Announcing: Blender Cloud Services

It is time to start sharing the results of our work on Blender Cloud Services. In the upcoming weeks we want to roll out a number of features for our subscribers.

• Private projects and file management in the Blender Cloud
• Blender ID add-on for Blender, so that users can be authenticated with their Blender ID account
• Blender Cloud add-on for Blender, to access Blender Cloud features within Blender (Texture libraries)
• Attract shot list management integration

Private projects

A project in the Blender Cloud is a collection of related content, such as each Open Movie project, Training or library (Texture Library, Art Gallery). Soon each Blender Cloud subscriber will be able to create private projects where images, blend files or videos can be uploaded and shared with other cloud members. For example you could create your own personal texture library.

Blender ID add-on

A new add-on called Blender ID authentication is available in master. Once you enable it you can login with your Blender ID credentials (email and password). At that point your identity will be used by Blender to give you access to online content via other add-ons, such as the Blender Cloud add-on. Technical documentation and source code of the Blender ID add-on is available at  https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/BIA/.

Blender Cloud add-on

While the Blender ID add-on is designed to provide authentication, the Blender Cloud add-on will provide the connection between the Blender Cloud and Blender. Texture asset browsing and shot management with Attract are the first features that will become available.

Attract

You might remember about Attract, the production and shot management tool we used in Tears of Steel and Cosmos Laundromat (https://gooseberry.blender.org/production-tools-state-report/). Working on Attract during those projects provided a lot of insight in the development to the current Blender Cloud and we are now planning to make it available for your private projects.

Release plan

We intend to incrementally bring all these features to Blender Cloud subscribers, starting with project creation and file management.  Public beta testing will start at the end of next week, so stay tuned for further updates!