Just noticed the website. I wonder if it is posible to collect the money ($37,579.83)

I don't really think they ever reach that kind of money and now I wonder who gets the money if they only collect half of it? do the they relaese half the source?

RWO

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Debugging is a state of mind

It´s great news for the people who love 3D programs but I think it will be difficult to reach that sum of money, anyway, it´s a very good idea.

@RWO

Good question & I don't know, but easy to ask. Aladdin won't work on os4 for some reason. I loved playing with it on my classic, but the 060 was too slow for anything serious.

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Hate tends to make you look stupid...

I am really sceptical that they will even come close to a third of this figure. Aladdin4D is relatively unknown outside the Amiga community. Lightwave 3D almost anyone working within the 3D field knows. Even the full-featured 3D software package which Hyperion licensed to port to OS4 ('Realsoft 3D' / Real3D) is by far a better known software product.

IMO one thing learned over the years is that the open source community isn't too fond on the idea of paying for software. That's why commercial PPC Amiga games could outsell their Linux counterparts by a factor 10 despite having a much smaller userbase. Of course nowadays there are no bigger Linux games companies left anymore...

And let's say the source code would finally be paid for. Then it will still take lots of *free* development work to port this application to multiple platforms and let's not even start about the time and effort required to make Alladin4D fully up to date again.

Last edited by MikeB on 18-Jul-2005 at 08:03 PM.

Open Sesame or open aladdin?

ok, i should'nt post in threads i have no idea about but i just had to

ps:that is alot of money, twice as much as i earn in 1 year.

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IMO one thing learned over the years is that the open source community isn't too fond on the idea of paying for software.

Well, a similar action already succeeded - the source code for Blender was bought free as well this way.

But there's your trouble - there actually *is* Blender, a full featured 3D package with lots of features, an active development community, and it's totally free of charge.

I wish them the best of luck, but I don't believe this amount of money will ever be collectible. Even Amizilla is "only" at some $9000.

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Well, a similar action already succeeded - the source code for Blender was bought free as well this way.

You're right, I was more thinking of the average Linux user. I believe MacOS and other commercial OS users are generally more willing to pay for software (of course there are many multi-OS users, but usually they don't spend their cash on Linux software).

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But there's your trouble - there actually *is* Blender, a full featured 3D package with lots of features, an active development community, and it's totally free of charge.

Yes, porting Blender may make a lot more sense even if the source code was already available.

I believe one of the reasons why Blender did succeed to raise the cash, was due to the fact that it was a high quality freeware product. So lots of people (over 250,000 regsitered users in 2000, amongst these also BeOS users!) got to know the software and its qualities.

When I was looking to learn a nice 3D program on my own, after dealing with AutoCad 3D at work, I found Blender to be the one with the most features including a built in renderer. It was capable of very high end work.

So I picked Blender as a great and free 3D package to get started. What a mistake that was. Blender had (has?) a hideously steep learning curve with an awful and counter-intuitive user interface.. Almost made me give up on 3D I felt so defeated by it.

Then I learned for $39 US I could get their manual and all would be made clear ...... So I wonder if that was how they made much of their money? They didn't get my money I was so unhappy about the whole thing.

Wings3D is (was) much easier to use but no internal rendering system. I finally settled on
Anim8or. Anim8tor is an amazing free 3D Software package. See about it here

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More power to those that are running the project. It may not be a worthwhile effort in everyone's mind, but at least they're out there trying to accomplish something.

Can they raise enough money to make it happen? Who knows, let's give them a chance to answer that for themselves.

Is it worth having the software go open source? The more titles that can run on the platform the better.

I imagine a Windows forum where people are discussing the Amiga OS and some of the comments that have been made about this project would probably be made about Amiga. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Rogue,

I have to agree with BobC. Blender may have a ton of features, but has a learning curve that seems like a brick wall.

When I first started running Linux at home I rushed to try Blender. I've used Lightwave from version two(ugh!) on the Amiga. I've also dabbled in Videoscape, Imagine 1.1 & 2.0, and Aladdin 5.0. As hard to use as some of those are, Blender makes them look dead easy.

I found multiple comments speculating that the steep learning curve was maintained just to sell manuals. Even if this is totally false, it speaks to the frustration I felt while trying to figure out blender.

Good luck OpenAladdin! I'd love to have it for Linux, if only for the speed increase.

I think everyone here has made it very clear why Blender doesn't 'own' the 3D market out there.

$37k isn't really that much. If 1000 people gave $37 each, that would be it. Since we're talking OS4, MOS, AROS, Linux, Windows and Mac, that's a lot of potential donors.

Nova and the OA4D guys have to convince everyone this is worthwhile. I think Aladdin's ease of use makes that obvious. At least to me! Aladdin was also designed (well, redesigned) to be fairly portable. Blender, when it was bought out for over $200k, was missing sections of code the owners didn't have the rights to release even! All of Aladdin's code will be released including modules never completed/released and I'll be around and detailing out the other features and concepts never implemented.

The immediate thing is that aside from other platforms, compiling Aladdin on Amiga OS4 or even MorphOS will be relatively easy. This will give all Amiga fans an enormously fast 3D package to play with on thier machines!

BTW...by the count I've seen so for, most donations to-date have come from MorphOS people...are you guys here up to the challenge of out-doing them?

Kermit

@ Kermit

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I think everyone here has made it very clear why Blender doesn't 'own' the 3D market out there.

Of course not, to name only a few very successful alternatives: 3DS Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Lightwave 3D, etc.

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I think Aladdin's ease of use makes that obvious.

It could be that it's far easier to use. As the more features are added the more complex a program usually becomes. But most professionals mainly care about the end result.

Blender is a nice choice, it's free and and already full-featured. For example the following was rendered with Blender:

http://www.cgnetworks.com/gallerycrits/30337/30337_1114002523_medium.jpg

Can you show us some images created with Aladdin4D for comparion?

Next to Blender there's for example 'Wings 3D', which is a very easy, free and open source alternative.

Anyway good luck!

You've confused the commercial market with the open source market. Lightwave and 3D Studio Max are the leaders in the commercial market. However, that brings up an interesting point, there ARE lots of players in the commercial market. No one package can do it all. Some people need simple packages, some need the complete toolbox. Some just want a package that does just a certain function (like 3d logos).

This rule is true in the open source market as well. Blender cannot be, and is not, the ultimate solution for all users. Aladdin 4D will take a good and useful place in open source for people who want a better interface with a good, complete, 3D package. Also, regarding the notion that more features leads to complexity which leads to a difficult interface. That doesn't necessarily follow at all if the interface designer does their job. But it's true that the interface designers often don't do their jobs...or someone else overrides the better design for other reasons.

FWIW: Wings3D is an unfinished modeler- not a complete package. It doesn't support animations either. Which isn't to say it's bad or anything - that's not their goal at present.

You can find other 3d packages in open source. Outside of Blender, most are not complete toolkits with modeling, rendering and animation. Aladdin 4D will bring a complete 3D toolkit with a superior interface to open source. It won't be Blender and that's a good thing. It will make 3D accessible to more people this way.

Kermit

@ Kermit

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You've confused the commercial market with the open source market.

IMO there is one large 3D market. Open source and free solutions as well as commercial solutions have their own advantages.

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That doesn't necessarily follow at all if the interface designer does their job. But it's true that the interface designers often don't do their jobs...or someone else overrides the better design for other reasons.

The nice thing about these open source developments is that nobody stops you if someone wants to create a better interface for software like Blender.

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FWIW: Wings3D is an unfinished modeler- not a complete package. It doesn't support animations either.

Not currently, but it's planned for version 1.0 and you can
output its models to an animation tool.