Films Training Blog
Pipeline and Tools Characters
Pipeline and Tools Characters
search Login Join
favorite

Development Fund

Support Blender Core Development with a monthly contribution.

theaters

Blender Studio

The creators who share. Access production content and knowledge from the Open Movies.

code

Blender Developer Blog

Latest news and updates on Blender development.

people

Get Involved

Join the community and help with design, development, docs and more.

bar_chart

Open Data

A platform to collect and display the Blender Benchmark results.

menu_book

Blender Docs

Documentation on Blender's features, tools and API.

Blender Conference

The yearly event that brings together the Blender community in one place.

download

Get Blender

Download the latest Blender version, or try the beta!

Films
Training
Blog
Pipeline and Tools
Characters
Search
Login
Join

19th Jan 2023 | Pet Projects

Announcing "Pet Projects": a New Open Movie

Francesco Siddi

Producer

flag Report Problem

After devoting over one year of focus to the topic of realism with Charge, it’s now time to move in a new direction! Aiming at the holy grail of hyper-realism is not the only way to push the boundaries of what is possible with Blender. There are many more avenues to explore, many more workflows to cover. So what about a highly stylized, light-hearted animated episode?

Very early concept drawing by Rik and Vivien.
Very early concept drawing by Rik and Vivien.

This was the pitch presented to the Blender Studio team: let’s create something cartoony and serializable, so that the design language and animation style could be re-used consistently across multiple stories. This would be a good framework to go back to when the studio is in-between larger productions, and a useful foundation for artists to explore storytelling.

Concept art by Vivien.
Concept art by Vivien.

The first episode of Pet Projects is being directed by Rik Schutte, with art direction by Vivien Lulkowski, and story and editorial support by Hjalti Hjalmarsson, with the whole team at Blender Studio involved in the production.

Here is the idea: An uptight engineer gets an unwelcome visit from a enthusiastic wannabe-pilot, causing both of them to be launched into the air inside an out-of-control space shuttle. Or, as Ton mentioned once, "developers are cats, artists are dogs"!

Given the target size and pace of the project (around 2 minutes of duration, around 4 months production cycle), technical challenges will be limited, with more focus on workflows and documentation. Sharing production knowledge is one of the key goals of Blender Studio!

There is potential for more extensive Grease Pencil use. As a matter of fact, the team has already been using the Story Pencil add-on to board the first versions of the short!

A sneak peek at the storyboarding workflow by Rik.

After a couple of months of development, Pet Projects is currently in pre-production and the progress can be followed here on the Blender Studio website.

Early concepts by Rik.
Early concepts by Rik.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Francesco Siddi

Producer

flag Report Problem

16 Comments

Join to comment publicly.

Rik Schutte

20th January 2023 - 11:29

second <3

Vivien Lulkowski

19th January 2023 - 20:06

first

Jakub Steiner

20th January 2023 - 13:51

Mean cats? I'm IN!

Al Sande

20th January 2023 - 17:51

Great news!  I always learn so much from the production lessons so it's good to hear there will be a focus on workflows and documentation in this one  - techniques I learned from previous films, especially Sprite Fright, have showed up in many of my projects since.  I'm particularly looking forward to learning new ways to integrate more grease pencil techniques into my 3d workflow...

Adam Earle

20th January 2023 - 15:48

yep have to say that I am jealous of the people who are working on this one. I really do wish it was me.

Helge Maus

20th January 2023 - 16:28

YES :-)

Matt Jordan

21st January 2023 - 15:09

So many great projects but this might be my favorite one yet. This is right down my alley.

shmuel lowenbraun

22nd January 2023 - 04:56

nice!

yujiaxin

22nd January 2023 - 15:37

adorable!

Pedro Chaves Martins

22nd January 2023 - 18:55

I liked it 😀

Michael Carella

25th January 2023 - 10:04

This is going to be awesome, looks like it could have a 'Bad Guys' type of 2d/3d hybrid, would love to learn more about the process similiar to that. Either way, it'll be great.

Weston Jones

25th January 2023 - 16:21

wow! beautiful as always. can't wait!

Leslie Solorzano

26th January 2023 - 19:02

Super exciting! I'll get my popcorn ready haha

Kreessan Exinor

28th January 2023 - 23:39

Super excited for this!!

Iván Rojo

29th January 2023 - 03:26

Awesome, I really like that style!!

Craig Wieland

4th February 2023 - 22:36

love it!

Blender Studio

The Creators Who Share.

Facebook Logo Twitter Logo YouTube Logo
  • Films
  • Blog
  • Training
Pipeline and Tools
  • Cloud Rig
  • Blender Kitsu
  • Contact Sheet Add-on
  • Blender Purge
  • Blender Cloud Services
Characters
  • Einar
  • Security Bot
  • Huginn
  • Pack Bot
Studio
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Remixing Music
  • Blender.org
Loading...