Great Concept: Open Source 3D Movies !

What a great idea: The Blender Foundation has set up another go at an open source movie (short) after their initial success with "Elephant's Dream". This time the effort is known as "Peach" and it will be a 3D animated short film. Looks tremendously cool. The idea is to bring out talented 3D animators and programmers to Amsterdam from now until April 2008 - all expenses are covered by the sponsors: Airfare, accommodations, meals and top notch studio space. The city itself would be a huge attraction of course. The Blender Foundation and these developers in the community are the financiers and they are also offering a pre-order for the DVD on their website.

From the Peach website: "the movie itself and all of the production files will be published under the Creative Commons, free to be reused and for everyone to learn from. More importantly, the team is going to challenge Blender itself to the max, inspiring the entire development community to prove Blender is ready for feature quality 3D cartoons. Special attention will be paid to fur editing and rendering, and animating cartoonish characters."

Here's what they have been up to until now:

• June 16: Public call for portfolio submissions


• June 26: Closing date for submitting portfolios


• June 30: Announcement team (+ define spares)


• July 1-15: decisions on team roles, concept, how to get script, contracts, payment details


• August 3-12: Siggraph, San Diego


• August 17: Final decision on project duration and team size


• August 20-24: Preproduction workshop. With script writer, with a script! Final contracts signed with all team members


• Sept 1: Final Script

...and here's what their schedule looks like in Amsterdam (click to enlarge):

It looks like they are going to have tons of fun and who knows - maybe this will become a very viable way to make feature length 3D movies. The idea is intriguing to say the least. It has many of the overtones that a James Cameron movie may have in the future with a community of programmers designing environments and creatures for integration into CGI movies; complete with their credits at the end. If revenue sharing was part of the plan, then the sky is the limit. I am really looking forward to buying the "Peach" DVD and seeing the result. Best of luck to the team.

Links: Peach Main Site Pre-order their DVD (and get your name in the credits!)