Actually, the western world has traditionally rewarded skilled artists and craftsmen quite well - assuming they at least entertained. Both small and large scale undertakings could see an artist at least making his way, if not being raised to importance almost as great as their leaders. There were plenty who didn't and barely skimped by. I'd wager even back then there were many more artists who were barely worth feeding than there were who created the great works we know about today. If an artist was good enough, often somebody rich, or a noble, would take him on as a patron so he could do nothing but create art, the equivalent of a professional artist today, and often recompense him quite well for his efforts.

Of course, the original musicians, sculptors, painters, bards, and what have you worked under different constraints. They couldn't record their works for one. For another, there were many more people who were working just to earn their daily bread than had extra to spend on entertainments of any sort, even in Greek and Roman times.

Even their philosophers, who were often looked upon as subversives, managed a living from their students, even putting up Academies.

Art was not looked upon as a waste of time, even going that far back. Theaters to host 14 thousand or more people were raised, at great expense, allowing most citizens to enjoy plays. Civic leaders paid sculptors and craftsmen to raise temples, statues, and other impressive works both for themselves and their populace.

Sure the Greeks and Romans both employed slaves. I don't know what % of the general population of Greeks were made up of slaves - I believe it was higher for the Romans - but citizens were expected to participate in art by at least going to the theater, if not creating some of the art themselves. In fact, the Greeks and Romans expected more of their "good" citizens then we typically do. They expected them to manage at least a household, to participate in politics, if a man to be a warrior at need, and to broaden ones mind with theater and the arts.

Or a bit of a Don Quixote?

These shorts are to improve blender at least as much as they are to generate interest in it.

As far as full movies in Blender? Well, there's Plumiferos, even though it's not a Hollywood movie.

Blender has some challenges in Hollywood. The main one is that Hollywood studios already have 3D packages they use and many YEARS of time devoted to those tools, making plugins for those tools, etc.

I'd expect it to get more traction in independent films, or even T.V., before there's a big enough critical mass of professional artists to do a large scale Hollywood CG movie with Blender, even if the tool is capable of producing such a movie today. There's Project London that seems to be making decent use of it. Some scenes are better, some are worse, but it's certainly an ambitious project.

The Blender team seems to be happy with the people who are using it, and I think the Blender project is one of the more successful projects that moved from proprietary to open source. Just because the project is smaller scale than a Hollywood movie doesn't mean that Blender isn't finding a lot of niches.

I would gladly watch this in preference to yet another commercial, or preview that has nothing to do with the movie I came to watch.

I like the idea of a theater running a few shorts either in place of previews or as works in their own rights. Contact them and see if you can get a copy of the 35mm print.

How about the guys who do both? The person who just wants to create for the fun of it, and has a clear goal of what to do with the power - "money units" - his creations give him, allowing him to create more things for the fun of it, maybe even, gasp, exclusive of finding some other way to get "money units". And, heck, with more money units, create even bigger, more impressive things because the money units free him up to do so?

Bah, I'm done ranting. I've posted a similar response in several places. I just don't understand why a "real" artist shouldn't want to be able to make money making art. Some artists who aren't good enough - not just with art, but with managing time, contacts, luck, networking, marketing, and everything else that has to be done to be a successful artist - may continue to create art in his free time. Others will find life overtaking them and have very constrained bits of time to devote to their art if they can't make it as an artist.

And the twain shall never meet? GREAT art can't also be entertaining? One can't be passionate about creating a work for entertainment?

Doctors, police, and even vile capitalist manufacturers can't be passionate about what they're doing? And an artist, being the passionate sort that he is, cannot want to receive some money, or even great bushels of it, both so that he can spend as much of his time creating that which he's impassioned, and so that he can enjoy the fruits of success the same as any other professional? I'm sorry, but most great artists will only be greater if they're making money at their chosen undertaking, rather then diluting their energy having to do "something else", and treating their art as a hobby, to be done only after the bills are paid by some other job that takes up most of their day and energy. And not every form of art lends itself well to "performances". Should those who have to sell recordings, or books, or anything else that can easily be copied not get some return on the time and risk they took to produce the work?

There are some artists, probably even some good or great artists, that may have to do just this to support their work. Some will continue to do it regardless, and some, even some who may be great, may give up their art because the day to day demands of their money grubbing life take up too much of their time. Or relegate their art to a very low priority. I think great artists, artists who take themselves seriously, also want to be recompensed for their art. Man writers, for instance, don't consider themselves "real" writers until they're published. Many don't consider themselves real writers until they can support themselves while writing.

Yes it is, and I think there are even hooks into databases to manage it, it just didn't seem to be the point of this project - and I don't know how good it is at handling mobs.

Ah. I'll have to re watch as I missed it at the beginning. I need to download a lower quality version as my player chokes a lot on the high quality one giving me big gaps in the action. :-( Though there's a good chance I still would've missed it at the beginning of the fight thinking it's the "bad" big dragon.

A few differences: 1 - It's produced on Blender, using Blender as the tool to make the movie. Which means that any feedback from the team goes straight to the devs making Blender better. A lot of Blender's improvements happen because of these shorts.

2 - Many independent films are using "closed" and expensive tools like Maya. Even if you don't like the plot, characters, or general theme of this movie, if you thought the graphics were as good as even a relatively recent in-game movie that was rendered rather than using the game's engine, then I'd say they've done their job, and they've made Blender better while doing it. (In game movies can take quite a team of artists and a but-ton of money to create.) Further, the movie can be shared, and a lot of the techniques for making the movie are shared, which isn't true about most films of any sort.

-- Off topic --

3 - Most of EVERYTHING is bad in some way or other, and yet the people who say everything that Hollywood produces is crap, or everything that this or the other group produces is crap seem to ignore the genuine gems. They don't come along all that often. This isn't one of them, but it entertained me for the length of the film. It was a decent tragedy. Many critics also ignore the value in "this movie was decent and entertaining." It wasn't great. It didn't change my life. It was cliched - the Greeks in their day were saying that every plot and character device out there had already been used - but there's a fair amount of value to being entertained for a little bit, even if it isn't "great".

4 - I'm not saying that this is you, but many who illegally download movies use the "The movie wasn't great" excuse to download and watch them. Or games. Or music. This attitude disturbs me. If you're so concerned about the quality of the entertainments you consume, rather than downloading and not paying for it, let some critic you trust watch it first - be said critic your friend, a paid critic, or what have you, then make the decision to watch the movie or listen to the music. (Or find some cheap/free way legally getting the content, even if it involves a commercial or two.) I think most of the torrent freaks out there actually enjoy the content they consume - I realize that some are collectors and never watch their whole library, but they certainly get to a fair chunk of it - even if the piece wasn't ground breaking in some fashion. They use the tired argument that if it isn't the best thing ever, why should they pay for it? And maybe they shouldn't, but does that mean they should have carte blanch to get the content for free? I don't like Hollywood's tactics, copyright terms, or a lot of the IP bullying that happens, but most don't seem to be downloading copies of the first Mickey Mouse movies, most seem to be downloading the latest and greatest "shovelware", implying that they like said shovelware. Many of the people who seem to criticize everybody also

I don't get the attitude that certain people excelling in their professions should be happy about excelling and that that satisfaction should be enough. That expecting monetary recompense is somehow a gross dereliction of the duty of the starving artist. Why should artists or musicians not get compensated if they create a great recording or movie?

How is saying that artists aren't willing to give up their work for free any different than saying "Most doctors aren't willing to perform surgery without being getting a salary." and then replying "Then they're not really doctors are they?"

Now, if you were being clever with the word illusory, then you can paint a big whoosh above my head. The attitude that certain professionals should simply do what they do for the love of it and not expect some sort of monetary recompense, or worse, should get said money from some other career bugs me. How is an artist going to be a great artist if their most productive hours are spent doing something else? (To a lesser extent teachers and a few other professions have the same "low pay" stigma attached to them.)

That's not to say every artist is great. If one can't make one's way making recordings, doing paintings, or whatever creative endeavor they're undertaking, they may have to work as something else to make ends meet, but for those who are great musicians, artists, or what have you, and can find people willing to pay them for their work, why shouldn't they expect to get paid be that pay an up front lump, royalties, or whatever other method they've come up with?

Without the scar, there's nothing to differentiate this dragon from any other. If you didn't expect the results by the time the fight paused we get a big hint it's her dragon when he sniffs her. Even then we might not be sure it's her dragon until you see the scar. *shrug* I think they pulled this one off really well. Maybe it wasn't a GREAT tragedy, but it was certainly decent, especially given the time frame. My props to the team. I liked this movie a lot better than Big Buck Bunny or Elephant's Dream - that one would've been a lot better had one of the characters not been named Emo.

Did you notice the timescale? She goes from a young woman to having gray in her hair. Given enough time you can hike pretty much anywhere that isn't separated by large bodies of liquid water. Even today people hike across the United States. I'm pretty sure that's true of Europe, Asia, and Africa too. All these places have regions that match up roughly with what's in the movie.

I'm pretty sure many of those details are up there on the site. I know that Blender actually has some built in stuff for video editing, so a lot of the editing may have been done in Blender. Check the site for more details, they tend to be pretty open about what they're using.

& they offer at least Quicken and CSV. 'Course, I can't promise said bank won't go bankrupt, get absorbed into another bank, or change their back end system, in which case your history may be lost.

My suggestion is to not let 6+ months of transactions go unaccounted for. If you've your transactions for all but the last month or 3, then most banks will let you pull the rest of the transactions.

That way, if they get bought, change their back end, or whatever, you have all, or 99% of your data.

If you have your transactions saved locally and downloaded about once a month, then it shouldn't matter that you can only get 3-6 months of transaction data.

My 2c.

Star Wars set the bar for Sci-Fi movies, action, and special effects movies for 20 years at least, in story, acting, and special effects. It can be argued if that was the bar we should've measured things against, as opposed to more cerebral efforts - ala 2001, but it was the bar. To some, it still is, and that's not just your nerdy geeky set either.

The story of the first three was good. Nothing bookwormisghly great, but certainly not bad, and better than just about any sci-fi movie of its time. Some of the literary greats could use a little bit of...I don't know, movement. Maybe actually talk to that guy you're pining over for chapters... There's only so many pages of court backbiting or noble gossip I'm willing to put up with, even from the "greats". Star Wars wasn't a great when compared to literary movies, but it certainly still is when compared to Sci-Fi or Fantasy.

The dialog was certainly campy, and I don't know if anyone other than Harrison Ford could've pulled off some of the lines as well as he did, but he did do it, and audiences loved it. Not just the geeky 15 year old set. Simply put, it was a fun movie!

If that wasn't enough, it was the movie that pulled us into the era of modern special effects. For its day it was revolutionary. Many will bemoan that transition, and certainly Hollywood has done less with more effects - see the prequels - because of these movies, but that doesn't mean Star Wars wasn't the movie that raised the visual bar for certain classes of movies. Heck, a lot of the modern CGI looks flat and stale compared to the models from the original 3.

Sure, held against today's movies Star Wars isn't the visual bonanza it was back when. Its pace was about perfect given the genre. It's story is still better than most of the action, sci-fi, or fantasy movies we're getting today. Or romances. Or..well, let's face it. There just aren't that many great movies out there. Dozens of okay movies, but revolutionary or groundbreaking in one fashion or another? That doesn't often happen, and just shrugging that off in a movie? It might not be the movie for you, but it certainly influenced cinematography for a couple generations of "summer blockbuster" movie makers. Not many movies can claim to hold an audiences attention beyond the release of the next film one is looking forward to seeing. The original trilogy held the attention span of several generations of movie goers.