Blender Institute

Institute for open 3D projects

In 2007 Blender Foundation chairman Ton Roosendaal established the “Blender Institute” following the overwhelming success of “Elephants Dream”,the world’s first open movie project. This is now the permanent office and studio to more efficiently organize the Blender Foundation goals, but especially to coordinate and facilitate Open Projects related to 3D movies, games or visual effects.

The Institute currently employs 8 people. It houses offices for administration, the e-store, a small render farm, space for workshops/sprints and a large studio for animation film productions.

Entrepotdok view

Contact details

Blender Institute BV
Entrepotdok 57A
1018 AD Amsterdam
the Netherlands

Director: Ton Roosendaal
Administration: Anja Vugts-Verstappen

Chamber of Commerce: 34276786
Tax (VAT/BTW):  NL 8181.52.011.B01

Bank: ING Bank
Bijlmerdreef 109
1102 BW Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Account #: 52 96 212
IBAN: NL22 INGB 0005296212
BIC/Swift code: INGB NL2A

Paypal: ton(at)blender(dot)org

Contact: institute(at)blender(dot)org

Open Projects Business

The term “open project” means that the end result and creation process will be published under an open license, free for everyone to redistribute, reuse, remix or publish. Typically we’ll use the Creative Commons (attribution required) license for it.

Open projects (at least the parts created by the Blender Institute) will be created using free and open source software.

Since we don’t claim income from licensing or royalty, each project has to get financed in advance. A combination of these four different components can be used:

  1. Blender Cloud, an innovative subscription based crowd funding platform. This is currently the main income for Blender Institute.
  2. Blender Foundation grants, blender.org campaigns, donations, etc.
  3. Subsidy (Culture funds, EU, Government…). This reflects the public benefit side of projects we do.
  4. Workshops, training, seminars, documentation (books). Education is an important market for free and open projects.
  5. Corporate sponsoring, commercial jobs, and income from third party cooperation. Companies can enjoy the immediate benefits of having rights-free content.

These are the core components of  the business model of the Institute, and the proposed business model for marketing open content.

caminandes3-poster

 

Current project

In the past 8 years, we’ve realized eight open projects.

Currently we work on Blender Cloud content (rigging tools, character libraries, Agent 327 studies) and Cloud Services (storage, shot and project management).

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Blender Animation Studios

agent-pose-300-101x300To further explore open source production software, producer Ton Roosendaal has expanded the Institute’s studio activities aiming at independent production of feature animation films.

Agent 327: Manhattan File will be the first official Blender Animation Studios production, aimed at commercial distribution.

This project is currently in early development.