As part of my current goal of not disappearing into 3 months of post every time we shoot a scene (and in the pursuit of having things feel more, y'know, "real"), we're trying to go to more real-world locations- but I still want to be able to incorporate a layer of worldbuilding/post! This video covers me tackling the first shot from a scene we just filmed.
2025-11-02 02:27:58 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm talking all over the place, so please use the chapter markers!
Just my own take on it: quickly touching on grading, film emulation, and how to make impactful compositions! Hopefully a useful thought or two!
Also thanks, Sai, for the question!
Going off to the mountains so I can finally Finish My Script! And talk about life and art and AI and setting the spark timing on an engine.
I should have another blender-centric video finished tomorrow, with any luck! But I wanted to get this one out there.
As often happens, this isn't the video I thought I was making when I started, but it's been a while since I've done just a basic modeling video!
Love you all! I've got lots more I'm excited to upload (I feel like I finally got my groove back, post-London)- I think September is my favorite month.
We've been making a bunch of little props like this for the next episode, so I've been doing a lot of stuff like this! I think it's a blast, but I'm starting to realize I could very happily do this for years instead of actually getting around to filming anything...
2025-08-01 06:30:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Alright! I'm back from a (somewhat) unexpected London return! For good this time(?) Thank you so much again for your patience...
Just to get the ball rolling, I finished up a video I recorded a couple months ago, another foray into physics: setting up rigid body simulations so you can kind of "puppeteer" them in real time for use in a shot.
I feel like I keep talking about physic...
A few "how can I make this shot better" techniques I've been using lately. Some new stuff, and some old!
2025-05-16 06:32:01 +0000 UTC View Post
I'm back!!!!! Damn, sorry it was a minute, there! This videos' a bit all over the place, but I just want to get some momentum up :D
For more digital project/extension stuff, check out this video
https://www.patreon.com/posts/one-environment-109158496
For modeling the Big Boat:
HOHO! Yes! It's been a minute- I'm sorry about that (and sorry if the audio is horrible! I only have the laptop speakers)- but I'm excited about this video. It's a combination of a few things I put off learning for years because they seemed technical or complicated, but like a lot of things, they aren't actually that bad once you take a couple minutes to wrap your head around them.
Also...
(many pictures below)
Hello! It’s been a minute! I’m sorry about that- I overestimated my ability to record videos in hotel rooms! Actually- I recorded a whole video today before realizing my face was literally covering half the blender interface (that almost never happens), and I’ve tried re-recording a couple times to minimal success, so- I'll get it next weekend in...
Kind of an all-over-the-place modeling video, but I try to cover some efficiency tips (probably especially useful for beginners, though I like a lot of the techniques at the end), and we make a storefront!
Also here's the refraction tut I mentioned:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/refraction-tut-5...
A few folks have asked about how to get image textures to gel a bit better, and these are a few simple tricks I've been using a lot lately (a bit brute force, but effective! And seems to go a long way towards avoiding that sterile CG feeling)
I'll be out for a couple weeks (unless if I can figure out how to post from my laptop??? Going to give it a shot! Maybe it could be ...
I have no idea if this video will be fun to watch, but it was fun to record :P Hope there's something useful in here!
Anyways- life is crazy for a second! I'll have to tell you about it soon!
Big old mix of BTS, tutorials, explanations, and breakdowns; hopefully this addresses anything you might have been curious about!
A few related videos:
Rigid Body Rigging (Bulldozer)
Rigid ...
Been using these guys in everything!! Really easy way to add some quick life to a shot.
DOWNLOAD
Note: As mentioned in the video, you'll have to link the material to the image sequence on your end, since Blender doesn't let you pack videos/sequences- it should be easy!
ALSO: You may have to make sure the color space is set to sRGB. ...
It's out!! As always THANK YOU ALL FOR BEING HERE! You've allowed me to go so much harder on these things than I ever hoped!
The 4k YouTube version is actually pretty good, but if you want, here's a 6 gig download.
If you specifically have any questions or s...
Check out the YouTube description for the chapters.
Let's linearize some footage! This is what I've been doing on every shot, these days. There's other ways to go about it, but I think there's enough info in so you can understand why I do it the way I do.
Thanks as always to Nathan Vegdahl for explaining so much back in the day, and Zeke Faust for letting me pepper him with occa...
Getting into reasons our greenscreen shots might not look as good as we'd like (along with some technical stuff you should know!) I'm hoping I didn't botch the technical stuff too much :P
Also!
As I mention in the video, I'll be releasing a more tutorial-oriented breakdown of a linear workflow (the biggest exciting thing that's changed my work in the past 6 years, probably!) hopefully be...
More boat stuff!
Didn't really know what to call this one- but this is what I've been doing most of the past month. Specifically- using one blender file to power a lot of other shots, so you can update one thing and have it automatically propagate everywhere. It's handy! And then I work through actually implementing it into a shot, cause the original video was too short.
Here are th...
I always find myself doing mediocre candles for set dressing, so I decided to try to do it a bit better; the 3 video textures include 28 independently moving candle flames at any given moment and self randomize, so you can easily add a bit of extra life to a scene.
It's a large asset- the sequences range from about a minute to a minute and 45 seconds, but since it's an image sequence fe...
Will this part 1 get a part 2?? Who knows! No no yes- it will. It absolutely will.
But yeah, just working through the Final Shot! In theory Brendan is finishing up the audio mix in the next few days, meaning... hot damn we could release this thing next week?? I'm excited.
For more info on things I talked about in this video:
2024-06-26 19:54:09 +0000 UTC
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Been wanting to start this project for the past year and a half, and a few folks have said they wanted an old fashioned modeling video, so here we go!
There's the adage that a film is written three times, once in the script, once on set, and once in the edit, and honestly, knowing how much cg we're planning on, there's a lot we can do to recontextualize the footage into so...
A quick explanation of the Align Camera Track feature of Compify, along with experimenting with some other steps (aligning HDRIs, sunlight, and separating the actor from the background) to get a shot ready for a digital extension!
DOWNLOAD COMPIFY (Align Track comes in included)
Go to CO...
And at the end- diving into a mystery that will take us on an adventure through time and space.
2024-05-24 00:35:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Let me know if it behaves unexpectedly! I've been sitting on this one for months because I couldn't figure out a rotation method that worked in every version of blender.
WHICH MEANS- this version is for
Blender 4.1 and later (a version for earlier releases pending).
2024-05-01 08:33:08 +0000 UTC
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In which Ian babbles way too much about adaptations of animations from his childhood.
I don't do a lot of written posts, but after typing out a few (10+) thousand words just to get my thoughts together, it seems weird to re-record it all just to be a video! Also this month is a bit wild (been working on my talk for the Blender LA conference, but I need to go harder (and do taxes)), so I'...
2024-04-12 11:44:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Sort of a follow-up to "Rigid Body Stuff" a few months ago, but for basic vehicles! Should also be a good introduction to Rigid Bodies in general.
And here's the documentation for the 2024-03-29 09:52:26 +0000 UTC
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Get the addon Here (go to the "Code" pulldown and select "Download Zip")
Alright!! Very excited to finally release this! It's a tool Nathan Vegdahl made a couple years ago as part of his color tools project. Hopefu...
Extra video today: going through the process of finally leaving Adobe! They've got lots of cool tools, but they're raising the price again, and I think it's time to move on.
2024-02-29 03:50:50 +0000 UTC View Post
A bit of a continuation of the last video; another example of what I've been doing over and over the past month! Taking footage, projecting it, and messing with it. Also a few other little breakdowns and stuff scattered in.
Turns out it was using the wrong microphone, so the audio is bad, but not toooooooo bad I think?
Here's the2024-02-28 22:13:18 +0000 UTC
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