Blender is much more than just 3D creation!

[Thagarr]

I have played around with Linux since the early 90's, so I have been a big fan of open source software for quite some time. Along with many other programs, I have also known about Blender for quite some time. However, I have always only known it as a 3D creation tool, something I am not particularly skilled at. While the early versions were sorely lacking, over the past 20 years, it has become quite a full featured and well rounded 3D creation tool. What I did not know until very recently, is that Blender also has the ability to function as a video editor! And from what I have seen, quite a robust one too!

Some of you may already know this, but I figured I would make a post here to try and inform those who don't. I was doing a bit of searching the other day, and happened to run across THIS post over at Opensource.com on video editors. It is quite a fascinating read, and also provides a list of Youtube tutorials that the author used to learn video editing in Blender.

So, what exactly does video that has been edited in Blender look like? I'll go one step farther and show you some video that was created entirely in Blender, including 3D creation.

Caminandes 3 - TRAILER

That cartoon was released in 2013 by the Blender Foundation. It was modeled, rendered, composited and edited entirely in Blender. Not bad at all for free software, heck, it is pretty damn good for any software! By the term “free” I don't just mean monetarily, it is also free of all the licensing, tracking, DRM and other BS associated with programs like Adobe's Creative Suite.

2013 Caminandes: Gran Dillama

Big Buck Bunny 60fps 4K

The original of that last one was posted seven years ago over on Vimeo, the updated version is of course quite a bit cleaner and crisper.

There are many other videos over on their Youtube Channel, but i thought those gave a pretty good indication of what was capable. I am quite a bit late to the party on this one, but certainly better late than never! If your looking for good video editing, Blender most definitely has something to offer!

 

[Robert Nutter]

This is such good work, all done from one program. I'm definitely learning it at one point...


But you've set me off now, Thagarr

This turn by Blender is extremely significant, and possibly a death knell for the game and CG industries as we know them. All artists in our respective areas must pay attention to this trend or fall behind. And in case some don't understand why, I'll explain:

What you've posted here are really good examples of FREE vertical integration in game developing software...and that's a huge problem, at least for the games/effects/film industries.I don't even know the fundamentals of Blender but I do know that it seems to be leading a massive software revolution which 3D/graphics companies like Autodesk have been extremely slow to start adapting to. Even Cinema 4D doesn't function as a non-linear editor in its latest evolution and that's *designed* for motion graphics work. It works on the assumption you already have an existing pipeline. Which means you have editors doing graders jobs, graders doing CG artist's jobs, CG artists doing game designer's jobs, and game designers doing editor's jobs. It's already caused a problem in the job market...and it's set to get worse. But then better again when the population realize it's democratization of software that will allow them greater career freedom, and the companies fatter profits...eventually.

This is exactly what Blender are doing, which i think is just great. Programs like Blender are definitely the cause and not the effect, however. And it's only a matter of time before Autodesk start following suit.

Just for a case in point.

Hollywood and the film industry as a respected, out-of-reach institution is sinking very, very fast...and if parts of it aren't, they will be soon. Ten years ago, film was king, DI (digital intermediate...how film is put onto digital) was a choir and CGI was a luxury. (A luxury! These days CG is used to save budget shooting on location!) Now, just a decade later in the higher-end market....everything's been democratized from camera hardware to grading software. DaVinci Resolve has better editing and far superior grading than the undisputed world-leading,£10,000 editing software Avid these days, yet the basic version's FREE. Adobe Premiere's lagging behind a bit with its professional features, granted, but 5 years ago it wasn't even considered 'professional'; more pro-amateur for low-end weddings etc. But look at it now...the relatively low end Adobe app which is fast overtaking long-standing editing leaders like Final Cut Pro. Yet Nuke beats After Effects hands down in some ways, as does Autodesk's Smoke beat the grading industry leading DaVinci for grading in some ways, despite being a relative newcomer on the scene. What an age! Software power for all! It is democratization of powerful software/hardware that's killing the big film industry and bringing many established studios to their knees (a good thing imho). And I challenge anyone who thinks otherwise As for the lower end market...PAH! It's now become the middle market. Small to medium studios are opening everywhere...whilst large ones (and a handful of moderate ones) are closing due to outsourcing. That's possibly the one downside...a potential dilution of skillset.

Then of course you get those who claim that the iPhone 6 can shoot better footage than a cheap DSLR. No...just no. We're not quite there yet. Technologically or ethically.

Sorry to hijack your post, as this really is a good thing...I just wanted to put my opinion across of how *REALLY* good I think it is...

 

[Thagarr]

Yup, that pretty much sums it up. One reason the film and recording industry started suing it's own customers was because they are to entrenched in the old way of doing business. They don't want to loose control. The studios executives take most of the money, their lawyers get a cut for keeping everything legal, the actors and performers get a cut; but the film crew, engineers and content creators got what was left over after all the squabbling. Tools like Blender put that content creation back in to the hands of the artists themselves and let them create exactly what they had envisioned without all the corporate suites making it "marketable."

Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and the big gaming companies use almost the exact same business model. I have never really been a huge fan of Steve Jobs, but he did make the correct decision to base OS X on Linux, and that is the main reason it has been so stable and reliable. With Jobs gone however, it wont take long for that corporate philosophy to permeate Apple again. Microsoft and most of the others seem bent on forcing proprietary standards and file formats on to every computing platform to try and keep control, and it is a strategy that will fail in the end. Linux, Libre Office, Gimp, Inkscape, Blender and a whole host of other such open source programs are getting better all the time. People have gotten a taste of real freedom with these programs, and they aren't going to give that up any time soon.

 

[Robert Nutter]

I agree 100%. Whilst there are bad side effects (lowered overall industry standards being one negative effect of *total* democratization), the liberty it affords artistry is simply not to be argued. Eventually, niches will be carved and they will (hopefully) serve as the new 'corporations' of the artistic world. But these niches will cater to everyone, not just people whose uncle happens to work in it or were born with a silver spoon...it's been happening slowly in the last half-century, but now it's seriously accelerated to the point where giants are feeling the strain. As you say, Apple have had their moments under Jobs. Like him or loathe him, he really did put artistry center stage and was a loss because of that. Apple will eventually return to the blashmorg of corporations, placing expensive software and rich public school boys above real talent and real software (like Blender). But now it's started, it can't be stopped....

 

[Thagarr]

Yeah, corporations are like a self replicating virus. You can slow them down for a time, but eventually they will attempt to dominate everything. When I was searching for a laptop last year, I ran across a company called System76, they sell laptops and desktops specifically designed for Linux and open source software. They are certainly headed on the right path! Their hardware is specialty built with firmware supporting Linux. Because of this, they are slightly more expensive, but well worth it in my opinion. I have seen a couple of other startups doing the same, offering different hardware and distros, but this one really seems to have nailed it.

There are a couple of reasons I chose not to go with them, one is because they are to closely linked to Canonical and only ship Ununtu. If they had given me the option of Linux Mint, I would have bought one of their laptops. I may still buy one eventually and convert it over myself. The other reason is that I needed to get experience in Windows 10 so I could help out my friends and family when they pick up the phone. Open source software is certainly awesome, open source hardware will be that much better! This is not quite there, but it is closer than anything we have seen yet.

 

[Robert Nutter]

I don't know, Blackmagic (a very big player on the imaging hardware/software scene...some people here probably use their stuff for game creation) have really shaken things up with both its hardware and software. They offer cameras...thouroughbread cinema cameras...for less than £4k. Four grand! To put that into perspective, their only serious competitors (Arri, Panavision, Sony and RED) are still selling their thouroughbread ranges for over £100k. Their flagship product, Davinci Resolve, is FREE, and as said above, is basically putting the big boys out of business. What we both wish for is actually happening in the case of Resolve...I mean, just look at these prices! Blackmagic Design: Products You don't have to know or even understand the industry to see that this is something big. Fully functioning cinema cameras for little over half a grand!

What's more, the general opinion is growing that BM's stuff is actually better than their competitors. They listen to their users, and it seriously, seriously shows...I've used their pocket camera range alongside a £70,000 RED camera...and I was genuinely taken aback by how well it reached, and in some cases exceeded, the RED in terms of quality.

So if you want a model of a big corporation doing it right, BlackMagic are seriously high up there...they've been doing this for 4 years now and it's rippling across the industry. It's great to hear companies like System76 exist too, restores some of my faith that it's a trend and not a fad...

 

[Thagarr]

Good stuff there mate, I wasn't aware of that camera, or the company. That's a heck of a price for that kind of quality. I am mostly familiar with computer hardware. Those CFast cards are ridiculously fast, though it would probably fill up a 250 gig card pretty quickly. Still, much cheaper and quicker than carrying around cans of film, and obviously the time it takes to develop and cut.

Samsung just announced the next step in SSD's earlier this year, with read speeds up to 2,500MBps and write speeds as fast as 1,500MBps using an NVMe controller. Intel announced a similar technology, 3D XPoint. always better and faster, but rarely cheaper!

And to think, I clearly remember thinking how cool it was to back up a program to my first tape drive, because then you didn't loose 10 hours work by shutting down your computer!

 

[Robert Nutter]

Well on RED, you can get through a 750gig drive (specific to RED) with less than 20 mins of footage. I've seen some chomp through way more than that in less time...we're talking upwards of 6 Tibit/h (yep...6 TB an hour) on some settings, especially if it's hi-speed or above 4-6k res. It's totally mental what they pack into hardware nowadays.

I'm definitely getting me one of those when they come down a bit! Samsung, Iomega and IBM...three rock-solid brands for storage in my experience. Though if HP are successful and release their new 100,000ghz or whatever it is fibre-optic PC in 2017, as it looks like they likely will in some form or the other, all of this will be totally obsolete and we'll be discussing Pibit/s instead of Tibit/h...

That's the days! I had a tape reader for a while...250meg zip drive deal...only stopped using when I upgraded to Mac! I was using a Win 3.1 with a *huge* 80meg HD, 64k Ram GPU-less tower until around ten years ago. I know I was a bit slow on the update, but still...I use more than that a second editing now.