Thursday, May 21, 2009
Durian - a New 3D Film Project from Blender
The Blender Institute has announced it’s third open movie project which is currently co-named ‘Durian‘. Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.
The two previous projects film projects were Elephants Dream (imdb, Wikipedia), “the story of two strange characters exploring a capricious and seemingly infinite machine” and Big Buck Bunny (imdb, Wikipedia), “the story of a giant rabbit with a heart bigger than himself”.
While the Durian team will have a lot of creative freedom, some details about the 3D animated film have already been decided: Visually, and concept-wise, the appearance will be that of a “typical “Hollywood” blockbuster or game trailer”. The project will be approximately five to eight minutes long and the main character will be female. Lots of action is planned, and of course, there will be monsters!
Besides Blender for 3D (modeling, sculpting, animation, rendering, compositing, video editing), the goal is to complete the entire project using open source tools, including Gimp and Inkscape for 2D work. When it’s completed, the movie - and its content - will be distributed free under Creative Commons Attribution.
The hunt is on for Blender talent. The 4 to 6 people selected will get to work on Durian in ]Amsterdam at the Blender Institute for 6 to 8 months, from September 2009 to April 2010, although people can work for lesser amounts of time. They’ll become an“Artist in Residence” at the Blender Institute, and be paid an honorarium for their work that should cover their living expenses for the project’s duration. And their travel and housing expenses will be covered.
The core team so far: Martin Lodewijk, Scenario (Netherlands), Colin Levy, Director (USA), David Revoy, Concept Art (France), Ton Roosendaal, Producer (Netherlands) and Brecht van Lommel, Software Developer (Belgium).
People who want to join the Core Team should thoroughly review the application page and then contact Ton Roosendaal - ton[at]blender.org - before June 20th. I note that for other projects, they had previously received applications from experienced 3D artists who didn’t have a Blender portfolio. A note on the site says that these applications might have been rejected for that reason. Also, they need developers who have contributed Blender projects. In other words, HAVE experience WITH Blender! This is important because they need people to be able to hit the ground running.
Durian is not yet fully staffed in other areas either. Besides needing the afore-mentioned Blender designers and developers with skills in Modeling/sculpting, Rigging, Animation, Texture and 2D art, Lighting / Rendering, Compositing, they are also looking for graphic designers (print, web, DVD interface), voice actors and stunt people. Check the application page for additional details.
Digipendence will report periodically, meanwhile, here is the official timeline.
P.S. Blender projects tend to be named after fruit, don’t ask me why, but I’m sure there’s an interesting story in it somewhere. You may be wondering what exactly is a ‘durian’, so here you go: “Widely known and revered in southeast Asia as the “king of fruits”, the durian is distinctive for its large size, unique odour, and formidable thorn-covered husk. The fruit can grow as large as 30 centimetres (12 in) long and 15 centimetres (6 in) in diameter, and it typically weighs one to three kilograms (2 to 7 lb). Its shape ranges from oblong to round, the colour of its husk green to brown, and its flesh pale-yellow to red, depending on the species.” In case you want to know even more, check this link for details.