KatsBits Community
General Category => Blog => Topic started by: kat on June 30, 2013, 08:11:47 AM
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[update] as of May/June 2013 KatsBits is no longer BFCT. For more details pertaining to the situation and KatsBits being BFCT please read the following; "Cancelled Blender Network membership (& possibly loosing BFCT status) (https://www.katsbits.com/smforum/index.php?topic=504.0)" and "KatsBits no longer BFCT (where do 'we' go from here?) (https://www.katsbits.com/smforum/index.php?topic=516.0)".
As per the previous post on this issue (http://www.katsbits.com/smforum/index.php?topic=504.0), upon checking the Blender Foundation Certified Trainer page on blender.org, "katsbits" has (finally?) been removed, and without nary a message to inform to that affect it should be noted. Interestingly enough, another individual who had/has similar problems is still active; /*me do high-profile names warrant different treatment? Or is it simply a case of "oh, we've not yet processed this". Funny really as KatsBits defrocking was processed relatively tout de suite! Ohhh for the grapes are so sour this time of year! ;)
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at least us social rejects here love you kat ;)
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lol
Yup not much more can be added to the previous post on this (http://www.katsbits.com/smforum/index.php?topic=504.0) except to reiterate the complete lack of discussion over the whole affair, it's not a "no", it's a "we're not interested in even entertaining the idea". So again, it's back to the same core members being endlessly featured, promoting the direction Blender is going in (films), everyone else gets shut out. KatsBits isn't the only site to have experienced this over the years - it one of the reasons a number of Blender related sites have either died or just dropped off the radar, not because they're not relevant, but because they're not relevant to what the BF needs to push its cause. But as is always the case, it's simply sour grapes to suggest this or be critical of the Foundations decisions (some or all).
Anywho, "too infinity and beyond" */jumps into the void!
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Hola Kat, :)
Any chance this is a fluke that got slipped in the cracks? :-X
Your certification will always be valid in my eyes (ô¿ô)
Anywho, I for one will always be grateful for your contribution to the gaming realm :)
btw, you use to play quake / make maps @ fragpimp with slater, honi and the gang? :)
if so, I've been out of the arena for a while but great to see ya 8)
Cheers,
~Tung
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Sadly it's no fluke. BlenderNetwork chaps updated their system (after development discussions with Blender Foundation) which meant a number of profiles were invalid and needed to be corrected - there are limited ways that can be done in terms of "status" (you can change the appearance of a profile mighty fine). Although the issue was raised, the response back was [paraphrasing]"it's not something we're interested in doing". They hold the cards on all this so we have to comply to be part of the Network. Thanks for the support (and stopping by), you guys make KatsBits what it is ;)
P.S. not mapped anything for Q3 in quite some time sadly :(
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This issue was posted to Twitter by BlenderNation (thanks BN) which got, it has to be said, an odd reply from Ton.
Now whilst BlenderNetwork is run independently of Blender.org (Blender Foundation), because it is expressly tied to the Blender Foundation Certified Trainer program they (Blender Network) are not in a position to make independent decisions that would otherwise effect the BFCT program and the way such members are representation without Blender Foundation input and consultation. Meaning that when a "yes" or "no" comes back on an idea or comment concerning the program, that decision will have been made at the very top of the tree, i.e. Ton. So with respect to that fact, the above comment speaks exactly to the problem being highlighted with this issue... SMH.
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sadly, i'm not surprised after some of the comments i've seen posted by ton in the official blender bug tracker, the guy might be a genius when it comes to coding blender, but he sure knows how to antagonize it's users, even when they are trying to help him improve his product.
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That's happens in ostensibly non-professional ecosystems (perhaps 90% of Blender users are hobbyists, amateurs or people otherwise just 'playing' with the application), and something only generally seen (or acknowledged) by those outside it - it's a common topic of conversation I have with professionals coming to Blender from elsewhere, they often feel 'afraid' (for want of a better word) to criticise Blender because doing so breaks the Blender Zeitgeist bubble. As a result they simply stay out of the way and Blender never gets the input it actually needs to grow (particularly in that demographic).
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understood, and it's a shame. blender has tons of potential (no pun intended) and the last major release of it seems one of the most polished builds i've seen of the app since first using it all those years ago. i do still have a somewhat love/hate relationship with blender as it is where i spend most of my day working (currently unpaid) but i would likely feel the same with any other app unless it was near perfect.
on that note, it's mind boggling that some of the most loyal fanboys talk about blender as if it has almost no flaws (it still has glaringly obvious interface bugs and design issues) but slowly those are being fixed, and it crashes less on my old pc here than previous versions did, although i still can expect at least one crash every few days especially as my pc has the bare minimum of ram.
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What I am having a hard time understanding is what exactly excluded you from being a member of BN and why you couldn't go with a freelance account since technically you are a freelance artist and there for a freelance teacher, does it have to do with it being game creation related and not movie/animation related? If that is the case then you should push to have game dev side of things taken more seriously. Did you contact Ton as he asked and what did he have to say on the matter?
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Click the link in the first post for more info but suffice to say here the whole issue revolves around how an individual registered to the BN & BFCT scheme wants to be identified in terms of how they carry out their business activities, both in regards to what they do and the capacity under which that is done; BN & BFCT only recognise Corporations, Education and erroneously 'Freelance'; erroneously because 1 & 2 are a type of legal status, 3 isn't, it's simply an activity - to be a legitimate corporation or educational establishment (and more to the point, prove this to the BFCT & BN) you have to registered as such with a Government agency, whereas any old Tom, Richard or Harry can call themselves a "freelancer" when they should be recognised properly as being a sole trader, a status that can be legitimately confirmed.
BN & BFCT don't seem to recognise this situation and unfortunately don't really seem particularly open to the idea (nor discussion) of doing so. And given that the issue was raised through the only and proper channels available to do so, they are fully aware of the situation - Ton himself was consulted, and had final say on matter. That being the case it's unlikely to get much more traction, and to be perfectly frank, one is reticent to waste time pursuing something this being so.
The upshot of this is that BCTF & BN constant complain about the lack of 'quality' or 'professional' members whilst never seeming to take any mitigating steps to against 'junk' registrations (the any old Tom, Richard & Harry from registering on the network), this is as true of the various mailing lists as it is of the BN/BFCT programs.
BTW, using Blender as a serious game development tool has been pushed in one form or another, and under various guises (Quake3Bits, KatsBits et-al), for over 10 years - it's actually longer than that but memory isn't clear on just how many ;)
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To be fair every one knows what a freelance artist is weather its art for movies or video games but not too many people know what a sole trader is or even that it exists. Regarding freelance work in the US it has gone through some changes since the gov' is getting it fingers into redefining some freelance work as a corporate employee work, for the "benefit" of the employee and for tax purposes of course. There is a difference between freelance and sole proprietorship, a freelance artist, in this case, is not tied to a business, but a sole trader and sole proprietorship is. If you are a sole trader or sole proprietorship then you should technically fall under BN's corporate section since you are a business and not a freelance worker. If they try to catogorize you as a freelance artist while being infact a sole proprietorship then BN/BF are misdefining certain people erroneously in the wrong catagory. To be fair to BF it is hard to define a sole proprietorship since they can be created with out any legal documents or any type of legal formality. I believe the corporate section of the BN requirements should be changed to reflect the differences between a corporate and a sole proprietorship so include those who have there own studios/companies that are not corporations. Now I have a better understanding of the situation and I hope they fix the issue soon. Also I think they should split the BFCT up into different specialties, one for still artists one for movies and one for games, and one for general blender (as application) proficiency. Nothing worse then a relationship souring over a miss-communication and misunderstanding of the definitions of words.
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Certainly there is a public perception about 'freelance' and the type of activities that might imply. From a BN/BF/BFCT point of view though it has no qualitative bearing on the more formal aspects attributed to some one, or entity, saying they are one - the former can remain as-is (public's perception/recognition of an individual or entity calling themselves a 'freelancer'), but it does need to be contextualised through the latter, otherwise we end up in the situation described above where anyone can pay the membership fee and call themselves one without actually being one, to the detriment of the Network. This obviously needs to be avoided as much as possible (I'm not suggesting any of the current members are doing this by the way, heh!).
So yes, redefining BFCT & BN membership levels was the basic point raised to them; it should be 1) fully/better/properly defined within context of Legal Entities and Tax Status requirements (as you also noted); and 2) that information perhaps then used to 'verify' members - if an entity joining is not a Registered Corporation or Educational Establishment it's still possible for them to be check through various means, least of which is their (Sole Trader/Proprietorship/Self-Employment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sole_proprietorship)) Tax Number - an entity truly (and correctly) engaged in freelance activities may not be the former (Registered Corporate Entity et-al), but will certainly have the latter (Tax ID); fakes, shams and cons (generally) don't have either.
In a nut shell the changes being proposed are really meant to address these latter points about BN/BF/BFCT being able to properly verify who is joining their network, and so people subsequently using said same have the confidence knowing members are/had/have been properly approved and vetted by the aforementioned.
Additional Resources
- United Kingdom - Choose a legal structure for a new business (https://www.gov.uk/business-legal-structures/overview)
- United States SBA - Business Types (http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/starting-managing-business/starting-business/establishing-business/bus)
- United States IRS - Sole Proprietorships (http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Sole-Proprietorships), Business Structures (http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Business-Structures)
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No worries kat! I personally don't think Blender Certification means anything. It's not recognized by any of the colleges in US anyway :P
I also don't understand why a person trying to acquire such certification has to be savvy at all aspects of Blender. What if I only want to be certified in game development assets production? They don't offer that.
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good points motorsep.
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@ motorsep: One of the reasons for KatsBits achieving 'certified' status was to, in some small way, encourage other 'game devs' to apply because you're right, there's a critical lack of support for anything 'game' related where 'official' educational or training resources are concerned. As for certification, yes the status doesn't confer any privileges in that respect other than it being a 'recognised' status so maybe it should be called the "Blender Foundation Recognised Trainer", "Blender Foundation Affiliate Trainer" program or something along those lines.
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Here is some good news regarding blenders role in game dev and modding.
http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/blender-developers-hired-thanks-to-valve-steam-workshop-donations (http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/blender-developers-hired-thanks-to-valve-steam-workshop-donations)
Its not much but its a start.
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Thanks for posting, you beat me to it!. Was just reading that (http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/09/valve-steam-workshop-donations-2-devs-get-hired/) and yes, very interesting news indeed.
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very cool, thanks for posting guys.
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That should probably warrant its own thread in the "about dang time" section. This (http://code.blender.org/index.php/2013/06/blender-roadmap-2-7-2-8-and-beyond/) is also an interesting read.
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That's kinda interesting, but what bothers me is that endless pursuit of BGE being on par with Unity. Just recently I posted a few notes about what BGE needs and those features not only absent, but aren't going to happen any time soon. So yet again we will witness another generation of Blender wasting resources on yet another iteration of its game engine. By the time BGE will be usable in commercial production, UE/CE/Unity/Source/idTech will make yet another leap light years ahead of BGE. Hell, even idTech 4 is light years ahead already (not to mention Doom 3 BFG).
It would be nice if BI understood that making Blender more game dev production friendly and help devs save time using Blender should be a priority.
Speaking of Blender devs, I can't find a single soul to work on MD5 exporter :/
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motorsep, i agree with all of that.
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@ motorsep: Agreed, I've got the same concerns. I will add as well that Blender Institute/Foundation seems to have an odd and possibly somewhat naive (?) outlook with respect to the complexities of a game engine, especially in today's marketplace - what Blender has now was good a couple of years ago when UDK, Unity and other engines were not available or not well known, but it's at a point now where they need to make a firm decision on the matter.. to compete with these other tools now would take a dedicated team, a lot of effort and plenty of monetary resources. Is that something they want to do when there are arguably more pressing matters that need to be considered. I just hope that this time there are enough voices speaking from a 'game' perspective that BF/I actually listens to what's being said properly.
Re: MD5. I feel ya ;)
Slightly OT. Another Blender user interested in game orientated development started a Google Doc document of feature requests. You can find and add to it here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuS_F0ZKX-zTdGxKOEMtRmI2Tno4UUlPZzVfNXB6RHc&usp=sharing) - it's shaping up quite nicely so far. Give it the once over.
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Well, the issue again is that I posed ASE exporter and wanted to post MD5/MD6, but ideasman42 and another dev guy said "ASE is meh, no need". So what's the point of posting other stuff :/ I added LWO as it seems more universal format (idTech 4 / idTech 5).
The key issue is that lack of supported exporters deemed idTech 4 unmoddable for many artists using Blender.
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Completely agree.. and that's the big bugbear we've discussed here for a long time (as you know). I don't know what the answer is except to perhaps keep a pubic discussion going, that way there is at least a history of such which can't be so easily brushed off.
I've been pondering whether to add an 'import/export' suite request to that list to cover idTech and Unreal but had wondered about whether that would be efficient use of resources now that FBX is on the plate (iirc Epic and Unity have said they want to focus their I/O tools on that format going forward?)
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I just added MD5/MD6 to the list. Feel free to put your name on that item #42 :)
The more people will do that, the more Blender devs will see the interest and will be willing to support it.
Yes, Epic has switched to FBX a while back. I have been pondering the idea of replacing Maya plugin in idTech 4 with FBX > MD5 converter. Again, lack of savvy programmers doesn't help for it to come true :/
EDIT: Posted here http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=26811
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I just found this news (http://www.blendernation.com/2013/11/06/elite-blender-artists-team-launched-blendersupport-com/#utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Blendernation+%28BlenderNation%29) and it seems to fit to this topic somehow...
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Yeah that was mentioned during this years BCon. Given my experience with BlenderNetwork all I can say is we'll have to wait and see how it goes.
The Foundation recently went live with the new version of blender.org as well and unfortunately KatsBits and one or two other minor players in the tutorial 'business' were dropped from the Support > Tutorials (http://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/) page - you could be forgiven for thinking there were only three or so tutorial providers (and it's easy to guess who those are). That's going to annoy a few people ;)
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Lol, commented on Fb accidentally :)
Sounds like a service aimed at production houses with money. Not at smaller developers.
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lol.. you too can post any time, from anywhere, using anything... as long as it's facebooked!
Would have to agree with your comment though, especially given the general 'studio' focus much of the conversation at this years BCon. Having said that, it's not easy to provide support services for professionals (paid or not) because security and confidentiality are paramount to that user base. I'm getting some things sorted out for KatsBits that will at least further support for game developers on that score.