blenderblog

Donovan Venuto has created a small distributed rendering application called BFarm.

Bfarm will make Distributed Rendering possible over the Internet using the Blender 3D software and a FTP Server. Any FTP Server will do. The Bfarm Client will download the .blend file and upload the .tga files via FTP. The Bfarm Client has a place for the FTP address and login. Bfarm is written in Visual Basic and unfortunatly only works in Windows, it is not portable to other Operating Systems. However, other programers can use this VB code and rewrite a similar program in a more portable language like Python or Java. This has been a personal project of mine and I'd like to share it because I think that many can use the program at its current state.

I'm not running any Windows machines at present, but I use to do a lot of VB programming for work back when it was really popular. I might have a looksee at BFarm for a bit of VB nostalgia.

If anyone has installed and used BFarm, I'd be interested in know how it performs. Seems like a good solution for Windows users who have a few spare PCs lying around [or a pool of PC at the office you could tap into].

kingjosh has been given [or taken on] the task of updating the Graphics Cards page on the Blender site. He's asking for your comments on the performance of different cards. Help him out by posting you thoughts on the elysiun thread.

The POVComp 2005 results are in. There are some really nice renders submitted to this competition. A great source of inspiration. Do yourself a favour and spend the time going through the Top 25 winners.

The aim of POVCOMP 2004 is to show the full potential of POV-Ray. All artists are invited to participate and create groundbreaking images with POV-Ray to win one of 25 neat prizes from our sponsors...

Well done to all the entrants.

Ton has done it again. Project Orange.

The Blender Foundation and the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts, have agreed on producing a 3D Animated Movie Short, to be created with the Open Source 3D suite Blender and other OS tools such as Yafray, Python, Verse, Gimp, and Cinepaint.

Not only will the project be realized with Open Source/Free Software, but also the resulting movie - including all the production files and software - will be published under an open public license. This makes it an exciting premiere as first ever "Open Movie" project!

Imagine how cool it would be if something like an 'open movie' became a popular way for film artist to realise their dreams. The known movie industry has been run by accountants for a long time. Some would say since JAWS, which is also known as the first big blockbuster, but personally I think that's just when proof that accountants could make more money in movies than artists was set in stone.

In any case, Blender will be playing a major role in the production. Check out the details if you want to be a part of it.

Who would have thought it's already been 10 years. Actually it kind of seems longer than that since I first downloaded Blender and got completely confused by the interface. Only took me about 5 years to actually devote the few days required to do a couple of tutorials and understand what was going on.

And actually it's only been the last year or so since I've been getting serious about Blender. Meaning that I try and set aside about 10 hours a week Blendering. I'd prefer to spend more time using Blender, but you gotta work right. So I guess the goal is to work out some method of making a living out of Blender [Who wants to start a small 3D animation studio with me?]. Hopefully one day.

Anyways...

To celebrate this 10th anniversary the Blender Foundation is preparing a DVD release with 10 years of animation highlights made with Blender.

Can't wait to get my hands on one of those. Here's the story from the Blender Foundation, who are asking for submissions of work, so if you have anything worthy, send it in.

Not Blender, but 3D related anyway, if you've got a hardware engineering streak in you, you might want to ckeck out this project where which has instructions on building your own 3D Laser Scanner.

when i started out i wished i had at least some support from others who have done the same before. unfortunately i did not find any truly useful information. so i hope i can at least help some others by giving a brief outline of my work. there is no doubt that my scanner is not the fastest nor the most accurate or most versatile ever built and definitely not the cheapest.

the information is given for the sole intention to be of help to some people who might have thought about building something similar. it is in no way a complete design and coding plan since i believe there should be lots of room for other ideas resulting in a different and hopefully better performance.

As you can see from the picture below, it's not the most accurate laser scanner out there, but for a DIY job it's well worth considering. And with a slight adjustment to the parts involved in building the project and the software controlling it, you should be able to up the resolution of the scanner.