Blender Open Projects

General Forums Off-topic Chat
#1

So here’s my question:

Starting in 2006, the Blender Foundation has started and completed an open project every year so far (with Yo Frankie! taking not as much time to complete). Is the BF gonna continue this cycle? Are we going to see a new open project coming out every year for years to come? Are they going to take a break (not that I want them to)?

Second Q:

What about user participation? What if there was a section here at BlenderArtists where blenderheads like you and me could submit models, textures, animation clips, to be used in the open project (lets say Durian for example). I’m not extremely skilled in Blender, but I could make some objects, say enviroment objects, that the Durian devs might be able to use. And we’d all get our name in the credits :smiley:

I heard a while back here at BA somebody said something about if the Blender Foundation made a movie, we here at BA could make a game to go with it. Sweet idea!

So what do you think?

#2

There’s been a couple of “community movie” projects around here, Crosswalk and muffin if my memory serves me correctly. Neither of them got completed in the end, despite both of them were quite active in some point or another, and ended up with stacks of models.

There were couple of problems with projects, main ones being, at least from my opinion, lack of real schedule, which leads to that the most important stuff wont be ready, as the person(s) resbonsible are busy doing something else and that people really are doing it only when they have time.

BF projects have the luxury of defined leadership and the fact, that people actually gather together in one place to meet each other outside the net.

The other huge problem is the quality of models and textures. While some stuff you get is great, there always will be stuff, that is, nicely put, lacking in some area or other. And in the end someone has to fix it or stuff will be completely dumbed.

But anyway, despite I think commynity fueled project might be a nice idea, I still think that in reality they rarely work.

#3

Hey Hippie!

I totally agree with what you said, community projects are a good idea but they don’t have good leadership. So, what if the Blender Foundation supplied the leadership and the important models, and we blenderheads submited minor objects and things.

Now to ensure quality, we (users) would have to submit a sample of our work before posting actual content. Then a designated person (from the BF I guess) would filter through the sample submissions and chose a team of perhaps, 40 persons to help with the movie. ( I just guessed a number)

Also, certain modelling jobs could be posted (model a tree, model a sword) and then users could model with that project in mind.

#4

That’s already basically the way it works. If the team comes up short of anything, they’d let the community know that help is needed. I’ve seen mention of this possibility throughout these projects, though I can’t remember how much it has been necessary to do this in the previous ones.