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Frame from Salad Mug - DYNAMO DREAM, Ep1 Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Salad Mug - DYNAMO DREAM, Ep1

3 videos recommended on HN
YouTube
3 HN users recommended this demo2 months2021–2023 score 3
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN holds it up as an impressive example of what a tiny team can achieve with Blender.

The first episode of Ian Hubert's Dynamo Dream series, a one-person sci-fi short made in Blender with a gritty futuristic city setting. It was made with help from friends and Patreon supporters over about three years.

“I always post this link when Blender is discussed because it's so impressive.” (HN, 2021)

2 strong recommendations · 1 recommendations · 1 citations · Demos

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@open-source-ux Dec 2021 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Blender 3.0
I always post this link when Blender is discussed because it's so impressive. It shows what a single person can achieve in Blender. The visual effects and compositing have been created by Blender expert Ian Hubert. The video shows a (grimy) futuristic city scene. Green screen footage and the final shots created are shown side-by-side: VFX Breakdown - Dynamo Dream Teaser : [link] The full short Dynamo Dream was posted a few months ago by Hubert on his YouTube channel: Episode 1 : Salad Mug - DYNAMO DREAM : [this video]
Impressive one-person Blender short with gritty futuristic city.
@jonchurch_ Nov 2023 Strongly recommends
on HN thread Blender 16yo winner of UK younganimator of the year
Read more
Im not a 3d artist, but I still find Ian Hubert's blender tutorials[1] very cool to watch. He comes off as an artist who immensely enjoys their craft. I have also really enjoyed his Dynamo Dream series [2] which are a labor of love for him. He's only released like 3 episodes over several years, but hey labor of love. Ian was also chosen as the director of Tears of Steel (2012) which is one of the Blender Open Movies [3] the foundation produces. You might not recognize that film, but many of you have heard of at least one Blender Open Movie, Big Buck Bunny! A big nod (IMO) from the Blender foundation that he represents the spirit of the project and community, as well as has the skills to oversee a project meant to demonstrate Blender's capabilities. These Open Movies are projects that HN can likely appreciate, as they are created to showcase and help push capabilities of the open source Blender software, are licensed under Creative Commons, and their assets are provided to the community for free. (This comment is a love letter to Ian Hubert) [1] [link] [2] [this video] [3] [link]
Labor-of-love series by an artist who enjoys his craft.
@Cognitron Nov 2023 Recommends
on HN thread Blender 4.0
Since nobody's mentioned Ian Hubert yet, his Dynamo Dream series is made in Blender: Episode 1: [this video] Episode 2: [link] Episode 3: [link]
Dynamo Dream series made in Blender.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@Mathnerd314 Aug 2022 Cites it
on HN thread You can't afford to be an artist and/or author, let alone be respected
Well, there are already high-quality films / games by small teams with no external funding, like [this video] , Braid, and Celeste. But for long form stuff like these, the tools don't matter as much, it is more like writing a novel where the key is to get something done every day. The main issue is perseverance - a tool dropping the workload from 100 days to 10 days is nice, but it doesn't change the fact that most people will get bored and give up in 10 minutes.
Example of high-quality work from small teams.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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