Ubisoft joins Blender Development Fund
Faeryl Womyn
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This is HUGE.
This is really going to be interesting to see what emerges for synergies.
They aren't just supporting it with money or using it as just one tool. Instead, Ubisoft "will soon adopt the open-source animation software Blender as its main digital content creation (DCC) tool."
Thanks for posting that OP.
Also, they will make their own developments, produced by their own team, freely available to the Blender community.
I believe this will also be providing grants to individuals to help create plugins and add on's for blender and other stuff.
Indeed I look forward to see what is developed from this .
I was talking with a friend of mine a few weeks back, who is a lead developer at Ubisoft, and he was telling me about how big of a switch is going on in the game and animation industries, switching from Maya/Max to Blender.
It shows how powerful this program has become.
I guess a free software makes alot more financial sense that a $2000 lisence for each designer every year in these studios.
Hi Raw,
Maybe that is why I have seen Daz Studio also becoming more popular & desirable among independent animators in the last few years .. I mean, really how can you beat a powerful free 3d software with ready made assets that can be purchased with active gaming licensing, With Daz Studio and the 3d stores that can fill those needs to reduce teams of people working on a single project is a really great combination for independent animators like me who can't afford a team of modelers or texture/surface artist and other specialist . & it allows the little guy like me to participate in a animation industry other wise was closed off to the mainstream art community. even animating with blender you will still need a small team. I use blender alot for small things,making or modifying uv's and modifying props I never been good at using it for animation as i would have to model most everything myself that is why i use Daz, so I look forward to this industry growing.
Licencing costs for software are all but irrelevant in a business that makes billions of dollars. I don't think that is why they are switching to Blender. They must feel that they have more control in Blender since the source code is available and they can customize their tools more.
I'm still confused by all this though. I really doubt they will completely rid themselves of Maya anytime soon. Decades of pipeline tools and industry standard animation workflows can't just be replaced over night. This is a highly unusual move in any case. Moving from one paid software to even another much better (hypothetically) paid software doesn't happen because there is too much work involved for too little benefit. Developing all these internal pipeline tools has cost way more than the software ever did. These tools are used to get work done fast and that is all that counts because time is the only real cost factor in an industry where games take years to develop even with the most optimized pipelines.
Only good things can come from this, IMHO.
Blender 2.8 is a really impressive piece of software, and I think people have just barely scratched the surface of what it can really do. Having some extra benjamins behind further development can only be a good thing in the long run.
Ubisoft used in-house digital content creation tools and switching to blender allows them to spend their resources on research and innovation instead of the core tools.
It took time, but even the naysayers will eventually have to tip the hat to Blender as a professional software -- that also happens to be free, and thus is a good way to get your feet wet into 3D creation if you want to be an independent creator/animator.