Sprites, Camera, Action!
Blender Studio open up about their latest 3D animation project and how it’s pushing the software in bold new directions
Find out more about Blender’s latest Open Movie project, Sprite Fright, an animated comedy horror starring forest-dwelling mushroom creatures
In 2005 the Blender Foundation began work, alongside the Netherlands Media Art Institute, on
Elephants Dream, a surreal and visually ambitious short film that stretched the limits of Blender’s opensource 3D software. Ever since then Blender Studio has been producing iconic Open Movies that advance the software’s capabilities and are released for free alongside production files, assets, artwork, and never-seen-before content for the benefit of Blender’s devoted community.
Blender Studio recently announced their 13th Open Movie, and perhaps their most ambitious yet, Sprite
Fright. Directed by former Pixar story supervisor Matthew Luhn, Sprite
Fright is an 80s-inspired horrorcomedy, set in Britain. The story follows a group of rowdy teenagers on a trek into an isolated forest where they discover peaceful mushroom creatures that turn out to be an unexpected force of nature. 3D World caught up with Luhn and his co-director Hjalti Hjalmarsson to find out how they are bringing Sprite Fright to life.
THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR
Matthew Luhn is a master storyteller and veteran of the animation industry, with almost 30 years of experience. He got his start at the age of 19 as The Simpsons’ youngest animator, working on the hit animated show’s third season. “In the early seasons of The Simpsons there was a lot of heart,” he tells 3D World. “I saw the great juxtaposition between comedy and heart and I’ve always been drawn to that. When I make things I always want to make people laugh.”
Shortly after finishing his work on The Simpsons Luhn was hired by an ambitious startup called Pixar Animation Studios. “They wanted to make a film and they wanted traditionally trained animators to learn how to animate on a computer,” he recalls. “They contacted me, along with 11 other animators, to be the first CG animators on Toy Story.” Luhn made a leap of faith for Pixar on the promise that, if Toy Story succeeded, he would become part of the story department on their next film.
Not only did Toy Story succeed, but it changed the film landscape forever and made Pixar a household name. For the next two decades, Luhn was part of the studio’s small story department working on films like Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and Up. He has since used his years of expertise to deliver workshops to studios and companies that want to master the art of storytelling. When Blender Studio then decided they wanted to take things up a notch narratively and technically for their next Open Movie project, Luhn was an obvious choice for the director’s chair.
“The producer Francesco ended up coming to a story workshop that I gave with my wife in Rome,” says Luhn of Sprite Fright’s origins. “He was inspired by my way of looking at storytelling, how to come up with an idea and make it come to fruition.” Five years later, when it came to their next Open Movie project, Blender Studio wasted no time in getting Luhn on the phone.
“I’ve been asked to direct for many different companies and it always hasn’t felt right to me,” Luhn admits, but the industry veteran found himself gravitating towards Blender and its chairman Ton Roosendaal’s open-source ethos. “I liked Ton’s personality and his vision to support and help people be creative,” he explains, “then when I got a chance to meet the people at Blender I got a sense of what it was like when I first started at Pixar. It was a group of people with a shared passion, a shared vision to make things that are creative and that are going to push technology.”
As the story and aesthetic of Sprite Fright began to take shape, Luhn’s love of 80s horror became a big inspiration, one that can be traced back to his childhood. “While most kids were getting Dr. Seuss read to them at night,” he explains, “my dad would read me the Tales From The Crypt comic, then he’s like: ‘alright, good night son’.” Luhn’s passion for horror and comedy have combined to create
Above: Plant and fungi environment assets that are available for free on Blender Cloud
the story and visuals of Sprite Fright, with films like Gremlins, An American Werewolf In London and Shaun Of The Dead also being cited as influences.
ANIMATORS ASSEMBLE
To execute Luhn’s vision for
Sprite Fright, Blender Studio has assembled the best of the best. Co-directing the short is Blender Studio’s own Hjalti Hjalmarsson, who previously directed the actionpacked and ambitious Open Movie,
Agent 327: Operation Barbershop. Hjalmarsson is largely responsible for utilising his multifarious animation skillset to establish the rhythm of Sprite Fright. “I also do layout, rigging, whatever is needed. We’re a very small studio, so if something is needed and I can do it then I take one for the team,” he laughs. “I’m basically the editor for the film.”
When it came to designing the enchanting and eerie world of Sprite Fright, Blender Studio enlisted virtuoso artist Ricky Nierva, an old friend and colleague of Luhn’s that worked as production designer on Pixar’s Monsters University and Up, as well as an artist on titles like Inside Out and Finding Nemo. “Ricky is amazing,” adds Hjalmarsson, “it’s really interesting to see how he works, going from shape language and then starting to break it down into smaller sections of the design elements. A legend in the field.”
Story artist Dirk van Dulmen is also lending his animation prowess to the film, having previously worked on the likes of Shaun The Sheep and Uglydolls. Luhn worked closely with van Dulmen to draw up the rough storyboards that formed the initial outline of Sprite Fright, helping Hjalmarsson to set the pace of the film. “Dirk is so good at giving you options with his drawings,” says Hjalmarsson, “he’s quick and good. His drawings are very expressive. If the shot is a certain length he’ll give you the beats that were just before and after the shot to give you extra options on when to cut. Which is really cool, I love that.”
Over the coming weeks the team will collaborate to make Sprite Fright Blender Studio’s most impressive project to date. “I’m very lucky and humbled to be able to work with these people and they all have a fascinating skillset that I don’t have,” adds Hjalmarsson. “Every single one of them has something they’re really good at that leaves me in the dust. There’s always something to inspire me.” As the film moves into the production phase, Luhn couldn’t be happier: “We’re entering the production stage so we’re going to start putting it into layout and animating. The part that’s always the north star when you’re making something is figuring out the story.
“WHEN I MAKE THINGS I ALWAYS WANT TO MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH” Matthew Luhn, director, Sprite Fright
You can’t guess on that. It’s not going to get solved when you start animating. You’ve got to make the story work. I love this story and I think it’s just going to continue to get better.”
DESIGNING A FRIGHT
As Sprite Fright moves into the production phase its art style is beginning to develop – a combination of Blender Studios’ penchant for experimentation and Luhn’s love for 80s horror cinema. “If you look at our repertoire it doesn’t feel like we have a studio style per say,” explains Hjalmarsson. “Our films, for the most part, stand on their own feet as experiments in art and animation styles and this is not going to be any exception.”
Years of working in Pixar’s story department has hardwired Luhn to put the story first and sweat the technical stuff later. “I still have that mentality that I’m going to keep aiming for what will be entertaining and help tell the story. Then, later on we’re going to rationalise this and figure out how we do it,” he adds. Blender Studios’ dedication to pushing the limits has in turn inspired Luhn’s storytelling. “I get to see new technology they’re developing all the time,” he says, “I see tests of them trying to figure things out and I think wow, that gives me an idea for something else that enhances the story.”
Hjalmarsson explains that Sprite Fright’s art style is somewhat under development. “I wouldn’t say that we’ve chipped into stone exactly what we’re going to do,” he adds, “but our plan is to allow ourselves to do some wacky experiments, allowing the characters to have a gist of anatomy but embracing the cartooniness of animation.” For example, the team at Blender Studio have experimented with the rubber hose-limbed style of old, as well as animating different elements of the film on ones and twos to create a unique aesthetic.
The cartoon aesthetic is as close to Luhn’s heart as the film’s horror roots. “I enjoy having characters strike an emotional chord with the audience and evoke an emotion,” he explains, “but in a design sense I always like things that look more cartoony.” As the design of Sprite Fright comes together, realism is the last thing on anyone’s mind. “I’m not even wanting to do a look similar to Pixar characters,” adds Luhn, “which I feel has been done too much by other studios. The characters we’re having designed are going to look very unique because they are going to be even more cartoony.” This look will extend to the world around the characters, including woodland wildlife like birds and bugs.
It is incredibly important to Luhn that the characters and the world they inhabit are aesthetically pleasing to the audience. “When I came in I knew there were two things that were really important to me, the story and the character design,” he adds. “I was very confident that Blender was going to be able to execute great animation, lighting, shading and the texturing. They were going to be awesome about that.” Meanwhile, Hjalmarsson relishes the challenge
Above: An initial storyboard from early in
“OUR FILMS STAND ON THEIR OWN FEET AS EXPERIMENTS IN ART AND ANIMATION STYLES” Hjalti Hjalmarsson, co-director, Sprite Fright
that Luhn’s vision presents. “We are definitely doing an art style we haven’t done before,” he explains, “and we’re going to experiment with an animation style we haven’t done before. To me that is very exciting. It means we don’t have a crutch to rely on. We really have to figure it out.”
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
Sprite Fright continues the trend of challenging Blender’s development team to create new technical capabilities for the software throughout production. This time the focus is on pipeline developments, with the need for a raft of tools and systems that help
artists to work and collaborate more efficiently. As something of a jack of all trades in the animation industry, Hjalmarsson knows only too well the negative effects of an inefficient pipeline, and with Sprite Fright’s demanding aesthetic he is focused on making sure that things run smoothly.
“I would say we’ve never put so much emphasis on all our characters for pushing the expressions,” Hjalmarsson explains. “We’re vetting all the different expressions and making sure that they fit the style before we go into the whole rigging phase. To me that is super inspiring. That brings the thing to a whole other level.” Not considering the animation style before rigging a character forces the animator to work within certain parameters, hamstringing their creativity, something that Hjalmarsson is keen to avoid.
“We’re flipping that in our workflow and instead we are vetting the direction that we want to take the characters,” he adds, “what they look like, what they feel like, and their expressions. Then we’re sculpting it and giving feedback on the sculpts. Then at some point we say, okay this is good enough to go to modelling, where we do proper topology and the rigger now has a guiding light, a standard to compare their work to and know whether it’s working or not.”
Two particular elements that are pushing Blender to its limits this time round are hair and shading. “What is an efficient way of doing it?” Hjalmarsson ponders. “A way that doesn’t kill us but at the same time looks good enough for the style that we need.” The film’s 80s aesthetic is introducing the animation team to a host of new challenges, as Luhn explains: “In the 80s there was a lot of accessorising. If you were an 80s girl that loved accessorising you would have all these bands on your wrists, big earrings, big hair, and all those colours that look fluorescent enough to see from the moon. All those accessories are dangling and wiggling and how is that going to happen when a character’s running scared through a forest?”
For Hjalmarsson there are two key ways he hopes to see Blender’s development team enhance the software as the production on Sprite Fright continues. “One thing is the video editing part of Blender,” he explains. “It is getting these small upgrades but I really want to see it elevated and there are some plans now to implement that.”
“WE’RE VETTING ALL THE DIFFERENT EXPRESSIONS AND MAKING SURE THAT THEY FIT THE STYLE” Hjalti Hjalmarsson, co-director, Sprite Fright
But top of Hjalmarsson’s wish list however is to see a dynamic pose library integrated into the Blender software.
Any developments made during Sprite Fright’s production will be made available to the Blender community, for use on their own creative endeavours. “During our project we would be creating it, vetting it and debugging it,” Hjalmarsson adds. “That would hopefully be this beautiful thing that we can give to the world as an extra little gift that came out of this project.”