Announcing: Blender Cloud Services
- 20 Apr 2016
- 2 min read
It is time to start sharing the results of our work on Blender Cloud Services. In the upcoming weeks we want to roll out a number of features for our subscribers.
- Private projects and file management in the Blender Cloud
- Blender ID add-on for Blender, so that users can be authenticated with their Blender ID account
- Blender Cloud add-on for Blender, to access Blender Cloud features within Blender (Texture libraries)
- Attract shot list management integration
Private projects
A project in the Blender Cloud is a collection of related content, such as each Open Movie project, Training or library (Texture Library, Art Gallery). Soon each Blender Cloud subscriber will be able to create private projects where images, blend files or videos can be uploaded and shared with other cloud members. For example you could create your own personal texture library.
Blender ID add-on
A new add-on called Blender ID authentication is available in master. Once you enable it you can login with your Blender ID credentials (email and password). At that point your identity will be used by Blender to give you access to online content via other add-ons, such as the Blender Cloud add-on. Technical documentation and source code of the Blender ID add-on is available at https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/BIA/.
Blender Cloud add-on
While the Blender ID add-on is designed to provide authentication, the Blender Cloud add-on will provide the connection between the Blender Cloud and Blender. Texture asset browsing and shot management with Attract are the first features that will become available.
Attract
You might remember about Attract, the production and shot management tool we used in Tears of Steel and Cosmos Laundromat (https://gooseberry.blender.org/production-tools-state-report/). Working on Attract during those projects provided a lot of insight in the development to the current Blender Cloud and we are now planning to make it available for your private projects.
Release plan
We intend to incrementally bring all these features to Blender Cloud subscribers, starting with project creation and file management.
Public beta testing will start at the end of next week, so stay tuned for further updates!
17 comments
Anything new on this?
@BrianDeArtiste: The good news is that now Blender ID is directly available in Blender (via the Blender ID add-on).
Further, via the Blender Cloud it's now possible to access the Texture Library, the HDRI library, and any private texture or HDRI library you might create!
Attract integration is being tested at the Blender Institute during the Agent 327 project.
@Forgotten.Fantasies: Its just a small tool to make charts on websites: https://cloud.blender.org/stats/
@Simon_L.: What's Graphista?
@BrianDeArtiste:
You can have a look at Attract, Flamenco and Grafista if you know (or guess) the correct URL ;-)
Edit: changed "Graphista" (wrong) to "Grafista"
My wish list would include a way to upload / download shaders (i.e., nodes) directly into a blend file on Blender. Material and asset management in Blender is pretty much a pain, especially when trying to find a material or asset I made some time ago and want to reuse it. I have to find the blend files and search for the items I want to append or link, etc. In order to do this, I must create blend files for each material I want to be able to view in a thumb nail.
I would like to be able to upload my favorite materials and assets to the Blender cloud, be able to view, and access them on any of my computers.
Perhaps it would be something like a node group where I can create a description and notes on which blend files I've used with it. Ideally, it would be applied to a basic object to see what it lookes like, or I could upload an image of it.
There are a couple of asset managment addons that are emerging, but they are not yet well integrated into Blender in my opinion. Still better than looking through lots of individual projects tring to find the objects I want to reuse.
Great job so far. Every corner that I can cut in a workflow is cause for celebration.
Everything to do with Blender just gets better and better. I first used Blender about 12 years ago and was blown away by it then. i've only just come back to it now and just can't believe how much it's grown and how amazing it is now. Blender Cloud and these services are a great evolution for the program. Glad to be a part of it.
sounds great! I am already NEEDING those textures :)
Are you going to create a Team Membership for the cloud? It could be great to have such membership with some seats (the artists come and go) for studios like us. Any plans on this?
@Forgotten Fantasies: Sounds pretty similar to the question I just posted. I'm also very interested in this. :) Team-collaboration via the Blender Cloud.
@Chris Offner: Yeah, I didn't refresh the page before posting my comment. From Francesco's post I can infer that collaboration between other Cloud subscribers is gonna be a fact. A Team Membership would be great if we could have several users from only one subscription.
I'm very excited about this announcement, thank you! :)
In particular Attract is something I'd be very interested in. Are there any plans to form private teams with other Blender Cloud subscribers which then can share assets, project files and other project-related things with each other (but not with the public)?
Being able to use the Blender Cloud with Attract as a project management platform for a team of friends and co-workers that I'll be doing animation work with would be tremendously useful and a great value proposition for the Blender Cloud! :)
Perfect !! Most welcomed !
Integrating Attract into cloud sounds great! Will there be price differentiation by features, or quota on how much HD-space projects can take?
@Ville Lukka: There will be a free amount of storage, after which a pricing change will be required. We are going to provide more details about it in the upcoming weeks :)
Excellent!
sounds great!
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