Open Source Movies

Free, open source tools are the future of software.

I’m not the only one who thinks so, either!
One of the coolest tools out there that’s both free and open source is Blender.  Blender is a full-featured 3D program that lets you do everything from sculpt the models to rigging and animating them, complete with shading and realistic physics, for everything from static images to movies.  It even has camera and motion tracking as well as compositing to let you integrate special effects into regular footage, not to mention a real-time 3D game engine.  All open source and all free.  But, it’s Friday and you didn’t come here to be educated, especially considering that you probably have the day off.

So, what’s cool about all that is the Blender Open Movie initiative.  Basically, the Blender Foundation encourages people to use Blender to make “open source movies”, where the completed footage and the Blender-based tools to make the movie are freely available.  There have been several, but the last two, Sintel and Tears of Steel, are by far the most impressive to me.  And, they’re both available to watch on YouTube!
They’re less than 30 minutes of combined run-time, but they’re both pretty cool and totally worth checking out on your day off.  Sintel is about a young girl and a dragon in a fantasy world and is completely animated.  Tears of Steel is about love in the far future when robots threaten the Earth and is part animation and part live-action, but pretty seamlessly integrated.
You can find Sintel here: Sintel on YouTube.  And you can find Tears of Steel here: Tears of Steel on YouTube.

Hey, if you’re reading this on Good Friday, then you have the time to check it out!