That's where you give him a pass since he's 16 years old doing this in his spare time
That's where you give him a pass since he's 16 years old doing this in his spare time
I don't, though. I'm not saying he sucks, or that this doesn't look good, or anything. I'm saying that this could be improved by having the animations looking more real by behaving more like they would in reality.
Saying something can be improved is not the same as saying that something is crap.
Being critical regardless of age is very valuable. There's this thing that if a young person does something pretty damn cool, they're made to believe it's extraordanirily good, rivalling even the best in the industry. I think it's called the "Gifted Kid Problem" in certain circles.
It happened to me with programming games; I entered competitions and even won one or two, making me believe I'm just SO good.
Now that I'm 30+ years old I still crave that same level of recognition which is basically unobtainable for me now as I'm just another cog in the system. Sure, I have some nice projects here and there and I get a compliment out of that some time, but never on the level I received while I was young.
I think it's incredibly important to give people advice on what could be improved, while still being respectful / praising of the work that's already done. That's how, in my opinion, you get a balanced individual.
Being critical regardless of age is very valuable. There's this thing that if a young person does something pretty damn cool, they're made to believe it's extraordanirily good, rivalling even the best in the industry. I think it's called the "Gifted Kid Problem" in certain circles.
I think you nailed something that I was wondering while browsing this thread. What difference does it make if a person practiced 5-10 years a craft resulting to winning an award if that person started when he was 10 vs. 25? The headline would not only be radically different if it was a 30-year old who did it because he studied since he was 20-25; We might not even have a headline. It would have been "oh, someone won the award. Yay?"
Do we reward the output as as standalone (as is) during the contest, or do we also reward our perceived potential (imagine what this person would do in 20 years)?
this is another reason why as a gifted kid who became lazy and average I feel like every effort I make now at 25 to improve myself is honestly just too late. In 5 years I will be irrelevant.
strength and self-worth as a gifted child cannot come from utter mastery of a single field. The incentives and behaviors learned do not produce the patience and long hours required to push through to top most fields. However self-worth can come from the ability to master many skills quickly. I suggest learning something new with an open mind and no expectation you will become great, just try to get to the point where its fun to play around with. I taught myself 3d modelling this year to a reasonably good degree and its been amazing. Last year I learned good typesetting and graphic design. Having a broad spectrum understanding is not only personally gratifying but has been great for my career when someone asks me to do a simple task (make some slides showing the data) and I come back with professional grade work
Yeah this gifted kid syndrome has basically made me depressed as an adult because I always expected to become great with very little effort since I was apparently already great. Turns out I'm now stunningly average and I struggle to find any meaning any more and when I try to improve at things I feel this incredible weight of all my lost potential that makes it unbearable to continue.
I got clobbered for pointing out flaws in a deceptively good-looking project at an 8th grade science fair. The kid had basically been pre-anointed as the winner, but there were serious methodological shortcomings.
Then again, I have sought criticism my whole life. The harsher the better, especially from people whose opinions I respect. Criticism and failure fire the crucible of improvement.
Well we can definitely start doing that from any movie in that case because all of them include totally unrealistic stuff regardless if it about physics or narrative. In that case, voluntary or not it give that bigger robotic feeling.
But guess what, that is also part of what makes movies interesting.
There is such a thing as suspension of disbelief, though, so I disagree with you.
I would just argue I have not the same tolerance/expectancy regarding reality when it comes to animated movie vs those with actors made of flesh or depending which subject is treated.
For example I kind of hate most action movies starring actors like Tom Cruise or movies such as the James Bond or Jason Bourne series but I do love more liberty with reality when it comes to movies treating on myths/legends, science fiction or animated movies.
Everyone put their own cursor. This discussion is kind of moot anyway without knowing the author intention.
I do love more liberty with reality when it comes to [fantasy] movies
I have the same - probably because you know from experience that, e.g., someone taking the punishment that John Wick or Bourne does wouldn't be running around two minutes later but you have no frame of reference for, say, an 8ft goblin doing the same.
(Like the first episode of Slow Horses: there is no way a huge anti-terrorism training exercise across London stations wouldn't have every second of communications recorded for later examination and it made the whole premise of the show - that the fella is exiled because someone lied about what they said to him over those comms - nonsense to me.)
There's a difference between consistent, explained differences and inconsistent and inexplicable things. If you were watching a scifi film and, half way through, the characters became fish, without anyone acknowledging or explaining this, you might not enjoy it.
To some people all criticism is bad. Even if they aren’t the target of it. There is such a thing as constructive criticism which is what you were offering.
I would claim we should give a pass to everybody because we are all human.
I would also claim I don’t think it’s nice to judge people based on their age, regardless if it’s good or bad judgement. Furthermore, I would definitely be annoyed as 16yo if I were deemed “good enough for my age”. He competes with peers, at the highest level, not with superiors who do him a favour.
Yes and no.
We have separate sports classes based on gender on age to reflect abilities.
It's takes time to get good at this stuff, a younger person has inherently had less time.
I'd structure it as one overall ranking, but special age rankings within that.
A 5 year old could hypothetically win overall, but if they didn't they'd still be rewarded in relation to their (age) peers.
There's an 'encouragement' element that you're missing. My 5 year old draws objectively bad pictures. I wouldn't tell him that though. I want him to get better so that he does become objectively good.
This is specifically a competition for young people. It's totally based around age and that's fine. A teenager doesn't have the luxury of 20 years of professional experience.
I was thinking about that very thing as well, but I came to the conclusion that robotic movement doesn't really need to match human movements. If you want to have consistent fine motor control, you wouldn't really expect things like acceleration when hitting with a hammer, or pulling down the top of the griddle.
I don't think it's intentional but I'm definitely giving him a pass since even AAA movies get this stuff wrong.
The hammer appears to slow before impact
Human nervous system has a similar mechanism where limbs are slowed down just before the impact when striking something to prevent muscle over-extension and injury, high performance martial artists train against this so that full speed and force is available upon impact without any slowdowns.
So it was an amateur hammer robot?
The movement did stand out to me, but I found it added to the atmosphere. It's a robot, its movements are supposed to be unlike that of humans. The non-physics based aspects just add to the mystique of the story for me, as this is clearly set in some (dystopian or not, for the viewer to decide) future. 3-CPO also walks 'weird' or at the very least unexplained from a physics/mechanical pov, but its movement is iconic nonetheless.
I agree, absolutely phenomenal post-processing and effects, but the core animation maybe has room for improvement. Could have been a stylistic choice indeed, but, I don't think so. I mean at age 16 it's not like they have anywhere to go but up lol so it's hard to be too critical of that. I certainly couldn't have done this.
On that note though I was watching the recent world of Warcraft cinematic they just put out and while obviously phenomenal and gorgeous and state of the art, it made me realize that the biggest tell for me for something being computer rendered isalwaysphysics animations. Things always seem to move just a bit toosmoothlyor consistently, or slowly. I think it just has to be that way because if something is 24fps you have to make it visible for a couple frames so as to demonstrate a movement, I remember reading in an animation book about how animating something "realistically" isn't a good idea because it just won't look good because of the nature of how it's presented (at a certain framerate, framing, aspect ratio, etc).
That is not Takoyaki
They’re Dango, not Takoyaki
If that's your only gripe in an non-professional animation made by a 16 year old, then that's pretty damn amazing
Wow. I can barely make a rectangle in Blender.
This person, especially given their age, is extremely talented!
sure, they're talented. but, please, don't discount the effort euan has put into his current state of mastery.
Talent doesn’t exist, it’s only the result of the effort you put into mastering a thing.
Talent certainly exists. To pretend it doesn’t is to reject reality.
I'm not really convinced. What is the mechanism by which "talent" functions? Can we observe and/or test for "talent" without observing the task the subject is claimed to be talented at? Or do you have to observe the subject performing the task exceptionally well, and then conclude "it must be talent". Sounds like mysticism like Chakras and Chi Energy to me.
Genetics is different: You're 6'7" tall, giving you a physical advantage at basketball. When you say someone is "talented" at a sport or intellectual pursuit, are you talking about the same physical (or mental) advantages?
Why do you find it easy to believe in genetic advantages for basketball, but not other activities? It would be strange if other talent did NOT have a genetic (and maybe hormonal, etc.) component, wouldn't it, when most everything from intelligence to obesity can be inherited?
Exceptional aptitude only makes sense measured against the median performance. So yes, of course you'd observe or otherwise measure the subject somehow. But from there, if you come up with some concrete measure of ability (easier in some fields than others), you can work backwards to try to identify and isolate biological and environmental components.
Some random examples from a quick google: chess correlations with different intelligences (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...), genetic factors helping chess and science ability (https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/14/1/204), music and genes plus practice (https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-014-0671-9).
There is a much bigger discussion on this exact topic here:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10519-009-9260-5
Or a Wikipedia summary of an opposing viewpoint, that talent is NOT involved at all, only practice:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Del...
TLDR aptitude at something is usually a combination of many things, from genes to hormones to upbringing to deliberate practice.
Yes, we have vague concepts like "talent" and "intelligence" that are often hard to nail down, and used lazily in day-to-day life to mean whatever the speakers wants it to mean. But you can still reframe it in a more precise way, like "Is ability at X activity partially heritable/genetic?" or "Given a group of people practicing Y similarly for Z duration, do they arrive at roughly similar outcomes?"
There's nothing mystical about any of this. It's the same sort of work as trying to trace the genetic components of anything we experience, whether that's aptitude or disease or personality or behavior. At the extreme ends, it's easy to see this across species; why are some so much faster, or able to solve certain kinds of problems, or can navigate by starlight, or can sleep half-awake, whatever.
I think the counter view -- that humans alone, of all the animals, are created absolutely equal and environment alone shapes our outcomes -- is far more mystical. That requires the belief that the brain and mind is some sort of super-natural device not subject to normal biological evolution, replication mistakes, natural selection, etc.
One can be quite talented at rejecting reality
Think of talent as genetics. The 6’6 guy naturally will have a much easier time playing basketball than the 5’6 guy. The guy with long, flexible fingers will likely be a better piano or guitar player than the guy with short stubby fingers. Etc. Can the difference be overcome? Somewhat, but the person with the advantage + effort will always beat the person without the advantage but with the same amount of effort.
I think it's a combination of both.
Talent does exist, even though effort is certainly a major contributor to the result. If you task two people, with and without talent, with accomplishing the same project, one will complete it better than the other, given both place reasonable effort into it.
If that were true, any dog that tries hard enough could win the physics Nobel prize.
Don't confuse talent with skill. Incredible work like this definitely requires both.
Talent absolutely does exist. It's just not always fulfilled. But to pretend some people don't have natural talent in certain things is nonsense.
Talent
Motivation and drive
Time and resources
You can pick one of those, and that alone can yield decent results. But when you combine them all, that's when you get truly exceptional results.
Wow. I can barely make a rectangle in Blender.
There's your problem, try making a cuboid instead.
Ha! It's been a while since I last touched Blender - and the wrong terms confirm that.
Of course a rectangle only exists in 2D space :)
Don't bother with sculpting, get a kit and start animating:https://kitbash3d.com/collections
Also ChatGPT writes pretty good instructions for you to get started.
I'd rather read ChatGPT's sources to be honest.
If you are keen to learn: Polygon runway [0]! They even have a Black Friday deal available. It's easier than I thought in the beginning. 3D-modelling makes for a fun little pastime.
How much of these assets did he make himself?
Regardless this is extremely impressive. There's nothing to distinguish this from something made by a group of professionals with infinite time and resources.
They likely created a large portion of these assets themselves. There might be some kitbashing but the amount of detail here is certainly doable for a motivated 16 yr old.
Theres a lot of creative ways to add details using scans, texture projection and scattering.
Or, you know, coding.
From what I understand, Blender's nodes increasingly replace the need for code with each version.
Yeah, geometry nodes almost feels like a cheat.
On the other hand, it's like Scratch and from my distorted worldview exposing it as code would be more straightforward.
My brain just seems to prefer having a tool to reach for with a clear purpose. For me, availability of a thing that does what I want is generally the difference between being able to do it or not. I've tried learning to code on my own, but I always hit a "now what?" situation since the available tools for the things I make are already better than I have any interest in improving on. I'm not a programmer by interest and don't foresee ever being one by trade.
I wrote some words on the topic:https://kyefox.com/2022/08/05/learn-to-code-or-dont/
Node editors like Blender's are the best thing for me: you get all the tools, but they're composable with other tools. Your hammercanbe a screwdriver. Worst case, I need a new tool no one's figured out how to make with nodes, but odds are someone already wrote that code as a plugin. Looping back to the "now what" issue: it already exists in a state beyond anything I could get up the motivation to improve on.
Thanks for this comment, I find that a really interesting perspective. I'm the exact opposite -- I'm comfortable with code, and always find node editors really awkward to use (but I definitely feel I'm missing something because they're undeniably super productive in many situations).
They're super productive when you're unfamiliar with the subject matter, do it once only or can't code at all.
Anyone can watch a couple of videos, launch Blender, start with a cube and work it into a chair in UI. Coding that for just one chair will take almost anyone more time.
Now if you need to do this to make 10 slightly different chairs where changes need to be made early on in the process, code will win even with first timers.
with stuff like 3d modelling code you're kinda skipping straight to some of the more hardcore coding. 3d transformations and algorithms are no joke, thats university and master's degree level maths. Don't feel bad if you don't get it, a huge number of professional programmers wouldn't either. I write a lot of software myself close to the metal as a robotics engineer and ive tinkered with blender code but id definately need a lot of practise to feel comfortable doing that without glueing together tools
Totally. 3D geometry ishardand when you're coding there are a bunch of different ways a minor error can mean absolutely nothing appears on the screen. Just learning about those different failure modes takes a while.
The other thing I find (but maybe this is the same with node-based approaches too!) is that there are a bunch of arbitrary coin-flip choices you have to make when doing 3D (e.g. left-handed versus right-handed coordinates). At a fundamental level it doesn't matter which choice you make, but your decisions have to be consistent, otherwise things can get flipped around, or often just vanish entirely. The sneakiest problem is when you unknowingly maketwowrong choices, and theymostlycancel out except for some weird edge cases that happen to exercise the exposed code path.
Well creating a node and hooking it up to other nods is most probabily something like this under the hood:
pd_node = PointDistributeNode(type = PDType.RANDON, seed=149)
scaleRandomizerNode.geometry_input.connect(pdNode.geometry_output)
How about creating a dynamic number of point distribution nodes and adding them all together? Trivial in code, most likely impossible in node editor.
The most flexible UI is a good programming language, anything else comes with flexibility compromises in favour of something else.
Good point, i like the balance houdini has here where you can drop into vex when you want.
Hard surface modeling in blender is pretty easy if you go the kit bash route. You still have to have some concept ofwhatyou're building. You also still need environments, rigging, lighting, camera work, compositing, and post.
I also wonder about the sound design which is very well done, but seems to be a very different field than 3D?
Here are the nominees but unfortunately the videos don't seem available:https://younganimator.uk/nominees
Huh, looking at the other nominees a part of me wonders if it was created by someone else and they just had a child stand in to take the credit. This is incredibly suspicious to say the least but who knows. There's nothing wrong with a parent or someone else helping them but to the extent of this...
Hi, we had other entries from teenagers with similar skills, so Euan's work is not an outlier:
https://younganimator.uk/winner/1699875806584x29956216420210...(Jeremiah, Aged 14)
https://younganimator.uk/winner/1668441140134x35615750206437...(Nishaan, Aged 17)
I hope works of these extremely talented kids were not demotivating for other contenders
You're showing the winners not the nominee's its pretty clear what's going on here.
You could be right; I'd hope the competition vetted the entries. But 16 isn't really a child. There's a lot of variation, but there are a lot of very talented people that age or even younger.
Some 16 year olds are kids some are not… but whether they’re a child or not doesn’t depend on their level of artistic talent / skills
Honestly at 16 even if a child reached this skill level it means they typically sacrificed other aspects of there life to reach it. Realistically less than 0.1% of children reach this route and from I've seen it's due to "encouragement" by their parents. I've seen a wide range of people children who had have "gone" far. Kids who finished their PhDs by the age of 16. It's almost always child abuse. There parents don't necessarily hit them. But they "encourage" them by forcing them down a path because it's "good" for them. If you're thinking of going this route, don't. The professors I've talked to kind of just see this as abuse and they will not help these children.
You can cheat with URLs to watch all of them. Grab the ID from the gif thumbnail URL, throw it in something with HLS stream support with this URL:https://stream.mux.com/<id>.m3u8(Safari and iOS browsers work, on Windows and Android you might need to get creative with something like VLC).
Chrome Android can directly play m3u8.
(I'm always wondering why they don't bring this feature to desktop version.)
Other winners are here:https://younganimator.uk/winners
It's very good in the field of young people making amazing things in Blender, but IMO not the best.
That would be Impetus[1]
Dec 25, so wouldn’t be animator of the year for 2023.
Besides, celebrate rather than compare:
"When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create.“ - _why the lucky stiff
_why the lucky stiff is probably the reason that I think of programming as a creative endeavor on par with things more regularly called art. It also took me from occasionally dabbling with JS to committing to becoming a paid dev.
It led me to redefine my personal version of "creative" to focus on the root word.
Ah good catch didn't realize it was from last year. I agree these things are definitely "ands" not "ors", just comparing because the linked article is about a competition. It's a pretty specific niche which made me think "oh but what about thisotheramazing animation made in blender by a 16 year old!"
Impetus is certainly more artistic and thought-provoking, but is there anything that makes Impetus a greater technical achievement than Street Food? From my (very) non-expert perspective, Street Food seems much more technically impressive.
What were the merits judged by the competition?
No need for goal posts if we dont know what they were
The fisherman scene in that film looks a lot like Guilin, China. Could be based on Vietnam also.
yeah this took obvious inspiration from Landgrens 'Takeout'https://youtu.be/OeqRzKDxK5U
wow that voice is annoying (and the lack of animations too)
IMO the best street food takes the win
Well I, for one, was completely disappointed.
I was just being drawn into the plot. Technically, it was the best Blender animation I'd seen.... ever. The foreshadowing was perfect. I knew something awesome was coming.... And boom. It stops.
I only hope the young animator keeps going.
By all means show us the superior examples from your own body of work.
Take the comment above as an example of my work.
Read it again. What was the writer disappointed by?
(That's not a rhetorical question. That's a reading comprehension question. Please post your answer)
Rising to your bait, it seems like you were disappointed by the plot. But your opening statement says you were "completely disappointed" which should be read as you were disappointed to a maximal degree by the whole thing. You then admit that the technical execution was great, but let down by plot, but we already know that you were let down "completely" and so the technical excellence is as good as worthless. So the tone of it reads as if this 16 year-old, even though he has made something amazing, is still a mere ant in comparison to your godlike powers of animation, modelling, rendering, plotting, pacing, and resolution of a one-minute movie.
Thank you. I appreciate that you responded.
Your free reading assessment: Your reading comprehension is similar to smaller and first-generation GPT-3 models. It is below that of more recent GPT-3 divinci models (e.g. text-divinci-3), gpt-3.5, or gpt-4.
My recommendation: Find a way to remediate your reading skills, or be aware of the gap, and work with someone professional (one or two meetings is adequate, but with a serious background in managing these sorts of deficits) to develop coping mechanisms.
The above is a serious assessment and recommendation. It's reasonable to make a mistake on a first read, but on a follow-up, especially reading in enough depth to analyze and break down the text (which I'm glad you did), you should have picked up on the meaning in this post unless there is some more serious underlying issue. The other posts show a fine job of how a normal person would read my comment. This does show a serious gap in foundational literacy. That's not an insult (we all have gaps). However, it's important we be aware of them, and either address them or develop coping mechanisms.
There is a large number of disorders, such as autism, dyslexia, prosopagnosia, dyscalculia, etc. which manifest quite often as a very isolated gap (and I'm personally convinced there's a much broader set than in DSM-V, and we all have a few). Many very successful people have them, but generally only succeed with awareness and coping mechanisms. I can't diagnose from one post, but that's the sort of professional background I would look for, since at this point, it's very well understood. If there is a gap, they can help understand what it is, and bridging it can make a huge difference to your well-being, success, and happiness. This doesn't need to be a process, if you don't want one; being pointed in the right direction is often adequate (estimate effort in many similar cases I've seen: reading one book).
If you fed your text into any GPT, it would conclude you were disappointed. There’s a thread of comments with yours the only one being “I am completely disappointed”. There’s not enough content in your post to signal a sufficient degree of irony amidst the context.
Go look in the mirror before diagnosing others with spectrum disorders or personality disorders.
You should probably read the comment again.. They're "disappointed" when itended, because it was so good they wanted more.
what the fuck are you smoking my man, chill out lol, he good!
Seems like you had an extreme misunderstanding of OP's original comment. The entire purpose of his comment was that this animation was excellent, but too short, meaning he wishes he could watch more of it. Hence his lighthearted "disappointment". Might want to re-read it.
I'm the organizer of the YAY UK competition, and so glad Euan's work has got such wide recognition!
The completion is judged by professionals from UK Animation & VFX Studios (including ILM) and we were all blown away by the quality of the entrants - Blender and Ian Hubert are doing amazing things for the next generation of talent!
I thought people would like to hear Euan's description he entered as part of the competition submission:
"I used Blender for the animation and Davinci Resolve for the colour grading (I also used the Film Convert plugin), all animations were rigged and keyframed by me with exception of the people walking in the first shot (those were from mixamo). The TV and advertisment footage were from previous projects.
The humans in the first and second shots are free photoscans I downloaded online and then rigged, there are a few small mechanical parts that were included in a library that I used, but the majority of them are mine.
I used Quixel megascans for some of the rubbish seen at the bottom of the second shot.
Most textures are photos sourced from textures.com or taken by me in real life, but have been modified by me to include procedural grime and dirt buildup in crevasses.
Some sound effects were from purchased sound libraries or found online copyright free. The rest I recorded myself. "
What kind of hardware is needed to render something like this?
A mid-tier GPU is more than enough if you're willing to wait a bit more on render times. You can always optimize the scene to lower rendering times. This video is 1800 frames. Depending whether it was rendered with Eevee or Cycles, it can take anywhere from a few hours up to a day or more to render the whole animation by using a single mid-high end GPU like a 3060 or 3070.
And then there is Sheep It Render Farm. You donate render power when you don’t need your PC. Earn points for that. Then consume those point when you utilize 20++ parallel render pipelines from other peoples PCs when you want to render your stuff.
How is the water dripping on the window animated?
Roughly how many hours did Euan spend to complete this piece of work?
Hey mate! The animation look doooope, if any of the young animators are interested in the gaming industry and need someone to ask questions from(That isn't trying to hire them or get them to sign up for a course)
I always have spots open for students and indies at my consultancy:https://www.the-lovelace-gang.tech/
that really is an unbelivable achievement. It's complete in so many ways
Not merely a pro job. It is enigmatic. I want to walk in that city and eat that food! And thank those hard working robots.
Small nitpicks: would have liked each scene to be longer but maybe there are competition constraints? Fires don’t look completely real. The squashing of the dough is too smooth and fast implying a crazy amount of force exerted by the device. Maybe that was intentional?
Robots can be very strong without having to look like they're straining, so the effort displayed seemed in theme. Especially with those hydraulics and clamps.
I would guess there's a one minute time constraint to the finished piece based on the video.
Double agree on the robot strength. I watched someone use a rolling device recently and it was a struggle. The video makes sense for a robot.
That said, definitely a few items that can be improved. That said, in a real production there wouldn't be one person responsible for so much work to begin with.
This is phenomenal stuff.
wonder how the organizers verify that a submission is actually only one person's work
Logically, look at the scenes, the colours, textures and the theme... They all match.
Also, it's not a cash prize. The prize is a tour of an animation studio. Tell me what incentive would there be to falsify this kind of submission?
Just to answer that question: Job opportunities? Although I am not saying I think this one is false.
Right. The only thing to me that seemed even a bit off was the sauce. Too much surface tension for that little viscosity. Truly amazing piece of work for a teenager.
According to [1] "Create a short animated film no more than 120 seconds in length, using either stop-motion, 2D or 3D animation styles."
Can someone recommend good tutorial or way to get into blender for 8yo. My kid would love to, but I don't know blender myself.
I've done a lot / most of the popular Youtube tutorials (donut, Grant Abbit's series'), but I found it very useful to combine them with some Udemy courses that usually take a slower, more curriculum focused approach. The ones that are relevant today are probably different from the ones I used during early Covid lockdown, so I can't really recommend any specific ones; I usually picked the long ones, with say 10 hours of video content that then took me 20 to 30 hours to complete (when following along, you have to pause and rewind often). You do have to be wired to enjoy such slow-paced, fundamentals-focused learning, it's certainly not a quick dopamine hit approach.
Then again I'm still no good at making 3D art due to an innate deficit in aesthetically pleasing creative thinking, so I can't even testify for myself that this approach will make you good at making 'art'. It did teach me the mechanics in a way that I enjoyed.
But I'm assuming you're not 8 though...
I don't think there are ways specifically for 8 year olds, what one needs is an 8 year old who is motivated enough to take the route that adults take. There's no material on topics like this to 'gamify' learning Blender that will trick kids who aren't sufficiently motivated in the first place into learning it. But if your point was 'he was asking about methods for 8 year olds so your answer is irrelevant to the question', then yeah, fair enough.
Youtube is your friend: it is a bottomless pit of Blender tutorials from the very basic step-by-step "learn how to use the UI" to super-advanced topics.
This guy has an extensive collections on both basic and advanced stuff:
SPOILER WARNING: Keep your kids and LLMs and other non-homophobic, non-racist, non-sexist friends away from the bottomless cess-pit of hate speech from that smarmy Australian Blender "donut demo" Guru asshole Andrew Price, who truly misses being able to use his favorite "go-to" homophobic slur, the "F*G" word, and bitterly complains that we need another punchy word like that which has the same effect, now that it's no longer acceptable to use his favorite word "F*G" in public (but doesn't let that actually stop him from laughingly using and defending it multiple times during his own Blender tutorial).
https://twitter.com/devonko_/status/1347322076340703233?s=20...
"Move that up, and then just like, for whatever reason, every frag, f-f-frag, FLAG pole. I'm surprised I haven't messed up and said F*G at one point [sardonic grin and chuckle] in this tutorial. I miss that word. [maliciously grins at the camera] HA!!! Not to actually call it to demean someTHING, BUT when I was in school, it was like the go-to word, when somebody was being an idio-- don't be a F*G, you know! [contemptuous sneering grin at camera, throwing head back while laughing] HA HA HA!!! It's horrible, I just like, I know that of course obviously you can't use it [even though he just did and is about to again], because it's demeaning to people that actually -- [what, love other people of the same gender?], like what it's trying to say, you know, homosexual. BUT in school it just had, it had a PUNCH to it, when you just call your friends a F*G. All I'm saying is we need another PUNCHY WORD [waves hand around emphatically], could be anything, BUT has that SAME effect, [predatory bully grin] HA HA, that F*G had. Aaaah, dear." -Andrew Price, "Blender Guru"
Note his repeated and formulaic use of the word "BUT":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_not_racist,_but...
He also says he'd like an international 'Ghetto Talk' day so white kids can shamelessly say "n*gger" and get it out of their system for a year. And LOTS of other typical right-wing racist sexist homophobic bullshit like that. He's a real piece of work. I didn't realize MAGA culture was so popular down under.
https://twunroll.com/article/1347630835235573761
"I'd like an international 'Ghetto Talk' day so white kids can shamelessly say "n*gger" and get it out of their system for a year." -Andrew Price, "Blender Guru"
"So what's the solution? Deport them? Prisons clearly aren't working either." -Andrew Price, "Blender Guru"
"So just round up every african american and put them on a boat back to Africa? Economic damage would be huge btw." -Andrew Price, "Blender Guru"
(Andrew Price's nasty unrepentant homophobic racist sexist tweets go on and on and on, and I don't have the stomach or time to quote them all, but you get the idea...)
There are so many great non-racist-sexist-homophobic-MAGA-asshole alternatives to Andrew Price:
https://twitter.com/devonko_/status/1347282073371901953
Instead of treating Andrew Price as a missing stair by linking to his videos but discreetly warning newcomers of his behavior and quietly accepting it, I'd much rather directly and openly address him and his behavior publicly, by quoting his own vile words. Because unlike beloved international treasures like Ton Roosendaal and Ian Hubert, Andrew Price has absolutely nothing unique to contribute or special talent that you can't easily find elsewhere from much better people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair
GamerGate and MAGA trolls who are offended by my own free speech criticism and quoting recorded evidence of Andrew Price's own freely chosen speech, and thinking of defending him or recommending his videos or repeating his favorite words: just save your time and breath, delete your HN and Blender accounts, and go away, because you're not welcome here on HN, nor in the Blender community, you won't be tolerated, and nobody wants to hear what you think, or cares for your worthless opinions.
But other than a few rare deplorable basket cases like Andrew Price, the Blender community and leadership and staff is wonderfully inclusive, open minded, progressive, accepting, supportive, mature, professional, child-friendly, and nice.
Check out these interviews, which will cleanse your palate after watching the deplorable Andrew Price bemoaning how much it cramps his style not being able to call people abusive names that make him laugh and grin, and it will restore your faith in humanity and the Blender community. And hopefully convince you to order some cool t-shirts and swag from the Blender store! My cats love taking turns sitting in the fine Blender swag box they sent me!
BLENDERHEADS - Ep. 03 (enable closed captions for English translations):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a65LBYr0UOQ
Enjoy the third episode of Blenderheads, a series about the people behind the Blender project. The editor and director –documentary maker Maaike Kleverlaan– works embedded in the Blender headquarters to cover the activities and conduct interviews. The third episode is set during April - July 2023, with new episodes being published on a quarterly basis.
What works with my kids (6+) is to allocate some "creative" time when they can use the computer but not play video games and then put on Imphenzia "ten minute modelling challenge" videos on the TV. The rest takes care of itself.
They got fluent in low-poly modelling with Extrude/Scale/Inset operations from this. This skill carries over into Blockbench for customizing Minecraft too. Can 3D print the designs too via STL export.
I'm still looking for a good bridge to next steps like physics simulations, Geometry Nodes, and Fusion360.
Tutorial videos were mostly too slow-paced to hold their attention. I would prefer those myself but my kids do better with watching and imitation.
Same way they learned to play Minecraft which I couldn't figure out myself...
I learned blender and 3d modelling this year. The most famous is by far the donut tutorial, almost a mandatory rite of passage. After that, personally I did one from the same guy to make a boat and an anvil which introduced me to modifiers/complex shapes and also the do's and don't of good model-making to make your future life easier. From that point I was able to tinker myself and I would come back for specific things I wanted to make (how to sculpt a face, how to model a tree etc)
Impressive stuff. I wonder if he's inspired by Ian Hubert's work?
Almost certainly. As a longtime member of Ian's Patreon, I recognize more than a few specific techniques being used here that he's posted tutorials for on it. Not that the inspiration takes away at all from the final product! The fact that a 16yo made this would be insanely cool even if it was a shot-for-shot remake of an existing movie scene, so any originality that it has beyond that only makes it more cool!
Agreed, It's really impressive how well they nailed the atmosphere of Ian Hubert's work.
What I love about Ian's astonishing work and performance is the sincere, spectacular excitement and enthusiasm he conveys, that shows how tremendously fun it is to be that skilled, talented, and well practiced. It serves not just as a proof of what's possible, but also as an inspiration to put in the hours to learn Blender that well, whichever of its many facets appeal to you.
And in art, you are even encouraged to copy anyone's work, except your own. Getting inspired by another artist is great.
I don't know much about this, but my first association was with Fifth Element :)
Yeah. Definitely in that vein - Ian's work draws on a whole lot of sci-fi/cyberpunk forebears.
He's got a pretty fantastic series of short, hilarious, and extremely useful and practical tutorials for Blender on his channel, and his Dynamo Dream project is hugely impressive - just the credit sequence of the latest episode is interesting enough that I wish it was a whole miniseries itself.
Yeah this was my first thought too
Give this kid a job right now
School first.
Why?
First and foremost it has to be their independent decision and nobody should be making such offers to a minor.
Secondy, huge risk to drop it now.
I've met people who either risked or dropped out of school to pursue a career(e.g. sports).
Most (if not all - we lost touch so I don't know) regretted the decision and in one instance rebelled against her parents wanting her to somehow juggle school and sport (which was serious at that point because she was part of the junior national team) and dropped out of the latter altogether, despite her parents wishes.
It won't hurt to wait those two years or so and instead hone those skills the same way they did all this time and just have a normal life before getting thrown in this high pressure environment that the world of 3D artists decidedly is.
Even though it's just two years, eighteen year olds on average handle many situations much better than sixteen year olds.
And where the 18 and 24 year oldsdon'thandle it well because making someone else's vision on crunch schedules that exploit their ignorance of workplace norms (not quite as ignorant as a 16 year old's, but still) isn't nearly as fun as creating your own stuff in your own time, they've got more paper qualifications to fall back on than "I dropped out to make computer games but couldn't hack it and don't want to do it any more"...
I once read about prodigy pianists who had mastered the technical part of their skill at age 13. But their career does not take off because few people actually want to listen to their performances (perhaps because they lack maturity). After going through a few years of this, quite a few of them just give up.
It really messes with people to draw them out as some exception; some prodigy as a child. It doesn't do well to nuture a quiet self sourced pride in craftsmanship;
there are many tales of gifted children elevated to a pedastal who by 25 or 30 already feel like their life is over, who burn out and stop doing whatever it was they were so regarded for.
The best thing for someone like this would be to find them a tutor who is much better than them, so they keep the humility and curiosity required to keep growing. And never to let the people around them big them up too much. I say this as someone that in some ways went through same
This is a love letter to Ian Hubert for sure, but well done.
New title: 16yo watched ALL the Ian Hubert tutorials
But who can blame them? Ian's tutorials are some of the most entertaining videos out there, especially his lazy tutorial series:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjnyapZ_P-g
This is like saying all these HN people who graduated in university (or not) and develop software.
I think you misspelled "Ridley Scott," but... yeah.
Will you two just kiss and makeup, pleeze?
I was going to say "Someone was studying Ian Hubert's work". Glad I wasn't the only one that got those vibes.
Im not a 3d artist, but I still find Ian Hubert's blender tutorials[1] very cool to watch.
He comes off as an artist who immensely enjoys their craft. I have also really enjoyed his Dynamo Dream series [2] which are a labor of love for him. He's only released like 3 episodes over several years, but hey labor of love.
Ian was also chosen as the director of Tears of Steel (2012) which is one of the Blender Open Movies [3] the foundation produces. You might not recognize that film, but many of you have heard of at least one Blender Open Movie, Big Buck Bunny! A big nod (IMO) from the Blender foundation that he represents the spirit of the project and community, as well as has the skills to oversee a project meant to demonstrate Blender's capabilities.
These Open Movies are projects that HN can likely appreciate, as they are created to showcase and help push capabilities of the open source Blender software, are licensed under Creative Commons, and their assets are provided to the community for free.
(This comment is a love letter to Ian Hubert)
[1]https://www.youtube.com/@IanHubert2
What an impressive talent! The animation is both entertaining to watch because of the content and style. Well-deserved win.
I disagree with some of the other commenters here who describe this style as cyberpunk. Neon lights and robots does not automatically equate to cyberpunk. I think the designer/artist may choose to describe it as they wish, to me it appears to be inspired by robot science fiction. I see some kind of whimsy and optimism in this short, as its interesting that these robots are making (what appears to be) human food. What an interesting idea :)
I don't think it's just "neon lights and robots" that make it cyberpunk. It's the combination of high tech and lowlife, the grungy city streets, the street food, the rain, and the urban East Asian elements.
All of these elements are strong signifiers of the cyberpunk aesthetic.
It's the combination of high tech and lowlife, the grungy city streets, the street food, the rain, and the urban East Asian elements.
I would argue that none of those elements make anything cyberpunk :) The cyberpunk genre (per my understanding) involves elements of technology, its effect and force on human life, and the pushback against those effects and forces. There has to be some "punk" for something to be cyberpunk, I think. So necessarily some subversive elements, motfis or themes that challenge a greater power or status quo. That said, I also find it disheartening that cyberpunk is often imagined as dystopian or hypersexualized, that's all very trite tbh.
I describe it as Cyberpunk because it looks like Cyberpunk 2077
do I care about the genre etymology of how Cyberpunk 2077 itself got where it is in look and feel? no, not really
I like it and thats the first word that popped into my mind
It's not that the narrative concept is innately cyberpunk, just that the aesthetics are an exact match for modern Cyberpunk. My go-to method for setting the wallpaper on a new device is just to image search "cyberpunk wallpaper" and they all look very much like that opening shot.
I also thought it was interesting that the robots used machines that a human would to make food the way a human would. It made me think we already have a lot of machines involved in the production step - will future mechanical additions be a problem or a boon?
Looking back on where I was at in my life as a 16 year old kid, this is insanely impressive and the other comments implying that it's "all right" sound incredibly snobby.
My mind is racing a about when he started and how he fit school work in!
It is insanely impressive!
Last time I dipped my toes in these waters was high school >25 years ago. I was doing my best with an Amiga Video Toaster and Lightwave 3D.
There was so much I wanted to do and just simply couldn’t because the technology hadn’t evolved enough (well, SGI was there, but wasn’t something that was going to be available in high school settings). Jurassic Park had just barely barged onto the scene.
I was running overnight render jobs for scenes that were far less impressive and much shorter.
Having the power of the tools and computer resources at your fingertips for 3D that we have today has the potential to really unleash some talent.
Which comments are these? I seem to be reading a wall of praise here!
This is related but in a kind of obscure way. I play low-level tennis, talking Div. 9 where there are 10 divisions in total. I play with and against a fair few juniors that are just cutting their teeth playing against seniors (learning how to 'play' a game of tennis having learned technique for years ad nauseum).
I've lost to 12, 13, 14 year olds who are sensationally talented, but what's scary is that, if they're slumming in Div. 9 in their low-teens, they're pretty much out of the running for professional tennis already.
This animation is likely an example of someone in that rarefied air combining natural talent, willingness to expend the effort on a single pursuit, and desire to see something through. This guy's a pro in the making, to continue to tennis analogy, at age 12 he'd have been cutting his teeth against div 3 seniors - In Div 9 I wouldn't even see this level of talent, even when it's up-and-coming (and maybe that's a good thing for my own motivation to continue playing and improving).
Survivorship bias-ish?
Reminds me of Blade Runner
Especially the opening scene with flying cars in the back.
It also reminds me of this wallpaper [1] I found a couple years ago while hunting for good quality 4K wallpapers. The resemblance is probably due to being set in the same city/area/theme but it has a similar vibe.
5th Element and Cyberpunk 2077 too
I'm sure it's heavily inspired by it. The game Stray also was, and this looks a lot like Stray.
Ian Hubert vibes
Absolutely, which is an enormous well deserved complement! He makes it seem so easy, but he's got a ridiculous amount of skill. He's on his way to giving mind blowing presentations at Blendercon too.
Huge frustration at whoever edited/shot that video. Frequently zoom in exclusively on the speaker when he is actively diagramming a visual he built. Miss several scenes he was presenting.
Why does the video get cropped when you activate full-screen? Is this something that Chrome does automatically, or something in the CSS of the website?https://imgur.com/a/bZdZ2sl
In Firefox it behaves strangely too. I noticed if you pop out the video player with the picture-in-picture mode it looks correct.
It's an inline object-fit: cover set explicitly by the website's custom JS. I can't figure out a good reason to do this either.
A quick document.querySelector('#player').style = '' in console allows proper fullscreen viewing.
Yeah I'm skeptic until I see a bit of the behind the scenes.
Looks awfully similar to something by Ian Huberthttps://www.youtube.com/@IanHubert2/videoshe is the one guy who also started "super fast but very information packed" blender tutorial video concept as well
Yeah, thanks, that shreds light into how he could have done it.
Very cool. If you like this sort of thing, I recommend searching for "slice of life", especially in anime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slice_of_life#Anime_and_manga
Unfortunately, there isn't a ton of cyberpunk-themed SOL like "Street Food." Closest thing I can think of is this scene from Ghost in the Shell:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aU7CiX7lQ
Mamoru Oshii's style seems to heavily include this kind of sequences.
Your link is from Innocence, right? The original Ghost in the Shell also has a sequence of Motoko simply walking and riding a boat, doing nothing but staring:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARTLckN9e7I(I love this movie!)
Yep it's from Innocence, and yep that's also an amazing scene. I much prefer these atmospheric daily life scenes to action or dialogue.
I didn’t understand the blacksmith hammer part. Everything else made sense regarding the title “street food”.
Mochi I guess - gotta beat it like it owes your mother
The dessert that's being made here is something like Mitarashi Dango, sweet syrup covering dumpling balls made of mochi. Traditionally, you make mochi by taking rice and smashing it with a hammer. In theory, this helps make it fluffy. This process is called "Mochitsuki" and it's one of those traditional cultural things, probably intentionally chosen so you get a cool juxtaposition of a robot doing an old traditional thing. It looks like this:https://youtu.be/4lqiBFbf6rc?si=ARkTbrMcAVy7XZxx&t=20
I love the attention to atmosphere, and light physics
Choosing to focus on the sounds and depth of field, other details of the world like the TV
The old TV with HDMI made me smile
kinda want to see the rest of the movie!
Yep, I definitely want to follow some characters and storylines in that universe.
Surely there are more efficient ways to make doughs (or dango) if robots are involved?
(Just in case it's not clear -- I know it's not the point. Just the ME in me being curious!)
I've often thought about this for media like this and iRobot and etc, and I think it kinda makes sense in terms of creating an all-purpose machine for helping. Economies of scale, maybe licensing or advertising or some other way of subsidization scheme, or maybe the things are rented, who knows, but I can think of some justifications for how humanoid robots would make sense in a dystopian cyberpunk world. Maybe the mochi stall rents them just for a couple hours during busy hours and then a car mechanic rents them for a different time, and the robot can complete both tasks or something?
Reminds me a lot of William Landgren's work[1], another young blender animator. Definitely inspired by Ian Hubert's work. Either way amazing work!
1.https://www.youtube.com/@landgrenwilliam2.https://www.youtube.com/@IanHubert2
Yeah I was going to say— at first I thought this was Ian Hubert's work
When I was a kid, it took me about a week to model a single wineglass in Bryce3d.
Hah, I don't know how many vases I did in 3DS (DOS) but it was a LOT OF VASES.
Draw a curve, revolve 360... "woah"... Another!
It's incredible work especially from a young animator. But I find some "mechanic motion" part of the animation specially unrealistic. For example, when the hammer goes down to hit something, it should keep accelerating to a sudden stop; but in the video it's like a simple harmonic motion; similarly, I don't feel any resistance when the machine is dealing with the dough. I don't know if it's just me, but unrealistic details like this always gives me a "nail on chalkboard" unpleasant vibe.
I noticed this too but I think it was really smart to post robots in those movement roles because it makes these motion limitations “robotic” and mechanical like you said. It felt really attributable to the robot itself being programmed to operate that way.
Wow! Reminded me of Cyberpunk 2077
Robotic + Organic but tasty instead of gross.
Wow, that was cool. Felt like the intro to a game I'd want to play.
The robots eat?
I would love to see a video with the production flow.
I'm at loss of words
This looks insane!
I'm really craving dango now. Well done.
So good!
This gives me a little hope for the future.
Clearly, this kid didn't waste his entire day on social media. Hopes restored a little for the new generation.
Nice job. That honeyed goo!
Superb work! Congratulations!
Holy shit this is incredible. Incredible for both the animator and OSS community around Blender that makes this possible.
When "Street Food" appeared, I was hoping that I get to watch 10 more minutes. Like a glimpse into the future.
Incredibly well done! Showcases a lot of Blender’s systems as well
I'm starting to like 3Ds again with these kids' productions. <3
Holy shit that is insanely good
This is absolutely fantastic.
Great work!
Yum.
That is very impressive.
When I was that age I was fooling around with a copy of Lightwave I got from an acquaintance that worked at NewTek (he was friends with the leader of an anime club I attended). I was really proud when I got the most basic little sewer fly through scene done. It took a couple days to render on the family P120 much to the annoyance of the rest of my family.
I know there's a lot more resources now but still, that's incredible. Kid has a bright career ahead.
Speaking as a non-3d animator, this entry is in a completely other league than the other entries. I'm sure people will find a way to be critical of it as HN always does, but holy crap this blows me away.
Super cool! I like the fluid movement with the robot
Congrats what a talent !!
Brutal! Congratulations :)
Wow! Very cyberpunk. Is that name a pseudonym?
That is honestly amazing. Congrats to the winner.
I suspect this young Euan Garbut is the son of Aaron Garbut who is a lead artist at Rockstar Games North, who is well known for his work on GTA and Red Dead Redemption 2. Would not be surprised this is the connection and the reason why you see such a high level from a 16 years old - parent influence and skills absolutely make a difference compared to learning everything from scratch by yourself (not to belittle Euan's achievements here! His work is extraordinary).
About Aaron Garbut:https://www.fastcompany.com/90345889/most-creative-people-20...
Honestly better work than I've seen in a lot of films and tv shows. He's got a lot of talent.
Holy crap - a 16 year old did that?! I can barely make a blank cube, FML.
wow
My biggest take away is that this is why open source is so good.
How much is an Adobe license these days? How many kids wouldn't have had the opportunity because they couldn't afford that?
Yes I know open source doesn't equal free (as in beer) but practically it tends to be, and it allows people to get into things they wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
Wow, that looks astonishingly real.
Already nostalgic for the future days when "real" street food is "hand made" in front of you by the robots. None of that instant vending machine crap!
Absolutely phenomenal. I take my hat off to this young individual.
Insane work, congrats to him. The dessert in the video (Mitarashi Dango) also happens to be my favorite lol.
I suppose it could be intentional but the actual animations seem off to me. The hammer appears to slow before impact and there is no slight pause when piercing Takoyaki. Again, they're robots which means it might be a stylistic choice to have mechanically fluid motion.
Taken as an entire piece, its very good.