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A VFX Shot Every Day - Pete Breakdowns (Patreon)

Published:
2022-01-26 04:10:11
Edited:
2022-01-26 04:10:16
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Specifically some fun fisheye/timelapse stuff, along with some info of what's in-progress filmmaking-wise. In theory, as time goes on I'm getting faster at working, and therefore hopefully faster at finishing films. In practice- I dunno. So I gave myself a challenge to update a bunch of 4-5 year old work to prep it for release, and I have to finish a shot every day. So far it's going really well! The Pete episode gives me a nice playground in that it only has to be as good as I feel like it being. In Salad Mug, the CG was one of the big selling points- trying to make the world feel alive- but in the case of Pete, the only goal is to have some fun, which lowers the stakes a bit. 

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A VFX Shot Every Day - Pete Breakdowns

Specifically some fun fisheye/timelapse stuff, along with some info of what's in-progress film-wise. In theory, as time goes on I'm getting faster at working, and therefore hopefully faster at finishing films. In practice- I dunno. So I gave myself a challenge to update a bunch of 4-5 year old work to prep it for release, and I have to finish a shot every day. So far it's going really well! The Pete episode gives me a nice playground in that it only has to be as good as I feel like it being. In Salad Mug, the CG was one of the big selling points- trying to make the world feel alive- but in the case of Pete, the only goal is to have some fun, which lowers the stakes a bit.

Comments

Blake Rizzo

Yesss weight of the universe crushing shot aesthetic yessss. Love the satellites/space stuff floating above!

Kai Christensen

I can totally relate to the "hit render, OH WAIT i should change this, let me cancel that" over and over and then looking up at the clock and seeing "oh, it's been 7 hours". feels like as soon as i finally get into my creative flow, time starts passing *way* too fast and before i know it it's time for sleep!

IanHubert

Thanks man!! Yeah the satellites are my absolute favorite part of that shot. I think the idea of people being able to look at a shot of the night sky and accidentally see a satellite- kinda like in real life- is really fun :D

Caleb Boardman

Love this, I share some your work with a select few of my private students over zoom.(younger than 13) and they are on the edge of their seats

Zeke Faust

So glad you're able to finish one of those old episodes. The idea that hours of this great material will never be released is kinda heartbreaking. Although to look at it a better way, you're also sitting on a gold mine of scenes that could be totally repurposed with just a bit of ADR or vfx tweaks to recontextualize them or make them work with new narrative connective tissue. p.s. It's fun to see Gage rocking your goatee :P p.p.s. Nishita is also a great way to do timelapse as it handles the color tinting automatically.

Theo

Because I'm from the 2d animation world seeing the sorta 'figure it out in the edit' approach to making a film is kinda nerve-wracking. Not in a bad way though, I'm always a little jealous of live action because it feels really natural and spontaneous, I'm just curious if it has been mostly the limitations of not having a 'real production' that has lead to that approach or if that's just the way you like to work? Like would you ever want to plan everything out to a T beforehand?

IanHubert (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-20 10:00 That's what I'm hoping! Even if I haven't figured out how to implement them yet, I'm always really aware it all exists, and I'll stick it in *something*- maybe just a super weirdass music video? Actually along that same vein, I have hours and hours of utterly apeshit movies I made as a kid, that really capture that whole "childhood filmmaking with your friends" vibe (cardboard box robots and paper plate/tinfoil UFOs and all that stuff)- none of it's good, but I like it in a nostalgic sense, and I'd LOVE to remix it into something. As you say, redo the audio or whatever, kind of a collab with my younger self?? Especially all the claymations. I should back up all those old tapes asap, probably. And hahahaha, yeah I'm trying to figure out if this is cannonically Gage, and he just had a short stint as a restaurant manager (why not??) or if it's, like, Bizarro Gage. And dang yeah! Between that and the Starlight & Atmosphere addon, I really gotta check those out! It'd be great to not have to deal with whatever trees happen to be sticking above the horizon of whatever HDRI I pick :P
2022-01-26 05:47 That's what I'm hoping! Even if I haven't figured out how to implement them yet, I'm always really aware it all exists, and I'll stick it in *something*- maybe just a super weirdass music video? Actually along that same vein, I have hours and hours of utterly apeshit movies I made as a kid, that really capture that whole "childhood filmmaking with your friends" vibe (cardboard box robots and paper plate/tinfoil UFOs and all that stuff)- none of it's good, but I like it in a nostalgic sense, and I'd LOVE to remix it into something. As you say, redo the audio or whatever, kind of a collab with my younger self?? Especially all the claymations. I should back up all those old tapes asap, probably. And hahahaha, yeah I'm trying to figure out if this is cannonically Gage, and he just had a short stint as a restaurant manager (why not??) or if it's, like, Bizarro Gage. And dang yeah! Between that and the Starlight & Atmosphere addon, I really gotta check those out! It'd be great to not have to deal with whatever trees happen to be sticking above the horizon of whatever HDRI I pick :P

That's what I'm hoping! Even if I haven't figured out how to implement them yet, I'm always really aware it all exists, and I'll stick it in *something*- maybe just a super weirdass music video? Actually along that same vein, I have hours and hours of utterly apeshit movies I made as a kid, that really capture that whole "childhood filmmaking with your friends" vibe (cardboard box robots and paper plate/tinfoil UFOs and all that stuff)- none of it's good, but I like it in a nostalgic sense, and I'd LOVE to remix it into something. As you say, redo the audio or whatever, kind of a collab with my younger self?? Especially all the claymations. I should back up all those old tapes asap, probably. And hahahaha, yeah I'm trying to figure out if this is cannonically Gage, and he just had a short stint as a restaurant manager (why not??) or if it's, like, Bizarro Gage. And dang yeah! Between that and the Starlight & Atmosphere addon, I really gotta check those out! It'd be great to not have to deal with whatever trees happen to be sticking above the horizon of whatever HDRI I pick :P

IanHubert

You do 2d animation?? That's awesome! And OH! It can be just as nerve-wracking on a Live Action set! At the end of a (potentially $25,000) shoot day, if you don't have all the footage you need, you just *don't have it*- shoot days are WILD that way; often expensive, ludicrously hard to schedule, and the moment you arrive on set you're behind on time- but when everything clicks and everyone's bouncing ideas off each other and doing their part and you get to improvise and problem solve with other talented people- it's an absolute high. Comparatively, as long as there isn't a deadline, I LOVE being able to mix and match stuff around in the edit when the stakes aren't as high (that's why I've started scanning everyone/thing, *just in case*) And actually yeah... I haven't done 'real production' in about a decade, so I'd like to think I've grown a lot since then, BUT on those old big productions, having to lock everything down by the shoot days definitely resulted in worse final products. FINISHED products, which I can't say about a lot of stuff I work on :P, but you can definitely feel the rigidity. And yeah- planning everything out to a T is what I'm *absolutely* trying to do right now for this big shoot coming up, but at the same time, so many ideas pop up in the moment, once you actually see everything together on set and it feels like it's coming to life- so much stuff becomes obvious in that moment, little idiosyncrasies and stuff- that you *never* would have come up with sitting alone at a desk writing a script, so being able to strike a balance is always great

Lukas Sprehn

I feel like you don’t look THAT much older than back then. And with make up and such you could make it way less noticeable too. Even maybe with some deepfake. Maybe soon we’ll have cheaper and more accessible and more convincing affordable de-aging CG through AI or something.

Theo

Wow thanks for taking the time to respond so thoroughly! I definitely need to find a balance in my own workflow so I'm glad to hear I'm not alone in that. I spend a LOT of time trying to figure out how to make animation feel spontaneous. Like Im working on my thesis film right now for school and although its not "bad" it definitely is getting into the rigid feeling in places lol. Keep up the good work though Ian, love seeing your process!

Blake Rizzo

I would be really really interested in hearing the process/logistical planning that goes into those larger budget shoots. Production vlogs are so cool!!!

Zeke Faust

A good strategy is to simply shoot more than you need. A Kubrick quote I often refer to is that the entire pre-production and production process is just a means of obtaining raw material for the edit. If production is finding and excavating the perfect piece of marble from the quarry, then editing is the act of sculpting it into a bust. But Theo even with your job of 2D animation I'm sure there's some sort of parallel to the spontaneous process, whether it's animatics, filming the voice actors' mannerisms in the booth, or simply the relative ease of being able to change background/setting seamlessly.

Phil South (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-20 10:00 The shot just being on a plane in the background is just old school, it turns your environment into a 3D matte painting. It gives you that Dynamation flavour for free. :) <3
2022-01-26 08:50 The shot just being on a plane in the background is just old school, it turns your environment into a 3D matte painting. It gives you that Dynamation flavour for free. :) <3

The shot just being on a plane in the background is just old school, it turns your environment into a 3D matte painting. It gives you that Dynamation flavour for free. :) <3

Gabrial Wolf

'Scott Pilgrim Vs the Dynamo' towards the end there

IanHubert

Hah yeah! Kind feels rear-projected into a miniature or something.

Phil South

Is it wrong I kinda like that tho? :)

Phil South

I mean sometimes I like the obvious rear projections on old movies when they be in a car or some such :)

Dunkaroo

Speed runs are always rewarding 🎉

Lukas Sprehn

Well, if you watch the old Dynamo episodes, there are people with superpowers, and things get super weird and wacky!

Fernando Sala

As my doctor once said: One vfx shot per day keeps the sanity away.... Jk man, I love your work and your personality

Jourdan Biziou

Super fun and awesome as always Ian :) yay

Nikita

Hey, Ian. I DM'd you here on Patreon a while ago. Did you miss it or just chose to ignore? The latter is fine, honestly. You're a busy dude. But it would be nice to know

ModelMeals

I caught that guitar fight when you shared it in your insta story a week or two ago and just lost my mind at how great it looked. I've been thinking about commenting somewhere there or here asking for a way to see it again every day since. 100% better looking than any other super fight/live action dragonball kinda thing I've maybe ever seen. When I get an e-mail that you've shared something new here it seriously makes my whole week. Been learning from you for about half a year now and I can't thank you enough for everything.

IanHubert

Ah, probably just missed it! I have 3 "finish-by-the-end-of-january" projects happening right now, so I'm losing my mind a little and falling behind pretty good on messages, sorry about that :(

PlanetAlexanderProjects

Hey Ian, I love how you scattered the rocks in that starry night environment - how'd you do it? Were they hand placed, geometry nodes, or something else?

IanHubert

Oh! It's a bunch of photoscans of various pieces of ground/rockeries around my town! Not quite as high tech as geometry nodes, but quick-n-easy, and work really well! I've got em all uploaded here on the asset tier, if that's ever useful :D

Blue Lightning

Pete is the greatest ! After Ian of course

Noneya D Biznazz

Or just work the story to include rampant cloning :)

Mark Miller

"Rotated HDRI sunrise" is a neat trick. I'm torn over when I'd want to use that vs. using the amazing Nishita sky texture which already does the right "reddish at sunrise" trick without the extra steps. I guess the HDRI gives you a "sort of works in eevee" as opposed to "doesn't work in eevee" solution, and maybe that's enough? Any other thoughts?

Chris Alldridge (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-20 10:00 The time lapse shot at 9:05 is one the most striking you’ve ever made. As with all the other shots you create, it’s visually arresting… but there’s something else going on and I can’t for the life of me work out quite what it is. Maybe it’s a slightly uncanny feeling brought about by the warping of time. Either way, fantastic video!
2022-01-27 23:09

David McSween

It might be the rhythmic nature of the camera wobble Ian introduced, as he points out it repeated unnaturally. However in my experience timelapse shots are already unnatural and manufactured, if you had a track laid down to dolly back on its very likely to have a number of bumps in it that repeat.

Joshua O'Brien

Love it a lot, great insight on some things that I should do when it comes to cinematography. With these digital extensions and framing of videos such as time-lapses can give us much greater control over the entire meaning of the shot, as well as someone like me who is a one-man person.

NickTricc

Funny story.. I once wrote to Ian asking him about vocal lessons, because i mistook him for another patreon xD Im glad he chose to ignore that one.. that was embarresing :D

Hermokrates

This is what you call Mastery. The ability to use your knowledge to execute these insane and wonderous ideas. Unfortunately, mastery can't be taught.

john voss

I've been working on a video that has a few cg timelapses in it and I find it so funny that you happened to make a timelapse shot for the Pete episode. I feel both excited to see I had basically the exact same ideas for how to do it as you and a little disappointed that I didn't finish mine first! haha

IanHubert

Ahhh! I hope I get to see it when it's done, though!

IanHubert

I *completely* agree. One of those shots where I looked at the render like, "this looks way better than I expected. I wish I had the slightest idea why so I could do it again..." Regardless it's gotten me way more invested in playing around with color, maybe pushing stuff around in more interesting ways than I have in the past. I've been obsessed with Ismail's colors- I'd love to figure out how to think like that. https://www.artstation.com/seventeenth

Zain Riya

would love o know how to add those nice camera flares at 7:40 if anyone knows?

IanHubert

Oh! That was using a plug-in for After Effects called Optical Flares by VideoCopilot- it came out like 12 years ago but it's probably still available?

Zain Riya

Thank you. it's still available little pricey but seems like a good investment.

sterling osment

Its a pleasure watching your breakdowns !!

William-Robert Cousert

Video Copilot is still in business, but they haven't done anything new in at least a couple years.

Sam Goldwater

Flare Wizard the Blender addon is also neat for this kind of thing :)

Fransoa

One thing I am not clear about is: what should be the resolution of the green screen video. Is it better to always shoot on 4K for zooming effect for instance?

IanHubert

Totally depends! I like 4k for exactly that reason- it lets you get a nice high res greenscreen element you can get really close to (and get a more detailed key)- and even higher res (5-6k) can give you even more flexibility, but it can fill up hard drive space really fast. I know that's not really answer, but it really is all just about tradeoffs :D