I recently ran across this 3D artist’s perceptions about moving from commercial to free, open source software. I appreciated what I believe to be an objective analysis of the costs and benefits of commercial and open source software. Sure, the commercial software has some nice features that you’ll have to live without…but do those really affect your artistic expression? Probably not. How much do you gain by moving to free, open source alternatives like the time you gain for artistic work when you don’t have to analyze the financial costs of upgrades, plugins and other up-sells that keep subtracting from your personal or professional budget? I’m guessing most non-profits and churches identify closely with the author’s tension caused by “[wishing] to conduct business in a legal, sustainable fashion amidst a struggling economy”.
There are many very full-featured free, open source alternatives to all of the mainstream art and production software. Give them a try…you just might find that free is freeing in more ways than just in your pocketbook…
Just saw this pointer to a couple video compilations showing some of what is possible these days with Blender 2.55, the open source animation, compositing, and many-other-things-multimedia software. If you’ve been wanting to do some more advanced stuff, but can’t take the financial hit of After Effects or Cinema 4D (or anything else really) it would be worth it to try out the latest Blender. It’s not for the faint of heart though, it’s a serious program with serious power. Take a look!
Several weeks ago, someone at the ChurchCreate blog sent out a link to free and good commercial use fonts. One of the main sites they referenced was The League of Moveable Type where you can download several high quality and completely open source fonts. Very cool!
Post back here and let me know if you use them in a project…
I just wanted to welcome Lightworks into the open source family of software. It is still in process of being fully open-sourced, but the first step has happened and you may now freely download the same application used to edit Pulp Fiction, The Departed, Centurion and Shutter Island. Not a bad resume, I think. Right now, Lightworks is Windows-only, but since there isn’t an easy to use non-linear video editor on Windows in the open source world, it’ll be great to add that support.
Let me know your thoughts if you end up checking it out. I will be waiting until Linux is supported which will hopefully end up on their road map eventually. But, still a really great addition to the suite of tools of pro video editing. Thanks, Lightworks!
Pulp Fiction, The Departed, Centurion and Shutter Island
The Kdenlive team recently posted with tips on using your HDDSLR footage with Kdenlive. I know a lot of the church community is using DSLRs in their video workflow because of the high quality and low price point compared to anything else. Kdenlive is a very capable (but still maturing) non-linear video editor that compares to FinalCut Pro, Vegas, Premiere, etc. Hope this helps!
As I was reading a review of the latest Ubuntu, I noticed a reference to Jokosher.
Jokosher is a simple and powerful multi-track studio. Jokosher provides a complete application for recording, editing, mixing and exporting audio, and has been specifically designed with usability in mind. The developers behind Jokosher have re-thought audio production at every level, and created something devilishly simple to use.
I haven’t had a chance to check it out myself, but if it’s included in Ubuntu then it’s normally pretty stable and ready to go. The good news is that it also supports Windows (I can’t tell about Mac support) for those that haven’t started drinking the Linux kool-aid yet.
For those that try it out, please let me know what you think good and/or bad, so we can help make the project better or let people know about a great cross-platform, free and open source audio application.
Over the next few months, I’ll try to carve out some time to pull it down and look at it to do a more detailed review.
The movie is also a way cool business model based on making everything available for sharing, education and remixing via Creative Commons license. Share it with your organization, your friends, your followers. Copy it, download it, use it as your church service countdown video this week, do what you want with it just as long as you attribute it.
Congratulations for a job well done. I am in awe! I look forward to seeing more faith-based organizations taking advantage of the amazing free and open source multimedia tools that are available like Blender, Gimp, Inkscape, MyPaint, Alchemy and others.
Just saw this come through the Blender channels, looks like a new Korean production house, Dave Interactive, is developing a new TV series with Blender, my favorite 3D-animation-video-editing-special-effects-and-just-about-anything-multimedia-software. The visuals and animation look great on the preview. I look forward to hopefully being able to see the final product.
The latest Kdenlive has been released. It has a ton of features that I’ve been looking forward to namely track effects, on-monitor effect editing for some of the more advanced effects, and lots of tools for color correction. If you’re needing an alternative to Final Cut Pro or other non-linear video editor, give Kdenlive a look. I’ve been very pleased and it keeps getting better. Thanks to all the developers for adding so much into this release! They’ve really done a great job of hitting the areas I’ve thought were weak (without me even asking ). You guys are awesome!
). You guys are awesome!
![[FSF Associate Member]](http://opensourcechurch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/fsfmember.png){kind=small}
