Many professionals and 3D artists consider Blender as being the best open source solution for 3D computer graphics. The main features are related to modeling, rendering, shading, imaging, compositing, animation, physics and particles and realtime 3D/game creation.

Felician ALECU

English

Research Papers in Economics

Page 2  Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1Q 2010 
 
Open 3D Projects 
 
 
Felician ALECU, PhD, University Lecturer 
Department of Economic Informatics 
Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania 
E-mail: alecu[at]ase[dot]ro; Web Page: http://alecu.ase.ro 
 
 
Abstract:   Many professionals and 3D artists consider Blender as being 
the best open source solution for 3D computer graphics. The 
main features are related to modeling, rendering, shading, 
imaging, compositing, animation, physics and particles and 
realtime 3D/game creation.  
Keywords: 3D computer graphics, open source 
 
 
1. Introduction 
Blender  Institute  is  located  in  Amsterdam,  the  Netherlands.  Open 
Projects are created by using 100% open source or  free software and 
“the end result will be published under an open license, free for everyone 
to  re-distribute,  re-use  or  publish.  Typically  we'll  use  the  Creative 
Commons (attribute) license for it”. 
  The  institute  primary  goal  is  to  “coordinate  and  facilitate  Open 
Projects related to 3D movies, games or visual effects”.  
  The main studio room is fully equipped for the projects in the 3D 
field, like movies, games and visual effects (Figure 1). Page 3  Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1Q 2010 
 
Figure 1 – The studio room 
 
  The  Open  Project  business  model  consists  of  four  dissimilar 
components, like described in Figure 2. 
Figure 2 - Open Project business model 
 
 Page 4  Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1Q 2010 
 
  The four financing components are the following: 
  commercial sponsoring – is coming from companies that have 
benefits by using the free content; 
  education  –  trainings,  workshops,  seminars,  books  and 
documents 
  subsidy founds – are recompensing the public benefits coming 
from institute projects 
  own funding – used to finance in advance the current projects 
 
  The  same  resources  can  be  shared  by  multiple  projects,  as 
presented into the Figure 3. 
Figure 3 – The resource sharing 
 
  The  own  part  funding  of  the  Blender  Institute  is  actually  coming 
from the Blender Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to “give 
the worldwide Internet community access to 3D technology in general, 
with Blender as a core” and to “maintain and improve the current Blender 
product via a public accessible source code system under the GNU GPL Page 5  Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1Q 2010 
 
license”. 
 
2. Open Source Projects 
  The  main  open  source  projects  are  described  below.  They  were 
created  with  the  aim  of  “validate  and  improve  the  3D  open  source 
content creation pipeline with Blender”. 
  The Elephants Dream is the first open project developed by the 
Blender  Institute.  It  is  actually  a  movie  about  two  characters 
exploring the surrounding world composed by machines  
  The second open movie was called Big Buck Bunny (Figure 4), 
started in October 2007 and released on April 2008. It is about “a 
giant rabbit finds his happy sunny morning walk being disturbed by 
three rascal rodents. In a comical grand finale he gets even with 
them.”.  
  Frankie! is an Open Game launched on September 2008 where 
“the  player  controls  evil  rodent  Frankie,  who  explores  the  forest 
seeking for other animals to harass.” 
  Durian  is  another  Blender  open  movie  project  that  will  be 
released in 2010. 
    Blender  is  a  powerful  open  source  tool  to  be  used  for  3D 
graphics.  The  main  Blender  features  are  related  to  the  following 
areas: 
  Animation 
  Rigging 
  UV unwrapping 
  Physics and particles 
  Modeling 
  Rendering 
  Shading Page 6  Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1Q 2010 
 
  Imaging and compositing 
  Realtime 3D/Game creation (Figure 5) 
 
Figure 4 – Big Buck Bunny, screenshot 
 
 
Figure 5 – The Game Creation Engine Page 7  Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1Q 2010 
 
Conclusions 
  Free  software  describes  the  need  of  software  freedom  for  the 
computer users. The term evolved lately to the open source concept of 
today that is intensively used in many fields including the 3D computer 
graphics. 
  Blender  is  a  powerful  tool  dedicated  to  3D  graphics  (images, 
movies,  games).  It  is  competing  on  the  same  market  with  some  well 
know and used applications, like Autodesk 3ds Max, Maxon Cinema 4D, 
Carrara, Softimage XSI Foundation  and Autodesk Maya. 
  Many market studies are actually indicating Blender as being “the 
best free all around solution”. 
 Page 8  Oeconomics of Knowledge, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1Q 2010 
 
 
References 
 
****  Blender Institute Home Page - http://
www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-institute/ 
****  Blender Foundation Home Page - http://
www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/ 
****  Blender Open Projects Home Page - http://
www.blender.org/features-gallery/blender-open-
projects/ 
****  Elephants Dream Home Page - 
www.elephantsdream.org 
****  Big Buck Bunny - www.bigbuckbunny.org 
****  Yo Frankie! - www.yofrankie.org 
****  Durian - http://durian.blender.org/ 
****  Blender 3D Home Page - http://www.blender.org/ 
****  Blender 3D Features Home Page - http://
www.blender.org/features-gallery/features/ 
****  Blender Wikipedia Home Page - http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_%28software%29 
   

Open 3D Projects

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