For Dummies Blender, 2nd Edition 978-0-470-58446-0 User Manual

Product codes
978-0-470-58446-0
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 Chapter 1: Discovering Blender
Even though NaN went under, Blender had developed quite a strong com-
munity, which was eager to find a way to keep its beloved little program from 
becoming lost and abandoned. In July 2002, Ton established a nonprofit orga-
nization called the Blender Foundation and arranged a deal with the original 
NaN investors to release Blender’s source to the Blender Foundation. The 
price tag was set at €100,000 (which at the time was about $100,000),. Initial 
estimations were that it would take as long as six months to one year to raise 
the necessary funds. Amazingly, the community was able to raise that money 
in a mere seven weeks.
Because of the Blender community’s passion and willingness to put its 
money where its metaphorical mouth was, Blender was released under the 
GNU General Public License on October 13, 2002. With the source in the com-
munity’s hands, Blender had an avalanche of development and new features 
added to it in a very short time. Eight years later, the Blender community 
is larger and stronger than ever, and Blender is a powerful modern piece of 
software, competitive in terms of quality with similar software costing thou-
sands of dollars. Not too shabby. Figure 1-1 shows screenshots of Blender 
from its early days to the Blender of today.
 
Figure 1-1: 
Blender 
through 
the years: 
Blender 1.8 
(top left), 
Blender 
2.46 (top 
right), and 
the major 
changes 
apparent in 
the Blender 
of today 
(bottom).
 
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