Recent and related:
First time a Blender-made production has won the Golden Globe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42620656 - Jan 2025 (49 comments)
Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
11–20 of 145 posts
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#12Not only was it made with Blender, the final renders were done with Blenders semi-realtime Eevee engine rather than its max-fidelity Cycles engine. That reduced the compute required by orders of magnitude - the director said a render farm wasn't necessary because his local workstation could produce final-quality 4K frames in 0.5-10 seconds.
"Proper" production renderers like Cycles do look better of course, but having an alternative which is viable on a shoestring budget is very valuable.
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#13That's kind of surprising. Academy members are not required to watch all the nominees for Best Animated Feature before voting. In fact they are not require to watch any of them. Several years ago I remember that after a year where the movie that won best animated was not the one that those in the animation industry overwhelming thought was sure to win some animation industry magazine survived Academy members asking w…
Flow was a critical favorite, sometimes that matters at the Oscars.
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#14It shows, Blender has come a long way, but FLOW doesn't look technically incredible. On the otherhand, I just rewatched Shrek recently, and complex graphics isn't everything.
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#15That's kind of surprising. Academy members are not required to watch all the nominees for Best Animated Feature before voting. In fact they are not require to watch any of them. Several years ago I remember that after a year where the movie that won best animated was not the one that those in the animation industry overwhelming thought was sure to win some animation industry magazine survived Academy members asking w…
The Grammy awards for music are the same thing. Members aren't required to listen to the nominated albums, and every member gets to vote in every category.
I had a friend who was a Recording Academy member as a classical musician. He thought it was strange that they asked him to vote for the best hip-hop album since he doesn't listen to hip-hop at all.
So for many of the categories that are a little more niche, it basically turns into a popularity contest, rather than the opinion of true experts.
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#16As someone who started using Blender before 1.8, posting on the old blender.nl forums before its move to BA, it's just been pretty insane to watch it reach this point. Back then it didn't even have ray tracing, and all of the attempts to make long form videos with it were very very rudimentary.
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#17That's kind of surprising. Academy members are not required to watch all the nominees for Best Animated Feature before voting. In fact they are not require to watch any of them. Several years ago I remember that after a year where the movie that won best animated was not the one that those in the animation industry overwhelming thought was sure to win some animation industry magazine survived Academy members asking w…
I would guess this is, to some degree, a generational shift. The Animated category has only existed for ~30 years and was born from the resentment many in the academy felt toward Beauty and the Beast being nominated alongside supposedly serious films for Best Picture. Each generation following that one has grown up with a more diverse slate of animated films available.
The Oscars are the slowest possible reflection of social change, and I’m sure the perspective you share is still held my many members, but this win holds out some hope for sure.
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#18That's kind of surprising. Academy members are not required to watch all the nominees for Best Animated Feature before voting. In fact they are not require to watch any of them. Several years ago I remember that after a year where the movie that won best animated was not the one that those in the animation industry overwhelming thought was sure to win some animation industry magazine survived Academy members asking w…
I adored Flow. It's hard to say it was truly "better" than Inside Out 2. I think part of the calculation has to be that everyone expected Pixar to deliver something top notch so it only really met expectations. Flow was made by a no-name team from Latvia and was really something unique and interesting. I went into it kinda blind with no expectations and was blown away.
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#19It shows, Blender has come a long way, but FLOW doesn't look technically incredible. On the otherhand, I just rewatched Shrek recently, and complex graphics isn't everything.
Take a look at the earlier concepts / renderings for Shrek! Before the studio gutted the team(?) and told everyone to pull their heads in. Absolutely off-putting.
Re: Blender-made movie Flow takes Oscar
#20That's kind of surprising. Academy members are not required to watch all the nominees for Best Animated Feature before voting. In fact they are not require to watch any of them. Several years ago I remember that after a year where the movie that won best animated was not the one that those in the animation industry overwhelming thought was sure to win some animation industry magazine survived Academy members asking w…
The Grammy awards for music are the same thing. Members aren't required to listen to the nominated albums, and every member gets to vote in every category. I had a friend who was a Recording Academy member as a classical musician. He thought it was strange that they asked him to vote for the best hip-hop album since he doesn't listen to hip-hop at all. So for many of the categories that are a little more niche, it ba…
Reminds me of when Jethro Tull won best Hard Rock/Metal category, beating out Metallica and AC/DC.