Yep, it’s pretty sure they only sell glue code.
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A few things came back from the 3rd party Cycles integrations, it’s not just glue code. The CUDA host memory patch was a feature I first wrote for the Poser integration.
From the Rhino side we got C# bindings at some point, and the Cycles4D people have helped me track down bugs they found.
And don’t underestimate glue code - a fully featured renderer integration with material translation can take tens of thousands of lines of code.
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Full disclosure: I haven’t really read the thread in it’s entirety so what I’m going to post may have already been addressed or it may even be slightly off topic from the specifics. In addition I don’t know if this is a proven method.
I think Blender should divide up their funding not in terms of micro-features but rather it should be divided up into large sections based on workflows like sculpting, animation, texture paint, rendering, grease pencil, hard surface, etc where people “vote” on which section needs the most attention. The money will then go into hiring developers to focus on those aspects where the number of developers will be proportional to the funding. Of course, there are aspects of Blender where it cannot be easily be divided up into neat sections so I think the fund should take a cut of each vote money for general use.
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There is no need for that, Ton has already mentioned that they welcome individuals, groups and companies to hire Blender developers to work on specific features of their choosing. So its possible to get say 100 people to pay 30-50 euros per month to hire a dev , work on a Blender fork while in contact with the BF and then contribute that code back to the official release.
That’s the essence of libre software.
The reason why you don’t see that happening is because the majority of users are generalists.
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I sort of figured this would be the case since AMD funds a dev to optimize cycles but I was some what skeptical since I remember Zacharias Reinhardt talking about pooling money for sculpting but I haven’t heard anyone talking about it despite initial widespread support, did it hit a wall or is it continuing on without my knowledge?
Well if something really happened then you would have heard about it.
From a user point of view the best scenario for me is to start a page at kickstarter , like any crowdfunding campaign, pitch your ideas, collect the money, hire the dev , be in contact with BF to make sure that they agree with the code and the code is included, mission accomplished.
Its not rocket science. The trick is to convince people to give the money. The nice thing about crowdfunding websites like kickstarter is that if you dont hit your funding goal, none has to pay. Which is why kickstarter has been so insanely succesful.
If Roberts can collect crowdfund 50 million for Star Citizen, I am sure one user could crowdfund 100k at least. Will buy you a dev for 2 years or 2 devs for one year . More than enough to do wonders on any area of Blender.
Will admit this is far reaching. Roberts has a lot of background. He made Wing Commander series among many other games so has plenty of credit.
For a regular person this is very difficult. I remember how difficult it was for Ton to raise the money to buy out the Blender source code. How hard it is for them to raise the Blender DEV fund. Or the Blender Cloud. And these guys are known in the blender comunity.
I wish it was this simple, but it won’t be 
Yeah you got a point and we should not forget how hard it was to crowdfund 2.8 …
Roberts was selling vapor ware for 5 years and still the game is nowhere near achieving its initial goals.
Blender was not exactly a success when it was commercial , so of course it would have a hard time
The Blender fund was neglected pushed to the side of the website and only when blender 2.8 needed the money desperately to move forward and after the massive success of crowdfunding it got the attention it deserved.
It’s no coincidence that blender got it the crowdfunding game so late. Money was never a goal before 2.8, it became a goal out the necessity to maintain and push forward a massive code base. Without it 2.8 would have taken years. This is also why BI and BGE had to die at the exact same time.
People don’t care who you are but only what you sell. If what you said was remotely true Kickstarter would have never existed in the first place.
Roberts had only one successful game under his belt a million years ago.
You think people funded 2.8 because Ton asked it or because they were drooling over Eevee ?
Point taken on the Kickstarter part. The “advantage” there is that you now have to present an actual prodcut not just a 3d render. at least now.
But the concern here is the though that if Robets could raise said amount of money others can also. And that I wont’ agree simply cause peple who chiped in (me including) knew of him, and what he made in the past, and that was what sold me on his dream. Do I regret it nope.
Other kickstarters (Wooting One, or Z-Mouse, or Oculus Rift) were more vision driven. Well Rift was probably because of John Carmack.
But even Wooting One had difficulties of raising funds.
So now the Blender world. As we are talking about software, coming form a person who has no credit that he/she might actually do something, it is a tad more difficult. Not impossible but difficult.
As such i’m more for funding directly an individual who has shown actual result. Like the VR Plugin that I’m very tempted in supporting, cause it already works and Blender Institue has shown no interest of late to support VR.
IF Blender Developement fund would permit directly supporting a feature. Eg. funding for OpenCL optimizations, or Multithreading everything, I’d chip in a second simply because It’s Blender institute and Ton and the team has earned my trust and my money in the past. Each release of Blender is a testament of this
Same goes for Blender Guru. The Sky Lights plugin, and few others enjoyed a lot. Along with the Shrimp team, and their 2 training tutorials (modeling and space). But these guys again gained “store credit” in the community which gave me conform in spending money on their work.
However until Blender team provides that option, I’ll fund the devs directly, but it is just so hard to choose a dev that to me is an unknown.
However until Blender team provides that option, I’ll fund the devs directly, but it is just so hard to choose a dev that to me is an unknown.
And that’s good so, but a lot of the devs who left were not unknown. Kevin Dietrich, Lukas Tönne, etc. If there was a good system to fund them (Lukas on everything node, Kevin on OpenVDB for Cycles or as a remesher, etc.) that would have keep a lot of good devs on board and would have brought this targeted funding so many users are looking for.
And by the way, sometime you may thing a guy is unknown because programmers are not like rockstars, many of them like to stay quiet. So users also have to do be a bit active and do some research to see what devs did in the past to know how much trust they deserve.
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It’s good you belong to a tiny minority because your mentality would collapse the entire world economy if it suddenly became widespread , especially with technology which is built on the hard work of “nobodies”
I happen to know a “nobody” ex blender dev , he works for NVIDIA now.
Kickstarter is about actual products ? I don’t think you understand what’s the purpose of Kickstarter
Being rude or a (not sure what) is a reason why sometimes this community reminds me of its lack of its maturity…
I know that many nobody’s are great, and as I said it’s just harder to trust a person who didn’t do anything that I know of and just give my money on hope they make something.
Where as people that have some proven background, like shrimp team, blender guru, and few others, it is easier to chip in money into their projects.
And gloating that “he works for NVIDIA now” doesn’t say much. Would I trust spending my money and give it to this dev without know what he contributed to. Not easily.
This is THE ONLY POINT i’m trying to make.
Most I agree.
The issue is that the developer seeking the funds is the person who needs to “prove” or “entice” people to chip in money. Some research yes, agreed, but the burden of proof still lies on the person who wants money.
Eg. Dev would say : I worked on Blender OpenCL during this timeframe. Then I can go and verify in the blender logs if indeed said person did. If the dev is asking … give me money cause i’m great and I have no clue who that is… and then wants me to search what he did in the past, my apologies but I would not find said person trustworthy, or at least lazy. and definitely someone who doesn’t get my money.
And I’ll underline that I fully understand that a lot of talent is missed that way, cause most dev’s can’t sell themselves well. Part of the job. (was one in another lifetime)
Just business
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Lets make a an example.
I have 10,000 euro to spend
would I:
a. spend it on Blender Dev Fund, which has been vetted over the many years
b. spend it on a person with known background (eg. blender guru) on a product they want to develop/sell
c. spend it on a person with unknown background (or even identity) on a feature that I might be interested?
How would c) entice me to spend that money on them?
How I am rude ?
You say “I won’t buy something from someone I don’t know”
I say “Our entire global economy is based on buying stuff from people we don’t know”
you say “Kickstarter is about actual products”
I say “No Kickstarter is about potential products , products that may or may not happen and this is the whole point of Kickstarter”
Did I call you an idiot ? a moron ? a murderer ? even worse … Autodesk ?
So how I am rude ?
Yes I bought things from Blender Guru and Creative Shrimp as well, but when I bought MasterXeon’s Hard Ops I knew the guy for like 5 minutes, cause that is how much time it took me to watch his video and be convinced he made an amazing addon. And years before that I bought BSurfaces (way before it became free and was included with Blender) and I do not even remember the name of the author. And years before that I bought a weird software from a dude that called himself Pixolator and his product ZBrush , back in version 1.15(2002) when none had a clue about Pixologic. Apparently I was not the only one to buy ZBrush back then or else ZBrush would not exist. It was also the first 3d app I bought, I only used pirated copies before that.
And thus If most people were like you and did buy things only from people established and well known the vast majority of those amazing products would not exist. You don’t like to take risks, awesome, but that does not give you the excuse to assume that everyone is like you.
You can call this rude, I call this reality.
You don’t want to trust people you don’t know, that’s good and your right to do so, caution is wise afterall. But high rewards requires high risk. That’s life.
Another example of high risk is EBay. Even more popular than Kickstarter. I never bought anything from EBay , I think, maybe I have.
My point is that there is an enormous market out there for “unknown” people to make a fortune. So if someone want’s to crowdfund a feature of Blender, there is nothing stopping him or her. Of course that does not mean automatic success one has to work on his pitch, on convincing people to invest on him and of course trust him. That trust is gained through careful and creative presentation. If I like what I see very much I will invest on your idea.
Where you see the rudeness in that ?
Also what you find immature about our community ? This is a beautiful thread with a very thoughtful topic and very nice ideas. Unless you mean only me being rude.
I also do not spend 10k euros, I am spending from 10-100 euros. Yes if I was to spent 10k euros I would sleep with the wife of the person to make sure I know everything about him (yes I am joking of course) .
Are you planning to invest 10k euros on Blener any time soon ? Or you take an extreme scenario just to prove your point ? Am I still rude ?
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if this isn’t rude… you must be from a different universe.
I do stand corrected on the on the Kicstarter, indeed you are correct that it is about potential products.
ok then I am rude. But that was not my intention. I don’t know know you , I cannot judge you , but I can disagree with you. In any case my point is that there is a market. But I am not against your idea of dividing the Blender fund to a degree. Problem is that Ton may not want to do that in order not to throw Blender out of balance in terms of features. You can always send him an email and suggest it.
I chatted with him online many times, he is a very friendly guy.
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Of course, both side have to do their part. I always give links.
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Closely related to the subject -
https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/WXcbbc/
Keen to hear opinions in regards to this, especially in the light of the development fund seemingly plateauing over the last few weeks.
I contribute to the Blender Foundation and entrust the Trustees to make appropriate decisions on my behalf. I know that they are accountable to all of us, as the law prescribes, for what they do with our money.
I do this in part because I’m not really comfortable that “crowd-funding” is accountable. Money is a very slippery thing.