Brian LaRusso
Ben Lauren
ENC 1102
3/9/2011
Open Source Animation and Game Design
I recently became interested in making my own video game. A friend and I decided to look in to what software we would need along with what skills would be necessary. During our searching we came across a program called Blender. Blender is an open source animation and game design program. It is free to download and use. We were surprised to find we had everything we needed to make our game. To think that all this is available for free lead me to think how could free open sourced software effect video game design and animation projects? How has open source software affected professional studios and can studios using open source program compete with their main stream competitors? Could a high quality game you might buy at the store be made for a fraction of the cost or even free? Could freedom from program royalty allow the average individual to collaborate with others online to make a great game or animation? How would this effect the progress of animation and game design in general? How could this help people express themselves in animation and game design where the only requirement to get started is an internet connection?
I didn’t really know too much about open source. So to start I needed to get an understanding of what an open source program was. I decided that the library would be the best place to start so I went online to check their online databases. I started with Proquest and found the following definition. “FLOSS-based technologies make their source codes publicly and freely available, and provide the freedom to modify them” (Chengalur-Smith, Nevo and Demertzoglou 708-729). Floss according to the same source is an acronym for Free/Libre Open Source software. This open source concept is not just limited to animation software but has been a growing trend in software design. As explained in the previous publication open source started as open source operating systems like Linux and free web servers like apache. It later was implemented to middle level applications. Some examples of these are web browsers like FireFox and even word processing and office tools with the Open Office Suite. According to this source FLOSS is reaching a level of quality that it is competing well with commercial and proprietary software packages.
Now that I had a firm understanding of what open source software is I needed to understand the main stream video game and animation giants and what the costs and steps to making a finished product are. After checking the library databases with little success I turned to google.com where I found Animation Career Pro. This site had a nice break down of the costs and hurtles to running an animation studio. In an article Titled Production Schedules and Budgets the author sums it all up in their introduction. “The animation industry is extremely competitive. An insurmountable amount of work goes into formulating schedules and budgets, negotiations with clients, setting up a pipeline, equipment, crewing up departments (finding the talent), … and finally getting a project green lit” (foxall). Now one of the costs that they are faced with is purchasing software. According to this article it takes 8 people working on 150 frames a day about 6 weeks to make a 22min production. If the productions a series or a longer movie it takes ether more time or more people working to meet deadlines. To find out the cost of software for a studio making a 22 min short I will first need to answer the following question. What are the top commercial animation software products and what are the costs to use them? Using Google’s shopping directory I was able to locate the most popular animation software and their costs. There were cheaper solutions as low as 200 dollars a computer but they were not quite professional level Solutions. On average professional level software like Autodesk® Maya® 2011 costs around 3500 dollars a work station. Now if we take the predicted 8 people for a 22 min short it’s a total of 28000 dollars in software costs alone. It’s easy to see why free open source software is catching on.
The question I would need to answer is can FLOSS compete with expensive
software? Besides making the ignorant assumption that if it costs more it must
be better ;how can I compare the quality of these programs? Well if animation companies can create a
finished product with this software then that seems to be the most important
qualification for the software. I needed to find out if there were any
professional level animations out their made with FLOSS. To start I looked on
the Blender foundation website. Here they had links to several open projects.
Since these are open projects I was able to view these animations for free as
well as had access to purchase the files used to create these animations. Some
of the shorts were Big Buck Bunny, Sintel andElephants Dream. Since the software is free I was able to view and manipulate these
animations and models. It didn’t seem to far a step for me to start doing some
animating of my own. The quality of these animations was on the level of Pixar
or Dream works and was satisfactory to me as a viewer. While there are many other factors involved
in picking software an open source option seems like a great way to make a
studio more competitive by having a lower operation cost.
Now we know that Floss animation and game design software can compete with propriety software’s. What other innovations is this type of software creating? What about the new open source animation and game community. Are there any individuals out there working solo or collaborating online? Under open projects on Blenders website I got my first lead. Yo Franky! a spinoff game for the blender short Big Buck Bunny was already completed and in their sites blog was a contest to design your own level using their game source code. The winner got to have their levels added to the game. Because blender is free to download anyone could potentially be part of this project. For example if you were faced with this same competition on a game designed in Maya you would have to shell out 3500 dollars to be a part of the project and that’s only designing the animations not the actual game you would need another program for that.
What about a completely individual game made by a person.
A game of their own inception not made in any sense of a traditional studio. To
find this I turned to youtube.com. YouTube has become a major tool of the open
source animation and game design community. Many individuals create Blender
tutorials and showcase their projects here. One of the many promising projects
I ran into was Elpis. This game was
conceived by an individual and is worked on by a few individuals. On YouTube he
provides video blog updates on the project and has a working game that while it
is still in creation is easily on the level of mainstream gaming. On Nycholas Nweissberg’s blog on blenderartists.org he has an
active form where anyone can add feed back as he works on his game. Here he has
one on one talks with the fans of his project and gets criticism of his work so
far. For example an user on his blog suggested he make the game on the Linux
platform or OS( operating system) too instead of just on Windows. Nycholas replied
that he would love to do this but he would need to learn a few more things to
do that. The fellow subscriber responded with detailed instructions on how to
accomplish this. This kind of collaboration is a key characteristic of what
open source programs are enabling its users to do. These collaborative
communities create in my opinion an artistic bohemian style community that will
improve the quality of games and animations in new and innovative ways.
In my search on YouTube I discovered several communities that provide help and tutorials for blender. These individual and groups who have discovered this free software provide help to other to learn to create their own animation and game art. One user super3boy has many tutorials and even a private blog to share his passion for open source animation and game design. In his own words “Blender is a free open source program that lets you make your own 3D artwork. In this channel I will show you how to use this program through a series of tutorials.” (super3boy)
Open source animation and game design software is the continuation of the new trend of FLOSS. Open source has created lower costs in professional studios by freeing up easily 28000 dollars off the budget for software costs. It has allowed individual and small groups to collaborate online to make new and innovative games and animations. Open source programs for animation and game design are freely available and allow anyone with a computer the opportunity to create animations and games of their own. Open source programs like Blender have created rich online communities that provide free education to individuals who are interested in learning a new artistic skill. While the effect of the innovation of FLOSS in animation and game design is still in its infancy it is already beginning to show progress.
Works Cited
Chengalur-Smith, InduShobha, Saggi Nevo and Pindaro Demertzoglou . "An Empirical Analysis of the Business Value of Open Source Infrastructure Technologies." Journal of the Association for Information Systems 11.11 (2010): 708-729.ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 3 Mar 2011. <http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.fiu.edu/docview/846783213?accountid=10901>.
Gives a good definition of what open source is and a brief history of its progression and quality.
(Chengalur-Smith, Nevo and Demertzoglou 708-729)
"Elpis Blender game updates." Elpis Blender Game. YouTube, Web. 6 Mar 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/user/Nweissberg>.
("Elpis Blender Game")
Foxall, Angela. "Production Schedules and Budgets."Animation Career Pro. Animation Career Pro , 22-02-2009. Web. 3 Mar 2011. <http://animcareerpro.com>.
Good insight to the costs and challenges of running an animation studio.
(foxall)
nweissberg, Nycholas. "Elpis the game (Some very old games!!!)." Blenderartists.org. Wes Burke, 26-Feb-2011. Web. 6 Mar 2011. <http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=175257>.
(nweissberg)
Roosendaal, Ton. Big Buck Bunny. stichting Blender Foundation, 25-Jan-2011. Web. 1 Mar 2011. <http://www.bigbuckbunny.org>.
Example open source production animation (Roosendaal).
Roosendaal, Ton. Yo Frankie!. stichting Blender Foundation, 25-Jan-2011. Web. 1 Mar 2011. <http://www.yofrankie.org/>.
Example open source game (Roosendaal2).
Roosendaal, Ton. "Blender Open Projects." Blender. stichting Blender Foundation, 25-Jan-2011. Web. 3 Mar 2011. <http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/blender-open-projects/>.
Useful for learning about the program blender but also provided links to open projects that are on a professional level which helped with credibility on open source options.
(Roosendaal3)
super3boy, . Blender Tutorials. YouTube., Web. 6 Mar 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/user/super3boy>.
(super3boy)