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Microsoft Joins the Blender Development Fund
- rvz 6y agoEmbrace.
- verdverm 6y agoMicrosoft has been great these last few years. This probably goes with their XR, HL2, MRTK push. Glad to see they are supporting more of the ecosystem!
- giancarlostoro 6y agoNot to mention a lot of their flagship platforms are MIT Licensed, as opposed to MS-PL or their other plethora of licenses. They've also improved .NET with .NET Core and embraced (heh) the community built package manager for .NET as their platform to publish official packages and their updates making the expansion of the already rich ecosystem for .NET easy from Microsoft's standpoint instead of updating things every major release. Microsoft is a big company, so I'm sure there's still some legacy styled management, but there's plenty of good now. Compared to Google, they're doing a lot better contributing to open source.
- pjmlp 6y agoAnd even with their continuous roadmap reboots, old stuff still keeps working and can be targeted today.
- giancarlostoro 6y agoThis is another definitely fascinating aspect I appreciate as well. Watching videos where someone installs Windows 1 and upgrades all the way to Windows 10 is weirdly satisfying. Edit: Another funny thing is some software still works despite them ditching support for it I think despite them saying they no longer would support VB6 you can still install it on Windows 10 if you really wanted to. My advise is dont click anything while the installer UI runs... Its very sensitive.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- oregontechninja 6y agoTheir paint3d app isn't the worst thing for non technical creatives. But it scares me when I see the big MS start "embracing" something I love.
- nickhalfasleep 6y agoIf Microsoft is smart, they will continue to support large productivity applications in major industries that don't fit into an app store model. The kinds of things that work better on a full Windows 10 machine.
- pratik661 6y agoI think the "Commoditize your complement" mantra is used by megacorps to justify their investment in open source. In this case, 3D modeling is probably complementary to their AI investments.
- pjmlp 6y agoglTF 2.0 breakthrough adoption was triggered by Microsoft contributions to move glTF 1.0 beyond WebGL as target API.
- boudewijnrempt 6y agoMicrosoft actually helped me put Krita in the Windows Store. The revenue from that meant that I not only didn't have to find another day job, but that I could hire two other people to work on Krita. Of course, we're cheapskates, and we don't give ourselves a lot of money, but it's still very nice not to have to work on very security-sensitive C++ code in a place an hour by train from where I live for 45k euros a year without pension plan, health insurance or travel reimbursement.
- vikramkr 6y agoAre there any good examples of embrace extend extinguish under nadella's tenure? I keep seeing this meme everywhere (including in this thread) but git is doing fine, Linux is doing fine. The only notable things I've seen extinguished are their own windows phone and phone hardware platforms.
- yodon 6y agoThe fax machine was still a core part of business life back when embrace-extend-extinguish was a thing. It's hard to tell whether those who continue to fixate on this 20-year-old trope are cranky senior citizens who'd otherwise be yelling at people to stay off their lawns or young zealots pining for the days of a long-past battle they were born too late to actually participate in. The rest of us disposed of our fax machines and rotary dial telephones and moved on as the tech landscape, including 100% of the leadership at Microsoft, continued to turn over as happens with time.
- meddlepal 6y agoHell hath no fury like nerds scorned.
- neilsimp1 6y agoExtinguish, I have no examples. But Embrace and Extend, here is a possible one. Not saying I think this is a case of the first two E's necessarily but I know other people have pointed it out. 1. Build WSL2 and incorporate Linux kernel into Windows with great integration. 2. Add DirectX and GPU acceleration support for Linux that works in WSL2 only and not in regular Linux: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-GUI-Apps-GPU-WSL2 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-GU.... These two steps could certainly be looked at as Embrace and Extend, although I admittedly fail to see how they could take an Extinguish step from here.
- zeusk 6y agoWell, the way directx on wsl works is it redirects dxgkrnl escapes/ioctls to host windows system something not possible on native Linux.
- pixxel 6y ago“Corporate Memberships: It's like having developers work for you - on Blender! This membership level is for organisations who want the option to monitor in more detail what will get funded with their contributions. They will get direct access to the Blender team for strategical discussions. Roadmaps and priorities will be aligned with your requirements as good as possible.“
- varbhat 6y ago1) Blender is GPLv2'ed Software,so there is no immediate danger of MS creating proprietary fork of Blender and making money by selling the fork. I beleive that they are contributing to Blender which benefits community as a whole. 2) Offtopic but i wish megacorps collaborate to create FLOSS alternative to Adobe Suit like Photoshop/Other Graphic Design programs. This would super benefit everybody on all platforms.
- boogies 6y ago> create [emphasis added] FLOSS alternative to Adobe Suit [sic] like Photoshop/Other Graphic Design programs What's wrong with Krita, GIMP, Inkscape, etc.?
- esperent 6y agoGimp's interface leaves a lot to be desired (to put it mildly), while inkscape has nowhere near the feature set of Illustrator.
- yorwba 6y agoWhat are some Illustrator features that Inkscape is missing? I edited a few SVGs in Inkscape yesterday and didn't feel like anything was missing.
- boogies 6y agoInkscape is focused on SVG, Illustrator's proprietary format includes a few things it doesn't, like complicated gradients (at least a while ago). Edit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Illustrator#Gradients_along_and_across_strokes https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Illustrator#Gradient...
- Shish2k 6y ago“Should the width of a shape be defined by the inside, outside, or center of its border” is (box-model in HTML terms) is a thing I use all the time in illustrator, but is missing in SVG :(
- Jonnax 6y ago"Microsoft makes use of Blender to generate synthetic 3D models and images of humans that can be used to train AI models. For researchers, having access to high quality free/opensource 3D software has proven to be of great benefit for scientific projects." Here's what they linked: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2019/09/2019-10-01-Synthetic-Data-with-Digital-Humans.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2019/0... Am I in the minority where all I see in this synthetic human stuff is surveillance and propaganda usage? What other benefits are there?
- dvtrn 6y agoR&D for prosthetic limb design or physical therapy using augmented spaces perhaps? Maybe Car crash simulations for accident scene investigators?
- a_t48 6y ago3D models can be used for testing/training self driving cars.
- sidr 6y agoI would think the primary use case for this would be pose estimation and/or recovering 3d models from 2d images. The primary use cases I'd guess is for AR/VR and building other kinds of interfaces (gestures etc). Neither of these use cases seem very useful for surveillance. I'm not convinced that facial recognition algorithms would benefit that much from synthetic faces, but I very well may be wrong about that.
- cltsang 6y agoMetaverse is what I'm thinking. Won't be surprised if one day Microsoft pulls off a product that combines Hololens and Minecraft, i.e. a much better version of Minecraft Earth.
- vsviridov 6y agoAwaiting a heavy dose of woke ideology injected into blender. Inb4dv
- DevKoala 6y agoMicrosoft has dozens of game studios that enjoy using Blender, and no competitor in the space (not recognized as a profitable business). Finding negatives to this move is being too paranoid.
- Impossible 6y agoI doubt any of Microsoft Game Studios seriously use Blender, although I'm sure some individuals might use it for specific workflows. AAA games almost universally use Maya (and ZBrush, Substance and Houdini), for example this presentation on Gears 5 workflow specifically mentions Maya and Houdini (https://cdn.gearsofwar.com/thecoalition/publications/The%20Visual%20Technology%20of%20Gears%205%20V2%20PDF%20Version.pdf https://cdn.gearsofwar.com/thecoalition/publications/The%20V...). This donation specifically mentions digital humans created for Microsoft Research, and MS Research as the user, not Microsoft Game Studios.
- reilly3000 6y agoIt’s more than games. Hololens/mixed-reality has a boundless amount of modeling and more.
- Impossible 6y agoYes, and the article states that. My response is specifically talking about games, because OP addressed Microsoft Game Studios. Microsoft Research and Microsoft Game Studios are different groups. Folks are acting like I said "Blender sux lol". Simply stating facts about usage.
- terramex 6y agoBlender skyrocketed in popularity in last 5 years. I just went through local gamedev job openings site (skillshot.pl) and over half of 3D Artist postings mention Blender.
- Impossible 6y agoI never said that Blender is not used in game development, I specifically said Blender is not widely used in AAA (Microsoft Game Studios) game productions, and that Microsoft Game Studios is not the driving force for this donation (which is stated in the origin post!). This should not be a controversial statement.
- Impossible 6y agoThere is a lot of implied ill-will on HN, I'm guessing the phrase "embrace extend extinguish" in Microsoft related threads gets upvoted? From the post I see that many Microsoft employees (at least in research) use Blender. Microsoft decided to pay for the software their employees are using, which happens to be open source, so the best way to do that is to donate to their foundation. Epic Games, Google, Nvidia, Valve, AMD, Intel, Ubisoft and others have done this (looking at the list of corporate sponsors is easy). This isn't a plot to take over Blender and destroy it from within...
- techntoke 6y agoThe only times I see embrace extend extinguish get brought up on HN is when there is legitimate concern. Obviously, on something like this if someone is bringing it up it would appear inauthentic. However, I frequently see inauthentic articles spewing Google hate that get upvoted and anything that gets brought up suggesting it is manufactured is automatically downvoted.
- acatton 6y agoExactly. According to the membership page[1], Microsoft will be paying between €30k/year and €120k/year[2] to the blender foundation, along Intel and Ubisoft. On the other hand, Nvidia, AMD and Epic games[1] are contributing €120k+/year each.[2] All of these companies get "direct access to the Blender team for strategical discussions. Roadmaps and priorities will be aligned with your requirements as good as possible."[2] I don't see how they're going to "extinguish" blender. With this kind of reasoning, OpenBSD was also "extinguished" in 2019.[3] _____________________________________ [1] https://fund.blender.org/#credits https://fund.blender.org/#credits [2] https://fund.blender.org/corporate-memberships/ https://fund.blender.org/corporate-memberships/ [3] https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2019.html https://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2019.html
- read_if_gay_ 6y agoThe extinguish phase is supposed to come after the embrace phase. Even if Microsoft wanted to extinguish OpenBSD, it's no wonder they are still fine if MS just donated last year. That is not "this kind of reasoning" at all, that is just a strawman.
- s9w 6y agoOh no, Blender has a master branch. Better rename that quickly.
- kevincox 6y agoI'm surprised how low a Corporate Gold membership is, just €30k a year. They claim that is half of a developer year. https://fund.blender.org/corporate-memberships/ https://fund.blender.org/corporate-memberships/ Is the assumption that beyond that you would just hire your own developer to work on blender?
- galgalesh 6y ago€60.000/yr seems reasonable. This is the average salary in the Netherlands (home of the blender foundation).
- JrProgrammer 6y agoCould you provide a source for this statement because I'm pretty sure it's actually closer to 45k/y for fairly experienced developers
- roel_v 6y agoNo, ezperienced C++ devs with the math skills you need to do 3d dev make 60k or more, 45k is just above fresh graduate level. I don't have an online source, just from what I know from companies and people I know, and doing hiring myself in the past. I made more than 45k 10+ years ago when I was an employee.
- potatochup 6y agoI was on approx 60k eur in Amsterdam a few years ago with 3 years experience
- kevincox 6y agoI should have been more clear. My point isn't that the salary comparison was off but that €30k/y is peanuts for a large organization. I would expect to see some higher sponsor levels.
- jfkebwjsbx 6y agoBlender is doing so good nowadays it is crazy... Everyone is supporting them. I hope they keep the team smallish as always!
- justicezyx 6y agoMSFT figures out how to play with Open Source: If you can't defeat them join them
- wutwutwutwut 6y agoThis happened 10 years ago btw.
- mikece 6y agoMicrosoft supporting BSD and MIT licensed open source makes sense; this has become commonplace under Satya's leadership. Aside from contributions to Linux to make it work well in Azure or Git to make it work well for Microsoft's rather unique issues, their supporting GPL licensed products is yet another stark reminder that this isn't Ballmer's Microsoft -- and that Microsoft might actually be doing more for F/OSS software than the FAANGs of the world are at this point in time!
- pjmlp 6y agoI use lots of commercial software, so this is more a kind of philosophical question. Many that still bash Microsoft for EEE practices, are the first in the line killing GPL based stacks, pushing BSD and MIT licenses, which most of the time end up with selected updates in upstream and gold features only on the commercial products. Which kind of makes sense, supermarkets don't take PR, but it is a kind of two weight two measures.
- DrScientist 6y agoThey appear to be using blender to generate data for machine learning! So if you want to be able to recognizes poses or hand gestures from video or image stills, you need data to train your network. The bottleneck is often high quality 'labelled' data - real data that requires people to laboriously label each frame and region with the 'ground truth'. However, if you automatically generate the poses using something like Blender, you can also automatically label, and also generate a huge variety of systematic variations in camera angles, lighting, levels of noise etc. Obviously there might be a worry that the Blender generated images may somehow inject their own bias, but they claim it's working really well. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2019/09/2019-10-01-Synthetic-Data-with-Digital-Humans.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2019/0...
- m12k 6y agoReminds me of how the first version of AlphaGo used recorded games played by humans, but later versions were able to surpass that using self-play.
- nightcracker 6y agoFor the final project of the multimedia information retrieval class in my CS Master's I'm doing something similar. The goal is to predict depth maps from single-view pictures using CNNs. But how to gather input, output pairs to train them? I'm using a mod for Minecraft I wrote to generate such labeled data, e.g. input: https://i.imgur.com/JRtmCeG.png https://i.imgur.com/JRtmCeG.png output: https://i.imgur.com/q4KocXn.png https://i.imgur.com/q4KocXn.png. I'm not done yet so I can't tell you the results, but it's a fun project.
- jcims 6y agoI just started paying attention to Blender again after some years. The tutorials Ian Hubert does really demonstrates how powerful the product has become - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8Ol2n4o4A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8Ol2n4o4A
- nicholasjon 6y agoCame here to say this. This video of his really opened my eyes to what Blender can do (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8Ol2n4o4A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8Ol2n4o4A) and makes a cool entry point into that world.
- bojo 6y agoMan, this software has come a looooong way since I first touched it back in 1997. That is absolutely amazing.
- gfxgirl 6y agoI wish Sony, Dreamworks, Pixar, Disney and other major CG studios would pitch in. They all probably pay 6 or 7 figures a year for licenses for various pro 3D software. I know Blender is not actually at the same level as much of that software but it could be if enough funds were there to support it. Either fund it directly or fund internal devs to contribute.
- MrScruff 6y agoBlender wouldn’t really replace any of their existing software though. It’s not really a competitor for Houdini or Katana. Maybe Maya at some point but good luck getting the modellers and animators to switch.
- pjmlp 6y agoBlender still needs to improve a lot to compete against Renderman, Octane Render, Hyperion Renderer and similar.
- GrammarCommie 6y agoBlender isn't competing with those programs, because those are a different type of software. Those are renderers, not 3D production suites. And two of the renderers you listed can be natively used in Blender in place of its own renderer. Blender is competing against Maya, not Renderman.
- GrammarCommie 6y agoMuch of Pixar's software is entirely in-house. They already pay internal devs work on programs such as Presto. I'd be surprised to see them give up that sort of control.
- goldforever 6y agoBeware the wolf in sheeps clothing...
- zmix 6y ago3E
- Ericson2314 6y agoYeah this seems innocent enough. If Autodesk gets on the board, then we need to be worried.
- Const-me 6y agoThey might need to be there to port the software for that new armv8-a windows they have. I don’t think there’re many volunteers implementing support of a platform that hasn’t quite took off.
- throw_m239339 6y agoTangential but a project I'd like to see supported more financially is FreeCAD, used in many corporations of all sizes, big and small, like Behringer for instance. It's very powerful and capable but incredibly buggy.