Behind the Scenes: TRY AGAIN - Blender Short Film

INTRODUCTION

Hi, I’m Siddharth Kumar aka sidrenders, a 23-year-old self-taught 3D generalist from New Delhi, India.

Of course, it all began with video games. At the age of 12, I was extremely interested in learning how they functioned. While researching, I came across Unity, and after creating a few games, I accidentally came across Blender. It has now been 6 years, and I'm thankful that I still get to enjoy what I do <3

You can watch my yearly Blender progress videos on my YouTube channel.

INSPIRATION

The inspiration began with the idea to make a racing car animation based on the game, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, but in the interim, I was working on a personal animation project set in a grocery store.

So, while chatting with my friend Adarsh, we discovered this bizarre concept of kart racing in a lonely mall. Adarsh was immediately working on the block-out animation, and I thought it was really interesting and unique.

When the block-out animation was finished, I was in disbelief and realized I had to finish this project.

PROCESS

Software

• Blender
• After Effects
• Quixel Bridge
• PureRef

References

I gathered as many references as possible before getting into Blender by browsing the internet and visiting physical grocery stores. I really believe it's the most crucial step.

Block-out Video

Modelling

Once the reference and basic block out were done, I started with modeling the assets.

I had to model the assets which were closer to the camera nicely and for the far objects, I just made a really basic block out and added image textures.

Other than the asset modeling, everything else was pretty simple and straightforward.

Lighting & Colour-grading

Lighting the grocery store was super fun and the light-linking feature was really useful. The main idea for lighting came from the references and for color grading, I used After Effects which is not the best software to grade but I enjoy doing my post-processing in AE. I then used Film Nitrate plugin and deep glow.

And that’s it!

RENDER: TRY AGAIN - Blender Short Film

Still renders:

Thank you for reading this article. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me through any of my social media accounts. Have a great day!

About the Artist                       

Sidrenders is an independent 3D generalist from India who deals with art and music.