Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg Campus Magazin 23/24

could easily update shot information from the edit, upload
thumbnails, playblasts, and do many other things.
Another great aspect of working at Blender was that,
from time to time, we had to share our work with the
community on the Blender Studio website. As a result,
a lot of articles that I wrote on different topics are now
on the Blender Blog (studio.blender.org/blog). This was
a very instructive experience. On the one hand, I developed
a good habit of actually documenting my work and
reflecting on it at the same time. On the other hand, it
also gave me the opportunity to engage with the community
and have some vivid discussions in the comments.
The additional benefit? It helped a great deal to
connect with fellow Blender heads.
The year in Amsterdam flew by in no-time and soon, I
was heading back to Ludwigsburg to continue my studies.
Shortly after my return, I was approached by Francesco
Siddi (COO of Blender) and he asked me if I wanted
to do a presentation with him at The Pipeline Conference.
The presentation would be about the pipeline of
the Blender Studio and the general advantages and challenges
of relying on a Blender centric pipeline.
Even though the presentation was online, it was still
great to actually share what we had been working on
that year. The presentation was received quite well and
Francesco thought it would be a good idea to deliver it
once more at the Blender Conference.
HOW IT ENDED (SO FAR)
Coming back to the beginning: I ended up on stage and
had my first conference talk in person. I still remember
how nervous I was but I‘m glad that I pulled through. I
hope it will get easier in the future! The presentation itself
was about the Blender Studio pipeline and showed
some key tools and concepts I had developed together
with the Blender team during my time in Amsterdam. It
covered three main topics: First, how the Blender Studio
used the Video Sequence Editor to manage and share editorial
information across all stages of the pipeline. Second,
what tools were developed to handle the review
workflow. And third, the new iteration of the Asset Pipeline.
RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW
Meanwhile, I’ve started my diploma project at the Animationsinstitut
on which I will be working for the remainder
of my studies. It’s great to have another educational
project to experiment and grow. This new project
will also be developed as an IP and is a collaboration
with the Interactive Media department. Similarly to the
third year project, we will make a film and a game. This
time, however, we will have twice as much time.
I want to build a Universal Scene Description (USD)
based pipeline. USD is a framework for the interchange
of 3D computer graphics data. It was developed by Pixar
Animation Studios and is open source. I‘m excited to
find out how we can integrate it within the game effectively.
The game will be realized in Unreal Engine 5. Lots
of new things to learn, let’s see how it goes!
TRANSIT IN ADDIS ABABA
After his stay in Amsterdam, Paul received an invitation
from the DW-Akademie of Deutsche Welle as a Blender
expert. They booked him as an instructor for an animation
workshop in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.
There, he taught beginners the fundamentals of 3D animation
with a focus on Blender.
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