Part III: Blender in Production

Blender is still an underdog in the world of professional-quality CG animation, but a growing number of major animation projects have used Blender as their primary tool. In this part, you’ll learn about the Blender Open Movie Project and the movies it has produced, and you’ll take a peek behind the scenes of the world’s first Blender-made feature-length commercial film Plumiferos. There is a lot to learn from each of these productions, both in how Blender was incorporated into the workflow and in the details of how the animators used Blender to rig and animate expressive and engaging characters. The rigs you’ll look at from those productions will provide you with a lot of interesting ideas and approaches to add to what you learned in Parts I and II about creating and animating characters. Seeing how Blender can be used in this environment might even inspire you to think bigger when planning your own projects.

Chapter 13: The Fruits of Freedom: Open Movies and Open Content

Chapter 14: A Look Inside the Blender Open Movies

Chapter 15: Behind the Scenes with Sintel

Chapter 16: Feifi the Canary—Plumiferos Takes Wing