Big Buck Bunny codenamed Peach is the second Open Source Animated Movie from the Blender Stable.. Like its elder sibling Elephant's Dream this movie has been created using Free and open Source software Blender .. The Project Peach started in October 2007 and produced an amazing result know as Big Buck bunny which was released April 10, 2008.. The premier of film was done at Amsterdam while the movie was available for online download from 30th May Onwards..

Big Bunny emerged as a great animation film..Giving tough competition to Huge Animation makers like Dream works, Pixar and others.. Without having backup of Multinational Companies like Intel. Hp etc... Blender Institute successfully released a beautiful and entertaining Movie..The company rendered the film using Network.com Sun Grid compute utility service, and hosts it.

Big Buck Bunny is a whole new concept which is similar to Dreamworks creation of making animal animated films. Big Buck Bunny presents a new face of Blender , the ability to create spectacular 3d models , rendering of grass ,hair, fur etc.. 

The Movie starts with a beautiful soothing sound and chirping of birds.. The earlier scenes depict the aesthetic Landscape.. Which is followed by screening the Bunny lair and the Movie Title.. The Movie can be divided into two parts in which different faces of Bunny has been presented.. The calm and peaceful loving and outrageous bunny set to teach the rodents a lesson..

 

As the film proceed we will notice a oversized rabbit known as Bunny or “JC” living in an aesthetic atmosphere surrounded with Plains, Birds , Trees and Butterflies.. Bunny is calm and gentle by nature ,who is fond of butteries and flowers.. But the peace no longer prevailed as the plains was stunned by the arrival of 3 bullying obnoxious rodents, Frank, Rinky and Gamera. .. These rodent amuse themselves by teasing helpless and poor creatures.. The notorious rodents trio ends up by killing the Butterfly which was very close to Bunny.. Soon after that they drove the Bunny out of the plains by redirecting their attacks over him..The intruders destructive and cruel nature outraged the Bunny and the bunny made up his mind to teach the trio a lesson.. 

  

Keeping his gentle and loving nature aside The Bunny prepares himself for saga.. The bunny superbly prepares the battlefield with loads of booby traps and weapon .. He prepares himself to take the revenge of the death of his beloved Butterfly.. The trio finally nail down to the perfectly crafted booby traps and the bunny get hold of the intruders thus successfully completing his revenge.. After the Vengeance, Bunny again lived a happy life in the cozy paradise.. Once again Peace prevailed on the halcyon world and Bunny lives happily with his animal friends..The movie has a fantastic and slapstick end :P

The Movie is a 100% entertainer , though the plot and characterization of the movie is little clumsy in the beginning which is followed by trill and creativity later on .. The film does have a unique satire. There are scenes which provide you a small laughter. The Movie didn't even bore you for a second though doesn't comes with a strong Storyline like Madagascar and Over the Hedge..

The Background Music is just too good and has been perfectly produced to suite the scenario at a particular instant. The music support Dolby Digital surround sound for crystal clear and theatre like sound output.. The Music is also available for Free download.. 

The movie comes out a decent watch even at multiple times..Blender and its Institute has shown tremendous improvements in every aspect whether its 3d Models or the animation.. Big Buck Bunny features better 3d models and animation than the older Elephant's Dream . The detailing and animations are more fluid and expressive adding to the eye candy of the Movie ..

Big Buck Bunny now comes in a two DVD set or a Blue Ray DVD.. Getting this DVD not only provide you a hard copy but also aids fund for future projects like upcoming Apricot game.. The two-DVD set of the film includes the model, texture, animation and rendering files used to make the film as well as various quality renders and the PAL and NTSC versions of the finished film. The Blue Ray version adds the more data by including Elephant's Dream Movie in it.. 

 

Big Buck Bunny is licensed under Creative Common Attribute 3.0 CC-By , which states that if own a hard of soft copy of the product you own the work.. Being an Open Source Movie you can study , edit , redistribute, redesign the movie and share without disclosing the Source Code.. 

The aim of the Project is not only to produce Films but to fund Blender Foundation for Future projects and establish Blender as a prominent 3d Modeling software , one of the strengths of Blender in creating life like creatures. These adds in Big Buck Bunny, as do strong animated backgrounds and effects. Big Buck Bunny stands upto audience expectations and further validate Blender as a professional animation creation suite.

 

In the End I would just say that Big Buck Bunny is a must watch movie and a great addon for PMP Owners.. Though the storyline might not impress different audience, apart from this the movie is great in every respect. I don't have anything to complain as the team doesn't have story expert and huge Studio Support. The 10 minute movie won't take much time and will provide you excellent entertainment that rewards repeated viewing. .. The movie is available in different resolution and formats like 480p, 720p and 1080p resolutions and formats like Ogg Theora, mkv, avi and flv [via You Tube], making it easy for every audience to experience the movie without resizing or converting..

Ratings : - 

Direction : 4 / 5

Screenplay : 3.5 / 5

Story Line : 3 / 5

Animation and 3d Model : 4 / 5

Sound : 4 / 5

Overall : 4 / 5

External Links :

Download : Big Buck Bunny - http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/index.php/download/

Shopping  : Blender e-shop  - http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/product_info.php?products_id=106

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Description: VolumeTouch gives quick control over your PC’s volume by using a combination of hotkeys and the mouse or arrow keys.

The first thing I will say about this program is that, aside from performing a very useful function, it scores high marks in terms of the user experience it provides. Once you start experimenting with the combination of hotkey/mouse controls for volume you will find that these are very intuitive and well conceived.

The program also uses a system tray icon to display volume levels as a bar gauge or a percentage numeric, which also turned out to be a much more useful that I would have initially thought. More notes on this program:

• How it works: you can either control the volume with the mouse scroll wheel, through your mouse’s vertical or horizontal movements (but you’ll have to pick one method). Once you specify which method you like in the settings, you can press the default hotkey (CTRL+Shift) and move the scroll wheel up and down (or the mouse up and down, or left and right) in order to control the volume. If you prefer you can use the UP/DOWN arrow keys instead, and CTRL+Shift+0 will mute/unmute.
  
• Skins: the VolumeTouch icon in the system tray functions as a volume gauge that displays the volume level. Five "skins" are included, including my favorite "percent" which displays the volume as a percentage (See screenshot). You might want to remove the Windows native volume icon from the system tray (right click on it, click adjust audio properties, then uncheck "place volume icon in the taskbar").
• Memory consumption: a rather large 12-15 megs. However, this is probably inflated because this program requires Microsoft .NET framework and, in my experience, real memory consumption for .NET framework apps is difficult to determine for sure.
• Reasons to use Volumouse: offers up to five different user-defined hotkey-activated functions. Highly customizable: can control different channels and specific volume components rather than the general volume. Takes up only 3 megs of memory, and does not require .NET framework.

• The verdict: overall this is a great program and very intuitive to use. If you are sensitive to .NET and/or memory consumption you might want to try Volumouse instead; however when it comes to simplicity of design and providing a good user experience VolumeTouch definitely delivers.

  Download Now - Size 299KB - http://www.hi.is/~antoni/volumetouch/

  Source : www.freewaregenius.com

A utility that handles compressed files like zip and rar is an essential requirement for every Windows PC. The softwares that are most popular in this area are WinZip and WinRar. Both of these are paid softwares, so some of us are even running cracked version of these tools. But there are some freeware tools that does the same thing as WinRar and WinZip and some do it even better. Here are some of the best freeware application that you can use instead of WinZip and WinRar.

1. 7-Zip: One of the most popular freeware application that works with compressed files. Infact, some people haven't heard any further than WinZip, WinRar and 7-zip. Just read on, there are some more coming. For now, let's see what 7-Zip has to offer.

• High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression

• Supported formats:

Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR

Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS

• For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip

• Self-extracting capability for 7z format

• Integration with Windows Shell

• Powerful command line version

• Plugin for FAR Manager

Download Size: 840KB (32 bit), 1.1MB (64 bit)

7-Zip is a good program. The fact that it's open source will appeal further to some of us. Overall, it's a nice program and you should try this out.

2. IZArc: IZArc s the ultimate freeware archive utility supporting many archive formats like: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. With a modern easy-to-use interface, IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one archive type to another, view and write comments and many more. IZArc has also build-in multilanguage support.

Main Features:

• With IZArc you can open CD image files like ISO, BIN, CDI and NRG. It is also possible to convert such files from one type to another (BIN to ISO, NRG to ISO).

• If you need to send large files to your colleagues, friends or customers who may not have archiving tool you can easily create self-extracting archive that can be extracted by simple double click.

• IZArc can be configured to run your preferred Anti-Virus scanner when you open any archives.

• IZArc supports 256-bit AES encryption to secure your data.

• IZArc is integrated in Windows so you can perform all archiving operations by using right-click menus in Windows Explorer.

Download Size: 3.5 MB

3. TUGZip is a powerful freeware archiving utility for Windows that provides support for a wide range of compressed, encoded and disc-image files, as well as very powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. 

Main Features:

• Supports ZIP, 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, BH, BZ2, CAB, CPIO, DEB, GCA, GZ, IMP, JAR, LHA (LZH), LIB, RAR, RPM, SQX, TAR, TGZ, TBZ, TAZ, YZ1 and ZOO archives.

• Supports BIN, C2D, IMG, ISO and NRG disc-images.

• Support for external plugins.

• Windows shell integration, e.g. drag & drop, shell context menu and drop handlers.

• Create 7-ZIP, BH, BZ2, CAB, JAR, LHA (LZH), SQX, TAR, TGZ, YZ1 and ZIP archives.

• Script support which allows you to make automated backups.

• Basic features like: add, extract, delete, rename, run, view, checkout, install, test, comment, SFX, virus-scanning, disk-spanning and much more.

• Repair corrupted ZIP and SQX archives.

• Can extract multiple archives at once using Multi Extract.

• Encrypt archives using 6 different algorithms. Blowfish (128-bit), DES (56-bit), Triple DES (168-bit) and Rijndael (128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit).

• Create self-extracting encrypted archives.

 

Download Size: 3.9 MB

4. Quick Zip: Quick Zip is a powerful and fast utility that provides support to ZIP and other popular archive formats. Features include built-in support to 21 types (or 36 extensions) of archives and encoding formats; full integration to the shell, including an archive icon, which associates different archives with different icons, context menus, tool tips, drag-and-drop, and cut and paste; and a folder list, which shows the directory structure of files. You can add the current date and time in order to store and pick different versions of files in the same archive.

Download Size: 4.27 MB

5. DropZip: You can drag a ZIP or RAR file (or even multiple ZIP/RAR files) onto the DropZip icon and they will be magically unzipped into a folder with the same name as each ZIP or RAR file, for example. Drag your Zip file hello.zip from My Documents onto the icon. Look in My Documents, there will be a new folder called hello.

It also has another feature if you drop a folder (it must be one folder on its own) then that folder will be converted to a ZIP file (note the folder won't be deleted). This is not designed to be a replacement for your normal ZIP or RAR programs; instead, it is designed for convenience when you need to quickly unzip or unrar something.

Download Size: 9.2 MB

6. PeaZip free archiver utility is a portable, open source archiving, encryption and file split tool.

PeaZip archiver is cross platform, it runs on Windows 9x, 2000, XP, Vista and on Linux and supports handling of many archive and compression formats. PeaZip allows to edit, save and restore archive's layouts; apply powerful multiple filters to archive's content; handle multiple archives at once; export job definition as command line; encrypt, split and join files and compress executables with strip/UPX.

Download Size: 2.6 MB

7. ALZip claims to be the fastest archiver program. It is indeed fast. ALZip can open 36 different file formats and create upto 8. It can create self extracting archives and integrates seamlessly into the Windows shell just like any other zip program. Some additional features like archive repairing, testing or installing archived programs are also available. ALZip is free for homeuse, but being a shareware version it keeps displaying popup ads which is the only annoying thing in this program. Other than that, it's a nice utility.

Download Size: 5.5 MB

8. jZip is built on the 7-Zip technology. It offers the same kind of compression capabilities offered by 7-zip but in an easier more streamlined user interface. You can read the full review of jZip on Softpedia.

Download Size: 2.3 MB

9. ZipGenius is the absolutely free software for Windows® that lets you compress files to almost any kind of archive. ZipGenius supports more than 20 compressed archive formats, including CD/DVD-ROM image files in ISO9660 standard. This is the file compression suite you were searching for: it is free and easy to use, plus it supports more than 20 formats of compressed archives, including RAR, ARJ, ACE, CAB, SQX, OpenOffice.org documents and the excellent 7-zip. ZipGenius now can precompress executable files going to be added to a ZIP archive through the UPX compressor.

ZipGenius is presented in two editions: STANDARD and SUITE that differs for the content they ship to user's Desktop.

While the suite edition is the full setup package that includes all the optional modules of the ZipGenius project, because it is a setup layout oriented to experts and power users, the standard setup package just includes the main ZipGenius application because it is designed for most Windows users, that just want to open/compress/decompress archives in several formats.

Download Size: 4.9 MB

10. ZipStar is a FREE archiving application for home users. Use it to create and unpack the archive formats SQX, CAB and ZIP. ZipStar relies on the well-known Squeez technology, one of the fastest engines for file compression and extraction which is also used in SpeedCommander and Squeez.

Thanks to the integrated Quick View for the most common file and multimedia formats you can view files within archives without first having to extract them. You can compress and extract files directly from Windows Explorer! One thing I like about ZipStar is it's Office 2003 look.

ZipStar is completely compatible to Windows XP and Vista and can be used freely for non-commercial use.

The main features are

• Direct support for the archive formats SQX, ZIP and CAB

• Full support of ZIP64 (no restrictions regarding the archive size and number of files within a ZIP archive) and Deflate64

• Complete Windows Explorer integration

• Integrated Quick View for many file formats

• Archive Favorites and Archive Folders

• Archive information window which displays the most important archive properties

Download Size: 6.6 MB

___________________________________________________

Courtesy : www.instantfundas.com