep complete and accurate track of Copy Right on all your creations…
as soon as you have completed a Creation or … even if your still working on it and just showing to others for help or Critique…
it gets filed into the Blender or… 3D (in general for all 3D softwares) such that from that point forward theres zero argument about who did what piece of art first and who owns it from there… no lawyers needed… just open the Block Chain file and look… or actually everyone connected to the Blender Chain can open the file at any time and look…

aaaa… Ace Dragon Created this… or Nathan Vegdahl animated that… Craig Jones did the Texturing for that…
From there… its’ pretty easy to determine who gets the pay out for what…

Same might also be said for Bender Tutorials on youtube…

I see a lot of guys you blatantly steal other peoples tutorial work and then try to claim they "Dreamed about it last night…
and who’s to stop them if they don’t acc knowledge your work… YouTube?
Ha! yah… not likely… YouTube has bigger fish to fry… playing politics and pleasing it’s Advertiser Base…

Anyway… from my point of view… Block Chain is nothing but Great Goodness for the Artist Community…

please… Please… Please!!! work to implement this tech into the creative community…

lol…

I would suggest doing a little research. Here are your major players:

https://www.blockchain.com/team/index.html

That, I am sure is only the tip of the iceberg. But as we can’t get political here…

Ok but you’ve missed out on one key quesion: when Lambo?

Keeping track of (natural) copyright isn’t exactly an unsolved problem, just provide evidence that you’re the first person to publish a work. You can even use any of the existing blockchains for that. If you need to register a trademark or patent, a blockchain doesn’t help you, you need to file with the government.

In a copyright dispute, the only thing a blockchain can help avoid is outright forgery, but that’s not what virtually any copyright dispute is about. A blockchain doesn’t help you actually enforce copyright law, it’s not going to pay your legal bills and it’s not going to convince lawyers and courts that they’re obsolete.

Yes, but who cares? Am I going to demand from every artist some blockchain proof of ownership, in order to enter a business relationship? Let’s say Ace Dragon posts some art on these forums, but somebody else is first to register it in a blockchain, how can he prove he’s the real owner, am I supposed to trust the blockchain over Ace Dragon on the forums?

From there… its’ pretty easy to determine who gets the pay out for what…

It actually isn’t. Pay out from what, for what? If I want to license some art for some purpose, the blockchain can’t decide if I’m following the terms. All it can do is keep a record and automate the payout, but so can any non-blockchain system.

I see a lot of guys you blatantly steal other peoples tutorial work and then try to claim they "Dreamed about it last night…
and who’s to stop them if they don’t acc knowledge your work… YouTube?

What’s going to step them is somebody enforcing copyright law. No blockchain.

You haven’t really described the process of how any of this actually supposed to work. You just believe a blockchain database somehow solves the problems that all these departments are dealing with. That’s pure fantasy. Having said that, your “plan” isn’t any more implausible than many other ICOs, so I’d suggest to go ahead. You won’t be getting the rights to the Blender trademark though.

Disclosure: I hold vast fortunes of Dogecoins.

There is a project called Golem that has specifically been advertising Blender Animation renderings as an early feature, I think they are in open beta testing already. This concept is already open sourced for the blockchain, as is the storage space consensus mechanism. Combing those wouldn’t be a difficult task for a professional.

The graphics card business will be booming for a few years, don’t hold your breath for lower prices anytime soon.

Each contributor would earn X% relative to the production’s individual earnings. So the mining income (5% - 15% total revenue perhaps) would fluctuate with use and platform revenue, but the artist income would fluctuate with the income of their individual contributions. It would be a place of business, although decentralized and without owners so there is no escaping the need to be profitable.

Not sure I follow, what is CC-0?

It’s being implemented in big ways. Projects like Creative Chain, Steemit, Theta, Viuly, and many more I haven’t found yet. Steemit is up and running currently, most of the others are still in development or beta testing. Well worth checking out if you are interested in the space. Seeing how those are working is partly what inspired this idea…

There is a blockchain for everyone, even those types. Still have to be diligent and aware of who you’re interacting with. They control a minority of the entire blockchain space, although many of the big names. Thousands of honest and genuine blockchain projects out there.

Maybe fantasy in your mind, I doubt we see things from the same perspective though. And I didn’t say anything about an ICO. I doubt this would need any external funding, although that may have some advantages.

Much of this technology is currently available and close to practical use, by the end of the year setting something like this up will be plug and play simple. Just the human effort and imagination that will limit it’s growth. I’m not after any trademark rights, Alongside Blender was how this idea came to me so that’s how I presented it.

The tutorials on youtube could be a main feature for the education process I was thinking about. They would have to be migrated over to a blockchain platform like steemit or viuly but that’s just a matter of time and effort for the educators.

Yes, but who cares? Am I going to demand from every artist some blockchain proof of ownership, in order to enter a business relationship? Let’s say Ace Dragon posts some art on these forums, but somebody else is first to register it in a blockchain, how can he prove he’s the real owner, am I supposed to trust the blockchain over Ace Dragon on the forums?

You need to study up on what the Block Chain is…
The Block Chain eliminates the Lawyer, the Government (I would think this would be a libertarians dream come true), The Block Chain becomes the Government… because everyone on the block chain has evidence that So and So has ownership of this and that… it’s just as simple as that… any effort to ‘steal’ the ‘artwork’ or ‘copyrighted’ ‘trademarked’ ‘patented’ maternal is easily checked by looking at the block chain file to see… boom there it is… dispute solved… it has a date stamp with it and everyone has the file… so anyone who tries to forge the file would have to forge everyone’s file… a practically impossible task…

What’s going to step them is somebody enforcing copyright law. No blockchain.

a thousand… a million Block Chain witnesses…

It’s seriously clear here by your statement… (and this is honesly no put down to you) … you don’t understand what a Block Chain is or what it does…

A block chain is a file…
a file that goes out to everyone who has any information on that file…
everytime the file is updated…
it’s updated on everyones file…
so every time someone makes a transaction the file gets updated…
on everyone’s file… via the internet or a network of some kind…
that means everyone on the Block Chain is ‘witness’ to the file update…
That means that if Nathan Vegadal builds a new rigg and places it on the Block Chain…
it’s not just his file that gets updated but every single Blender user that has any information at all on that Block Chain file…
So how ever many Users there are of that Blender Block Chain file are now how many witnesses there are To that New Nathan Vegdahl Rigg…
So if Nathan decides your going to pay him $5 for that Rigg if you try and take it and use it without paying for it…
All the Block Chain holders are going to play witness to fact that Rigg belongs to Nathan and not you so he has a right to charge you $5 for it if he chooses to…
That all might play out in a court…
Or it might (even worse) play out in the free market…
as no one will want to deal with you because you can’t be trusted…

That’s why it makes a difference…

Your Right… Who Cares! about what copy right and patients and trademarks say… they now are obsolete… with the block chain… The government no longer has a say… nor does the big banks of the big corporations… the middlemen get cut out… and that… is a good thing…

All business is done on Contracts… (again a Libertarian Ideal) and that is what Block Chain is a ‘Contracts’ platform
yes there are Block Chain Tech projects going on right now that intend to replace the ‘paper trail’ of old with Block Chain Technology that literally you will not be able to get paid for your work until you have paid your subcontractors or fulfilled some other stipulation contained in the contract…

If you have never gotten jilted on a job you probably don’t know what this means and how much of a god send this…
I have more than I care to count…
Suddenly with Block Chain Tech…
no more people signing a contract and then on paying you…

again a Free market Libertarian Ideal fulfilled… hummm your arguing against it…? hummm…