A while back we featured an interview with members from the Blender Creative team discussing work on their upcoming open source game Apricot. The game has been in development since February this year and the team is reaching the final stages of production. The game is now called ‘Yo Frankie’ and you can see a 6 miunte video demonstration of the main game levels here. Needless to say that once the game has been released we will follow up with an in-depth review here on Sourced.

For this blog entry, I want to shift away from Blender’s gaming exploits and focus on the other strand of Open Source entertainment they pioneer: animation films. Below are two great Open Source animation films that demonstrate the level of professionalism behind the work at Blender: Big Buck Bunny and Elephant’s Dream.Both films were released under Creative Commons licenses and the animation source files are available for download from the Blender website as is all the software that was used to create the animation. So without further ado, it’s time to see the films for yourselves. Enjoy and let us know what you thought in the comment section.

Big Buck Bunny

“Big Buck Bunny tells the story of a giant rabbit with a heart bigger than himself. When one sunny day three rodents rudely harass him, something snaps… and the rabbit ain’t no bunny anymore! In the typical cartoon tradition he prepares the nasty rodents a comical revenge.”

Elephant’s Dream

Elephant’s Dream is the story of two strange characters exploring a capricious and seemingly infinite machine. The elder, Proog, acts as a tour-guide and protector, happily showing off the sights and dangers of the machine to his initially curious but increasingly skeptical protege Emo. As their journey unfolds we discover signs that the machine is not all Proog thinks it is, and his guiding takes on a more desperate aspect.