this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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Blender

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Flow is very relaxing to watch.

It's part of its beauty is that there is no speech and the takes are really long with smooth and slow camera movements. I think it doesn't take a lot of processing to watch.

My dog watches this movie in silence, I've seen this movie once. He's seen it 3 times πŸ˜…

[–] ch00f 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Relaxing?

I loved it, but I felt like the cat was about to drown every 3 minutes. Heart strings were taught.

[–] _m_cubed_ 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Forgive the pedantry. It’s *taut.

[–] CrayonRosary 5 points 1 day ago

You sure taught 'em!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I wasn't worried for the cat, maybe the fact that they could control a boat made it seem like plot armor.

I was surprised about the other thing though.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 day ago (2 children)

THAT'S WHY IT LOOKED LIKE A GAME!!

Back when I first saw the trailer, I instantly assumed it was a game, only to be surprised it was a movie.

The Eevee renderer uses tons of the same rendering techniques as game engines, to achieve its fast rendering speed.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

I have to say, when I saw the trailer it absolutely did not make me want to watch the movie.

It looked exactly like an in-engine game cutscene, and that just felt really jarring to me, and visually distracting from enjoying the story.

Perhaps I should give it a try regardless.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I've been watching machinema since I was a wee lad in the 2000s with halo 2 being peak for me. I am so pumped the tech is there for full length feature films! This is like the opposite effect for me, I want "cheaper" methods of making what matters: the story and the narrative using cinematic language. Very glad eevee is getting recognized. Whether it's hand drawn or rendered in a billion dollar engine that took 50 years to render one frame or with realtime 3d, I don't care. I just want it to be easy for a kid to say "I have a story to tell and I want it on a screen" and be able to do that without weird criticism like "you did it with the wrong tools"

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

I'm glad for that too. Making the barrier to creative entry lower is going to help people bring their vision to life, and that's great. I'm pleased that Flow was made, and that more things like it will also be made, and I'm sure some of those things will have a visual style which I really vibe with.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago

I watched it, but couldn't finish it, for the aforementioned reason. The visuals were pretty decent for a benchmark test, but that's about it. Take a shot whenever the cat falls out of the boat.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago

I felt the same way but we always watch all the animation nominees so I gave it a go. The look is exactly what you see in the trailer, kind of under cooked for a feature in my opinion. But the animation is great the movement and, for lack of a better word, flow feel really nice. The story is pretty good too, lots of feeling and tension I related to the characters and like them all. The ending didn’t quite hit but more sputtered a bit. Over all I’ve seen a lot worse Academy Award winners and I’d recommend watching it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

It was a little jarring sometimes. The character animations specifically felt very video gamey, like they were being strung together and blended like video games to to allow simi-fluid animations with player freedom. Despite that distraction, the story was great, and the drama of the scenes were top notch.

Honestly I think it happening to a cat instead of a human really made a difference, because we've all watched humans fake drown or fake die a million times.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

I’m just excited to see new ways for people to express themselves through art

[–] danc4498 3 points 1 day ago

It played out like a game too

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

I did not know about the blender connection. That’s awesome!

I have only seen a little bit of the movie so far, but I do love the style.

It’s nice to see such distinct styles coming to CGI animated films. Not everything needs to look like sonic or Mario, even though those do look good. The recent Dog Man kids movie, adapted from elementary school visual novels, also stood out to me.

…I might have to go rewatch Into the Spiderverse.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think the quality of it is impressive. The animation is high quality. The feeling of the characters is well communicated despite the lack of dialog.

With that said, I couldn't make it more than 20 minutes into it. It was just too painful to watch the cat meowing and in need of help while in mortal danger.

https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/1312794

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Oh lordy no, between the cat nearly drowning multiple times (I have a long history of recurring dreams of dying by drowning) and the birds torturing the one bird, I'm going to give the whole thing a miss. I really appreciate that whole "Does The Dog Die?" website.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

That bird scene made me so unbelievably angry and sad.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah, it really feels like they should have put a warning card at the beginning.

[–] werefreeatlast 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I hope they gave back with some $$ credits lol.

[–] ch00f 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I know paying people in "exposure" is cliche, but I think using your software to make an Oscar award winning film is just about the best kind of exposure you could ask for.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

They specifically thanked Blender as well