The Blender Foundation today announced their presence at the 2006 Siggraph Exhibition. They have teamed up with the Gnome Foundation and the Uni-verse consortium to create, for the first time ever, an Open Source pavilion on the exhibition.
The joint effort will create a very strong presence for Open Source software on the exhibition that is traditionally dominated by closed software. The ability to show Elephants Dream will definitely increase the impact of this show and the goal of Elephants dream, to put Open Source software firmly on the map in the professional graphics industry, will be one step closer.
Ton writes:
Thanks to a big discount granted by the Siggraph Committee, and a substantial (but anonymous still) donation we can put ourselves on a giant 20x30 island booth amidst companies like Disney, Electronic Arts and Boxx, in the main aisle of the trade show... just a couple of booths away from Lightwave, Maya and 3DStudio."
It looks like this is going to be a great show and while Blender (and Elephants Dream) and the Gimp will of course feature prominently, Ton makes it clear that other open graphic applications are welcome as well:
We don't want to limit our presentation to only the three organizing partners, also other open source CG projects are very welcome to present on the booth. For example Inkscape and Aqsis have been contacted already. My target is to have at least for them (together) a designated 'demo pod' as well."
The Foundation still needs help and/or sponsorship for finding an 'approved' booth constructor, getting a good deal with rental of video and audio systems and computers, and the creation of a DVD handout. Furthermore, they can always use help to set up equipment, give demonstrations (on the big screen if you dare!), so shopping etc.
On top of it all, the Foundation is giving away 150 free Exhibition Passes. Details on those will follow.
More Siggraph updates, some of them involving BlenderNation, will be posted here during the following weeks, so stay tuned!
Siggraph 2006 is held from 1-3 August in the Boston Convention Center.
11 Comments
A very great news!!
It's very important to be at the Siggraph with such important pavillon (and with the other closed swhouses around the corner...).
*Bravo* to Ton and all the Blender Found. ;-)
Excellent news!
...sweet...
Do you think we can be a little bit worried about it ?
If some of these companies buy our little boy ?
I am kidding ... as I know it is impossible because today Blender belongs to all of us and my part in this cake will be too expensive that nobody can afford it ...
By the way it is an opportunity to Blender Foundation starts a project with teh sponsor of these giants. What do you think about it ?
Tio Ilmo
About time Theres a lot of Good Software out there.
People spend a lot of time working hard to put it out there
Ton Thank you..
Awesome! This should be a great oppurtunity to get some more attention focused on Blender, especially after elephants dream has just come out!
I making advertisemen which adverts Open Source Software (Pixie, Blender, Gentoo Linux).
Video pipes is:
gimp+cinepaint -> blender (modeling/animation) -> ribber (my own Blender2RenderMan tool) -> Pixie (rendering) -> blender (compositing/NLE)
Audio pipe is:
audacity->ardour
Any chanse to show my clip and related info on Siggraph?
And when will deadline to send complite clip?
PS: Project home is: http://www.george-graphics.co.uk/pixiewiki/index.php/ArtProjects/OpenAdv
PPS: my old full blender work: http://akhil.nm.ru/gallery/free/video/images/whisper.gif
oh excuse me. old blender work here: http://akhilman.chat.ru/video/fvt_320x180_12.5fps_mpeg4_mp3.avi
All I can say is, muahahaha!
This is quite awesome, and I wish the best to the Foundation for this amazing opportunity to gain some much-deserved exposure - right up there with the major players!