IanHubert
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2021–2023
21:32 · 6.6M views · May 26, 2021
The first episode of Ian Hubert's Dynamo Dream series, a one-person sci-fi short made in Blender with a gritty futuristic city setting. It was made with help from friends and Patreon supporters over about three years.
HN holds it up as an impressive example of what a tiny team can achieve with Blender.
4 comments from Hacker News
Im not a 3d artist, but I still find Ian Hubert's blender tutorials[1] very cool to watch. He comes off as an artist who immensely enjoys their craft. I have also really enjoyed his Dynamo Dream series [2] which are a labor of love for him. He's only released like 3 episodes over several years, but hey labor of love. Ian was also chosen as the director of Tears of Steel (2012) which is one of the Blender Open Movies [3] the foundation produces. You might not recognize that film, but many of you have heard of at least one Blender Open Movie, Big Buck Bunny! A big nod (IMO) from the Blender foundation that he represents the spirit of the project and community, as well as has the skills to oversee a project meant to demonstrate Blender's capabilities. These Open Movies are projects that HN can likely appreciate, as they are created to showcase and help push capabilities of the open source Blender software, are licensed under Creative Commons, and their assets are provided to the community for free. (This comment is a love letter to Ian Hubert) [1] [LINK] [2] this video [3] [LINK]
I always post this link when Blender is discussed because it's so impressive. It shows what a single person can achieve in Blender. The visual effects and compositing have been created by Blender expert Ian Hubert. The video shows a (grimy) futuristic city scene. Green screen footage and the final shots created are shown side-by-side: VFX Breakdown - Dynamo Dream Teaser : [LINK] The full short Dynamo Dream was posted a few months ago by Hubert on his YouTube channel: Episode 1 : Salad Mug - DYNAMO DREAM : this video
Since nobody's mentioned Ian Hubert yet, his Dynamo Dream series is made in Blender: Episode 1: this video Episode 2: [LINK] Episode 3: [LINK]
Well, there are already high-quality films / games by small teams with no external funding, like this video , Braid, and Celeste. But for long form stuff like these, the tools don't matter as much, it is more like writing a novel where the key is to get something done every day. The main issue is perseverance - a tool dropping the workload from 100 days to 10 days is nice, but it doesn't change the fact that most people will get bored and give up in 10 minutes.