The Magic Dust - Blender Feature Film

Richard_Culver · April 10, 2025, 7:20pm

Hi All!

Well, this is a project I have been sitting on for a long long time.

You can read the original thread I made on it here:

Maybe some of you know I was previously working in LightWave before coming to Blender.

Finally, we are bringing it back after we finished two other projects over the last 5 years. So first here is what we have been up to.

Thrive (We Thrive Together)

We just finished the short and are making the final preps to enter into film festivals.

Spaced Cat

Just finished a sucessful festival run in 2024/2025

I also canceled another short we were working on to focus on The Magic Dust.

Yin Yang

This last one was hard to pull the plug on. But it was either another 2-3 years on this, or simply get back to our feature.

My team has grown. We have more animators now. We are ready.

Here is a character we started sculpting a few years ago, before taking a break from this project. It has started again and here is the update.

Yes for the moment we still use Zbrush for sculpting.

Then it is over to Blender for retopo and everything else.

This is the concept:

Here is one of the main characters that made it on the featured row a while back.

captainmarlowe · April 11, 2025, 5:55am

So glad this project is back on tracks !

Richard_Culver · April 12, 2025, 5:36am

I thought I would talk about the process of writing this story over the - yes - past 20 years!

What?

Yeah. It all started in 2005!

Wow!

Ok, just realized that now.

The final version I am working on now was hashed out in 2018 so that it was 13 years actually of writing.

From there to here it has been recording the VO and only slight changes.

Ok so here is goes. Probably first and foremost, you have personal growth as a writer and as an artist in general. 20 years or maturity, etc.

As your view changes… you get the idea.

Since it was such an overwhelming project, it took time to put together and this started to span years.

This was good and bad.

But purely from a writer’s perspective, there were certain challenges.

First it was because I had invented a set of rules extrapolated from Escher’s relativity. I will share the document I wrote about this in 2008.

The first step was to identify those rules and then invent rules that I needed in order to create a parallel universe.

So in the end Relativity has 3 dimensions and mine would have 6. 3 plus a parallel of 3.

Every story needs an exposition of sorts.

Hitchcock once said, exposition is the bitter pill the audience must swallow.

But an exposition for this would be insane, long, distracting and maybe even boring and just turn an audience away.

There is just too much to absorb in order to understand the drama that exists on a layer above those rules.

For example we all understand gravity. So it takes no explanation to convey the drama of someone hanging by a thread from a rooftop.

But imaging trying to explain that to an alien who had no idea what gravity even is!

So now my idea was to more or less dole these rules out in pieces and weave them into the story dramatically, so that people were being educated without realizing it.

I spent the first 10 years or so writing the story with no dialogue. Just conveying it visually.

I would say each version was successful.

And could have worked as a film.

But I still felt I was missing something.

In 2011 stopped and looked for every interview of Hitchcock and watched every film I could get a copy of swim the beginning. It took a whole. Maybe a month or two.

I kept rewriting after that.

But probably the most important or profound things about this process that took so long was there were quite a number of “what ifs”.

Like, “But if this is true, wouldn’t this over here also be true?”

At first I was avoiding those. Then I realized what great dramatic elements those questions could provide when posed and answered with something dangerous for example.

And what character flaws would those rules exploit in people?

And so on.

At around 2017 I think I first started writing with dialogue.

In 2018 I emerged with the first draft after a few months of just stacks of notes and scene ideas as well as plot scenarios.

I was trying to take the best points of all the earlier attempts.

I pieced together the final version and started recording scratch VO in 2018. Then finished them in 2020. After that we took a break in the studio to work on other projects.

So now, I am working on a blocking animatic using those voices while we organize and get back to work on the final assets.

So while I am not making fundamental changes I do still find myself refining the visual ideas and maybe even some of the sequence of scenes/ shots.

So in effect, to the end, writing continues!

Richard_Culver · April 12, 2025, 5:59am

Also in general I am on the fence as far as sharing details.

I wonder what the interest there would be in a play by play of the creative process.

To the end that, if you followed, you’d already know the entire story before it is even released.

Normally studios - not even Blender Studio let eyes in to the actual process.

Or do they?

I am too lazy to follow everything.

Maybe I should look at that more.

But on the commercial side - which this is - I wonder what the risk/advantage there would be in say building a fan base of people who know the film even before it is released - in the unlikely event we are lucky to get a release!

That said, I suck at social media, so the chance of this going “viral” is slim to none and would be the providence of us geeks!

In the context of if a large number of people already know the spoilers…

Then there is the copyright risk as well as advantage to having the origin of the project completely documented publicly.

Any thoughts on this?

Richard_Culver · April 14, 2025, 5:07am

Ok enough talking here is some artwork.

The sculpting has long since been completed on most all of the main characters.

Richard_Culver · April 14, 2025, 5:20am

Next up is the character Anae:

Richard_Culver · April 14, 2025, 10:20am

Another character. A minor part. But important.

Richard_Culver · April 14, 2025, 10:22am

We didn’t make a turntable for this one yet. Major character. The queen, Matriarch.

bartv · April 18, 2025, 6:43am

I featured you on BlenderNation, have a great weekend!

Richard_Culver · April 18, 2025, 9:03am

Wow!

Thanks Bart!

Richard_Culver · April 23, 2025, 9:51am

We are starting to get the design started for the planet tops. There are three dimensions with three themes. But there also basic zones that are similar to each planet top.

(We use the Miro whteboard as our central place to ideate and plan production.)

I separated these three zones into a sort of social hierarchy. An early decision to make distinctions based on each gravity orientation.

The first is Earth.

The common workers, aritsans and farmers.

And here is the start of the concepting for that theme.

The temple sketch.

And the first concept paint over of the 3D prozy and references for this dimension.

Next is the Science Dimenion.

This is, well scientists, science and industry to support that aspect of the society.

This is the science temple, which is actually a museum.

And the initial paint over with references.

And finally the Royal Dimension, the ruling, leasure class, etc.

The temple sketch.

And the paint over, initial design ideating.

That should give some insight into our design process.

Hope you find this interesting, if not informative.

Richard_Culver · April 23, 2025, 7:37pm

Is there anything you are interested in seeing or hearing about?

thetony20 · May 9, 2025, 6:00pm

That’s some pretty intense and detailed character designs/sculpts. Will be interesting to see how Blender handles that level of complexity (yes I understand that all the fine details will be baked to normal maps from the sculpts) but even so, it’s going to be fairly high polygon count and lots of high resolution texture maps.

Are we planing ‘full’ animation type film (thinking disney/pixar vs say more classic type anime animation, where when the character talks, abut the only thing that moves is the mouth).

If full animation then I guess some pretty intense rigging as well, that’s going to be interesting to see. I’ve noticed some likely cloth simulation nightmares as well (guessing Marvelous Designer going to be used for that).

Seems you are at least avoiding hair simulation, likely a very wise choice.

As to some of your general questions, I think sharing a fair bit of the ‘process’ would be cool, along with general story, overall themes, background, character profiles and the like.

As for sharing the full story/spoilers, I’d say, NO, don’t do that. The first full viewing should always be a surprise. There’s nothing worse then watching something and already knowing what’s going to happen next. Either due to just bad writing,etc or because one has read about before hand.

As for building the fan base, some initial artwork, etc doesn’t hurt, but I think some fairly ‘final’ (from a presentation point of view) animation can be a real kicker.

Normally this is a good old trailer (I still remember the time that the first trailer for Star Wars The Phantom Menace was released. Yes the film then sucked, but after waiting so long, the trailer pushed the excitement level at the time to 12. I know I watched it a whole mass of times.)

But it doesn’t have to be a trailer, it could just be a ‘test animation’ scene, even one that isn’t part of the movie, created pretty much as a demo. Think something like the Arcane Animation Test that they first did (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHElv9Kk9gY), yes that was only released publicly a couple of years ago, but it was made in 2015.

That was used to ‘sell’ the series privately, no reason you can do the same, but to ‘sell’ it to everyone.

At least that’s my initial thoughts.

Richard_Culver · May 9, 2025, 7:05pm

Great.

Thanks for those thoughts.

Yeah trailer for sure. We have one in the works.

Overall, yes. It is about where to cut the corners. Polygons are not the place to do it. It is textures. So for that we are not going with the game workflow so that everthing is baked. We will use more geometry and also I just bought a few proceedural texture packs.

In general it is going to be.

Texture Workflow:

Character Faces
Hero Props

Proceedural Workflow:

Cloth

Pretty much the entire sets and backgrounds.

Buildings rocks etc.

Foliage will be instanced.

Animation:

Not planning to cut corners here. But rather invite my team to use a stylized approqach that does not require realism.

Think, Agent 327 or Charge for example.

I currently have 4 full time animators.

This year we will also have an intern for about 6-8 moinths to help. And possibly more interns next year as well.

Cloth and Hair.

I have always thought about eliminating hair from the equation is creative ways. Will either be covered by hats and other headware. With limited short, hair, beards etc. that don’t need dynamics.

That said, we did some tests for a client last year and I am cofindent we can get some nice renders of any hair we do choose. But no long flowing hair. No way!

Cloth will be reduced to only necessary. Blender, but with very limited areas that get simulated. Other problem areas simply painted out.

Also using dynamic bone chains on accessories to sell the idea of things being dynamic.

Yeah Marvelous is great…

But it still takes a lot of time and attention, as well as somewhat limiting.

We used it on our last project:

So we are going to try and avoid this kind of complex layering - if possible. But that Mystic Character is going to be a challenge. So we are trying to sort out how much of it has to be dynamic, etc. So it is not about a one solution for all.

Probably will just use other solutions like dynamic bone chains and so on for the layers.

Overall the environment has 24 instances that make up the inner citty portion. So that is going to save a lot of ram.

24 might not sound like a lot. But it is.

Here is the 1/24th piece. (its just a grey box proxi right now)

It makes up this when instanced:

Additionally, we will instance smaller pieces here and there. So overall, there will be a very massive feeling to something that takes very little ram.

julperado · May 9, 2025, 7:58pm

I remember seeing your first post about the project, liked it and was planning to comment and then completely forgot about it

Based only on the images you’ve shared so far it looks really interesting, with lots of potential!

When do you think full production will start? I ask because it would be very helpful for you and your team if by then Blender has implemented texture mipmapping and fully functional micro-displacement (by fully functional I mean it’s not a RAM black hole, like it is currently), I know Brecht has started work on both features, so it shouldn’t take too long to have them in master
That would allow to add more detail to both characters and environments without having to worry too much about textures resolution.

I agree with @thetony20 about sharing some more finished, or refined “eyecandy”, both to attract and hype viewers, but also to get potential investors interested in the project (I’m assuming you will also need investment, but maybe you have it already?)
No need to share the whole story, a good trailer will go a long way, but even just a single action scene or a cool environment test would be enough to start gaining traction, but I’d say you do need to invest on social media promotion, or hire someone to deal with that for you, nowadays VERY few things go viral organically (and they tend to be the kind of stuff that trigger people in any way, politics, social issues, violence, but not art unfortunately), there’s just way too much people trying to get noticed, so realistically only paid promotion will help you get noticed online.

Finally, are you planning on doing all the production in-house or maybe include other studios/individuals to colaborate remotely?

Richard_Culver · May 9, 2025, 9:06pm

Thanks for having another look and commenting.

Lets see, starting with the marketing and social media stuff. For the most part I find it kind of distracting to even think about.

So I am going to leave there for now.

This project is unique in that the story - while it does follow a conventional dramatic thread - is completely unconventional and challenging as a concept in every other way.

Of course, I am trying to make a film for those who have never seen it before. But then, I also thought about how a large part of the film industry thrives on making books into films. We know the characters and the plots and how it all ends, yet it fills the seats. Harry Potter comes to mind.

Jack Reacher.

So many more, each year.

Of course these stories reach a different audience. But that is not what they bank on. They absolutely bank on people who read the best seller. A certain percentage of them go out to see the film. Of course they do!

So what is that element then? Is it really true that people don’t want to know anything?

I’d question it.

So now, in this case, it is not a book. But it is a concept that you really can’t tell anyone about if you tried. Trust me. You’d just get curious looks. Each time I try. It fails. So it is kind of safe from people “kowing all about it”, because the people who have seen it, would just have to shrugg and say, “You just have to see it. I can’t explain.”

So this is just me, kind of thinking this through, as I have many many times.

Its not like some thriller with a spoiler “I see dead people”.

And then everybody knows the growner, or the ahah moment or whatever.

So what I asked myself was, what is the real harm in this case? Not as in a traditional film, like some new Shirlock Homles film. But something that even before it was released, had started to gain word of mouth of people saying “you just have to see it, trust me”. And the only way you could grow that, is letting people see it.

This is why I brought up social media and marketing. Because I suck at that.

So I figured, worse case, a ton of people have seen it before we decide to close that off in the final production phases. And they are telling all of thier friends, you just have to see it when it comes out.

So in this, the worst case is actially the best case.

But the more than likely case is it completely flies under the radar and no one even cares. That is more than likely. There is just too much noise and this film is too weird.

But the end result would be I would have a constantly growing opertunity to “test” it in front of people.

So its just because this is a kind of special case, that I bring that up.

We are already in full production with one foot in preproduction and look dev and another on the production track, fiinalizing assets that have been worked on.

We are currently funding it in house. Investment might be a possibility. Also a co-production with another entity that wants to share the cost and workload.

But definately no remote workers or freelancers, or anything like that.

There might be a few other funding possibilities floating around.

Going at the pace we are - considering all that has already been done - I can see a finish line in the next 3-4 years.

(Keeping in mind that we have already done a ton of prepropduction and sculping about 3-4 years worth all told).

And then it will hit festivals and continue to try to find distribution if no other distribution entity has gotten involved yet.

Richard_Culver · May 10, 2025, 10:14am

Time for some new art… and upates.

Here is a recent sketch of the science temple interior.

Here are some screen caps from the animatic in that location. I am currently working through the entire film making my own animated version of the animatic. And then I hand off my blocking animation and camera angles for the animation team. We will be blocking through the entire animation while we wait for final characters and rigs. We already have low poly proxi objects for the characters.

An update on the Earth Temple.

Richard_Culver · May 10, 2025, 10:21am

Here is a little behind the scenes on the animatic process.

I use Miro to capture what I do in each scene for the animation team. I pretty much link everything into this master scene. And make overrides for the rigs. I add cameras to this scene. But all of the props and environments are linked. And we store everthing on a server that the entire team has acess to most work is kept on the server. But sometimes if the scenes are heavy or lagging people can copy it locally and then copy it back to the server.

We also have a naming convention for all the assets.

captainmarlowe · May 10, 2025, 11:51am

Really exciting project, and I do like the “it’s never been seen before, it’s unexplainable” approach.
I haven’t been in theater for years - well but for one or two movies like The boy and the Heron - because it’s always the same story line or neverending franchises. So something completey new is more than welcome.

Great concepts and sketches ; as for the instanced 24 pieces scenes, just make and etching of this vertiginous and oppressive scene and you’re not that far from Piranesi’s imaginary jails !

Richard_Culver · May 10, 2025, 2:15pm

Thanks!

Well the challenge was to take a completely unconventional, even impossible or improbable premise and overlay a conventional dramatic thread to keep people interested.

I should stop short and just say, its experimental. Yet to see what the reaction will be.

Yeah that artist is a great reference!

This was my first attempt.