Hello, I am in Tokyo now to attend the YouTube creator summit of 2019.
Here I met a very interesting and important person, mr. Andrew price, the blender guru.
hello viewers has a gallon. So you might be aware that learn engineering uses a software called
Blender. It's a very powerful 3D animation software and he's a biggest
guru of that software, Blender. I hope you can introduce, you say something about yourself.
yeah sure so my name is Enterprise I'm from Australia and I've
been using blender a 3d animation software which is free thus the main
point open source free software anyone can download it and I started using it
15 years ago and I've been making tutorials for about 11 years
believe it or not nice yeah so free and powerful software is very very powerful
So that's my first question is all about I saw your videos, your first Blender
tutorial was seven years old. so seven years back then Blender was very tiny
It was not at all powerful people were doubtful about whether I should use it or not.
A lot of bugs. So how did you get a feel that this is going to be the future. oh I didn't I
had no idea I mean it was it was so small but I the only reason I used it
was because I was poor I didn't have money to buy 3ds max or Maya which is a
like $3,000 okay so I just used it cuz it was free and it's just coincidentally
become a much much bigger software now yeah quite powerful now yeah it is nice
and is it a full-time job for you? Blender coaching? It is basically so my my time
is actually split between YouTube and my separate business which is polygon
okay so polygon is a texture and model library for 3d artists exactly so that's
about three years old now and it's we hire about 25-30 people that you that
brown polygons and so my youtube channel is just teaching blender
then I also tell people about polygons and I say hey you should use polygons
and that pays for the tutorial basically so I don't need to rely on advertising
revenue because polygon is the source of income. Okay, Polligon is your main
business model. it is. Maybe the YouTube channel might be supporting that
driving traffic to that. it's the marketing engine that's right yeah nice
yeah how do you know that yeah. We just had a huge release of Blender
recently, Blender 2.8, what's your opinion on that? 2.8 is impressed it's
it's everything that I've wanted blended to be for a long time because blend has
been on the unapproachable to be guinness exactly like for example
selecting an object in Linda was right click right and that's just inconsistent
with the entire software world everything is left click and so that
that's just one example but it was everything as a keyboard shortcut you
don't know how to move something unless you know G to move it everything was
there was a lot of friction in order to learn the software and so people were
like oh what's blender let me try it out and then they open it up and they go
then they closed it yeah it's done exactly this your cube over there yeah
and they can't even click on anything and they're like yeah but they left like
nothing is selected yeah so I many years ago I made a video talking about why I
think the interface of blender could be improved immensely okay and it was very
it was a very hot button controversial video because a lot of people disagreed
with the ideas and I didn't to be Frank as well I didn't frame things in the
best way I had an idea of what I thought the interface should be but it wasn't
very there was problems with it as well but a lot of the core problems have been
fixed and so it's the software that I wanted for so many years it's got layers
now it's got a real-time rendering engine right it's got yeah it's got
proper like tools you don't have to remember all the shortcuts
and it's left click to select you know so it's like I hope now is the turning
point for blender that it's just gonna like take off. There will be a mass participation now
Also I believe that Blender software developers
have heard your voice. have what all right that have listened maybe maybe yeah I
know the the guy who made the interface for 2.81 William Raina SHhhh
he back when I made the videos talking about the interface yeah we talked by
Emani he had similar thoughts about like yeah it could be much better than this
and he's the one who built the 2.81 so i think we agree on the the underlying you
know idea that like software shouldn't it shouldn't be like a hazing ritual
which is like it shouldn't be like running through a ring of fire and then
you make it out the other end it's like yeah you're one of us you went through
all the suffering to learn blender and now you've made it which is what blender
was it was like seen as this like yeah it's tough but you know it's worth it to
learn it in the end it's like now like a software shouldn't be that way 3d
software is hard enough to learn as it is without the software being extra
complex so I'm really glad that that blender has become what it is exactly
so Blender 2.8 is so powerful now it is more user friendly. so do you see
writing is there on the wall for 3ds Max and Maya? desk yeah well there's a
lot of some people think that Autodesk released their student pricing okay
because their their pricing has always been like basically three four thousand
dollars a year subscription being subscription-based for a year or nothing
like that was the tier and so for people who are students or non-commercial use
you know it was just money too expensive right
and so blender 2.81 came out and then Autodesk sorry blender 2.8 came out big
one and order desk announced student pricing which is like I think one
hundred two hundred dollars a year or so like very cheap so some people like aha
yes Gared of blender but they probably been
working on it for years then the model I don't know but I I would guess that they
are actually you know they're Maya they just released Bifrost engine for Maya
which i think is actually because every time autodesk announces a relief like an
update mm-hmm you look at the comments and people are
laughing they hate it's the update like okay this is what you do you haven't
even fixed the bugs and you just change the one little thing like that updates
have been like notoriously bad okay and this year they they had a release form
i'll which is the Bifrost engine and it's like a procedural engine that
allows you to make like simulation effects procedurally model things
basically competing with Houdini which is another like software which has
rocketed in the last few years so I think they're worried about Houdini and
I think they're probably also worried about 102 point II just as a guess I
don't know but I if I were them I would be like well this little software that
was nothing he's now like so we should care less but
I think the signals are clear, that's why a huge reduction in the price, from $4000 to $300.
right yeah yeah exactly. Since it is an open software,
I think this is a first open source software which is professional in
nature, Blender. All other software which are open source are not so powerful.
It is useful only for hobby purpose. yeah So do you think that maybe all the
artists in the world even though he's into a Photoshop or some 2d graphics
should also master Blender now. if he's a 2d artist? yeah, because now Blender has
a 2D option also it does it has a video editing option yeah so do you think that
any digital artists irrespective of variation 3d animation oh there are some
basic knowledge of blender do yeah yeah I don't think like if you do painting
hmm actually even that is probably still but
like for for animation 2d animation I really think that the new it's called
grease pencil I really think that the new gree
pencil tools are amazing and for people who are my castle this video the other
net was somebody making a animation of a van like turning a corner open there's
like people on top and they like spin out and the people are 2d and so every
frame in Photoshop he would like paint on it something yeah and it was all the
comments that my just use blender grease pencil write it for that kind of thing
it is perfect it's because you can actually paint in 3d space and frame to
frame and you've got the 3d world as well you can see the perspective and it
just changes so much about how you draw there's definitely I mean you'll never
replace Photoshop because I mean grease pencil will never do everything that
Photoshop can do it's just it's way better especially like yeah a concept
artist that kind of thing but actually there's an artist John Maduro bed moon
is it worked at like Lucasfilm and he work on like Jurassic world and at the
blender conference last year he did a presentation showing his work because he
uses grease pencil in blender to sketch out the ideas okay position the camera
and like instead of having to like draw a scene in Photoshop and then the
director says like oh that's cool can you move the camera a little bit that
way the vehicle is like I got to redo the whole thing
whereas with grease pencil because it's drawn on like basically like Leia's like
almost like transparent planes or like in physical space it's like much easier
to move the camera and editing so I he's been a like a pioneer of making blender
like hey guys like concept artists that don't use 3d tools you should use it
because you can save so much time so I think I think a lot of 2d artists to try
it out as well, nice. Andrew our audience might be aware about your Blender
Channel Blender guru, yeah. But about your Polligun business I think, I was
unaware. okay. So can you share more light into that, like how many employees you're
having and how big it is that this business? yes sir blind guru is actually basic
me there's one other person that helps with support emails but it's mostly just
me polygon is about 25 30 people whose business was exactly yes so that that's
bigger but I think as as we're growing polygon and we're growing blended guru
we want to like blended guru is a marketing engine for polygon and
therefore if we can grow blended guru faster and we can hopefully grow
polygons faster so I think God both hand-in-hand exactly so I think we would
like to scale blended guru as well okay to bring on more people to help with
production like a video editing like I'm doing it all myself okay the recording
the hard-working face or the polygon business exactly yeah nice yeah so I
drew how he wants an inner engineering videos animated videos what's that how
we watched any learn engineering animated videos the engineering animate
I've seen a couple and I checked out your channel before I came here okay but
I've seen a few I don't know if you know the name of this guy but he's he makes
animations of what he did one of like a toy car okay pulling back a toy car and
showed the mechanisms of a toy car and how it works and it was so well done and
it just made me realize like how big animation is as a tool for demonstrated
or strategy yes for illustrating engineering because without it how would
you possibly see sports in right but with it it's just like oh wow I get it
you know no does the user do bridge relays yeah exactly
yeah yeah so so your content is what do you see is the vision of your channel
why do you create the content yes so people have difficulty to visualize
especially when things have mechanical there are a lot of gears connected with
3d animation you can easily which raise that yeah right which will be clearer in
their mind mm-hmm after that we can explain the concept very easily right so
I just wanted to ask you if you are some Kiva since you although you are a
professional in animation so do Hanyu advice for our animation team all right
and why should be a team yeah yeah hmm good question so
I think we were talking about as we're coming in Eevee is a real-time rendering
engine it's pretty powerful but as you said the quality it can be hard to get
the quality to look if you're used to cycles right exactly but everything just
works mmm you add a light and you get the correct shadows the correct
reflections in cycles it's beautiful right
Eevee you have to spend longer setting it up well to make the shadows look
exactly the way you want and the reflections so there's there's a kind of
a I think there are some things which are great for Evie and some things
integrate for cycles I don't think it's a good idea to pick to just pick one as
a solution it really depends on what you're doing okay but the other thing is
is that 2.81 which is coming out in a couple of months but you can download
the latest version from the blender website now Gabey Domitian it has addy
noise or in it by Intel so it's an Intel AI dee' noise ax and it's incredible at
removing noise of evil entities yeah from from cycles and cycles oh yeah so
you can get the power of cycles but with a much more reduced render time and so I
would definitely look at that how what are the computers that they're rendering
on they good computer we we're under it or i7 processor okay although the CP or
entity and we have one GPU system mm-hmm that now takes almost five to six
minutes to render one frame in cycles yeah but using UVB porn that takes just
five or ten seconds yeah right yeah but my artists find that
the core it is there's some difference he has to adjust all that mm I've got a
tutorial on architecture in evey and although it's about architecture it's
also about using EB to get really good lighting and shadows and reflections so
I went through a lot of work to figure out evey to make it how to make it look
good so if the artists your animation team are watching and check out that
video and maybe you can make the Eevee render look much better yeah
exactly yeah so thanks a lot hundra price for spending your time with us I
hope there will be more viral videos of Lawrence and in the future so thank you
very much all the best awesome thanks again