My Blender Story

Blender is the world's premier open source content creation suite for high-end 3D (and 3D+2D) graphics.

I first started using Blender during the summer of 2003-2004 shortly after the release of Blender 2.33, having previously tinkered with and outgrown the capabilities of other popular freeware apps available the time (e.g. Draw3D, Anim8or, and OpenFX to name a few). Admittedly, like many, I was initially put off by the interface the first few times I tried using Blender. Having an underpowered integrated graphics card that caused a lot of flickering and glitching probably didn't help. However, after persevering through the famous "Gingerbread Man" tutorial, things finally started to click.

The production of Elephants Dream - the world's first Open Movie project - was an important moment in both the history of Blender and

Blender Development Work

Since 2006, I've been an active core Blender developer, focussing primarily on the Animation System/Tools and Grease Pencil. Under my watch, Blender's animation capabilities have developed from being viewed as a :toy", to being comparable to (and in some cases more advanced) than "industry standard" tools such that multiple feature film productions have now been fully animated (or are in the process of being animated) using tools I've created.

Animation System/Tools

Main contributions:

Notable Contributions:

Other Animation-Related Development

Grease Pencil

Original creator of the Grease Pencil tools in Blender. For more details, see the paper.

Blender 2.5 Project

In addition to working on the Animation System refactor for Blender 2.5, I also worked on the following projects:

General Development

Other things I've worked on include:

Scripts and Addons

Quick Links

Development Sneak Peaks

[Gallery:DevVideos]

Blender Art

[Gallery:Art]