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Oscar-winning animated film 'Flow' created entirely with free and open-source software Blender
(www.creativebloq.com)
And it's European! πͺπΊπͺπΊπͺπΊ
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Technology
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Reminder that Blender is struggling with funding right now. https://topicroomsvfx.com/news/the-price-of-free-blenders-funding-crisis/
Make sure to leave it a few bucks if you use it. https://fund.blender.org/
Whenever I download a new version of Blender I typically throw them $10 - $15.
Just like with other open source software I use, I give it a shot and if I like it I'll throw them $10 - $15 each time I update.
Edit: It's not much but it's not nothing. No raindrop feels reasonable for the flood and all that.
thank you for your support to FOSS!
For each update? I'd be the one with funding issues if I'd do that :D
Going into debt running Tumbleweed.
Sweats in Arch
If you pay per package, you get shaken down whenever GCC is updated.
Thatβs why they do it. A lot of people canβt afford to donate to software, so for those who can, itβs nice to make a sizeable contribution.
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You do a lot, and thank you!
I also hope the studios behind the film made sure to pay a solid donation.
More than 99% of users including me
That's more than I can afford to be donating right now
I didn't hear they're struggling? Its not like they can get more money and instantly increase the scope and just toss stuff on, people compare them to for profit companies who need to make a profit for investors, the amount of money they have would obv be less
Like they wont shut down anytime soon, but more miney will definitely lead to more features. Personally want to see simulation improvements, its just so poor compared to embergen/houdini.
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The movie was really well done. It's a simpler animation style so don't expect Pixar level stuff, but the story and art direction are great.
It's a simpler animation style so don't expect Pixar level stuff
One of the things you learn in art school is that if you aim for something like realism (or Pixar, in this case), but you fail to get there, people will notice and critique you for it. If you aim for a style you can do well, on the other hand, nobody will care that you didn't do Realism (or Pixar).
Up and coming artists in any genre would do well to remember that it's okay not to be Pixar or Capcom or whatever. Sometimes working within your limitations can inspire truly creative works.
I refer to this as the Wind Waker effect.
Before Wind Waker was announced, Nintendo did a reel showing off the power of the GameCube that included a "realistic" (for the time) fight scene between Link and Ganondorf. So when they announced a new Zelda game, people were hyped for a gritty realistic Zelda, and when the first trailers appeared, people hated it.
For years after its release, Wind Waker's art style was dragged on by people, but today, it's remembered as one of the most iconic Zelda games from that time period and a major influence on the aesthetic of many Zelda games after it.
Today, its art style looks just as good as it did when the game first launched, while most other games from that time period - especially those that went for high fidelity and realistic graphics - look outdated.
A good art style is timeless and will always age better than trying to push the envelope on graphical fidelity or realism.
Don Hertzfeldt made some amazing short films with a really, really simple art style.
The message sometimes matters more than the quality of the art. There is still a level of high quality to it despite the seemingly simple art style.
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I just saw the trailer and thought it looked good.
Pixar has conditioned us to only value a certain kind of 3D animation that is very round and lanky, similar to Popeye. It's animation that exists to make things as easy as possible for the animators. Same thing with the calarts bean face. They don't care about creativity or art. They only care about making money as reliably and easily as possible.
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Well-deserved win! Watched this in the cinema a few weeks back. What immediately struck me about the beautiful art style is that it felt more like what youβd expect from a labor-of-love indie game than from a dreamworks/pixar studio β and it was incredibly refreshing! Also, for a movie where water plays a big role, the fluid rendering was absolutely breathtaking. I could almost smell the warm plastic air of a GPU giving its all.
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Nuh uh, headline. I bet the soundtrack wasn't made in Blender
There was somebody crazy enough to make an entire game in Blender, I don't doubt that somebody has at least tried to make a soundtrack in Blender.
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You can draw sound waves with grease pencil so it should be possible
I wouldn't be surprised. I like this one where the guy reproduces an entire functional/usable physical camera within Blender.
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Rendered in EEVEE? Really? Wow! Considering you get so much more optical fidelity with Cycles it's really astonishing they've used EEVEE.
The creator favoured speedy feedback on everything. And it's not like you can't make things look gorgeous in EEVEE, why go for fidelity when you can make things look nice.
FYI EEVEE now supports ray tracing so lighting can be much better than before with much less hassle. cycles is obviously better for pbr but EEVEE can easily be used for more stylized renders, and probably be preferred.
The fact that all the textures look painted explain why eevee was used. There are frames in this movie that look like literal oil paintings.
I liked the movie, but my (small) kids cried a lot during and after the movie.
Hahaha yeah same, was not expecting it to get on top of them so easily.
I feel like young kids these days are desensitized to scary imagery (ghosts and ghouls and blood and guts) but take jeopardy or peril really hard.
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Wanna watch it with my 6 and 9 year olds soon. Is it that sad?! I skipped through it and it looked nice.
Its not that its sad so much as there is a lot of stress and peril and the ending isn't really happy or sad. Its a complicated movie that falls outside the disney format of "bad thing happens, good guys badn together, day is saved and everyone is fine".
It feels like its exploring themes of loss and moving forward. But theres some moments where I genuinely have no idea what happened.
I kinda like exposing my kids to that though. The movie didnt spoon feed you answers and encourages you to draw your own conclusions. My 10 year old was hooked by the halfway mark but my 5 year old was like this the entire time π«£
It's not sad, but there's a lot of anxiety inducing moments.
Family liked it, especially the kids, but the ending was like, wait what? Itβs over?
I realized part way through the title works on a few levels. It was refreshing to realize this wasn't remotely following the 3-act narrative structure and I had no idea what was happening next.
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But the thumbnail, isn't that just the album cover from Nirvana's Nevermind?
If you remove the fishes, replece the cat with a baby, and add a dollar on a fishing hook, it's literally the same.
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Any good places where one could stream this?
HBO Max. Or else you can rent it from digital sites
Incredible to see how far blender has come. I remember using it over ten years when I was trying to get off pirated software (3ds max), while it's still recognisable the capability has exploded
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i really wanna watch this in the cinema
It is available to stream on Max, which means that if you do not have the means to legally stream it there, you'll be able to find it on the high seas. That said, if you do opt to watch it through "alternative means", make sure to at least send a little money Blender's way.
But they said they wanted to watch it in the cinema. Confused by this reply.
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