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BTS: Designing the Phaeton (Patreon)

Published:
2022-04-26 02:57:42
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

This video goes alllll over the place! Mostly talking about the design of the spaceship for the scene I've been working on, though! And I think I've posted it before, but here's the seam image I use a lot, if you want to use it for anything (assembled it from a lot of Photobash.org images)Additional search terms: spaceship design dynamo vehicle

Files

Designing the Phaeton

Comments

Zebulon Pi

Ian, I just have to say, I LOVE just listening to you go off on wild tangents... it speaks to the inner geek in me HARD. I just became a patron like yesterday, and I already feel like I've had such a window into your brain. :D

Lukas Sprehn

I am really hoping on a release of the models of the Phaeton, both the stuff inside and the stuff outside. Have you considered doing that at some point? It would also be fun to take the model, simplify it somehow, like thicken totally flat parts, and 3D printing it. Can't get lal details, but you can get very close in some places, especially if using SLA (resin) printing.

Ryan Kupfer

love these breakdown videos

Gregory Wasdyke

You know, this ship is giving me the vibes of a 70s camper van. Maybe that'd be the springboard.

IanHubert

Haha!! Yes! So, the mattress he’s sleeping on is the sleeping pad from from my 1980s vanagon. It’s a classic pattern; I’m kinda hoping a Westfalia enthusiast notices :P

Glenn Stewart

Love your rambles Ian, wherever they lead! Thank you as always for pumping out such long videos content on such a consistent basis. You could be modelling a screw and it'd be as entertaining as hell (and the drag on the Matrix Resurrections is completely warranted)

N_COUNTER

Great video. I love the casual strolls through world-building theory. The chrome-trimmed mahogany reminds me a lot of the aesthetic in Bioshock, actually. Kind of a steampunk elegance.

Tom Smith

I love the look of the interior. I can't wait to see this episode!

Stephan

Great walk through. I think the casual discussion around design and where you take and build on inspirations is worth having. This had me thinking of similarities to traditional art mediums. You just need to get something on the page to start defining a context, even if you're going to draw over it later.

IanHubert

YES! Thanks Sebas! :D That's some *perfect* reference! And look at those light fixtures!

Tim Evans

I happen to run a 2d animation studio if you want to get fancy with your Saturday morning cartoon for the breakfast shots. Feel free to dm me.

Jake Warr

Hi Ian, would using a linked collection from a master blend file help with not having to do every shot in one file. you could have a main blend file for the ship and then link it to a new blend for each individual shot. That way you could make any changes to the ship in the master project and then it would update in the ones that are referencing it.

David

haha you matrix nerd you ;) Im super dissapointed with the last movie and yeah i feel this needed both the wachowski's to bring the asthetic back. Probably studio was in full creative control too. But man this video is pure gold. So many great ideas and inspiration. Im working on a space short (very slow 8 years of r&d) and this has been super helpful!

James Combridge

wooooah. today I learned about flip ships. they be crazy!

VoiD010AUT

Never heared of flipships... what a crazy invention

Hannes

As a compositor that worked on that Matrix from 6 months ago, it honestly ended up being a bit of a disappointment working on it due to the fact the Director was mostly unavailable. Fast forward a few weeks before the delivery, where she finally showed up; a lot of our work just wasn't what she had in mind. So we ended up having little time trying to do what she had in mind.

Luka Hrgovic

That scientific flip ship blew my mind. what an amazing idea to do it on a spaceship! I wanna live in Phaeton. It would be awesome if you could put together a video with the recordings of the build process. <3

Flying Arepa Studio

Fellow “person baffled by Pynchon” here. Jorge Luís Borges is also a great source of ancient-sounding words and great storylines

Gehrig Campbell-Dempsey

this ^^ linked libraries are the best. There's an add-on called Edit Linked Library too that lets you flip flop between files quickly!

Andrew Paul

As Alan Moore said, you learn just as much from the very bad stuff as the good because you end up saying to yourself, "how would I have done it differently?" Matrix Resurrections is definitely one of those. I would say 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension' was another film that extensively used the 'kitbash of used parts' aesthetic!

Aolean

Did try the stuff with the depth map when you published your hologram video ;) Didn't work for me (what I tried was to take a render of a the demo scene of agent 327 of blender, create a mist pass and drive the hologram depth with this) => well technically you "have a thing" but after a while I just realized that in the end, if you want a clean 3D feel the easiest way to do this is to just use 3D objects ;) Yeah, I know, not fun. But as usual thoses scenes look gorgeous ! ;) For the lights in interior, I don't know if light portals are implemented in cycles X ? Otherwise there was a video of blender bob where his technique for a big scene with ~250k persons in a concert (so dark interior room with a few spot lights and fog) was to generate different light passes, the fog one being in eevee and the rest via cycles, maybe it's worth checking if this could be applied for the sun light in your case ?

Clint Shelton

Ian, you're the best! And thanks for putting Port Orchard on the map, haha. You say you have a long way to go, but these progress updates are great! What you've done so far would take me at least two years, but that's because of practice. But thanks most of all for sharing your thought process! I think your thinking is what helps us out the most, that on top of all of the awesome tips and tricks you've learned throughout all these years that you are awesomely willing to share. I just recently rewatched all the DYNAMO episodes and love the progress I can see in each one. Keep up the great work and thanks again for helping us all out!

Tanner Mets

Ian, I animate cartoons and I specialize in throwback 80s + 90s backgrounds and characters in both anime and saturday morning Disney styles. If you wanted like a 3 shot scene to play in the background I can do it for free

Tanner Mets

I'm straight up just switching my focus rn from 3d back to 2d so in the pursuit of updating my portfolio I've been decking out animated backgrounds and characters dialy. Plus I'm a fan so you wouldn't be putting me out at all.

Simon Salord

Interesting way of thinking and designing. That's also my shame cause I always spend too much time trying to figure out what details needs to be seen and what they are supposed to do... But in the case of a spaceship, just remember that human perception become relative in space. I mean that there is no earth gravity, no up, no down. Which give you much more space to play with your assets and props from the "floor" to the "ceiling"... Or maybe the "ceiling" is the "floor" ? ... Like I said, usual things can become relative. You are probably too blinded by the Matrix ! HA HA

Travis Park

Haha, i have the exact same HDRI downloaded at 12:05! It was the only half-decent free HDRI with stars i could find.

Luis Guerrero

Why is no-one mentioning the "default butt cube"? Hahaha Loved how you just deleted it without saying ANYTHING about it! Great video, we're so lucky to see how your brains works, truly inspiring!

Evan Barron

Do you have any advice on finding good SPACE hdris? I know adobe stock has a bunch of them and i was hoping i wouldn't have to spend money on that but if it's truly worth it then I suppose I wouldn't mind

David McSween

Do any changes you make to the ship in a scene get propagated back into the linked master project? Strikes me that it would be cool to have iterations in the linked master so you could call up the version that suits for each shot. For example if the ship sustained damage in one scene you would want the damaged version for subsequent shots/scenes, but still have the original. And maybe you have to go back and adjust the linked master object for a story reason, like adding a new doorway (?) that must appear in all the shots. That would be a different kind of iteration.

David McSween

Last minute notes... gotta love em.

I Like it Hardcore Tv

Code is cool but I just love these type videos could watch them for hours... Ship scenes looking very good so far. watched older videos but still trying to wrap my head around the IK rigging

YakovlevArt

Hey Ian, unique question here. But how do you manage the power supply when rendering and editing these massive scenes? Does your computer ever get overloaded, or do you just have a massive PCU+UPS system? Thanks!

matthew sama

wow. better than any built set would be at this point.

Erich Stenzel

You kept apologizing for rambling, but this has been one of my favorite videos of your’s. Thank you!

Chris Alldridge (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-20 10:00 Hello! Quick question: What lens do you use for photogrammetry? Does this differ from those that you use for filming?
2022-04-30 17:48

Pete Burges

Really inspiring stuff, Ian! Also, I'm jealous; I don't get to do a lot of spaceships in my line of work, and I really get into having to answer all the questions the design of the ship raises. It's interesting that you say having more restrictions improves things. James Cameron said something similar, in that when you create a world you have to create rules for it and stick to them- you can't just change the rules when you write/design yourself into a corner. It forces you to be more creative instead of using a magic get-out-of-jail-free card.

Moosh3d

Okay super weird comment here... I love your hat! Where did you get it? Also fantastic video!

IanHubert

Ahaha, thank you!! The red checkered one I borrowed-until-we-basically-consider-it-mine'd from Kaitlin, and the grey one is from Macklemore, weirdly enough. I have no idea where someone would get them originally, though.

IanHubert

YES! It's also the recipe for my favorite shows; I've ben watching Breaking Bad (well- Better Call Saul), and Severance lately, and they've been SO fun, and all of them excel in setting up all these different dramatic dynamics so when things happen, it feels like there's actual gravitas and repercussions. Also I hope you get to design a spaceship soon!! I

IanHubert

Oh! If I'm in a close space, I'll use a 12mm (super wide on a full frame sensor); really helps scan the whole thing, and get details while also having the larger context visible for reconstruction, but if you CAN step back, using a longer lens can work better. I think the general wisdom is using a longer lens (like 50mm?) gives you more accurate results, but from a practicality standpoint I still usually go like 24mm for that balance of convenience/accuracy. Which is also what I tend to shoot on, yeah! Lately I've been having a blast shooting narrative stuff on a 14mm lens, which is pretty wide, but I'm probably overdoing it so I'll probably switch back to like 35mm pretty quick here. (That said- shooting high res at 18mm means I can zoom in and re-crop shots in the edit, which I know is a pretty common practice, but I've never done it much and I'm loving it)

IanHubert

Haha! Thanks a bunch Matthew- I'd still LOVE a practical set some day, though- or a nice blend of both!

IanHubert

Oh this is a very fun list thank you :D

Moosh3d

Awesome! Thanks man. I really like your 5 panel hat with the nike logo on it. (Lots of googling to figure out the name of it haha.)

Tom Carroll

very enjoyable episode Ian, thank you! :)

Seth

Very humanizing, this one. I mean, at this point I'm used to the reality that Ian is some kind of frighteningly prolific, Blade Runnery Picasso/Michaelangelo/d'Artagnan amalgam, and yes I'm profoundly grateful for these jaw-dropping presentations and the clarity, humor, and remarkable humility with which he presents them, but somehow it's a bit of a relief to see him demoralized and intimidated by the crazy difficulty of some job or other that he's set for himself (though also showing how to get out of that mindset), and to see a subject/background mismatch that's far more typical to my level of filmmaking than his... I dunno, it's just cheering somehow, makes it all a little less daunting to see those flashes. Anyhoo, I talk too much; I couldn't be more grateful for these. Thanks, Ian.

Sebbir Visuals

I see your webcam also decide to channel the Matrix remake towards the end by making everything blue

Mike

Now I want to see you do a review of the CGI across a bunch of different Matrix movie scenes.

Lukas Sprehn

If the Phaeton uses a gravity generator thing to fly, wouldn't putting that thing in front of the ship cause it to accelerate towards it rather than brake the ship if the gravity thing is what is sucking stuff towards it? Or is it possible to point the force either foward or backwards, like reverse that?