Scientific explainer video made with Blender

willyhuesos writes:

Most of the artwork on this website is magnificent, which is inspiring but can actually be pretty intimidating for beginners. I'm posting this as an example of what you can do with Blender that is just "good enough"... and just barely. I still cringe watching it, and can only see the mistakes, the lack of sophistication, the clumsy artistry. But it *is* the example I was searching for when I was learning Blender, ie. something that gets the job done. It took me two weeks to make, two grinding weeks. When I started, I barely understood Blender, and wasn't even sure if what I wanted to do was possible. After two weeks of searching for tutorials, fruitless experimentation, blank stares at the screen, tearing my hair out, I know now it is and I even got paid to do it.

To give you an idea of how clueless I was, I didn't understand that although I was in 2D graphics mode, my objects weren't necessarily all in the same plane. I assumed it was like inkscape or something with everything is on a flat page. So in ortho view, I'd line up all my elements, nice and square, then parent one to the other, start them moving, and suddenly they'd all go out of alignment. I'd just drag them back and start again with no idea what had happened. I actually completed the entire video without understanding they were at different distances from the camera.

Another huge problem I had was creating greasepencil objects. I didn't realize that their creation was keyframed, so if you move the playhead to before the creation point, they will disappear. Since I created my greasepencil objects wherever and whenever I felt like it, I couldn' t understand why they kept disappearing when I restarted my animation. I'd just sigh and remake them from scratch. I think it was just dumb luck that I eventually got them all coralled into a place on the timeline before I needed them.

The fact that I was able to make this without understanding some of the most fundamental concepts behind Blender is a huge testament to its power... and its fun. For every hair that I lost in frustration, I gained a smile when I saw something i'd made appear on the screen. The chattering teeth, created with a simple cycled shape key animation still gives me pleasure.

I also posted this video because I could not find many examples of explainer videos and none of scientific explainer videos made with Blender. I hope this will serve as inspiration to relative newcomers who aren't professional animators but want to use Blender to illustrate something in their own field. It can be done!

Happy to answer questions, although my inexpert answers may just serve to confuse even more!