Blender 16yo winner of UK young animator of the year
younganimator.uk
younganimator.uk
The completion is judged by professionals from UK Animation & VFX Studios (including ILM) and we were all blown away by the quality of the entrants - Blender and Ian Hubert are doing amazing things for the next generation of talent!
I thought people would like to hear Euan's description he entered as part of the competition submission:
"I used Blender for the animation and Davinci Resolve for the colour grading (I also used the Film Convert plugin), all animations were rigged and keyframed by me with exception of the people walking in the first shot (those were from mixamo). The TV and advertisment footage were from previous projects.
The humans in the first and second shots are free photoscans I downloaded online and then rigged, there are a few small mechanical parts that were included in a library that I used, but the majority of them are mine.
I used Quixel megascans for some of the rubbish seen at the bottom of the second shot.
Most textures are photos sourced from textures.com or taken by me in real life, but have been modified by me to include procedural grime and dirt buildup in crevasses.
Some sound effects were from purchased sound libraries or found online copyright free. The rest I recorded myself. "
I always have spots open for students and indies at my consultancy: https://www.the-lovelace-gang.tech/
We work with @tombox and the other sponsors of this award and are looking for VFX / gaming mentors too :)
1. https://www.youtube.com/@landgrenwilliam 2. https://www.youtube.com/@IanHubert2
He's got a pretty fantastic series of short, hilarious, and extremely useful and practical tutorials for Blender on his channel, and his Dynamo Dream project is hugely impressive - just the credit sequence of the latest episode is interesting enough that I wish it was a whole miniseries itself.
This person, especially given their age, is extremely talented!
There's your problem, try making a cuboid instead.
Of course a rectangle only exists in 2D space :)
Also ChatGPT writes pretty good instructions for you to get started.
Genetics is different: You're 6'7" tall, giving you a physical advantage at basketball. When you say someone is "talented" at a sport or intellectual pursuit, are you talking about the same physical (or mental) advantages?
Exceptional aptitude only makes sense measured against the median performance. So yes, of course you'd observe or otherwise measure the subject somehow. But from there, if you come up with some concrete measure of ability (easier in some fields than others), you can work backwards to try to identify and isolate biological and environmental components.
Some random examples from a quick google: chess correlations with different intelligences (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...), genetic factors helping chess and science ability (https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/14/1/204), music and genes plus practice (https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-014-0671-9).
There is a much bigger discussion on this exact topic here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10519-009-9260-5
Or a Wikipedia summary of an opposing viewpoint, that talent is NOT involved at all, only practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_(learning_method)#Del...
TLDR aptitude at something is usually a combination of many things, from genes to hormones to upbringing to deliberate practice.
Yes, we have vague concepts like "talent" and "intelligence" that are often hard to nail down, and used lazily in day-to-day life to mean whatever the speakers wants it to mean. But you can still reframe it in a more precise way, like "Is ability at X activity partially heritable/genetic?" or "Given a group of people practicing Y similarly for Z duration, do they arrive at roughly similar outcomes?"
There's nothing mystical about any of this. It's the same sort of work as trying to trace the genetic components of anything we experience, whether that's aptitude or disease or personality or behavior. At the extreme ends, it's easy to see this across species; why are some so much faster, or able to solve certain kinds of problems, or can navigate by starlight, or can sleep half-awake, whatever.
I think the counter view -- that humans alone, of all the animals, are created absolutely equal and environment alone shapes our outcomes -- is far more mystical. That requires the belief that the brain and mind is some sort of super-natural device not subject to normal biological evolution, replication mistakes, natural selection, etc. If talent didn't have a biological component, we should be able to train everything from apes to whales to do exactly what we do, given enough practice.
"Talent" is the genetic component of the advantage. What's so hard to understand?
it may well be that there are genetic differences. but until we have proof and the ability to measure the difference, i also think that believing in talent being genetic is dangerous as it holds back people who are perceived to be untalented. if i believe that the talent of my kids is genetic then i will be less likely to try to foster them to do better. this is especially dangerous for teachers.
our society suffers a lot from believing that people are poor because they have no talent to do better. and worse some apply this based on race. we can talk about talent being genetic when we no longer have poor people and have abolished all racism, but until we have done everything we can to allow everyone to develop their talent, we risk misusing this belief as an excuse not to support people to do better because we lack the believe that they even could do better.
https://www.teds.ac.uk/about-teds
I think it can be simultaneously true that we suffer from believing ability is partly inherited, and also that we live in a world where that's actually the case. Though I also think it's cruel to tell a man with an IQ of 87 who's working as a chicken processor that the only reason he's not a Harvard professor is a bad education, bad parents, and his own failings.
how would telling them that the reason they are not a harvard professor is because they don't have the talent for it be any better?
what's cruel is that we tell them that they have no hope because their circumstances are beyond their control instead of supporting them with the resources they would need to develop the potential that they do have.
all that statement is doing is looking down on them, quite regardless of what factors determine their potential.
the problem is that people look for evidence of talent when we still don't know how to measure it. we simply have no idea whether the work in this competition is the result of talent or other factors. but we decide that these kid have talent and that other kids don't, when it's possible that others could create a similar work if they just had been given the opportunity.
the discussion about talent gets in the way of helping people to develop.
see also the discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38287294
btw: i am skeptical about twin studies being enough to give us the answer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_study#Criticism
Yes, some older studies used odd statistical modelling. Yes, the specific number they put on heritability might be biased by a few factors. Yes, people lie on self-report surveys. Yes, adoption studies are biased by who agrees to sign up. Yes, in utero conditions falsely appear as heritability in twin studies. These are all valid criticisms in that they affect the precision of the measurement, but they're not enough to fully write off heritability as a whole. We've identified SNPs that correlate with IQ and education attainment, too, so there's an obvious mechanism.
I think it's better to tell people the truth: achievement is a murky blend of nature and nurture interacting together, the factors seem to be important in different proportions for different people, and we only understand it imprecisely and at a population level. Further complicating the matter, ability at birth can be broken down into heritability and environmental factors before birth. Our chicken processor probably tried his hardest and can feel good. His daughter can do better if she's lucky and works hard. There's no need to take an extreme view where "talent" (meaning something like potential at birth) must be 0% or 100% of achievement, or to tell that to people, because from what we know it's somewhere in the middle.
Neither am I arguing for total genetic determinism, just that the statement "it may well be that there are genetic differences. but until we have proof..." is ignoring the very real proof that cognitive traits (IQ and Big 5) are heritable to some extent. Even Turkheimer grudgingly admits that if you grab a bunch of IQ-correlated SNPs they can "predict about 10 percent of the variance".
Weighing in on the 0% genetic side is an oddly strong position to hold, just as 100% would be.
Talent does exist, even though effort is certainly a major contributor to the result. If you task two people, with and without talent, with accomplishing the same project, one will complete it better than the other, given both place reasonable effort into it.
Motivation and drive
Time and resources
You can pick one of those, and that alone can yield decent results. But when you combine them all, that's when you get truly exceptional results.
I cannot fathom that you genueinely believe every single human being is as good as each other at everything and it's just down to the amount of work you put in. Absolutely ridiculous position.
That’s an opinion, not a scientifically-asserted fact.
> I cannot fathom that you genueinely believe every single human being is as good as each other at everything and it's just down to the amount of work you put in. Absolutely ridiculous position.
It’s good to admit you aren’t capable of understanding something, but then you have to work on yourself to understand it. Once you do, then you can juge it.
I think imagination is like language you see stories of children abandoned and who never learn to speak when they are adults they lose the ability. With imagination I think you can develop it as a child but it has to grow as you do. If you don't do that whatever it is that generates imagination doesn't develop in you.
How much is an Adobe license these days? How many kids wouldn't have had the opportunity because they couldn't afford that?
Yes I know open source doesn't equal free (as in beer) but practically it tends to be, and it allows people to get into things they wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
(I'm always wondering why they don't bring this feature to desktop version.)
https://younganimator.uk/winner/1699875806584x29956216420210... (Jeremiah, Aged 14)
https://younganimator.uk/winner/1668441140134x35615750206437... (Nishaan, Aged 17)
Mentally daydreaming, my thoughts flash back to 2002 — back when a simple 16-color, ten second animation (done by a peer at our elite creative arts HS) took days to render [PowerMacG4MDD Rage128 FTW!] and secured this peer artist acclaim from his classsmates, state, and future creative employers.
How far we've come. To where we'll go. Just incredible — can't imagine what the next decades will allow, but looking forward to robotic dumplings/streetfood.
This guy has an extensive collections on both basic and advanced stuff:
https://twitter.com/devonko_/status/1347322076340703233?s=20...
>"Move that up, and then just like, for whatever reason, every frag, f-f-frag, FLAG pole. I'm surprised I haven't messed up and said F*G at one point [sardonic grin and chuckle] in this tutorial. I miss that word. [maliciously grins at the camera] HA!!! Not to actually call it to demean someTHING, BUT when I was in school, it was like the go-to word, when somebody was being an idio-- don't be a F*G, you know! [contemptuous sneering grin at camera, throwing head back while laughing] HA HA HA!!! It's horrible, I just like, I know that of course obviously you can't use it [even though he just did and is about to again], because it's demeaning to people that actually -- [what, love other people of the same gender?], like what it's trying to say, you know, homosexual. BUT in school it just had, it had a PUNCH to it, when you just call your friends a F*G. All I'm saying is we need another PUNCHY WORD [waves hand around emphatically], could be anything, BUT has that SAME effect, [predatory bully grin] HA HA, that F*G had. Aaaah, dear." -Andrew Price, "Blender Guru"
Note his repeated and formulaic use of the word "BUT":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_not_racist,_but...
He also says he'd like an international 'Ghetto Talk' day so white kids can shamelessly say "n*gger" and get it out of their system for a year. And LOTS of other typical right-wing racist sexist homophobic bullshit like that. He's a real piece of work. I didn't realize MAGA culture was so popular down under.
https://twunroll.com/article/1347630835235573761
>"I'd like an international 'Ghetto Talk' day so white kids can shamelessly say "n*gger" and get it out of their system for a year." -Andrew Price, "Blender Guru"
>"So what's the solution? Deport them? Prisons clearly aren't working either." -Andrew Price, "Blender Guru"
>"So just round up every african american and put them on a boat back to Africa? Economic damage would be huge btw." -Andrew Price, "Blender Guru"
(Andrew Price's nasty unrepentant homophobic racist sexist tweets go on and on and on, and I don't have the stomach or time to quote them all, but you get the idea...)
There are so many great non-racist-sexist-homophobic-MAGA-asshole alternatives to Andrew Price:
https://twitter.com/devonko_/status/1347282073371901953
Instead of treating Andrew Price as a missing stair by linking to his videos but discreetly warning newcomers of his behavior and quietly accepting it, I'd much rather directly and openly address him and his behavior publicly, by quoting his own vile words. Because unlike beloved international treasures like Ton Roosendaal and Ian Hubert, Andrew Price has absolutely nothing unique to contribute or special talent that you can't easily find elsewhere from much better people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair
GamerGate and MAGA trolls who are offended by my own free speech criticism and quoting recorded evidence of Andrew Price's own freely chosen speech, and thinking of defending him or recommending his videos or repeating his favorite words: just save your time and breath, delete your HN and Blender accounts, and go away, because you're not welcome here on HN, nor in the Blender community, you won't be tolerated, and nobody wants to hear what you think, or cares for your worthless opinions.
But other than a few rare deplorable basket cases like Andrew Price, the Blender community and leadership and staff is wonderfully inclusive, open minded, progressive, accepting, supportive, mature, professional, child-friendly, and nice.
Check out these interviews, which will cleanse your palate after watching the deplorable Andrew Price bemoaning how much it cramps his style not being able to call people abusive names that make him laugh and grin, and it will restore your faith in humanity and the Blender community. And hopefully convince you to order some cool t-shirts and swag from the Blender store! My cats love taking turns sitting in the fine Blender swag box they sent me!
BLENDERHEADS - Ep. 03 (enable closed captions for English translations):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a65LBYr0UOQ
>Enjoy the third episode of Blenderheads, a series about the people behind the Blender project. The editor and director –documentary maker Maaike Kleverlaan– works embedded in the Blender headquarters to cover the activities and conduct interviews. The third episode is set during April - July 2023, with new episodes being published on a quarterly basis.
tl;dr (cont): instead, use this foreign-subtitled person who is not nearly as good a teacher.
OC: learn to concisely compose a grievance, and link to your "idea of better" up top so people might actually get to that portion of your suggestion/opinion.
All: it saddens me immensely that I cannot refer to my homosexual IQ72 brother as the two derogatories he truly is. Made for some great holiday laughter.
Me: NotYourComedian
So if you really want to contribute to the Blender foundation, subscribe and buy some swag like I do and suggest you do, like a t-shirt you can actually wear, or a coffee mug you can actually drink coffee out of, instead of a pathetic NFT of some asshole's virtual donut you can't even eat.
There are so many people so much better than Andrew Price making Blender videos and not shilling NFTs, like Ian Hubert and others much more skilled and less toxic than Andrew Price will ever be. And I linked to a twitter thread that cited many of them, so parents can review them and show them to their 8-year-old kids.
But I'm truly glad you took the bait and outed yourself for the kind of person you really are (as incoherent as your reply is), but as I said: nobody cares about your toxic opinions, or how much it hurts your and Andrew Price's feelings not to be able to call kids F*G, or that nobody wants to celebrate "International Ghetto Talk Day" with you two by shouting the N-Word again and again one day every year, or how you verbally abuse and bully your own brother.
But if you really want to carry the water for Andrew "International Ghetto Talk Day" Price, go shout the f-word and the n-word at kids somewhere else, like 4chan, because it's against the rules here.
We're having a discussion about a 16-year-old animator, and I'm responding to somebody who asked about what youtube videos his 8yo should watch, which should NOT include videos using the f-word multiple times, by an NFT shill who can't resist using the n-word. And you've made it quite clear that you view empathy and kindness as a weakness, so your opinions are absolutely worthless in a discussion about what videos 8- and 16-year-old children should watch to learn Blender. So you keep a lid on it too, and try to resist saying the f-word and the n-word if you can possibly control yourself, please.
Then again I'm still no good at making 3D art due to an innate deficit in aesthetically pleasing creative thinking, so I can't even testify for myself that this approach will make you good at making 'art'. It did teach me the mechanics in a way that I enjoyed.
They got fluent in low-poly modelling with Extrude/Scale/Inset operations from this. This skill carries over into Blockbench for customizing Minecraft too. Can 3D print the designs too via STL export.
I'm still looking for a good bridge to next steps like physics simulations, Geometry Nodes, and Fusion360.
Tutorial videos were mostly too slow-paced to hold their attention. I would prefer those myself but my kids do better with watching and imitation.
Same way they learned to play Minecraft which I couldn't figure out myself...
When I was that age I was fooling around with a copy of Lightwave I got from an acquaintance that worked at NewTek (he was friends with the leader of an anime club I attended). I was really proud when I got the most basic little sewer fly through scene done. It took a couple days to render on the family P120 much to the annoyance of the rest of my family.
I know there's a lot more resources now but still, that's incredible. Kid has a bright career ahead.
Draw a curve, revolve 360... "woah"... Another!
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] https://www.youtube.com/@IanHubert2
But who can blame them? Ian's tutorials are some of the most entertaining videos out there, especially his lazy tutorial series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjnyapZ_P-g
(Just in case it's not clear -- I know it's not the point. Just the ME in me being curious!)
Choosing to focus on the sounds and depth of field, other details of the world like the TV
Secondy, huge risk to drop it now.
I've met people who either risked or dropped out of school to pursue a career(e.g. sports).
Most (if not all - we lost touch so I don't know) regretted the decision and in one instance rebelled against her parents wanting her to somehow juggle school and sport (which was serious at that point because she was part of the junior national team) and dropped out of the latter altogether, despite her parents wishes.
It won't hurt to wait those two years or so and instead hone those skills the same way they did all this time and just have a normal life before getting thrown in this high pressure environment that the world of 3D artists decidedly is.
Even though it's just two years, eighteen year olds on average handle many situations much better than sixteen year olds.
there are many tales of gifted children elevated to a pedastal who by 25 or 30 already feel like their life is over, who burn out and stop doing whatever it was they were so regarded for.
The best thing for someone like this would be to find them a tutor who is much better than them, so they keep the humility and curiosity required to keep growing. And never to let the people around them big them up too much. I say this as someone that in some ways went through same
Last time I dipped my toes in these waters was high school >25 years ago. I was doing my best with an Amiga Video Toaster and Lightwave 3D.
There was so much I wanted to do and just simply couldn’t because the technology hadn’t evolved enough (well, SGI was there, but wasn’t something that was going to be available in high school settings). Jurassic Park had just barely barged onto the scene.
I was running overnight render jobs for scenes that were far less impressive and much shorter.
Having the power of the tools and computer resources at your fingertips for 3D that we have today has the potential to really unleash some talent.
I've lost to 12, 13, 14 year olds who are sensationally talented, but what's scary is that, if they're slumming in Div. 9 in their low-teens, they're pretty much out of the running for professional tennis already.
This animation is likely an example of someone in that rarefied air combining natural talent, willingness to expend the effort on a single pursuit, and desire to see something through. This guy's a pro in the making, to continue to tennis analogy, at age 12 he'd have been cutting his teeth against div 3 seniors - In Div 9 I wouldn't even see this level of talent, even when it's up-and-coming (and maybe that's a good thing for my own motivation to continue playing and improving).
Survivorship bias-ish?
About Aaron Garbut: https://www.fastcompany.com/90345889/most-creative-people-20...
Regardless this is extremely impressive. There's nothing to distinguish this from something made by a group of professionals with infinite time and resources.
Theres a lot of creative ways to add details using scans, texture projection and scattering.
On the other hand, it's like Scratch and from my distorted worldview exposing it as code would be more straightforward.
I wrote some words on the topic: https://kyefox.com/2022/08/05/learn-to-code-or-dont/
Node editors like Blender's are the best thing for me: you get all the tools, but they're composable with other tools. Your hammer can be a screwdriver. Worst case, I need a new tool no one's figured out how to make with nodes, but odds are someone already wrote that code as a plugin. Looping back to the "now what" issue: it already exists in a state beyond anything I could get up the motivation to improve on.
pd_node = PointDistributeNode(type = PDType.RANDON, seed=149)
scaleRandomizerNode.geometry_input.connect(pdNode.geometry_output)
How about creating a dynamic number of point distribution nodes and adding them all together? Trivial in code, most likely impossible in node editor.
The most flexible UI is a good programming language, anything else comes with flexibility compromises in favour of something else.
Anyone can watch a couple of videos, launch Blender, start with a cube and work it into a chair in UI. Coding that for just one chair will take almost anyone more time.
Now if you need to do this to make 10 slightly different chairs where changes need to be made early on in the process, code will win even with first timers.
The other thing I find (but maybe this is the same with node-based approaches too!) is that there are a bunch of arbitrary coin-flip choices you have to make when doing 3D (e.g. left-handed versus right-handed coordinates). At a fundamental level it doesn't matter which choice you make, but your decisions have to be consistent, otherwise things can get flipped around, or often just vanish entirely. The sneakiest problem is when you unknowingly make two wrong choices, and they mostly cancel out except for some weird edge cases that happen to exercise the exposed code path.
Taken as an entire piece, its very good.
Saying something can be improved is not the same as saying that something is crap.
But guess what, that is also part of what makes movies interesting.
For example I kind of hate most action movies starring actors like Tom Cruise or movies such as the James Bond or Jason Bourne series but I do love more liberty with reality when it comes to movies treating on myths/legends, science fiction or animated movies.
Everyone put their own cursor. This discussion is kind of moot anyway without knowing the author intention.
I have the same - probably because you know from experience that, e.g., someone taking the punishment that John Wick or Bourne does wouldn't be running around two minutes later but you have no frame of reference for, say, an 8ft goblin doing the same.
(Like the first episode of Slow Horses: there is no way a huge anti-terrorism training exercise across London stations wouldn't have every second of communications recorded for later examination and it made the whole premise of the show - that the fella is exiled because someone lied about what they said to him over those comms - nonsense to me.)
It happened to me with programming games; I entered competitions and even won one or two, making me believe I'm just SO good.
Now that I'm 30+ years old I still crave that same level of recognition which is basically unobtainable for me now as I'm just another cog in the system. Sure, I have some nice projects here and there and I get a compliment out of that some time, but never on the level I received while I was young.
I think it's incredibly important to give people advice on what could be improved, while still being respectful / praising of the work that's already done. That's how, in my opinion, you get a balanced individual.
I think you nailed something that I was wondering while browsing this thread. What difference does it make if a person practiced 5-10 years a craft resulting to winning an award if that person started when he was 10 vs. 25? The headline would not only be radically different if it was a 30-year old who did it because he studied since he was 20-25; We might not even have a headline. It would have been "oh, someone won the award. Yay?"
Do we reward the output as as standalone (as is) during the contest, or do we also reward our perceived potential (imagine what this person would do in 20 years)?
Then again, I have sought criticism my whole life. The harsher the better, especially from people whose opinions I respect. Criticism and failure fire the crucible of improvement.
I would also claim I don’t think it’s nice to judge people based on their age, regardless if it’s good or bad judgement. Furthermore, I would definitely be annoyed as 16yo if I were deemed “good enough for my age”. He competes with peers, at the highest level, not with superiors who do him a favour.
We have separate sports classes based on gender on age to reflect abilities.
It's takes time to get good at this stuff, a younger person has inherently had less time.
I'd structure it as one overall ranking, but special age rankings within that.
A 5 year old could hypothetically win overall, but if they didn't they'd still be rewarded in relation to their (age) peers.
There's an 'encouragement' element that you're missing. My 5 year old draws objectively bad pictures. I wouldn't tell him that though. I want him to get better so that he does become objectively good.
On that note though I was watching the recent world of Warcraft cinematic they just put out and while obviously phenomenal and gorgeous and state of the art, it made me realize that the biggest tell for me for something being computer rendered is always physics animations. Things always seem to move just a bit too smoothly or consistently, or slowly. I think it just has to be that way because if something is 24fps you have to make it visible for a couple frames so as to demonstrate a movement, I remember reading in an animation book about how animating something "realistically" isn't a good idea because it just won't look good because of the nature of how it's presented (at a certain framerate, framing, aspect ratio, etc).
Human nervous system has a similar mechanism where limbs are slowed down just before the impact when striking something to prevent muscle over-extension and injury, high performance martial artists train against this so that full speed and force is available upon impact without any slowdowns.
That would be Impetus[1]
No need for goal posts if we dont know what they were
Besides, celebrate rather than compare:
"When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create.“ - _why the lucky stiff
It led me to redefine my personal version of "creative" to focus on the root word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slice_of_life#Anime_and_manga
Unfortunately, there isn't a ton of cyberpunk-themed SOL like "Street Food." Closest thing I can think of is this scene from Ghost in the Shell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47aU7CiX7lQ
Your link is from Innocence, right? The original Ghost in the Shell also has a sequence of Motoko simply walking and riding a boat, doing nothing but staring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARTLckN9e7I (I love this movie!)
I disagree with some of the other commenters here who describe this style as cyberpunk. Neon lights and robots does not automatically equate to cyberpunk. I think the designer/artist may choose to describe it as they wish, to me it appears to be inspired by robot science fiction. I see some kind of whimsy and optimism in this short, as its interesting that these robots are making (what appears to be) human food. What an interesting idea :)
do I care about the genre etymology of how Cyberpunk 2077 itself got where it is in look and feel? no, not really
I like it and thats the first word that popped into my mind
All of these elements are strong signifiers of the cyberpunk aesthetic.
I would argue that none of those elements make anything cyberpunk :) The cyberpunk genre (per my understanding) involves elements of technology, its effect and force on human life, and the pushback against those effects and forces. There has to be some "punk" for something to be cyberpunk, I think. So necessarily some subversive elements, motfis or themes that challenge a greater power or status quo. That said, I also find it disheartening that cyberpunk is often imagined as dystopian or hypersexualized, that's all very trite tbh.
From the Wikipedia article: [1]
> Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech" featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.
> The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors ("the street finds its own uses for things").
> Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir
All of this comes from the foundational literary and cinematic works that defined the cyberpunk genre, namely (in rough chronological order): Blade Runner, Neuromancer, Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, Akira, Snow Crash, Johnny Mnemonic, and The Matrix.
The visual aesthetic representation of the cyberpunk genre is firmly rooted in a vocabulary involving dense cityscapes, night, neon lights, and rain (echoing the film noir vocabulary), often set in slums of East Asian metropolises or US Chinatowns.
Deciding that the common elements of all these works isn't what "cyberpunk" is is simply creating your own, personal, idiosyncratic definition.
Hmm, I guess I didn't see that in the video, maybe I viewed it differently? Robots were making human food, which seems whimsical to me, and makes me wonder why would something (maybe autonomous) want to do that. I am not sure simply using an Asian setting and neon lights makes something cyberpunk, but maybe the artist did intend it that way.
This part from my comment is just my perspective, not me defining:
> That said, I also find it disheartening that cyberpunk is often imagined as dystopian or hypersexualized, that's all very trite tbh.
I find this characteristic about the genre boring and unnecessary as I think it's reflective of the views and relationships of the various authors to technology and its effects.
A quick document.querySelector('#player').style = '' in console allows proper fullscreen viewing.
Small nitpicks: would have liked each scene to be longer but maybe there are competition constraints? Fires don’t look completely real. The squashing of the dough is too smooth and fast implying a crazy amount of force exerted by the device. Maybe that was intentional?
I would guess there's a one minute time constraint to the finished piece based on the video.
That said, definitely a few items that can be improved. That said, in a real production there wouldn't be one person responsible for so much work to begin with.
This is phenomenal stuff.
Also, it's not a cash prize. The prize is a tour of an animation studio. Tell me what incentive would there be to falsify this kind of submission?
how would you avoid an entrant submitting pre-created or even some (obscure) work by someone else?
what are good prizes that incentivizes good submissions? how would you run such small competitions?
Because I think these small competitions could be super interesting for fostering skills among younger folks.
on the other side, what is in it for the organizers? is it best run as a charity?
I was just being drawn into the plot. Technically, it was the best Blender animation I'd seen.... ever. The foreshadowing was perfect. I knew something awesome was coming.... And boom. It stops.
I only hope the young animator keeps going.
Read it again. What was the writer disappointed by?
(That's not a rhetorical question. That's a reading comprehension question. Please post your answer)
Your free reading assessment: Your reading comprehension is similar to smaller and first-generation GPT-3 models. It is below that of more recent GPT-3 divinci models (e.g. text-divinci-3), gpt-3.5, or gpt-4.
My recommendation: Find a way to remediate your reading skills, or be aware of the gap, and work with someone professional (one or two meetings is adequate, but with a serious background in managing these sorts of deficits) to develop coping mechanisms.
The above is a serious assessment and recommendation. It's reasonable to make a mistake on a first read, but on a follow-up, especially reading in enough depth to analyze and break down the text (which I'm glad you did), you should have picked up on the meaning in this post unless there is some more serious underlying issue. The other posts show a fine job of how a normal person would read my comment. This does show a serious gap in foundational literacy. That's not an insult (we all have gaps). However, it's important we be aware of them, and either address them or develop coping mechanisms.
There is a large number of disorders, such as autism, dyslexia, prosopagnosia, dyscalculia, etc. which manifest quite often as a very isolated gap (and I'm personally convinced there's a much broader set than in DSM-V, and we all have a few). Many very successful people have them, but generally only succeed with awareness and coping mechanisms. I can't diagnose from one post, but that's the sort of professional background I would look for, since at this point, it's very well understood. If there is a gap, they can help understand what it is, and bridging it can make a huge difference to your well-being, success, and happiness. This doesn't need to be a process, if you don't want one; being pointed in the right direction is often adequate (estimate effort in many similar cases I've seen: reading one book).
Go look in the mirror before diagnosing others with spectrum disorders or personality disorders.
You may also wish to look at other responses to my post.