River Valley TV has posted speaker videos for the 2009 Libre Graphics Meeting held in Montreal last month.  We blogged about the conference here.  Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) is an annual event where developers and users of open source art software gather to discuss the future of free graphics.  The main projects are Scribus, Blender 3D, Krita, Inkscape, and The Gimp, but a number of representatives of other graphics software attend and speak.

Here is an incomplete list of videos to give you an idea of what was presented:

• Continue reading…

On the road to coding and preparing for the long awaited 2.50, the Blender developers have took a slight turn and released Blender 2.49!  According to the Blender home page, it seems that the advances in the Game Engine justified having a well tested and bug fixed release.

Blender is a free, open source software for making 3D graphics and animation.

Read more for what’s new in this release:

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After 8 years of development, Wings 3D has finally reached that illustrious software milestone: Version 1.0! There have not been any new features in this release from the last, but founder and maintainer Bjorng Gustavsson felt that the release was stable enough to warrant the big “1 point 0.”
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Title: Open Video Conference
Location: NYU Law School, NYC
Link out: Click here
Description: Open Video is a broad-based movement of video creators, technologists, academics, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, remixers, and many others. The conference will bring together stakeholders in the online video space (video makers, coders, lawyers, academics, entrepreneurs, etc.) for cross-pollination and development of the Open Video movement.
It will also raises the public profile of video creators and artists, especially those whose work relies on or contributes to Open Video and the public interest and awareness around the Principles of an Open Video Ecosystem, a community effort to define best practices in online video.
Start Date: 2009-06-19
End Date: 2009-06-20

Title: Blender Conference 2009
Location: Amsterdam
Link out: Click here
Description: The 8th annual Blender Conference will be again in Amsterdam, this time we\’ve got (tentatively) hold of a great new location, the former 19th century court building \”De Balie\”. This grand cafe / theatre / cinema is right in the center of Amsterdam, on the Leidseplein, the heart of Amsterdam\’s music, theatre and clubbing nightlife.
Start Date: 2009-10-23
End Date: 2009-10-25

Title: Melbourne Blender Society Meeting
Location: Atari Building, Level 8 / 14 Queens Road
Link out: Click here
Description: Melbourne Blender Society have planned their next usermeeting for next week\’s Wednesday, the 27th of May.
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-05-27

Question Copyright has updated the official public release of The Creator-Endorsed Mark.  This is a logo that a distributor can use to indicate that a work is distributed in a way that its creator endorses — typically, by sharing some of the profits with the creator.

QuestionCopyright.org has many different versions of the logo depending on how much of the proceeds go to the artist.  Visit the website for more information.

BlenderArt Magazine – Issue #20 just published.  And check out the new website.

Inkscape News – Linux Fund has partnered with Inkscape developer Milosz Derezynski to improve the text tool by boosting rendering in font selector, providing numeric control over kerning and fixing several outstanding bugs. Milosz is already working actively on the project.

Blender 2.5 Animation Test – From Michael Fox, AKA Blenderlabrat.

SVGSlice – An Inkscape add-on that cuts and saves a portion of your Inkscape art.  Very usefull for web design.

Nick Porcaro sent an announcement that the New York City Ble nder User Group will have a meet up on March 7th, 2009 at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn.  The meeting will begin at 2pm in Rogers Hall Room 474.  Directions: http://www.poly.edu/directions.

Also from Nick’s email:

I plan to make a presentation on the work I’ve been doing with the Blender Game Engine and
Pure Data http://www.puredata.org in support of free improv art/music, and Daniel Houghton will
be discussing his short film called Pitch:
http://download.blender.org/demo/movies/bc08/Best_short_film/Daniel-Houghton_Pitch.avi

This gathering is for anyone interested in connecting or reconnecting to the Blender community in New York City.  We encourage presentations of recent work, future projects, and ideas for collaboration.However, if you would like to attend simply to listen, please do.

If you would like to attend please RSVP Nick via the NYC Blender User Group website here, as Polytechnic has asked him for a head count.

Libre Graphics Meeting 2009 will be held  from May 6-9 in Montreal, Canada.  From the website:

“LGM 2009 is the fourth annual worldwide meeting of teams developing open source graphics applications. Designers, graphic artists and anyone involved in print production and/or web development are cordially invited to attend and meet the developers one to one.

LGM is all about participation. Artists and developers, feel free to bring your laptops and show us what you can (and can’t yet) do. Organise a BOF about your favourite project or feature. We’re aiming for a bazaar.”

As always, LGM is free and open to the public. Registrations begin on March 2nd.

The main projects at LGM are:

• Scribus – The page layout program.
• Blender – 3D modeling and animation.
• Inkscape – Vector Drawing.
• The Gimp – Photo manipulation and raster graphics.
• Krita – painting and drawing program.

But LGM will also be an environment dedicated to dozens of other free graphics programs.  You can find more information at the website.