26 KiB
Victorious Children Studio Organizer ( VCStudio )
Languages:
Content:
- Blender-Organizer
- Features
- Installation
- Windows?
- Credits and Thanks
- Movies Done with VCStudio (or Blender-Organizer)
- Reasons to Re-do Blender-Organizer
- Blender Organizer still lives
- What is "VC" in VCStudio?
- Help and Support
Blender-Organizer
VCStudio or Blender-Organizer is a program that helps you make movies easier. Forget about creating folders and subfolders for assets. And forget about being confused with the story and it's plot-holes. Now it's easier then ever to make movies.
Click on the image to view in LBRY or 
Download Video
Features
To edit those images see source files.
Installation
For the installation please watch the installation guide.
Click on the image to view in LBRY or Download Video
Or read the wiki page.
Windows?
VCStudio is a Free Software. People mis-represent projects like this by calling them "Open Source". Open Source simply means that the source code is available. While Free Software means that the users have the 4 essential freedoms of software. Freedom 0: To use the software at any time for any purpose. Freedom 1: To study and change the source code. Freedom 2: To redistribute the software. Freedom 3: To distribute modified versions of the software. See www.fsf.org for more information.
We are developing and ecouraging VCStudio to run on only Free Operating System called GNU / Linux. Systems like Windows are not supported by default. And we do not condone any use of Windows. Or other non-free programs.
Credits and Thanks
There are people way more imporatng them I am in making this possible. I just made the last part. Making these few scripts. Those other people might not even know about me, or this projects. But their contribution is still worth giving the credit.
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman (also known as RMS or simply Richard Stallman. Wikipedia. ) is an infuential figure in making VCStudio possible. The amount of mistreatment happening in the world in mind boggling. Vodka companies and Drug Lords making millions of dollars while selling poision to addicted prey. When people demand respect they manufacture it disguising the poison under some kind of artificial lie. Like "Let's drink for life.". Software companies are doing the same. And people are not understanding the impact because the poison is not as clear as with some other products. Malware is a big problem. But even bigger problem lies that tech companies are trying to outsmart people. When you bought something you had an access to fix it. Apple is taking it away from you by designing the products that refuse to work when you try to swap parts. And they are manufacturing exuses such as "It's for your protection." that many people buy.
Software companies do that same thing by refusing people access to means of doing things to their copies of the software. Making restricted licenses. Not releasing the source-code. Demanding outreagious end user agreements. Developing Digital Restriction Managment systems. And other evil things. Making their users addicted so they could not use anything but their poison software.
In order to stop this from happening we need to use Free Software.
Richard Stallman is the father of the Free Software movement and the GNU Operaring System. ( Usually known as Linux. Or GNU / Linux. )
Without Richard Stallman there would be mistreatment of users. Also the operating system and the license that I'm using to publish this would not exist. So therefor I credit him in this project as well. This project tries very hard to be as Free and as Respecting as it possibly can. I might not succeed 100%. Maybe because I'm stupid. But thanks to Richard I at least try.
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds is an important figure in the GNU / Linux and Free Software ( Open Source ) world. His contribution is a the Linux part of the GNU / Linux operating system.
His contribution is important since his program "Linux" is the most important part of an operating system called the kernel. The kernel manages all the other programs. It's the program that translates anything between programs like Blender or VCStudio to stuff like CPU and Grpahics Card. But there are programs in between those users are using and the linux kernel. Stuff like the Window Manager (Gnome, KDE), Graphics Engine (OpenGL, Vulkan), Sound Engine (Jack, ALSA) and other minor programs. All running on top of linux but are not the part of linux. They are parts of GNU. And together it's GNU / Linux.
To see more about the Linux kernel you can look at linuxfoundation.org
Ton Roosendaal
Ton Roosendall is the MDL of Blender. In the 80s and 90s Ton was working on 3D animation using their own peace of software called Traces (a ray trace Renderer). In the company called NeoGeo founded by Ton in 1989. Later they decided to put together an animation / modeling tool based on the interface of Traces. Combined product became Blender.
On 13 October 2002 Blender was released to the public under the GNU GPL license. Making it officially Free Software. And thus opening it's features to be used in the ethical world of Free Software.
Since then Blender grew to the largest animation / modeling / video editing / visual effects tool that you can find.
Others
There are countless people that I cannot possibly know the full list of that contributed to Free Software projects that in some direct or indirect way influence development of this or that project. And I wish to be able to credit all of them. Maybe such a work is done somewhere. But I think the sheer number of people would be quite monumental. Anyway thank you all for your contributions.
J.Y.Amihud
Jeison Yehuda Amihud (Blender Dumbass) is the developer of Blender-Organizer. Or VCStudio. A minor thing compared to the monumental job that is done by others.
In 2016 during making of the movie "I'm Not Even Human" J.Y. faced a problem of organization. Large projects with multiple people usually have a producer or managers that do all the organizational work. In this project tho. There was only J.Y.Amihud for the entire thing. And something needed to be done.
The solution was to write a program that will do most of the job for you. Instead of making folders and subfolders for each character and it's textures, references and renders. You just add the character and it does everything for you. The program also solved the problem of knowing how much is done. So J.Y.Amihud could estimate the time of the release. The movie was finished a month before the released date that was annouced half a year before the movie was done. So the program works.
Since then Blender-Organizer had a few itterations. And now it is called VCStudio.
Call J.Y.Amihud (Jitsi) 
Report Bug (Issues)
Movies Done with VCStudio (or Blender-Organizer)
I'm Not Even Human
In our world words like "mine" and "my" are synonimous with owning something. "This is my car", "This is my computer", "This thing is mine". You hear this all the time. And always people express this way a control over a peace of something they own. Unfortunatly people use phrases like "This is my child" quite often too. Simple non-carefull wording can hurt an otherwise well-intended idea. "Open-Source" is one of those examples. Trying to help the cause of Free Software. "Open-Source" was intended to be the phrase that eases big companies to join the Free Software. But instead people now mis-understand the definition of Free Software. The political ideas are lost.
I fear the same could happen to "This is my child". I fear that in a hundred years from now children will become property of adults. Think about un-intentionally promoting a form of slavery. That does not really exist now. But that people subcountiosly already percieve as "normal". Parents percieved notion of ownership over the children that they raise is already a thing. Control of thoughts. Censorship of ideas. Who you can be friends with and who you can't. All big things start small. And we need to do something about it right now.
In 2015 or so. I was thinking a lot about this idea. The movie "I'm Not Even Human" came to my mind. How about presenting the dystopian future to the audience. Make them think about it. Maybe I could manage to start a conversation.
For the film's production I utilized a lot of Free Software tools. GNU / Linux operating system. Blender. GNU Image Manupulation Program. But one thing I didn't have. It's was a producer. At Blender Foundation where they made Sintel and Spring. They have Ton Roseendaal to yell at them. To decide what to do next. To see how the project is going. In my situation there was only me.
I tried solving the problem using spreadsheets and paper. And it worked somewhat. But I needed something better. Seeing how I can build simple GTK applications using python. I started developing a programm that will manage for me stuff like checklists and folder creation. The programm was called "Organizer". It was a very simple thing. But by the end of the project it matured into a full on peace of software.
The movie "I'm Not Even Human" was released on YouTube on June 1st 2018. I know. YouTube is not the best place. Not the most Free Software one. But I didn't know any better back then. Now you can watch it on the new, decentralized, Free Software alternative to YouTube called "LBRY".
The Package, The Car & The Time Is Running Out
After I'm Not Even Human I had a movie project. I wanted to make an Israeli cinema movie. I thought that one 32 minute animated film was enough to go right to the cinema stuff. With budgets and real crew. And stuff. There were 3 problems with the movie.
Problem 1: I had in mind a structure to write which required hell of a lot of concentration. It's a kind of non-linear, but some what linear, story with a twists and a lot of crazy tension grabbing buildups. All to compensate the apperant budget of the movie. Which I knew would be small. Think of Christopher Nolan's Memento. Where the budget is tiny. But the structure is extreme. So to compensate for the lack of epicness on the screen.
I tried writting it a traditional way. Using Libre Office. And after multiple drafts of complite faliure I knew I needed some kind of clever solution. My solution was to extend the "Organizer" I had written for I'm Not Even Human to make a kind of visual story planning tool. I called it "Story Editor". It required writting new UI elements. For nodes and things like that. And I ended up rewritting the entire UI of the Organizer. Making it look some what more modern. And I also changed the name of the programm to "Blender-Organizer".
Problem 2: I had in mind a short, but epic car chase sequence that I wanted to make regardless of how small the budget will be. I knew I could pitch the CGI approach. But they could either think it's impossible. Or require me to use some "Industy Standard" non-free software to do that job. Which I didn't want.
My solution was to film something like this myself. Just a simple car chase thing. To be able to show something. And so the project of The Package, The Car & The Time Is Running Out started. Using the new Blender-Organizer. The short film was relesed later in 2018. And even re-twitted by Ton Roseendaal.
Problem 3: The companies needed me to have views before talking to me about a movie. I think it's good that I didn't end up making the film the traditional way. They would've taken it to Netflix or something similar after the Cinema run. And it would be released with DRM and require running non-free software to watch legally. Not good.
Solution? For now I'm thinking on maybe making it myself. It will require some hard work on the part of finding people and locations. And paying all the expenses. Also there is an idea of making it animated. The script is written. Tho I will not release it untill it comes out. Probably.
Moria's Race (Work In Progress)
In the begining of 2020 a friend of mine called me with an idea to make children cartoons for YouTube. I tried to explain her that it's not a viable platform. Especially for children's entertainment. Since their buisness is based on tracking people and selling their data. The law of the USA requires them to decrease the discoverability of children's entertainment.
I'm Not Even Human is not technically "made for kids". It's designed to look like "made for kids" to break in through the censoring. Which even tho worked to some extent. Made some parents pissed off at me. And I recieved a lot of hate for that kind of thing. My little brothers for example are not allowed to see my film. Because it's technically R rated. I don't like MPAA rating system. I used it so illustrate the point. Also I'm Not Even Human is not even rated at all. By any system. At least as I type it.
Returning to Christopher Nolan ( Who was born on July 30. As I am too. ) This time giving me another idea that I would steal. His war epic Dunkirk was rated PG-13. Which meant that the movie is not relying on shock value. But rather on the quality of the tension. In an interview somewhere he talked about how they watched a print of Saving Private Ryan in the pre-production to the movie. And he noticed that people turned away from the screens way too often due to graphical nature of the film. In order to make people see every frame of his expencive 70mm film he needed a solution. And his solution was not to show graphic images. But instead use film tricks to establish the most tension possible. Which worked wonderfully.
He basically made a kosher movie that makes you feel things. I thought about revisiting the ideas of I'm Not Even Human but presenting it in a way that will not make me yelled at by angry parents. I made a curse free script. Which has no violence or sexual references. ( Unlike I'm Not Even Human ). And started making it into a movie.
At the moment of typing it. VCStudio shows about 60% of the film done. I have all the assets, characters, cars and locations done. I cannot start making the animation tho because I'm trying to get the voices recorded. I could maybe do the animation using a temp tracks of myself saying the lines. But it's going to introduce a huge amount of problems later to re-time all the recordings I'll do with the real actors. I have a few kids that can voice our main characters. But there is a logistical nightmare now with the pandemic to actually do that. I hope I will manage it somehow.
Since the movie is not finished yet. There will be different links. NOTE: I'm not in the Telegram group right now. I have no way to login into it for some time. All the YouTube links in the group by me (Blender-Dumbass) are now moved to LBRY.
Telegram Group, Lore (LBRY), Lore (Raw File)
If you want to add your own film into here. Be free to contact me. There is a Jitsi call button above. But make sure you are using Free Software to make it. I might make a Free Software usage meter for movies. That could be cool.
Reasons to Re-do Blender-Organizer
The old Blender Organizer was using an outdated Python2 for the entire system.
It became such a hard thing to make work on a new system. Since Python2 is not longer supported by most destributions. And so the decision was made in 2020 to move to Python3. The problem was that the gtk module of python2 is similar but not the same as Gtk3 that comes with python3. And so a complite rewrite of the blender organizer is nessesary.
The Blender Organizer also had some questionable desing elements that made it hard to implement new feratures and settings without clusterring the project folder. And also it had a wierd way of handinling multiple projects.
Blender Organizer still lives.
I think for most people who are Using the Blender Organizer. To switch to an untested new project would be a terrible thing. This is why I'm not using the Blender Organizer repository for the rewrite, but instead choosing to create this new one. Which gonna go away from being named after Blender but more after the little studio title we have for our animation project. VCS (Victorious, Children, Studio).
What is "VC" in VCStudio?
VC stands for Victorious Children. VCStudio is an organizer tool for Victorious Children Studio. A little organization that makes movies and other content using free software. Victorious Children's goal is to promote #RespectChildren. The idea that children should be treated equally to adults. In the older content of VCS you can find the name "Violence Children Studio" which is the old name of the organizanization.
Help and Support
If you want to contibute your own help to the project you can do that in many different ways. Let's talk about a few of them.
Help Free Software
Free Software needs your help. To help you can do many things. Such as contributing code. Or simply refusing to use non-free software. The more people will use only Free Software that less non-free software will be produced. See this page for more information of how you can contribute.
Report bugs and give suggestions
I can't make a good peace of software if the only person who uses it is myself. I know people already using it appart from me. I don't know the exact number. Because I do not make any analytics like that. It appears to be not too ethical.
If you have any problem or suggestion to the VCStudio. You can either:
Call me (Jitsi, no login required) or Report Bug (Issues, login to NotABug)
Contribute code
If you want to do things with VCStudio and you are a python programer you can contribute to the software directly. Or by forking it and making your own VCStudio.
Translations and Documentations
If you are not a programer you can contribute to VCStudio by writing text. Or by translating text to your language. There is the language packs files that you can contribute. Also you can write Documenations in Markdown format to publish them here.
Make Tutorials
If you have an LBRY channel or a YouTube channel. Or you post on any other platform. Please do tutorials for VCStudio. One thing I would ask you is provide a download link to the files. With LBRY you can do that. YouTube fights against peoples ability to get copies of the videos. There was a story about using DMCA agains youtube-dl program covered by Gardner Bryant.
Source: LBRY, Direct Video Link
Support with Money
Support Free Software Foundation
I'm not the most important person in this project. As stated above in the Credits and Thanks paragraph. So I want to direct your finances first of all to them. Then to me. We are going to start with the Free Software Foundation.
See: Ways to donate to the FSF for information. They exaplain it in details.
Support The Linux Foundation
As you know the most important part is the kernel. Ans so the development and maintanace of the kernel tho possible by individuals. With the current size of the code base you need an entire organization.
See: The Linux Foundation for information.
Support Blender Foundation
This project is heavily based on Blender. The old name "Blender-Organizer" makes it clear. In order to help for thousands and millions or artists we need to keep Blender alive.
See: Blender's "Get Involved" page for more inforamtion.
Help contributers to this project
For Contributers: If you contribute. Please let me know about your links. The easiest way is to open an LBRY account and give me the code of your wallet. And I will post your nickname, contribution and the code here. Please do not use systems that require running a non-free program. More about this issue here.
Help me directly
If you want to support me with money there are going to be a few ways. For now the only way that I will let myself use will be crypto-currencies. Soon maybe if I figure it out I will open a GNU Taler instance as well.
LBRY credits ( LBC ) bKCnL5QpSofJaDtXPHkHZ89UEN4CcdVADk
Note: this way you support me. Not the other contributers. They may or may not will give their own support information.
VCStudio and Blender-Organizer are free-software packages for organizing animated project. Primarily to work with Blender3D. It's written in python and distributed as a set of scripts. So in theory with little work you can make it run on any OS. It's licensed with a GNU GPLv3 license. Primarily developer of the project (2018 - 2020) is J.Y.Amihud (also known as Blender Dumbass). Some projects done with this software may include I'm Not Even Human, The Package, The Car & The Time Is Running Out and Moria's Race.