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.
"
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)
This is amazing, I'm an amateur blender user and I can see how much work/time went into this. The other entries are excellent also and shouldn't be overlooked by anyone checking out this post.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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?
If you honestly believe there's no genetic difference in cognitive ability (or physical ability), then you might be deliberately being obtuse or not arguing in good faith.
it may well be that there are genetic differences. but until we have proof and the ability to measure the difference, i also think that believing in talent being genetic is dangerous as it holds back people who are perceived to be untalented. if i believe that the talent of my kids is genetic then i will be less likely to try to foster them to do better. this is especially dangerous for teachers.
our society suffers a lot from believing that people are poor because they have no talent to do better. and worse some apply this based on race. we can talk about talent being genetic when we no longer have poor people and have abolished all racism, but until we have done everything we can to allow everyone to develop their talent, we risk misusing this belief as an excuse not to support people to do better because we lack the believe that they even could do better.
I think it can be simultaneously true that we suffer from believing ability is partly inherited, and also that we live in a world where that's actually the case. Though I also think it's cruel to tell a man with an IQ of 87 who's working as a chicken processor that the only reason he's not a Harvard professor is a bad education, bad parents, and his own failings.
Probably goes without saying, but the g factor is so widely discredited as to be a strawman of IQ. Cars don't have an underlying s factor that determines how fast they go in all conditions with perfect correlation, and yet a measurement of their average performance on a set of tracks is still a useful measure for predicting performance on other tracks. So too for IQ and g factor.
Neither am I arguing for total genetic determinism, just that the statement "it may well be that there are genetic differences. but until we have proof..." is ignoring the very real proof that cognitive traits (IQ and Big 5) are heritable to some extent. Even Turkheimer grudgingly admits that if you grab a bunch of IQ-correlated SNPs they can "predict about 10 percent of the variance".
Weighing in on the 0% genetic side is an oddly strong position to hold, just as 100% would be.
Heritability isn't remotely the same thing as genetic determinism. Things can easily be heritable with virtually no direct biological causative mechanism at all (wearing lipstick, for instance). SES is heritable! Check the first article out. Turkheimer, for what it's worth, is a very big name in this research field.
Of course SES is heritable! If you believe IQ is heritable to a degree, genetic to a degree, and contributes to SES, then it's reasonable to expect SES to be both heritable and genetic to a degree. It would be surprising if there was some complicating factor that nullified the advantage from IQ but only in the case where the IQ-correlated SNPs were present.
of course both can be true. i already mentioned that but you are drawing the wrong conclusion.
how would telling them that the reason they are not a harvard professor is because they don't have the talent for it be any better?
what's cruel is that we tell them that they have no hope because their circumstances are beyond their control instead of supporting them with the resources they would need to develop the potential that they do have.
all that statement is doing is looking down on them, quite regardless of what factors determine their potential.
the problem is that people look for evidence of talent when we still don't know how to measure it. we simply have no idea whether the work in this competition is the result of talent or other factors. but we decide that these kid have talent and that other kids don't, when it's possible that others could create a similar work if they just had been given the opportunity.
the discussion about talent gets in the way of helping people to develop.
I agree with the criticisms but don't agree that they invalidate twin studies to the extent that it's reasonable to believe cognitive traits are 100% nurture.
Yes, some older studies used odd statistical modelling. Yes, the specific number they put on heritability might be biased by a few factors. Yes, people lie on self-report surveys. Yes, adoption studies are biased by who agrees to sign up. Yes, in utero conditions falsely appear as heritability in twin studies. These are all valid criticisms in that they affect the precision of the measurement, but they're not enough to fully write off heritability as a whole. We've identified SNPs that correlate with IQ and education attainment, too, so there's an obvious mechanism.
I think it's better to tell people the truth: achievement is a murky blend of nature and nurture interacting together, the factors seem to be important in different proportions for different people, and we only understand it imprecisely and at a population level. Further complicating the matter, ability at birth can be broken down into heritability and environmental factors before birth. Our chicken processor probably tried his hardest and can feel good. His daughter can do better if she's lucky and works hard. There's no need to take an extreme view where "talent" (meaning something like potential at birth) must be 0% or 100% of achievement, or to tell that to people, because from what we know it's somewhere in the middle.
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.
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. If talent didn't have a biological component, we should be able to train everything from apes to whales to do exactly what we do, given enough practice.
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.
Imagination I feel is something that is not learned. Like soft skills some people seem to be wired one way and can't change. Some people can effortlessly imagine.
I think imagination is like language you see stories of children abandoned and who never learn to speak when they are adults they lose the ability. With imagination I think you can develop it as a child but it has to grow as you do. If you don't do that whatever it is that generates imagination doesn't develop in you.
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.
Some people are naturally more capable of certain things than others. It could be someone being good with numbers immediately from a good age.
I cannot fathom that you genueinely believe every single human being is as good as each other at everything and it's just down to the amount of work you put in. Absolutely ridiculous position.
> Some people are naturally more capable of certain things than others
That’s an opinion, not a scientifically-asserted fact.
> I cannot fathom that you genueinely believe every single human being is as good as each other at everything and it's just down to the amount of work you put in. Absolutely ridiculous position.
It’s good to admit you aren’t capable of understanding something, but then you have to work on yourself to understand it. Once you do, then you can juge it.
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.
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.
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).
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...
Thank you for direct links to these. Winner is obviously much outlierier than these other two "mere mortal" young animators.
Mentally daydreaming, my thoughts flash back to 2002 — back when a simple 16-color, ten second animation (done by a peer at our elite creative arts HS) took days to render [PowerMacG4MDD Rage128 FTW!] and secured this peer artist acclaim from his classsmates, state, and future creative employers.
How far we've come. To where we'll go. Just incredible — can't imagine what the next decades will allow, but looking forward to robotic dumplings/streetfood.
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.
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.
No I'm not endorsing anything like that. I'm thinking of the kid who picks up a guitar or sits at a piano at age 12 or 13 and falls in love with it, and is an amazing player by age of 16. It's an inner talent and passion that is unlocked, not a skill that was learned by force.
None of the people I've described have been forced to learn these skills. Well, not in the practical sense. Here is an example. You an born in a Tibetan Monastery in front of you is a set of items, the items that you pick are the ones that you will follow for the rest of your life. A child in this scenario is never forced into an option. Instead, the option just does not exist. From birth you are encourages and taught about the wonders of a skill that you will learn for the rest of you life. Of course you aren't being forced. But wouldn't it be fun if you could learn just a bit more? Oh friends? What friends? The people that the departments I've had the opportunity to interact with deal with these kinds of people. These children are never forced explicitly. It can have later in life too. 12 or 13 this is around the age for many sports and athletes. It's not a talent or passion, what you think exists doesn't.
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.
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'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.
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).
>"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":
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.
>"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:
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.
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):
>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.
tl;dr: Don't absorb reams of information from this talented creator who is sharing most of his technical animation skills FOR FREE. WITH THE WORLD. because he uses bad words and makes my tummy churn.
tl;dr (cont): instead, use this foreign-subtitled person who is not nearly as good a teacher.
OC: learn to concisely compose a grievance, and link to your "idea of better" up top so people might actually get to that portion of your suggestion/opinion.
All: it saddens me immensely that I cannot refer to my homosexual IQ72 brother as the two derogatories he truly is. Made for some great holiday laughter.
There's no way to concisely compose all the racist, sexist, homophobic shit that Andrew Price has said in public, because there's just so much of it, so I only quoted the highlights, and linked to pages with even more quotes. And he also makes quite a lot of money off of his videos, and he also shills NFTs, so he's not sharing "for free", he's just another self-aggrandizing youtube influencer trying to make money fast while shilling toroidal NFT pyramid schemes.
So if you really want to contribute to the Blender foundation, subscribe and buy some swag like I do and suggest you do, like a t-shirt you can actually wear, or a coffee mug you can actually drink coffee out of, instead of a pathetic NFT of some asshole's virtual donut you can't even eat.
There are so many people so much better than Andrew Price making Blender videos and not shilling NFTs, like Ian Hubert and others much more skilled and less toxic than Andrew Price will ever be. And I linked to a twitter thread that cited many of them, so parents can review them and show them to their 8-year-old kids.
But I'm truly glad you took the bait and outed yourself for the kind of person you really are (as incoherent as your reply is), but as I said: nobody cares about your toxic opinions, or how much it hurts your and Andrew Price's feelings not to be able to call kids F*G, or that nobody wants to celebrate "International Ghetto Talk Day" with you two by shouting the N-Word again and again one day every year, or how you verbally abuse and bully your own brother.
But if you really want to carry the water for Andrew "International Ghetto Talk Day" Price, go shout the f-word and the n-word at kids somewhere else, like 4chan, because it's against the rules here.
We're having a discussion about a 16-year-old animator, and I'm responding to somebody who asked about what youtube videos his 8yo should watch, which should NOT include videos using the f-word multiple times, by an NFT shill who can't resist using the n-word. And you've made it quite clear that you view empathy and kindness as a weakness, so your opinions are absolutely worthless in a discussion about what videos 8- and 16-year-old children should watch to learn Blender. So you keep a lid on it too, and try to resist saying the f-word and the n-word if you can possibly control yourself, please.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
How feasible is 3D animation like this as a hobby? Could one expect to learn and create decent quality outputs without a substantial sacrifice to sleep/work/etc.?
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?
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
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
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 olds don't handle 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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
Hard surface modeling in blender is pretty easy if you go the kit bash route. You still have to have some concept of what you're building. You also still need environments, rigging, lighting, camera work, compositing, and post.
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.
Node editors like Blender's are the best thing for me: you get all the tools, but they're composable with other tools. Your hammer can be 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 is hard and 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 make two wrong choices, and they mostly cancel out except for some weird edge cases that happen to exercise the exposed code path.
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.
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.
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.
C-3PO is bound by the physics of Anthony Daniels in a suit. It had limited mobility. The design definitely informs lots about the way the character would move, but it’s definitely proper real world physics.
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 is always physics animations. Things always seem to move just a bit too smoothly or 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).
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.
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.
>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
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.
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.
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.
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
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 this other amazing animation made in blender by a 16 year old!"
_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.
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.
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!)
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 mean, you're free to make up your own definition, but it won't be shared by the vast majority of other people.
From the Wikipedia article: [1]
> Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech" featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.
> The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors ("the street finds its own uses for things").
> Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir
All of this comes from the foundational literary and cinematic works that defined the cyberpunk genre, namely (in rough chronological order): Blade Runner, Neuromancer, Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, Akira, Snow Crash, Johnny Mnemonic, and The Matrix.
The visual aesthetic representation of the cyberpunk genre is firmly rooted in a vocabulary involving dense cityscapes, night, neon lights, and rain (echoing the film noir vocabulary), often set in slums of East Asian metropolises or US Chinatowns.
Deciding that the common elements of all these works isn't what "cyberpunk" is is simply creating your own, personal, idiosyncratic definition.
> ...juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.
Hmm, I guess I didn't see that in the video, maybe I viewed it differently? Robots were making human food, which seems whimsical to me, and makes me wonder why would something (maybe autonomous) want to do that. I am not sure simply using an Asian setting and neon lights makes something cyberpunk, but maybe the artist did intend it that way.
This part from my comment is just my perspective, not me defining:
> That said, I also find it disheartening that cyberpunk is often imagined as dystopian or hypersexualized, that's all very trite tbh.
I find this characteristic about the genre boring and unnecessary as I think it's reflective of the views and relationships of the various authors to technology and its effects.
it may be boring and unnecessary but being dystopian is an integral part of what cyberpunk is. you may want to take a look at solarpunk as an alternative that is distinctively not dystopian:
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
Oh definitely, but still, they will find out very quickly if that submission was worked on by several people day one when you ask them to do x task and they can't do it. It's a silly suggestion and borderline conspiracy theory for something that is not that important.
it is not a suspicion of false entrants. generally wonder how some of these small competitions are run (tho "Young Animator of the Year UK" would suggest it is reasonable size by now).
how would you avoid an entrant submitting pre-created or even some (obscure) work by someone else?
what are good prizes that incentivizes good submissions? how would you run such small competitions?
Because I think these small competitions could be super interesting for fostering skills among younger folks.
on the other side, what is in it for the organizers? is it best run as a charity?
Looks awfully similar to something by Ian Hubert https://www.youtube.com/@IanHubert2/videos he is the one guy who also started "super fast but very information packed" blender tutorial video concept as well
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. "