Flow, the animated feature film following the mystical journey of a dark grey cat and his companions, is the manifestation of Blender’s mission, where a small, independent team with a limited budget is able to create a story that moves audiences worldwide, and achieve recognition with over 60 awards, including a Golden Globe for Best Animation and two Oscar nominations.

In this interview, Gints Zilbalodis, writer and director (and more!) of the film, shares how Blender was instrumental in the creation of the film.

Gints: I’ve done animation, all kinds of animation. I started doing hand drawn, 2D, digital animation. But after making a few shorts, I realized that I’m not good at drawing, and I switched to 3D because I could model things, and move the camera. And so at first, I used Maya, which was taught at our school at that time.

After finishing my first feature Away, I decided to switch to Blender in 2019, mainly because of EEVEE. I started using the 2.8 beta or even alpha release. It took a while to learn some of the stuff, but it was actually pretty straightforward. Many of the animators in Flow took less than a week to switch to Blender. 

EEVEE was interesting to me because, even my first feature Away, it was all playblasted, which is not like proper rendering, rather it’s like previews.

I was excited to find that workflow in Blender, but in a more advanced way that gave me greater control. Speed is really important to me—not just in rendering but also in working with files, setting up lighting, and creating the overall look. I like to work on multiple aspects at the same time; for example, when setting up the camera, I also need lights in place because lighting influences camera placement and how the scene looks. That’s why EEVEE was so appealing to me.

I briefly experimented with some game engines, but at least back then, it was really difficult to figure out a workflow for making films in them.

And Blender was ideal: it had all the tools I needed.

The entire project took about five and a half years. In the first year, I was writing the script, learning Blender, and looking for funding as Dream Well Studio. That was in 2019.

In 2020, we secured some funding, and I moved into a co-working studio space with other artists and developers who were using Blender. That’s where I connected with Mārtiņš Upītis and Konstantīns Višņevskis.

Mārtiņš was one of the first people I approached—not specifically for water simulation, but just to see how he could contribute. However, it quickly became clear that he had a deep expertise in water, unlike anyone else. 

We were fortunate that, in the early stages, it was just me, so the pandemic didn’t affect us much. By the time we moved into full production in 2023, things had stabilized.

I created a short pilot for Flow –about a minute and a half long– where I went through the entire workflow. It was technically basic, but it was useful to test the process. That led to our first teaser, which I never showed publicly. Later, we made another, entirely new teaser, which we used for pitching.

In 2021, we started hiring concept artists and building the team. We brought in riggers and developers to create custom scripts that helped streamline the workflow while I was working on the animatic.

The Latvian studio was relatively small, it all fit in one room. In total, we had around 15 to 20 people, but at any given time, there were usually only three to five people working, since different teams handled pre-production and post-production.

We had a set-dressing team. I would design the initial scene in previz, and they would refine it by adding more plants, props, and environmental details. Concept artists sketched out buildings and figured out their construction, incorporating storytelling elements into the environments.

Other team members focused on developing tools. Water was a huge part of the film, but only two people handled all the water effects. Mārtiņš had already been researching water simulations and posting his findings on YouTube, but he hadn’t yet put everything together. He eventually developed a Blender add-on for water effects.

Meanwhile, Konstantīns handled smaller simulations, such as splashes. He also researched techniques for stylized fur and feathers, working on shaders. In addition to that, he did rigging, and character modeling along with other team members.

In 2022, Belgian and French co-producers Take Five and Sacrableu Productions joined the project to work on sound, character animation and additional aspects of the film. Expanding the team with experienced character and pipeline TDs, as well as animators working in a well-structured process, was essential to handle the complexity required by the film. This was a truly international coproduction.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the “Un Certain Regard” selection in 2024.

I learned a lot online, but it was great to have someone with more experience next to me (Konstantīns). He did a lot of rigging and was much more technical than me, so I could ask him for advice. Sometimes, I needed something specific in the animatic, like the deer moving in a spiral, and he would write a script to automate it. This was before Geometry Nodes.

I can’t write scripts myself, so having someone in the studio to help was invaluable. But learning never really stops. I still feel like there’s so much I don’t know about Blender or anything else. And with these long projects, you sometimes forget things you learned five years ago.

Flow was made entirely with Blender and rendered with EEVEE. Each frame took from about 0.5 – 10 seconds to render in 4k. We didn’t use a renderfarm. The final render was done on my PC. There was no compositing, all the colors were tweaked and adjusted using shaders.

When creating the previz or animatic, I just try to get things done as quickly as possible.

This approach helps me explore ideas efficiently. I’m not great at drawing, so previz works better for me. It’s faster, and I like to move the camera a lot. Sometimes, I roughly sketch out a building, but it’s often very basic.

I then hand these files over to a concept artist. Many environmental concept artists use Blender as well, so they can import my files. While they usually rebuild everything from scratch, my files at least provide the correct proportions. Sometimes, they paint over my models, but in other cases, they design everything directly in 3D.

When they send the files back, I ask them to leave assets in place rather than moving them to the center of the scene. That way, I can easily import everything back, and it aligns perfectly.

The animation teams in France and Belgium brought a great deal of organization to the process. They developed further tools and rigs to deliver character animation, they had to optimize the scenes, removing everything except the assets the characters interacted with and cleaning them up thoroughly. However, I didn’t use these optimized assets directly, I would import their animations back into my heavier scenes.

For lighting, it was just me. We had other people handling different tasks, but I was solely responsible for lighting. This setup made things easier.

Since I handled a lot of tasks myself, it was simpler to work with large files where everything was imported. In each file, I made extensive adjustments to assets. For example, when setting up lighting, I tweaked materials for the assets in each shot, making them slightly lighter or darker to get the right look. I know this could be done with library overrides, but I was also working across different computers: my desktop PC and my MacBook.

Switching between operating systems sometimes caused issues with linked assets, even when using relative file paths. To avoid breaking links, I found it easier to keep everything within the file itself. Some of the smaller scenes were around 300 MB compressed, while a few of the largest ones reached nearly 2 GB compressed.

Maybe I could have figured out a better way to link assets, but during production, speed was the priority. The production timeline required me to move fast, so I opted for the most efficient workflow rather than experimenting with alternatives.

Learn more about the animation of Flow in this Blender Conference presentation by Animation Supervisor Léo Silly-Pélissier.

A glimpse into the water surface system used in Flow.

I started with Blender 2.8 alpha while it was still in development, and I was constantly updating things. I think when the team joined, we were using 2.9 or maybe 3.0.

With each major version, we decided to update since there were only a few of us at the time, and we weren’t sharing files. That made it safer because everyone was working on their own files independently, without links. The last version we used was 3.6. EEVEE definitely improved over time, but it wasn’t just EEVEE. Geometry Nodes and other features made upgrading worthwhile.

Of course, before each update, we ran a lot of tests, opening different files to check for issues. Some things did break, but overall, our workflow remained stable.

Early on, when the team was small, updating wasn’t a big deal. But once all the animators started in 2023, they worked in 3.3 and stuck with it throughout production. After they finished animation and I moved on to lighting, I imported everything into 3.6, which wasn’t a problem.

We used a few. One of them was GeoScatter, a popular scattering add-on for distributing plants and other environmental elements. We also used Animation Layers, not for character animation, but for the camera, specifically to create handheld, shaky camera movements.

I created separate layers for a standstill shot, for walking in place, and for running. This allowed me to mix and adjust them as needed. I believe some add-ons have been developed since then specifically for this kind of workflow. To generate camera motion, I also tested VirtuCamera. I experimented with recording live camera movements by walking around, but I found it too imprecise. Instead, I preferred keyframing and layering different types of motion.

For fluid simulations, we sometimes combined different techniques, starting with large-scale waves using Cell Fluids and then adding details with FLIP Fluids.

Other tools we used included Bagapie Vegetation Generator, Bagapie Rain Generator, and Copy Global Transform.

What I love is how fast the files open. It might seem like a small thing, but it actually saves a lot of time and frustration.

EEVEE is great. Also, I love how customizable everything is. I created a lot of custom keyboard shortcuts, which worked really well when I was working alone. However, once we started working in the studio, it caused some issues, especially when I had to demonstrate something on someone else’s computer. But we figured it out.

I also love the amount of resources available online. There are so many tutorials and tools, and I can quickly find answers to almost anything.

Well, there were some challenges with using Blender, but we solved them. 

Sometimes things weren’t clear at first, but once you actually put your mind into it, you can figure it out. That’s often the case with Blender: you encounter obstacles, but with enough effort, you find a way through.

What I’d love to see –and I think it’s already happening– is more focus on NPR (non-photorealistic rendering) workflows, which is great. Further improvements to interactive and real-time rendering would also be a huge benefit.

I haven’t worked much in Blender over the past six months, but I’m already working on my next project, and I plan to use Blender for it.

I’ve never worked in a big studio, so I don’t really know exactly how they operate. But I think that if you’re working on a smaller indie-scale project, you shouldn’t try to copy what big studios do. Instead, you should develop a workflow that best suits you and your smaller team.

In our case, we didn’t rely heavily on concept art. We modeled the characters directly in 3D and found ways to skip certain steps. Many of us wore multiple hats, figuring out how to streamline tasks rather than having separate departments for everything.

For me, it’s also easier to handle the camera and lighting simultaneously rather than treating them as separate stages. Having a smaller team made the process more flexible and efficient.

When developing my first feature, I structured the story around elements that were relatively easy to animate. I avoided large crowds and complex effects because, in the end, most viewers don’t think about how difficult something was to create. I think it’s valuable for filmmakers to collaborate with tool developers early on to understand which things are challenging and which are easy. This can actually spark creative ideas rather than feeling like a limitation.

Storytelling offers infinite possibilities, but sometimes constraints can be beneficial. For example, deciding to use only four characters and a handful of locations can lead to stronger creative choices. Some of my favorite films take this approach. They don’t need an epic scope to be powerful.

That said, I think a certain level of naivety is necessary when starting a project. If I had known how difficult it would be, I might never have started. But because I didn’t fully grasp the challenges ahead, I just dove in and figured things out along the way. 

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – The Blender Foundation today announced its latest fundraising campaign. This campaign, themed “Join the 2 percent,” aims to substantially increase the amount of incoming donations – to support the continued development and maintenance of the beloved free and open-source 3D creation software.

Blender is free for everyone. However, developing and maintaining the project is not without cost. These costs are solely covered by donations from thousands of individuals and several corporations. While having a good relationship with corporations is important, individual donations from users are crucial, as they allow Blender to remain an independent community project with development focus on end-user benefits.

Blender is massively popular: 20 million downloads were registered in 2023. Understandably, most people are not in the position to financially support the project, but it’s reasonable to estimate that around 2% of the users have benefited from Blender in one way or another. It’s to these people that the Foundation wishes to reach out: join the 2% of users that donate to Blender and keep it free for everyone!

About the Blender Foundation

The Blender Foundation is a public benefit organization with the mission to provide everyone access to the world’s best 3D CG technology as free/open source tools, by facilitating and supporting the projects at blender.org. Blender is being used by millions of artists, designers, filmmakers, and professionals worldwide. The foundation is committed to ensuring that Blender remains a powerful, free and open-source tool for creative expression and innovation.

Contact: 

Ton Roosendaal, Blender Foundation
foundation@blender.org

Blender Conference 2024 wrapped one week ago, hopefully we all made it past the post-bcon blues!

As usual, you can enjoy all the recorded presentations on Blender’s YouTube channel, and on PeerTube.

Don’t forget to check out the Photo Gallery!

Overall, feedback was positive. Compared to previous years, food and venue rating went up, while overall satisfaction with the event remains very positive. When it comes to the program, satisfaction moved from “extremely high” to “high”, due to the average quality of a few sessions. This is something we will definitely focus on improving for next year!

We will also explore additional ways to encourage attendees to engage with one another, and we aim to make the venue even more welcoming and comfortable.

The event was made possible thanks to the contribution of many people and made memorable thanks to all attendees and speakers. Special thanks to Amerpodia and the Felix Meritis staff, to Faber audiovisuals and especially to the Blender HQ and remote teams for making this an amazing experience.

See you next year!
Francesco

Blender Foundation announces its first user survey, with the goal to learn and understand:

• The user community demographics: age group, geography and professional background, etc.
• Common use cases and workflows
• Most wanted improvements
• How people connect and get involved as contributors
• How the community spends money (donations, marketplaces, training, etc.)
• Future direction of the project

The anonymized results of the survey will be publicly shared in an illustrated and commented format, and also as a raw dataset.

Your input will help shape the future of Blender. 🧡

Thanks!
Francesco

The 2023 Blender Foundation report is now publicly available. Download it at Annual report 2023 (pdf).

Thanks so much for the support we’ve had from you and/or your organizations. Thanks to the Development Fund we could make a real impact; to improve the lives and creative endeavors of many people.

The report is free to share, please do!

SIGGRAPH (the premier conference & exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques) will take place in Denver (CO) at the Denver Convention Center, from Sunday 28th July until Thursday 1st August.

Besides the unusual location, there are a few highlights for this trip. The Blender team delegation is minimal, yet at the same time Blender will be visible everywhere:

Next to that, there will be a screening of Wing It! at the Electronic Theatre as part of the computer animation festival, and Blender will be visible at a demo pod the Dell booth in the trade show. If you are at SIGGRAPH and want to connect feel free to reach out directly via mail (francesco at blender org) or on social media!

Let’s recap yet another successful Annecy experience for the Blender team. This year we had a corner booth at the film market, a short film selected in the festival, and a studio meet-up event in the city center.

The film market went well. At this point everyone is well aware of Blender’s existence, and there is a growing amount of professional users successfully tackling more and more complex challenges with the software.

I had informal conversations with several high-budget film directors and story artists using and praising Blender for the story development process. Adoption into the production pipeline is still slow for large organization, while in smaller, younger and more agile studio, using Blender at the core is simply the norm. From those studios, there is an active interest in the Blender Studio Tools a set of scripts, add-ons and documentation aimed at facilitating collaborative work in a Blender-centric environment.

There has been a growing trend in the past few years, where individuals and teams come by to share the work in progress on their production, or to let us know that the production was successfully completed. This year, several production were selected and screened at the festival – also winning awards. Congratulations to FLOW (feature film, 4 Awards), The car that came back from the sea (short film, 2 awards), Pictoplasma “opener 2023” (1 award), and The Worlds Divide (feature film).

The Blender for Breakfast event was a great opportunity to create connections between professionals and get a glimpse of the growing Blender-based studio landscape. Will definitely repeat next year.

Finally, special thanks to Dell for supporting us with a demo workstation during the event, so we could present high quality demos of the brushstroke technology from the Gold project, and more.

Blender is truly making it possible for filmmakers to create and share excellent work. See you next time!

A small delegation of the Blender team (Dalai Felinto and Francesco Siddi) is going to attend the Game Developers Conference – GDC in San Francisco on 18-22 March, with the main goal to connect with individuals and teams using Blender to create interactive content.

This year we are also organizing a Blender for Breakfast event (Birds of a Feather-style), focused on connecting producers, developers, TDs and artists working in studios where Blender is part of the pipeline. The goal is to share ongoing Blender development, Blender Studio pipeline insights, and give visibility to teams who wish to share their experience using Blender in production. All while being treated some delicious coffee and pastries!

The event will take place on Tuesday, 19 March at 9:00AM at Sightglass Coffee, 270 7th St, San Francisco. Limited spots are available, make sure you RSVP if you are interested. See you there!

Last weekend, I attended two open-source focused events in Brussels: OFE (Open Forum Europe) and FOSDEM, with the goal of establishing and fostering Blender’s connection with the free and open source community. Here is a recap of the experience.

Attending OFE was an opportunity to witness some of the dynamics that define European regulations and policies with regard to free and open source software.

Most of the focus was on open source as a means to aid economic development and maximize the value of public investment in technology. Another widely discussed topic was the CRA (Cyber Resilience Act), and the implications on open source projects.

Several well-known free software organizations were present (Apache Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Linux Foundation, NLnet Foundation, etc) next to figures from various European governance organizations, as well as and handful of free software contributors and developers.

It was useful to connect with new with people and listen to new voices. Despite the complexities that come with long-term planning and European politics, the future for open source looks bright!

Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at FOSDEM. It’s like an open source festival! Attending FOSDEM allowed reconnecting in real life with project like Godot, Matrix, Thunderbird, Kdenlive, Freecad and many more. 

The connection that Blender has with the open source community must be fostered and the Blender project should look into being more visible in this event in the coming years.

This was a great start of the year, with many events such as GDC, BCONLA and Annecy to look forward to. See you soon! 

Francesco