Award-Winning Flow's Director Breaks Down How Blender Made The Film Possible

Flow, an animated film following the journey of a cat fighting for survival during a massive flood set in a surreal world, is quite a sensation of the year, achieving recognition with over 60 awards, including a Golden Globe for Best Animated Picture and two Oscar nominations. What makes it stand out from other animated films is that it was entirely created in Blender, a free, open-source software popular with independent animators, proving that achieving notable success in animation is possible for everyone, not just those within the studio system.

Gints Zilbalodis, Flow's writer and director, switched to Blender 5 years ago mainly because of EEVEE, around the time the film's production began. In 2019, Zilbalodis spent his time writing the script, learning Blender, and seeking funding under Dream Well Studio. By 2020, he secured funding and moved into a co-working space alongside other artists and developers using Blender. The Latvian studio was small, with about 15-20 people, though only 3-5 worked at a time. A set-dressing team refined scene designs, while concept artists focused on buildings and integrating storytelling into the environments. Only two team members worked on the water effects, including Martins Upitis, who developed a Blender add-on for the film's complex water simulations, now available for public use.

Zilbalodis learned Blender online, starting with Blender 2.8 alpha while it was still in development, constantly updating as new versions were released. By the time the team joined, they were using Blender 2.9 or 3.0. Flow was created entirely in Blender and rendered with EEVEE, with each frame taking between 0.5 and 10 seconds to render in 4K. They didn't use a render farm: the final render was done on Zilbalodis's PC. Instead of compositing, all color adjustments were made using shaders.

As for add-ons that the Flow team used in production, Zilbalodis mentioned GeoScatter, Animation Layers, Cell Fluids, FLIP Fluids, Baga Pie, Baga Rain Generator, and Copy Global Transform.

When creating the previz or animatic, the director prioritized speed to explore ideas efficiently, using Blender since he's not skilled at drawing. He created basic sketches and handed the files to a concept artist, who rebuilt them in Blender while maintaining the correct proportions. The concept artists either painted over the models or designed directly in 3D. When returning the files, they left the assets in place to ensure easy integration and alignment when Zilbalodis imports them back into the scene.

Zilbalodis was also solely responsible for lighting, which simplified the process. He preferred working with large files where everything was imported, allowing him to adjust assets like materials and lighting in each shot. While library overrides could have been used, switching between his desktop PC and MacBook caused issues with linked assets, so he kept everything within the file itself to avoid broken links.

For the director, Blender's speed is a crucial factor, which may seem like a small detail but saves a lot of time. He also enjoys the high level of customizability, having created numerous custom keyboard shortcuts that streamlined his solo workflow. Beyond that, he's a big fan of the wealth of online resources, from tutorials to tools, making it easy for him to find solutions to almost any challenge.

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