Ton is a personal hero of mine. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a 3d animator because of Ton. I discovered Blender in the early 2000s as a kid. It was my first exposure to digital art tools because it was free. When Blender open sourced in 2002 it was a massive gift to kids around the world like me. (Ton was kind enough to reply to an email of mine at the time thanking him!)
Ton and Blender have brought so much value to the world by making world-class creation tools available to everyone. Blender is one of the most successful open source projects of all time -- going from an underdog project notorious for difficult to use UI to a polished, ubiquitous, industry shaping tool. And never losing sight of the art; it still brings a huge smile to my face when Blender ships another Open Movie. Nearly ~25 years later, thank you again Ton.
Ditto! I was introduced to blender in the late (great!) 90's and had a lot of fun with it for years before I largely gave up on working in 3d graphics and started building a career as a programmer instead.
Sometimes I think of what could've been had I had the perseverance to stick with it, but mostly I'm just very grateful. Ton was a big part of that for sure, but a lot of others as well. WP (or waypay as I used to call him) who designed the Suzanne model (among a lot of other amazing artwork), Bart who was a pillar of the community and went on to found Blender Nation, and many more who really formed that community. Without it I doubt blender would be more than a footnote in the annals of history.
Massive congratulations to Ton for achieving what many (including me!) never thought possible. Huge, huge kudos!
I've pitched Blender to NSF Review panels and the higher ups that come by those to visit as the way science should do software. Would love to know of others as successful as this, particularly as it crosses boundries to industry.
Blender went from being the least impressive 3d software when I first downloaded it in ~2003, to disrupting the industry. In the 2010s, you could still hear people would say in forums, "but no company uses blender in the industry". That's not the case anymore. The only limitation with blender now is your own creativity. I worked with several 3D artists, and they wouldn't have had their career without starting with that blender donut tutorial.
A big thanks to Ton. And don't forget that you can support the blender foundation.
Blender did everything The GIMP should have done. A very specialized software with complex UI done in a way that people WITHIN the industry praise.
I also remember downloading blender during my university years back in early 2004. Man was it crap compared to Maya or 3dMax. But nowadays it is incredible.
Ton did the most amazing job in his leadership role of Blender. Long term strategic and focused and leveraged the community to achieve the overall vision. Amazing.
I wish more non-free software could be made free and open-source when its creators go defunct or lose interest in it. Another good example that brings a smile to my face is Duelyst[1]. The company behind it went under so they published the code and assets under CC0.
Having known him for decades—not in person, but through various email exchanges when I reached out to BF—I'd say it’s a bit more than “just recognizing the name.” I’ve followed his journey since well before the OSS crowdfunding days, and it’s honestly amazing to see everything he’s built. Thankfully, it sounds like he’s not stepping away completely, which is great news.
As for the new leadership, Francesco Siddi comes from an animation background and is already managing Blender Studio. I’m genuinely glad to see the organization will continue to be led by people who deeply understand the tool and its community.
I think Blender has been one of the few pieces of software that has followed me since my early teens without me ever feeling like it went into bad direction and managing to keep improving without changing its behavior for the sake of change, such that I was always able to jump back in every few years and not have to relearn everything.
He is such a great person and helped soo much fostering an amazing community. He will still be around and the people that will be leading Blender and its community are amazing also :)
Just another voice to say what a hero this guy is. I don't think many people appreciate just how this wasn't the easy home run it might look like with hindsight - there was quite a lot of outright Blender hate at one time, and certainly the games industry has an undercurrent of people quite bitter towards Ton personally, which I have tended to interpret most of the time as envy.
In the last decade the enormous advances in the project lead to it being superficially unrecognizable, and it always reminds me more of Cubase than anything else. Scaling up development so that it got to the stage many more people could contribute was a serious achievement.
My Blender 1.8 manual remains one of my most prized possessions from back when I ran that on a Linux partition and later a way out of date SGI Indigo. Good times.
In any case, Ton, many thanks. A true inspiration.
Edit to add: I wonder if anyone else around here was on elysiun? . . .
A great example of what FOSS can achieve. Not only Blender is remarkable, but the amazing community truly reflects software for good, and we owe it all to Ton.
I remember getting some stickers at a tiny booth in 2011 at FMX. Ton was great to talk to, and I've had it installed ever since. I hope we'll see you again at FMX... I will stand in line for the free soft serve from cadnetwork and bring some over again :P Not only did the booth grow bigger every time they showed up, but the community did as well. Now we get talks and workshops, and we see Blender popping up in more and more breakdowns from the bigger VFX houses. It's been quite a journey, and I hope it continues. I doubled my yearly donation today. Godspeed.
Blender is my favorite free software project. I started using it in the late 90s and watched it become a powerhouse. Ton Roosendaal was clearly a great leader. Onward and upward!
Ton is a personal hero of mine. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a 3d animator because of Ton. I discovered Blender in the early 2000s as a kid. It was my first exposure to digital art tools because it was free. When Blender open sourced in 2002 it was a massive gift to kids around the world like me. (Ton was kind enough to reply to an email of mine at the time thanking him!)
Ton and Blender have brought so much value to the world by making world-class creation tools available to everyone. Blender is one of the most successful open source projects of all time -- going from an underdog project notorious for difficult to use UI to a polished, ubiquitous, industry shaping tool. And never losing sight of the art; it still brings a huge smile to my face when Blender ships another Open Movie. Nearly ~25 years later, thank you again Ton.
> Ton is a personal hero of mine. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a 3d animator because of Ton. I discovered Blender in the early 2000s as a kid.
I could've written this comment, I swear to god. I'll add that Blender is my favorite FOSS project.
Ditto! I was introduced to blender in the late (great!) 90's and had a lot of fun with it for years before I largely gave up on working in 3d graphics and started building a career as a programmer instead.
Sometimes I think of what could've been had I had the perseverance to stick with it, but mostly I'm just very grateful. Ton was a big part of that for sure, but a lot of others as well. WP (or waypay as I used to call him) who designed the Suzanne model (among a lot of other amazing artwork), Bart who was a pillar of the community and went on to found Blender Nation, and many more who really formed that community. Without it I doubt blender would be more than a footnote in the annals of history.
Massive congratulations to Ton for achieving what many (including me!) never thought possible. Huge, huge kudos!
I've pitched Blender to NSF Review panels and the higher ups that come by those to visit as the way science should do software. Would love to know of others as successful as this, particularly as it crosses boundries to industry.
Blender went from being the least impressive 3d software when I first downloaded it in ~2003, to disrupting the industry. In the 2010s, you could still hear people would say in forums, "but no company uses blender in the industry". That's not the case anymore. The only limitation with blender now is your own creativity. I worked with several 3D artists, and they wouldn't have had their career without starting with that blender donut tutorial.
A big thanks to Ton. And don't forget that you can support the blender foundation.
Blender did everything The GIMP should have done. A very specialized software with complex UI done in a way that people WITHIN the industry praise.
I also remember downloading blender during my university years back in early 2004. Man was it crap compared to Maya or 3dMax. But nowadays it is incredible.
Ton did the most amazing job in his leadership role of Blender. Long term strategic and focused and leveraged the community to achieve the overall vision. Amazing.
He totally deserve some rest. Blender + the GPLization of Blender have been executed perfectly. We need more people like him.
I wish more non-free software could be made free and open-source when its creators go defunct or lose interest in it. Another good example that brings a smile to my face is Duelyst[1]. The company behind it went under so they published the code and assets under CC0.
1: https://github.com/open-duelyst/duelyst
Having known him for decades—not in person, but through various email exchanges when I reached out to BF—I'd say it’s a bit more than “just recognizing the name.” I’ve followed his journey since well before the OSS crowdfunding days, and it’s honestly amazing to see everything he’s built. Thankfully, it sounds like he’s not stepping away completely, which is great news.
As for the new leadership, Francesco Siddi comes from an animation background and is already managing Blender Studio. I’m genuinely glad to see the organization will continue to be led by people who deeply understand the tool and its community.
I think Blender has been one of the few pieces of software that has followed me since my early teens without me ever feeling like it went into bad direction and managing to keep improving without changing its behavior for the sake of change, such that I was always able to jump back in every few years and not have to relearn everything.
He is such a great person and helped soo much fostering an amazing community. He will still be around and the people that will be leading Blender and its community are amazing also :)
Just another voice to say what a hero this guy is. I don't think many people appreciate just how this wasn't the easy home run it might look like with hindsight - there was quite a lot of outright Blender hate at one time, and certainly the games industry has an undercurrent of people quite bitter towards Ton personally, which I have tended to interpret most of the time as envy.
In the last decade the enormous advances in the project lead to it being superficially unrecognizable, and it always reminds me more of Cubase than anything else. Scaling up development so that it got to the stage many more people could contribute was a serious achievement.
My Blender 1.8 manual remains one of my most prized possessions from back when I ran that on a Linux partition and later a way out of date SGI Indigo. Good times.
In any case, Ton, many thanks. A true inspiration.
Edit to add: I wonder if anyone else around here was on elysiun? . . .
I remember Elysiun! :o)
Those were some good time. My handle back then was macke.
You know, I am sure I remember that handle! I was "kid tripod", in the UK back then.
Now I'm reminiscing about Yafray . . .
His work has enabled so much creativity and he gets to give great software away for free, what a chad.
Official announcement: https://www.blender.org/press/blender-foundation-announces-n...
We'll put that link in the top text as well. Thanks!
A great example of what FOSS can achieve. Not only Blender is remarkable, but the amazing community truly reflects software for good, and we owe it all to Ton.
o7
I wish more businesses followed his footsteps in making their products free and open source and run by nonprofits
How much money are you personally giving to Blender, or other foundation-run projects?
Mr. Roosendaal himself sold me a Blender T-Shirt!
Not bragging, but I bought the Blender Book!
What an absolute legend.
He's earned his laurels but it's still the end of an era.
I remember getting some stickers at a tiny booth in 2011 at FMX. Ton was great to talk to, and I've had it installed ever since. I hope we'll see you again at FMX... I will stand in line for the free soft serve from cadnetwork and bring some over again :P Not only did the booth grow bigger every time they showed up, but the community did as well. Now we get talks and workshops, and we see Blender popping up in more and more breakdowns from the bigger VFX houses. It's been quite a journey, and I hope it continues. I doubled my yearly donation today. Godspeed.
Blender is my favorite free software project. I started using it in the late 90s and watched it become a powerhouse. Ton Roosendaal was clearly a great leader. Onward and upward!
Blender is more valuable to humanity than all cryptocurrencies put together.