Blender third open movie project, code-named "Durian" is ramping up to production, and time is running out for the pre-sale campaign if you want to get your spot in the credits. This time the project is focusing on an adolescent audience with an epic-fantasy setting and a female protagonist (my son aptly dubbed this the "Chicks in Chainmail" genre). The only art yet available from Durian itself is the series of banner ads (by concept artist, David Revoy), but an impressive creative team has already been announced.

Durian's Goal

A durian is a spiky pungent fruit which also describes the atmosphere promised for the Durian movie project. Like the Durian, it's likely to be a very specific taste, unappealing to some, but loved by others.

In any case, producer (and Blender founder) Ton Roosendaal described the theme in these words:

Short 3D animation film, 5-8 minutes.

Epic short story, emotional impact, action scenes

Targeted at adolescents. Ok, we all still are, right! :)

So let’s add a female/girl as main character!

Visual and conceptual appearance of a typical “Hollywood” blockbuster or game trailer

As with the previous Blender open movies, Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny, the Durian film will be only the centerpiece of the release, with the real meal being the artwork, models, rigs, and technical development that come from the production process.

Durian's Team

The Durian project's original announcement drew an enormous number of applications -- about three times as many as for Big Buck Bunny, according to Roosendaal. Among them were some very talented people, including the artists who were ultimately selected.

There is no concept artwork for Durian itself yet (aside from the banner ad), but there is some clue in the artists' portfolios and durian applications. Technical team members Brecht van Lommel and Campbell Barton, musician Jan Morgenstern, animators Nathan Vegdahl and Lee Salvemini, and (of course) producer Ton Roosendaal return to the project, having worked on the previous Blender open movie projects. New talents include the scenario writer, Martin Lodewijk, a noted Dutch comic artist and Colin Levy, an independent director.

Among the new artists on the project are concept artist David Revoy, modeler Angela Guenette, renderer Soenke Maeter, and 3D generalist Ben Dansie. These will be the people primarily responsible for the ultimate "look" of the film, and so it's worth taking a peek at what they have done before (I like to place these in production order -- concept, model, animation, overall):

My Official Durian Plug

As you probably know if you read my column, I like eye candy, and I expect there will be plenty of it in Durian. I also like to see successful free-licensed art projects, and though only time will tell about that, Durian is looking like a very promising production. Finally, I believe that artists and developers really should be paid, and supporting a project like this is one way of making that happen. So I encourage you, if you really like free software and free art, to put your money where your mouth is, and support projects like this one.

Luckily, I was able to pre-order before the deadline this time around. That's open until September 15th, if you want to get listed in the credits (you should still be able to pre-order DVDs after, of course). Doing so is a great way to support the free software developers behind Blender and the artists, writers, and directors of the open movie projects. I sincerely hope the Blender Foundation will keep raising enough money to support future open movie projects.

As with the Blender Foundation's previous open movie projects, the entire production dataset will be released under free licenses, mostly under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 CC By 3.0 license.

References

[1] About the Durian Project and the Production Blog

[2] Images from David Revoy's Portfolio

[3] Images from Angela Guenette Demo Reel, also Alien Soldier Torso 3D Model Turnaround, Human Female Dummy Walk Cycle and Pose, Human Female Dummy Sitting Pose

[4] Images from Nathan Vegdahl Portfolio Video

[5] Images from Soenke Maeter Portfolio

[6] Images from Ben Dansie Durian Application Video