How the Blender software is tested in a real animation production environment.
One of the great things about Blender is that it’s not a piece of software built by a team of developers working in isolation.
Blender has a dedicated group called Blender Studio which creates original animated short films. These serve as great advertisements for the power of Blender whilst also providing a testing ground for new features of the software.
This enables Blender to be put through it’s paces in a true production environment, with everything learnt being pushed straight back to the team who are making the software. This sort of direct relationship between the artists and those creating the software is normally only present in studios who build in-house tools for their own, exclusive, use.
Every year, Blender Studio create and release a new short film, each with a unique visual style and subject matter.
Throughout production, the team document much of the process on their blog for the benefit of the wider community.
Once the films have been released, they also share many of the assets and production files they have used, although you will need a paid membership to gain access to most of them.
You can watch past Blender Studio films on their website.
Blender have just announced their next project for release in 2024. With a working title of Project Gold, it is described as visual poetry and is set to use a far more impressionistic and stylised look than previous films.
As with all of their projects, they have set a number of creative and technical targets in conjunction with Blender Development. These obviously give an insight into areas of development over the coming year:
The impressionistic, stylised, look, along with the extensive use of water, should lead to some interesting developments in the near future.
You can take a look at some concept art and read more about the film in the Blender Studio blog post announcing the project.
