The full story
CG Cookie started as a blog that hosted various computer graphics tutorials and over time became focused on providing guided education for tackling Blender's learning curve in particular. It wasn’t long before it was clear that not only could we make Blender easier to learn through the right style of teaching, but we could also create add-ons that make some of the difficult tasks substantially easier. As CG Cookie built up a library of Blender courses, it also built up a collection of tools that were loosely related to that content.
Creating and updating add-ons and creating video courses are two very different tasks though, and it was never entirely clear how the tools fit into the business of teaching or how much time and energy should be dedicated to working on them. As educators, we wanted to teach Blender as-is out of the box so that anyone could follow along, but as problem solving nerds, we couldn’t help but try to improve the software in the areas that we saw artists consistently struggle with.
Earlier this year, we decided to solve this split in focus by moving the tools section of the CG Cookie business over to our newly created sister company, Orange Turbine, which is a specialized consulting firm that helps companies integrate Blender into their production pipelines. Orange Turbine’s projects often entail creating custom scripts or add-ons, so it’s a perfect fit! Now, the tools have a home where they can get the attention they deserve.
What's changing?
The affected CG Cookie products, RetopoFlow, Extra Lights, Scattershot, the Hardwood Shader Collection, and the All-Purpose Eevee Glass Shader, have been moved over to Orange Turbine’s Blender Market account. All customers still have access to the downloads and future updates. All products that were available to download via CG Cookie’s site will continue to remain there as well.
The Orange Turbine team consists of Wes Burke, Jonathan Williamson, Jason van Gumster, Dr. Jon Denning, and Jonathan Lampel, who happen to be the exact same people that were already involved with the tools while they were under the roof of CG Cookie. Nothing is fundamentally changing other than the name and the ability to grow our focus on development.
The first tool from CG Cookie, Contours (which later grew into RetopoFlow), was made, in part, to prove that creating and maintaining a Blender add-on could be a sustainable project for a business even though it was fully open source. It’s been over eight years since then and RetopoFlow is still going strong! In that time, we’ve remained firmly committed to upholding the ideals of the open-source community and will continue to do the same as Orange Turbine.
We’re doubling down on our bet that Blender is going to be an important player in tomorrow’s creative industry and are excited to be part of helping make that happen!
Stay in the loop
You can find out more about Orange Turbine by visiting orangeturbine.com or following orangeturbine on Twitter.
