New Blender Studio's Open Movie Nears Completion

Blender Studio didn't release any animated films last year but surprised us with DOGWALK, a Godot-powered mini-game, and Storm, a fully animation-ready character rig. However, back in June, the studio announced a new Open Movie project, Singularity, a "painterly space adventure set in a universe before the beginning of our time." According to the latest update, production is now at the finishing line for shading and lighting, with the final shots soon to be sent to the farm.

If you missed it, Singularity is meant to be a follow-up project to the Open Movie Project Gold, testing a variety of painterly and NPR tools and setups. With this project, you can expect more brush-stroke style packs, textures, and shading setups for a unique painterly look. The team is also introducing tools to quickly create movement along paths and simulate crowd behavior, and of course, new features from Blender 5.x are being stress-tested and contributed back to further development.

As for the story, Singularity takes place in a distant age of the universe, when stars and galaxies were still young. "When an ominous cosmic event swallows the icy home of a small space critter, he must find refuge among a group of luminous creatures watched over by a mysterious celestial being."

As you might have noticed, Singularity's protagonist is featured on the new Blender 5.1 splash screen. Blender 5.1 has just entered its beta stage, and users are encouraged to test it and report any issues to help ensure a stable release next month.

Check out the production logs for Singularity here, and don't forget to subscribe to our Newsletter and join our 80 Level Talent platform, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.