Buffalo State offers design students opportunity to learn Blender: 3D animation industry’s leading free and open-source software

Associate professor Brent Patterson encouraged student Rebecca Hanson Czerny to submit her work for the Suzanne Animation Festival at the annual Blender Conference in Amsterdam because he thought it was special-and he was right. Hanson Czerny's short film, Headspace, became one of 20 accepted submissions worldwide and was screened at the September conference for hundreds of industry leaders, plus viewed by thousands online.

"It felt surreal," said Hanson Czerny, a senior art and design major with a concentration in graphic design. "I never thought I'd have anything like that happen in my career. I felt a sense of gratitude for not only my work being accepted, but for Professor Patterson for encouraging me to submit."

"This isn't a student festival," added Patterson, who attends the conference annually. "She was competing against industry professionals."

Hanson Czerny's film was created using Blender, a completely free and open-source 3D modelling and animation software that has become an industry standard. Last year's Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Flow, was made entirely with Blender; it's also been used in major motion films and shows such as Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, and The Man in the High Castle.

"It can run on an average laptop but is as powerful as most industry-grade software," said Patterson, who has been teaching and using Blender in his classes for 20 years. "All major creative industry software companies support it in one way or another, and many are contributors to it, but the Blender organization itself is only staffed between 30 and 40 people and operates on just around one million dollars a year, as opposed to companies like Autodesk that charge for software and operate on much more."

Patterson discovered Blender in the early 2000s while teaching at a smaller institution that couldn't afford commercial software he was using in the 1990s.

"Most of the creative commercial software has switched over to the 'rent me' economic model-if you stop paying, you lose access to edit your files," he said. "Also, commercial software has always marketed itself as the only way to be a professional, but it's just a tool and won't compensate for the complex understanding of a creative discipline. You can own a great guitar; it doesn't make you a great musician. Artists like to own their tools and have the freedom to modify them and use them as they see fit-I noticed right away that when students started using free, open-source software, their work improved. They were more willing to experiment with their work and weren't operating under preconceived notions of how the software was supposed to function."

While Blender is one of world's most popular creative tools, Patterson is one of the few experts in academia in North America that specializes in Blender, making Buffalo State one of the only institutions of higher education where animation students learn and use the software.

"Teachers at most schools have been trained to use the proprietary software because that's what they know," Patterson said. "But when students go home, they use Blender because it's friendlier and doesn't have artificial barriers. When students can take software home, tinker with it, and modify it, they feel much more of a relationship with it. There's also a huge community of people around the world who help each other learn to use it. In free, open-source, you're sharing information, you learn faster, and your portfolio improves."

Buffalo State art and design alumni are using Blender at workplaces like the Fashion Institute of Technology, Vegas Sphere, and local ad agency Fifteen. Patterson said more companies are likely to adopt the software, creating employability and value for those who know how to use it.

"Even if the Blender Institute were to go bankrupt, the software is under a license that requires it to always be available, so someone else would pick it up and develop it," Patterson said. "Often, popular creative software gets consumed by another company, who either changes it significantly, raises the costs of using it, or simply destroys it, so you have to use their competing software. That can't happen to Blender, so I'm certain it will be here in the future. It's a sophisticated tool and requires immense practice, discipline, and determination. If you want to do this, and are willing to work hard to do it, there will be a position for you."

Hanson Czerny said she is grateful to have learned Blender at Buffalo State.

"It's a vital software," she said. "Knowing motion design and how to create animations is a must-have skill for graphic design students, and Blender is the perfect tool for learning those skills. With Blender, students can not only do 3D work, but also create 2D artwork and animations, edit videos, and visual effects. It's a powerful tool where the possibilities for creativity are endless. It's now my favorite tool to use in school and personal projects."

Buffalo State's art and design programs not only equip students with the technical skills necessary to succeed, but also real world experience, social skills, and confidence.

"We have a required internship with a local agency as part of our program, and many students get job offers," Patterson said. "We work on speaking with confidence, learning the lingo, and making professional presentations. I see students make the transition: instead of walking up to me and asking, 'What should I do?' they start telling each other, 'Here's what you should do.' They walk differently when they realize who they are and what they can do."

"Without Buffalo State, I don't think I would be the artist I am today," Hanson Czerny added. "I have not only become a better artist and designer because of Buffalo State, I have also gained valuable insight and advice from talented and knowledgeable professors who want to see their students succeed."

Image: Animation from the short film Headspace by Rebecca Hanson Czerny.