Lighthouse – Promotion Studios, Sydney
The Blender project and the Blender Foundation are a lighting example for many. People have high expectations of what we do at blender.org. They love the software, the freedom, the community, the responsive developers online, and hanging out together.
During the past 7 weeks, the Gooseberry campaign has whipped up a lot of energy in thousands of people. It made them act to contribute to us – out of passion, out of trust and confidence.
Someone mentioned to me that our campaign resembles Ubuntu Edge, by letting vision blind the better judgement… setting a goal very high. Ruthlessly pulling the plug on something that lives for so many people would be devastating, a slap in the face for everyone who has supported us so well.
Well, I am not intended to pull the plug, and I won’t let you down!
We do have to be fair though. The Gooseberry Project was meant to be your project. By the community and for the community! To make this happen we need a critical mass. That’s really still 5,000 supporters – hoping it would grow to 10,000 by this Fall. I want to take such a challenge seriously, and I want to take the people who work on that seriously as well. We will try to make a theater quality feature animation movie here, no bullshit.
So – are there still 1600 people hiding somewhere waiting for the last few days to press the Pledge Now button? Are you waiting? Then it’s your chance to vote for getting me to work on the most amazing Blender film ever!
If not… well, there’s no harm, no disasters happen, there’s no deception really! We will just do something smaller though… a great short film here in Blender Institute, building on the cloud platform features and videos, and then who knows… things might look different again next year.
Life is full of uncertainties and possibilities anyway. One thing for sure though: get us the funding, and we go for the Gooseberry feature movie! If not, then we’re just as cool :)
-Ton-
I think an issue I see (from my perspective) is that people who are pledging have no clue what we’re really pledging for. Sure, we know it’s a Blender movie. All well and good. We know that it involves studios from all over the globe. All well and good.
But what is the story? My best guess (from some of the sketches) is a billy goats gruff film. But if you really want people excited, tell them what they’re giving for. In the past we’ve given to projects blindly – but since this is way more ambitious you need to give more.
Just my thoughts. I love Blender. Love what it is, represents and I’ve given. Hope to see a full length films.
The film is going to be written in the next many months, but you can find clues already in the teaser and in videos and text on the site.
But mostly – story development takes a lot of time, which we want to do with the teams for many months. That is not only writing lines, but it goes via storyboarding, animatics, layout, all the way through the final edit in end. All of that shared openly with everyone, and with ways for people to feedback or get involved.
Blender user since 9 years ago!
Good luck guys!
/Pascal
Ton,
I hope I am not taken as a negative critic here. I have joined the campaign because I believe that this project can show new ways of how to approach both software development AND creation of movies. I am PRO GOOSEBERRY and have tried to do my share of advertising for it. Which is a hard job, since you cannot find much information in the real world – outside the Blender fandom that is or outside the internet.
That having said:
> The Gooseberry Project was meant to be your project. By the community and for the community!
In what way exactly is this project “our project” (or even mine)? Where exactly do we suggest story lines, can upload our music to be included in the movie or co-work on our very own characters? I have asked this before and got a lot of confirmation that people do not UNDERSTAND how this project is a “community project”, since it seems to be run by already chosen studios, already chosen screen writers, already chosen composers etc.
What exactly is the community aspect, except for spending the money to the studios involved?
Can we, just as an example, VETO on a story line that we, as the investors or the community, do not like?
> So – are there still 1600 people hiding somewhere waiting for the last few days to press the Pledge Now button? Are you waiting?
I personally know of a bunch of beings who have NOT pledged because they don’t know what they would spend their money on. They did not like “Sintel”. They don’t want to invest into a movie that looks and feels like Sintel. They need some concrete material to base their investment on.
> Then it’s your chance to vote for getting me to work on the most amazing Blender film ever!
That’s the point: What exactly is the “vote”? “Do it” or “Do it not”? Do WHAT exactly?
My personal answer to this is, as I have pointed out before: R&D. I have invested in enhancing Blender – because I do not use it yet, since it isn’t made for me. I am fine with spending the full time “cloud access” just to get Blender to a state where I would want to use it, even if the cloud does not contain anything for me.
For those people I spoke to this is of no interest. They use other tools. BUT they would want a GREAT MOVIE to made by “a community”. They do not understand how this “community” is involved, exactly. They do not understand how they can participate. They do not get “the vibe”, as the multi-million project scope on the one hand and the lack of concrete information on the other side don’t seem to blend well (pun intended).
Again, please take this as a positive feedback from someone who WANTS this project to succeed. I just feel lost after I have sent in my money :-)
Marc
I sympathize with your feelings Marc.
I am a long-time fan of the Blender community. Blender was the program that originally introduced me to open source. It worked so well and was so well supported, that it convinced me to convert my whole system to FOSS.
In my experience, Blender is one of the most open and responsive FOSS projects with regular and professional conversations between the developers and the users. Take, for example, the recent UI redevelopment effort. Andrew Price did a very nice job of analyzing the current status of the UI, gathering feedback, and presenting his thoughts to the community and dev team. Instead of devolving into a spitting contest (as has occurred with many other FOSS projects when a change is proposed), Ton and the development team were responsive and rational. Because of this professional conversation, we’ve already seen some excellent improvements to the UI with more collaboration to come.
I would love for the Gooseberry project to become a true community effort (working with community feedback on the story, script, visuals, etc.), but I also understand that such broad collaboration is an IMMENSE task. Perhaps this community collaboration is beyond the scope of Gooseberry. But I hope Ton and the Blender team will be able to expand collaboration a bit more to enlist community feedback in the coming days, weeks, and months of production. Perhaps a promise for more community input would help get Gooseberry its missing 1600 supporters.
Whether or not Gooseberry reaches it’s goal, I will continue to support the project. Here’s to hoping it will reach its goal.
Patton
It is your film in the same way as Blender is your software. Everyone is welcome to work on it, but we also expect (and respect) that not everyone is a good ray trace engine coder – or bug fixer, etc.
Asking for ‘vetoing a line in script’ is just as useless as demanding to veto on Blender code lines. We also don’t vote on Blender features itself. That is not efficient to do open projects.
That doesn’t mean we’re blind or ignore feedback. It’s just something to handle well, it’s working with dynamics, to get it positively applied to achieve results. Find the right people and empower them to get stuff done.
As for ‘how it will be your film’: realize that there is no film yet, it is going to be developed. We are going to have 5000 or more people who want to be involved in one way or another. Those who like to follow the script writing process can do, and they can comment or share or suggest improvements. These will be seen, sometimes discussed, or sometimes ignored by the director/writer(s).
You cannot *demand* anything though – we should want to respect the people who do the work to do this work well. And you know you cannot write a story with 1000s of people suggesting lines or having veto rights on lines..
For eample – imagine you get an internship at Pixar, you wouldn’t expect executive decision rights – but you’d be happy to learn, give feedback, do some texture fixes or modeling, contribute small things, and so on. You’re part of it, and just like the 1000s of others people you’ll have the feeling it’s YOUR film. Any well organized project will make each team member feel like it’s their project – team work does that people.
Lastly: I don’t understand the “R&D” remark. In the header of this website you can find texts and links about our software targets. Also that is just going to happen still, and for that we welcome everyone to help out and feedback.
Ton,
thanks for the comments. It’s a pity that you, obviously, haven’t read my thoughts on the project that I offered before. That’s ok, you have more important things to do (no irony here). But forgive me that I won’t iterate over my R&D approach again here. All comments I have received upon this have been positive, so I think I am on the right track.
Short: For me this project is about R&D, nothing else. I cannot see a “good movie”, since there is no information on that. I understand, though, that others do not want to INVEST into R&D – they would want to invest in a “good movie”, but there is not sufficient information about that. We are talking millions of dollar here, not “peanuts”. So an equally professional PR could be a good idea.
Could does not equal must.
Of course I do NOT expect a film to really made “by a community”, by having people vote on story lines, everyone submitting their house music etc. I have worked in film production, I do know a bit about what work is involved there.
I was – and I am – questioning the PR this project is creating. You keep repeating that it is “the community’s project”, yet, there isn’t much the community can do except for supporting the lucky studios who will get a job to pay their rents. As I have pointed out in detail: That’s cool. But it may not be sufficient for investors to jump on the train.
The movie won’t be “my movie” if it feels like (and runs down storywise like) Sintel. It’s as simple as that. I don’t care. For me it is the development benefit that is possible from such a project. For others, that is not the point.
I am sorry that you don’t seem to see this the way many others do. May be, after all, it is YOUR project. Not theirs.
That, for a MOVIE, would be a better start.
Marc
You say you are not using Blender, you are probably not actively contributing in large scale open source projects either. The ‘PR’ for this project doesn’t work for you? That’s logical then. You are not our first target group. I’ve purposely decided to focus our campaign on our own network of users and free/open culture enthusiasts.
If in your opinion the coolest thing of our project is the R&D part (software development, tools design), you will find that back in all of our communication as one of the most important key messages.
Check the big headline on the crowdfunding portal page:
https://cloud.blender.org/gooseberry/
Ton,
I apologize.
Obviously I have hit a nerve with you somewhere. It wasn’t my intention to diminish you, your work or the blender community.
Since I am not a part of your classification of “worthy people” (I am not a fan of OpenSource in general, which, so it seems, makes me a less valuable person), I understand, that from your perspective, my opinion is irrelevant and my preference of what constitutes a “good movie” is even less.
Naturally I do not want to poison your private project. So I am cancelling my support and subscription.
Leaving with a really sad face here. I wish everyone who invests in this endeavor, in particular the studios who had the luck to get a contract, all the best and outstanding success.
Marc
People who don’t use Blender or who don’t like open source are awesome people too. But realistically they’re not going to be our sponsors. That’s what ‘target group’ means.
Hi,
I do support Gooseberry and I think it is an amazing idea.
However, Marc hits a very important point. Make this movie much more open. Now! As soon as possible. All we have seen so far could have been made from some comercial studio too. An interview here, an trailer there, some little information … but no community integration so far as I can see.
If community integration before project start is not possible – so please do at least present what exactly you intend to make community based on this project (beside the funding and the cloud possibilitys to download production files)
Please read also my long post under “writing for gooseberry”
Here is an other idea: Make this project and the crowd funding step by step. Start with the script and story. This needs only a small part of the funding. If this is good and the community gets involved I am sure we all will fund the next steps of the movie too.
So I hope the best for Gooseberry
And thanks to all who already put so much hard work into it to make it happen
Thomas
There is really nothing more we can open up. All the creative work has been postponed – to make sure that is not going to be wasted energy, and to ensure you can all get involved even.
I also prefer to do projects only with teams (and people) who have been empowered to do this – they deserve the chance to prove they will function well. I take artists very serious. Yes, they deserve to get an audience and enjoy the interaction with the audience. Yes, they deserve to get the freedom to develop themselves and be challenged give the best they have. No, they shouldn’t be the slave of polls, approvals and vetos.
Hi Ton,
I think Iron Sky was a small production movie with a crowed sourcing approach and participants where also able to submit ideas, suggestions etc. establishing a fan base.
This is a pretty smart idea and approach when submissions being evaluated and if feasible maybe integrated, and if not simply disregarded.
I think there is no shame in accepting such feedbacks but I fully agree that devs and artists should not be enslaved by polls.
One has to be realistic here. Too many cooks destroy a meal. By what you write it seems you think the same way.
I wish you and your team(s) all the best and am curious what ever might come out of this.
Great it will be anyway!
Iron Sky budget was 8 Million euro. They crowdfunded 10% of that.
Hi Ton
This sounds good to me.
I understand that all creative work is postponed after project start. So thats why there is not much to see now….
I hope this project will start soon!
I have seen how Blender developes fantastic with the blender foundation and the community around it in the last years. I strongly believe this will also be the case for Gooseberry – thats why I support it and – as I hope – at least 4999 others will do this also.
Thomas
Come on people… The last part of any crowdfunding campaign is usually the biggest push. Start sharing this **outside** the Blender and open source scenes NOW! 3D websites. Indie film sites. Animation sites. Free culture sites. Parenting sites (I know my kids *love* the look of Goosberry). Sixteen hundred people is completely doable if we all get off our butts and share this is *new* places, right now!
Do we really want a watered down “plan B” or de want to see the full length feature film that would be a milestone in Blender / Animation and film history. We’re almost there. Do NOT stop now!
For me, I need to see how any advancements will benefit game artists in particular. I fully understand working on something that is more centered on movies and VFX, as long as there is a use in game development as well. I didn’t see any specifics of what this production would bring, as far as tool development. I assumed that it would bring advances; but for what category of artist? I agree; it wasn’t presented (or explained) well enough for me to contribute. You may want to think about that, if you have another go at this…or something like it.
Game art and film is converging rapidly. The tools and features they need overlap a lot. There are differences, but similar differences you have for Architecture modeling, scientific visualization, motion graphics, camera tracking, video editing, etc. I think we can have a good common denominator for tool design here.
Companies like Valve or Epic Games now reach out to Blender especially because how well Blender has been developing in the past years. So we do something good, also when “only” working on “film”. :)
Thanks for the reply Ton. I’d like to see things like “cage baking” and better export support for FBX, etc. These are things that are essential for we game artists. I appreciate what you’ve said; normally (as has happened in the past with people who head up Lightwave, for example), I/we get “lip service” on the subject of supporting game developers and artists…and very little substance.
I hope that is different, in this case; as the game market (specifically Indie Game Dev) is a HUGE market these days…far surpassing that of Movie and Television. If I see some definite good (not just a “here’s a bone for you guys”) coming from this endeavor; then I can absolutely see contributing to it in the future.
Don’t look now, but cage baking has just been committed to trunk…
I still have not contributed because i dont see much info being given out in the development side. if i was told that ptex .open subd ,open vdb where going to be integrated into blender to get incredible realistic images it would donate in a second.
i recall all the expectation i had for sintel . the movie was its self ok but on the technical side hair sim still is horrible,the lighting was game quality etc.
why was hair sim not improved was that not the point of movie to have a real world movie production then work with devs to improve on tools.
i found the teaser video to be average i hope final product will be of higher quality.
this is not negative comment just a blender user with great expectations.
i hope that my message is undestood english is not my language
In the link above you can read a lot about the technical targets.
/free-software-targets/
You can also go to the wiki.blender.org – developer section – to see the last updates on ongoing projects. OpenSubdiv (and ptex) is being worked on already since last year, and I hope we can get this in blender this summer already.
OpenVDB is half finished , needs to be picked up but is not highest priority.
Sintel hair sim was a complete disaster, we just couldn’t handle this. Doing good hair and cloth are one of the key targets for gooseberry.
thanks for the quick response
donation on its way
i hope so much that it succeeds! i don’t understand the grumpy people. ok, the cloud subscription can be a bit much if you don’t really identify with the project but pledging 20 or 40€ or so? why not if you like and use blender?
the plan b short film would be ok too but probably i would reduce my pledge a bit and save the money for the next try. :)
maybe you could try an unlimited length campaign afterwards and just wait for 10000 before you start something. :)
I have to say, I would LOVE for this movie to happen!! I’m still rooting for Gooseberry!
But Marc and Tadd make some very valid points that had me worried from the start. It’s easy to lose perspective of how outsiders are interpreting this when we’re on the inside and already supportive. But there is value in thinking about those reasons why people chose not to pledge.
In my opinion, the plan we’ve seen is for a crowd-FUNDED film, not for a true community film. A truly community-oriented film project should be crowd-SOURCED, with no set favorites among the community (like the 12 studios picked).
Why should 12 studios get the chance to work on it while the rest of the community just sits in the sidelines? If you chose to crowd-source it, you wouldn’t need to raise so much capital, you’ll get tons of work for free from community members you’d never expect, and all you’d need is to have a small core team bringing everything together. You guys know this, that’s what you’ve been doing with the Blender software all these years! Anyone can submit code, and that’s why we all feel like part of the community.
OF COURSE the director should decide what goes into the movie. OF COURSE the core team should have the sole veto power. But why not open up ALL aspects of the film for submissions? Just submissions.
Work should divided into small, well-defined tasks, the source files should be uploaded, and for a given period anyone should be able to have a go at completing that task and submitting for approval. Everything should be open for the whole community to submit: Story ideas, storyboards, previz, modeling, texturing, rigging, animating, post, voice-acting, music, etc.
Do we need to make the initial gooseberry model? Crowdsource it and pick the best. Do we need to improve upon it based on director’s feedback? Crowdsource THAT, it’s likely that someone different from the original artist is going to do it best this time.
Do we need to animate a character’s face for a 3 second scene? Post the assets for anyone to give it a go!
Anyone, from anywhere in the world, should be able to dream about THEIR little bit of work showing up on the film.
That dream of truly CONTRIBUTING to something greater than ourselves is what has made Blender what it is today. Crowdfunding is interesting, but open source is WAY more powerful, because it’s about dreaming that you might leave a small mark on the project, that you’re not just a number.
Of course, this is much harder to coordinate, and it’s just easier to have a full-time team working on stuff. But if you want this to truly be a project BY the community and FOR the community, then ALL of the community should really get the opportunity to have their 15 frames of fame, assuming their work gets picked.
People love art challenges, people love contributing code, and people support what they truly helped create. So if you give them the opportunity, I’m sure they’ll surprise you.
For now though, this just seems like a glorified Kickstarter campaign to many of us, and I’m sure if you opened this up for anyone to contribute their work, the funding results would also look very different.
As I said, I hope it happens either way. I’d hate to have to settle for a short film!! But wow, if we could all contribute to every single part of the process, that would really make this magical in my eyes. And I bet I’m not alone…
The whole concept of Blender Cloud is exactly to build a platform for people to be involved. You will be able to see the shotlists, the todo lists, the task assignments, see who is working on things, see their prpgress, feedback on it, download it, make it better, share it, and even get it accepted when it’s really good :)
We need to do that in a way it doesn’t turn the teams themselves into project managers. They have to work too! But I am quite sure that when really something good gets submitted (models, textures, concept art, name it) we’ll use it. Crowd-sourcing still means you need some people to select and pick. And learn to ignore and move on. That kind of dynamics is really normal in free/open source communities.
Last but not least: everything is open – you can take it outside of cloud and show to everyone what we do, and what you think we should do. :) Better you can’t get this I think!
Hi Zam
You are not alone for sure….You express to 100% my feelings about this film.
Maybe Plan B should be your suggestion: make a full length crowdsource film. I would love to see that.
Crowdsourced film projects have been tried many times, but the concept just doesn’t work so easily. It’s not a magical recipe or so… you need a real minimal momentum before a crowd can be of use for big projects.
Also see it this way: Blender’s Cycles (render engine) is being made by only very few people, but yet it needs and uses ‘the crowd’ as well – which is all the people who are involved (who make awesome inspiring art, report bugs, help fixing and reviewing, propose features, design ideas, suggest papers, etc) to make it happen for real.
I understand some of the hesitation some people feel – I did too at first. But even if you’re uncertain about some of the details, consider what this represents.
Years ago, high-quality 3D graphics software was scarce, expensive, and locked-up. On the verge of death, Blender was reborn not only as a program but as a symbol – what once was the domain of a few, now belongs to the world.
Gooseberry represents, to me anyway, the liberation of quality 3D feature filmmaking. Cloud collaboration, crowd-funding, and open technology can allow anyone with powerful enough ideas, talent and creativity to accomplish what only large and wealthy studios could until now. And Blender, with this project, can once again light the way.
I really hope the feature length movie will be made! But there is only so few days left.
For the Netherlands there is the tv program “De wereld draait door”. It is quite popular. If you could get a few minutes there to do your story. Since it is a TV program they like to show things, and with the other open projects there are things to show, and ofcourse the teaser!
You might just be able to get your final supporters! Or even more!
I’ve been there once, and we even offered them a premiere of Tears of Steel. We were almost in it, but some political event got preference last minute.
For our campaign however, I don’t think we have a good case for this show. We would have later on.
Here is my take. I’ve been a Blender supporter since probably more than 10 years now and have loved the experience. I bought loads of Blender books and supported every movie drive, including the Goosberry cloud subscription. Is that because the movies turn out so great? No. In fact I didn’t really like any of them as movies although each had their better moments of course. I support them for the technical advances they bring and boy, have we seen some nice ones because of these movies! So for me, supporting Goosberry is a no-brainer. Everyone who is into Blender, wether as FOSS interest, as a hobby or as a proffesional tool should try to support this for the betterment of Blender itself. Of course, having a nice movie would be nice too, but I’m not holding my breath…. I just really want Ton and co to be able to hire some more developers to extend Blender. So i say go for it!
What if 5000 supporter isn’t met? Does it effect software targets? This also means the cancellation of the software targets? I hope every software targets will be achieved. This is so important for me.
Things for sure will get done faster if we get a lot of support…
Please pledge for this project. If 5000 supporters number will not be met, Project Gooseberry will not be able to change the world. It would be the same as other short movies.
@Gooseberry Team
If there won’t be 5000 supporters, please do not jump at plan B, a short feature film. Please do a long film, but proportional to the sum pledged. Make the scenes of high importance for a part of the sum. Fill the details with the rest. 10 000 supporters means film plan 100%. In any case, please avoid making a short film. The supporters didn’t let you down, so you could extend the campaign. Now…doing a short movie film will seem like a sort of treason, hopes will be lost. A 15 minutes film will certainly won’t make people content, with such big promises. A big film is the single method to make Project Gooseberry known worldwide. Imagine this running in cinemas. A short film could not get so known.
-Ton-
Please in accord with Blendfan’s question. Will the Plan B affect the software targets. thats soooooo important to me too.
The targets (as in goals we want to achieve) are the same.
Practically, things will have to be downsized or scheduled over a longer period.
Pledged(+donated). Whether the target is met or not I have no second thoughts and want to support Blender 100% with projects a like!
I am very new to Blender camp. I heard of Gooseberry by pure accident and gave 2.70 a try. Being a longtime use of stagnated ad$k softwares, I was simply blown away at the capability and how mature this software has become! I have already strongly integrated it into the pipeline and try to apply it everywhere I can. I have also recommended it to my colleagues who are equally impressed!
Said that, I feel that a lot of people outside of this community are simply unaware of this great initiative as well as the wonderful product and amazing developers behind it! I wish the message could have been communicated more broadly and clearly outside the scope of this community. Only thing that can save us now is the reddit army :)
Finally, though a lot of people would like this to be more “open” and contribute directly, please realize that things do not always scale linearly and it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to coordinate and manage such a wast project(in some of the proposed forms here). If the goal is to create an amazing MASTERPIECE and super-charge the SOFTWARE (to enable it), then dialogue between tightly nit teams and developers is the key. We all benefit from this outcome!
Having hundreds of enthusiasts randomly and inconsistently contributing, debating about every single aspect and spamming for features – it’s just anarchy with devastating results. Sometime the best thing we can do is to simply show trust and support for these people who have dedicated their lives to try enable us to do what we do!
At the same time I understand where these voices are coming from. Like many I also wondered if there is something I can do by devoting myself. Perhaps a solution could be to try to create a “virtual” team that is professionally managed, where anyone of us could apply with our portfolios. Just a thought :)
Thank you for reading!
My thoughts exactly!
Thanks for the answer Ton.
This is great news. Sooner or later, it doesn’t matter. Blender itself is always the first choice for me. I hope you’ll get more supporters. Good luck.
I think there should be a permanent development related PR effort for cloud subscriptions (not a campaign) targeting the community members, as well as a decoupled movie campaign (making waves outside the community – on Kickstarter or Indiegogo).
Right now the blur / lack of clarity kind of hurts the campaign.
I think you are way too pessimistic regarding the money that a properly planned campaign could make there.
I bet a great movie would eventually lead to more people joining the community and (indirectly) to more interest in cloud subscriptions.
If you really want to target Blender users only, you should not make a movie at all. Make art/model packs and tutorials instead and just feature individuals, groups and studios that make movies.
Hi Ton, thanks for all Blender team’s work and for the vision you have.
I think it’s heartbreaking seeing such a great project not being supported enough, and I agree that maybe not being actually able to “touch” anything big is keeping a lot of people from contributing.
I know it could be difficult to manage on the scripting side, but what about a story split in two(three)? I mean two (three) autonomous episodes, and I’m thinking about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games) . It was very successfull both as a book and a film, and the first episode is completely self-sufficient. It was then followed by the other two, but not by chance, the author had already planned such a solution.
You could do the same, leaving some plot-lines open, to be developed further on. When the first part is ready, start over with the funding and bring to life the following parts.
I know it’s a bit late for such a radical choice (and very difficult to put into practice), and maybe you were already thinking about it, but please evaluate it with the script writers and the others!
PS You could also publish the ebook of the three scripts and become the next Suzanne Collins… ;-)
Had I seen this earlier, I would have pledged sooner (although I wouldn’t have more money so I guess my point, if there is one, is moot.)
I do want to pledge my support for anything that I can do to help you all. Everything that I have seen come out of Blender has been simply amazing! Beautiful stuff – I am so proud seeing Blender grow.
I am IN NO WAY a Blender guru – I am more of a wanna-be – but I support, and will continue to, Blender and the Blender Community for what it stands for. Time, devotion, love and beauty. Words fail to express my feelings.
I want to thank EVERYONE who contributes, in any way, to supporting Blender – it’s a wonderful objet d’art that I hope to, some day, say that I helped more than my meager monetary contributions imply.
I was thinking. What about targeting this campaign not just to the “target audience” i.e. the users of blender but also to those that want to learn blender? both proffesional and amataeurs alike.
Since blender cloud is compromised of loads of tutorial videos and so on it would be the perfect first stepping stone to get grip of this amazing software. How would it be to learn from the makers of this software and makers of short films made in a production enviroment.
And as this project would unfold more will be added and more would be possible to learn. To gain from the tutorials. The production. The artists and not the least the software developers that does an amazing job at giving us this great tool that is gree to use for everyone for whatever intent they choose.