[Bf-marketing] Re: Blender Press Release

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

A couple of notes & hints;

--------------------
- Define clearly who the target audience and goal for such releases is.  
I would suggest to "artists who work professionally with 3d tools", and  
goal "invite them to try Blender as a serious alternative or as  
addition to the artist's toolset".

- Don't try to make press releases 'funny'. This usually only works  
against you, gives a very hobbyist image too.

- Don't be an underdog, but write with the coolness and relaxed  
attitude of a winner.

- Make statements that provide recognition and 'customer satisfaction'  
for current (professional) users as well. Nothing is worse than a press  
release that embarasses current power uses. It helps to imagine you  
write this to - for example - Anthony Zierhut (Spiderman3) or to the  
brothers Ume (who did in Belgium amazing Blender movie work).

- A good press release has a well defined core message. Limit the  
amount of information in a text, too much info usually gets ignored.  
Solve it by for example providing a 2nd fact sheet with the description  
of release highlights.

- Biggest question; are we going to comply the world wide 'template'  
standard for press releases? In my corporate days we did quite some,  
and sometimes it was embarassing too. :)
Here's the press releases for s/w releases of two competitors;

http://www.softimage.com/home/press/pressreleases/ 
050926_xsi5available.htm
http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/press/press_release_details.jsp? 
itemId=2700002

------------------

So; apart from the obligatory list of features, I'd like to see a good  
story as well. What is worth mentioning is;

- Blender is becoming an open source success story
- Support from Google (SOC) and BF (Orange Movie)
- Blender's growing acceptance in professional media (Belgium movie  
studio, etc)
- Animation recode project summary
- Modifier system summary (can include booleans and fluids)
- A short note about future development

Then provide links to downloads (images, movies)

I wished I had more time for it... but there must be a smart &  
professional author out there?

Thanks,

-Ton-


On 30 Nov, 2005, at 22:24, Tom M wrote:

> Some notes - I leave the mention of the Blender name out of the title
> till after cool features have been mentioned - the reason is that lots
> of people have tried past releases and found Blender so frustrating to
> use that seeing Blender in the title might leave them to skip the
> article entirely (this has been a big problem at CGTalk for instance,
> where 95% of page views and comments are from current blender users
> for recent release annoucements and other news).  It can be added back
> though if desired.
>
> We will probably have a few images embedded - our total target size is
> about 50k to maybe 100k.  Probably a sample hair; fluid; and morph
> targets, or other animation related pic.
>
> Feel free to point out things you think should be changed and to make
> other suggestions.
>
> Those of you in the CC list are encouraged to join the bf-marketing  
> list
>
> *******************************************
> Title: new animation system - another dimension set free
>
>
> While the main focus of this release was animation tools improvements,
> there have been a number of big improvements throughout our 3D suite.
>
> Animation system :
>  - Arm yourself - new fast and easy Armature and rigging system
>  - Get Moving - completely retooled Inverse Kinematics. with instant
> IK transforms
>  - Freedom - all IK joints can now have degree of freedom limits
>  - You're in the Driver seat - The new Driver system allows things
> like a bones rotation to effect a muscles bulge
>  - Things are beginning to take Shape - reworked Shape keys allow
> intuitive blend shape creation and storage
>  - Bad to the BBones - Bones that can curve and twist giving natural
> feeling spines
>  - Pushing the Envelope - Envelope based skin weighting, and new
> armature and constraint visualization capabilities
>  - Take it in Stride - new stride bone system let you create
> walkcycles in a simple and fast way
>  - Get into the action - Non linear action editor was fully revised
>
> Particle System and Simulation :
>  - You're all wet - you can now easily create realistic water and
> other fluid simulations.
>
>  - Now your stylin - with new particle hair and particle guide tools
> you can create realistic hair.
>
> Other improvements:
>  - Modify this! - new Modifier stack lets you experiment with
> decimation, booleans without long term commitment.
>  - Watch the knife - subdivide tools have been greatly expanded, new  
> mesh tools
>  - Make a Difference - we now have high quality boolean based editing
>  - Bouncy Balls - softbody objects can now can collide with other  
> objects.
>  - Bullet time - the new physic library let you bake game engine
> results to your animation
>  - Looking Sharp - new oversampling options means higher quality
> rendering results
>  - Get Unwrapped - LSCM unwrapping now has interactive updating
>
>   Oh, we didn't change the name, it is still blender !
>
>   so, follow the monkey <link>
>
>   The inverse kinematic improvements, fluid dynamics, and the high
> quality booleans work was done with the sponsorship of the Google
> Summer of Code program.  We greatly appreciate their support, and the
> wonderful results achieved by the hard work of Brecht, Niels, and
> Marc.  You can look forward to other great Summer of Code projects
> being released with the next version of Blender such as a greatly
> improved NURBS code base, and real time collaboration.
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-marketing mailing list
> Bf-marketing at blender.org
> http://projects.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-marketing
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org  
http://www.blender.org