Goo Engine and the Future of 3D Anime

After a year since its release, Goo Engine has developed into a popular software for NPR animations and 3D anime. Dillon and his team will be showcasing the exciting projects Goo Engine has been involved in creating this past year, why it's necessary for our NPR pipeline, and what their plans are for the future of Goo Engine moving forward.
"Goo Engine and the Future of 3D Anime" by Dillon Gu --
Learn more about Blender Conference 2023 at conference.blender.org/2023/
#BCON23 #b3d

[@krysidian]

Having a third (not counting workbench), super NPR oriented engine built inside native blender would be the dream.

[@ethanissupercool7168]

What are all NPR oriented engines, I only know malt lol

[@krysidian]

@@ethanissupercool7168 Oh sorry I worded that weirdly, I just meant the third of all engines (minus workbench) in general: EEVEE, Cycles and my dream NPR engine of the future. But yeah, Malt's there too! Haven't tried it yet but would be awesome if parts of it could become part of blender one day.

[@ethanissupercool7168]

@@krysidian ikr

[@ethanissupercool7168]

@@krysidian I also have a dream NPR engine too lol

[@noiJadisCailleach]

@@krysidian That's just lazy talk. Malt is already free to acquire. You just have to get it yourself if you really want to do NPR stuff. Lots of excuses if you don't really want it. Lots of reasons if you really want it. You're making it sound like it's such a big hurdle to do NPR at all. Seriously, Malt is already there.

[@alexisandersen1392]

16:50 The compilation is the BEST part of the video, if you see ANY part of this video it's this part. honestly if you couldn't see this one part I don't even know why you'd bother watching the video.

[@BarrettSmithBB]

HUGE props to Dillon and his team, taking the plunge to create your own fork of Blender, and now custom engine is such a massive undertaking! He makes it seem very easy and chill but his team is full of amazing and talented individuals! Best of luck!

[@emntbj]

17:08 not sure if it's private screening, but there is no image of the video presentation

[@elliottandrew6388]

Heads up! Video at 17:08 doesn't show up

[@Beryesa.]

Maybe @dillongoo can upload it to his channel

[@gonderage]

yeah, the video is just pure darkness 😭😭

[@kawaiidere1023]

Wym? I am absolutely bedazzled by these VFX. Kinda weird choice to animate that though, but that’s fine if that’s what they want

[@nocturnalbluerose]

Honestly if there were more tutorials on how to use the functions in Goo engine i would be using it right now. At this point it’s more useful to people who already know what they’re doing

[@Queue-NextUp]

+1

[@phy6geniuxYTcreations]

I want to get the Goo Engine but I'm a beginner. Will it be worth it?

[@rossanderson5815]

I have blender experience only. It's worth getting and experimenting

[@hi_its_jerry]

a lot of this is really ground breaking for indie productions. really glad to see Dillion and his team making such ripples in the community

[@Ironpants57]

Love this! Can't wait to see Juniper engine take off. Super nice to see a render engine directly focused for NPR!

[@ethanissupercool7168]

What’s the difference between Juniper engine and the Malt engine? Malt looks cool, but now we got a competitor, now idk which one to use lol

[@gungriffon220]

I can't find anything about Juniper Engine. where do I find this?

[@ethanissupercool7168]

@@gungriffon220 only mention near the end of this video

[@jinn_animation]

Shadow manipulation very important. One of the features I like the most.

[@igorgiuseppe1862]

the compilation video failed, i think he streamed direct from twitter and there is some kind of drm there that made it not appera in the image capture device they used to record the screen for youtube

[@josepht1575]

surprised no one else commented on this lol

[@scientificshiv]

OOOOooooooooooooo. There are literally not much tutorials on this, and it would be great to see more on it!

[@CGDive]

Great talk. It's exciting to see such unique use of Blender!

[@Beryesa.]

You're always there on Blender extremes ✨

[@CGDive]

@@Beryesa. I am? :)

[@Beryesa.]

​@@CGDiveyour videos are so cool for utilizing all the power of blender flexibly! And I always see you in such unique seas :P

[@CGDive]

@Beryesa.😅

[@louiscyfear878]

Ever since AppleSeed (2004) I've been wanting 2D & 3D to converge just like this here.

[@Drstrange3000]

Same. Also, videogames such as Zelda Windwaker, Okami, Jet Set Radio, and Hi-Fi Rush, I have been wanting more and more of this style.

[@gonderage]

Man, I've been dying to use some of the features in Goo Engine for the longest time; I'm so glad they're finally here. Now I just need to find out why trying to build it keeps failing :/

[@hugoantunesartwithblender]

Its just like building blender but you use gooblender git instead

[@EightBitNoise]

First time I was ever hearing about goo. Thanks for the introduction and overview it was a fun listen and I look forward to see what you guys keep working on.

[@cowbless]

While I'm pretty sure it's feasible to come up with crutches for some of these - like having a camera - constrained light 180 deg behind the character for rims - these things should really be a part of vanilla shading, ESPECIALLY outlines. My heart is torn between wanting to do cool sims in 4.0+ and manipulating the look of the result to such an amazing degree.

[@SymbolCymbals2356]

Edit: I just went to check something and strangely Malt is locked to 3.6 which doesn't make any sense Checkout Beer aka Malt which is an addon npr renderer so it’s useable with the newest nightly builds, it does have quite a learning curve due to the amount of control it offers. The learning curve isn’t helped by the name sucking for web searches because actual malt beer ends up popping up For npr rim lights in native Eevee the go-to is usually a fresnel node which can be a bit hit or miss

[@cowbless]

@@SymbolCymbals2356 this advice might prove invaluable!! thank you!

[@GAMERRAZUMNO]

@@SymbolCymbals2356 What are the difference between Goo Engine and Malt?

[@SymbolCymbals2356]

​@@GAMERRAZUMNO Goo Engine adds a few nodes and things while Malt reworks things from the ground up for NPR which is tricky to get used to but in the long run makes it a smoother experience in some areas and more powerful for those with technical knowledge Malt is plugin that adds new renderer instead of a separate build of Blender that adds on to Eevee, which is why I thought OP would be able to use any new blender releases and their features with Malt but it turned out at the time Malt wasn't compatible with newer versions (now there is a Malt release for 4.0 though) It's been a while since I used Malt but I liked how it handled lineart (which is more integrated with materials) and shading (which gives a lot of easy control inside a single node, including Full Range which when turned on makes the light/shadow gradient wrap all the way around the model which can be handy). Also texture filters like Kuwahara are fun, especially when combined with pixel depth Also Malt is free and Goo Engine isn't (unless you want to go through the trouble of compiling/"building" Goo Engine from the git hub) As for the bad, Malt's renderer doesn't support soft cast shadows. There isn't a Curvature Node, best there is a Bevel Node and world normal (from the Geometry Node) plugged into a distance Vector 3D Node, Malt does have a Rim Light node but it's a souped-up version of Fresnel. There are probably better work arounds to those issues as Malt gives the tools to do much more (by giving access to the different passes) but that is also a downside as it is more technical EDIT: My bad Malt does have a curvature node lol

[@lanata64]

this is really cool to looking at because, even though the talk was just a month ago, one of the reasons they made goo engine is the light groups which we now have in blender 4.0.

[@tcdes13]

Got me speechless to witness such beautiful scene of people building dream.

[@CalmDownPanda]

What happened to the 17:07 ?

[@enderking6904]

Happy he came so far

[@ShaefferStudios.Animation]

Ok, I am going to start exploring the screen space shadows

[@Limbo_Design]

i love it , luv all u guys for goo

[@TukaihaHithlec]

Would have been cool to see the compilation he showed and not just a black screen

[@Queue-NextUp]

Apparently only 12 of us actually watched the whole video

[@helper_bot]

sadje the presentation probably didnt record it

[@snowflakeprince]

Awesome!!!

[@bigmacbook]

In regards to 19:45 and onwards. I was recently playing with EEVEE Next and as NPR enjoyer It was awful. NPR in Blender is going to become a lot more difficult and some thing won't be possible. I wish Blender would just have a NPR renderer already. Yes I know there are third party renders (Malt) but they are horrible to work with. They aren't user friendly (UX and UI) and they are super slow.

[@iamawatcher9201]

Agreed. EEVEE Next is more like Cycles-lite instead of what most people actually use EEVEE for. It's the worst of both worlds, and it basically ruins every NPR project since it removes a lot of nodes that are essential to us. Blender is too fixated on PBR when a good majority of Blender users don't want that, and have to use workarounds just to make stylized visuals. Really hoping Blender reverses it otherwise it's gonna lose a lot of support from NPR users.

[@shlokbhakta2893]

@@iamawatcher9201eevee is gonna stay until eevee next has FULL feature parity (said by one of the blender people) so I really hope they actually follow through and add the npr features back 😂

[@iamawatcher9201]

@@shlokbhakta2893 I hope that's the case. Got a link to when they said that?

[@fracteed]

There has been some talk from Miguel Pozo who is currently working on Eevee next that there are longterm plans for a native NPR engine after Eevee next is finished. He is the dev behind MALT. I do believe this will happen eventually, especially when GP3 and eevee next are finished, since there are several commercial studios that require it (that are also Blender fund sponsors).

[@shlokbhakta2893]

@@iamawatcher9201 I have tried 5 different ways to send you to the vid lol hopefully this won’t be gone, live239 18min

[@TheAquabears]

why was the demo reel blacked out?

[@sambamproductions8883]

The work and the effort shows. I have no doubt this will only get bigger with how desperate people are for a proper anime render engine in Blender or the 3D world in general.

[@MRLosaren]

Light groups really need to become a feature in Blender

[@igorthelight]

Wish granted! ;-)

[@Frozander]

@@igorthelight I know it exists in cycles, at least in name but does it also work for eevee?

[@igorthelight]

@@Frozander Sadly, it doesn't work for Eevee

[@Ortagonation]

Why 17:10 is black screen?

[@TTTristan1]

I was disappointment about that. Maybe youtube is copyright claiming some of the clips. You can always count on youtube to fuck it up!

[@Blagotebi1]

Fantastic

[@firedragongamestudio]

Is the demo reel available anywhere? Black screen is not very satisfying... Would love to see the amazing projects done with Goo engine

[@nnctnlav]

yeah was kinda disappointed

[@krz9000]

i was wishing for 3d anime since ive seen akira in the late 80tees. unfortunatly it clashed with japanese traditions. great to see you are pushing this topic and make it more accessible

[@chidorirasenganz]

Also the tech hasn’t really been there tbh

[@zeki1]

If you search a little more there are a ton of 3D in anime like the ones made by ufotable. And in games for example there is Guilty Gear that is so good that if you're not paying attention you think it's all 2D.

[@chidorirasenganz]

@@zeki1 I get your point but 3d elements doesn’t equal a 3d anime. Most characters and effects are still done in shows like Demon Slayer or Attack on Titan. Gaming for sure has alot of examples but still isn’t there for the most part in terms of quality

[@zeki1]

@@chidorirasenganz Well, the reply wasn't really directed at you and I don't really now that much about production but the trend as I see is to mix 2D and 3D techniques.

[@cyberpxl]

@@zeki1exactly, guilty gear looks incredible.

[@NicCrimson]

Man I need that curvature node in default Blender it's the only thing I don't like how it's currently done.

[@railfandepotproductions]

I just wanna recreate lupin the 3rd part 1-3 and the movies, tv specials and Ovas made before the 2000s. anime isnt one artstyle, it has many unique artstyles from different time periods

[@tobycat7]

I'd totally be for Goo Engine being merged, but can it be used for painterly stuff other than anime? Like the LOL: Arcane style?

[@cyano3d]

arcane is hand painted pbr workflow we can get close with filter compositing or AI rendering the scene in the desired style consistently

[@schmecklin377]

Arcane style is just a whole lot of manual work

[@user-oc6of2cd5r]

@@schmecklin377 which is why it's good

[@SymbolCymbals2356]

Could use Blender’s new Kuwahara filter to render out 3d environments in a painterly style (or render characters separately and use compositing to put them into a rendered still(s) of the environment for faster rendering and more closely adhering to how Arcane did it)

[@baalikalalalika402]

Imagine this used for future Games

[@cintron3d]

That compilation though

[@Beryesa.]

I believe upstreaming a new engine would be more flexible than trying to convince eevee workflows, let's see what the future brings!

[@Boildroid]

17:08 where is video?

[@starlord1521]

gotta ask. I'm somewhat intermediate, I'm pretty basic with making my anime renders using models I create with Vroid studio and toon shaders. Would Goo engine benefit me? or do I have to be more advanced

[@Solizeus]

This would be very good for gaming too

[@jonathanvilario5402]

Cascadeur fork would be awesome too

[@MrMcnamex]

goota luv the dark showreels wow yay

[@thelaw3536]

Thanks gooey

[@MultiZapor]

Screen space nodes really need be added in eevee of native blender!... After ed of video, i think just mqke it as separate render engines. Right now we have eever, cycles and preview one. Just need make different renders like: Cycles Eevee next Goo engine Preview one. Dont use eevee next codes for goo...

[@dee6561]

Official Blender Channel talking about 3D Anime!

[@dee6561]

Wait, new engine? No shot.

[@binyaminbass]

can't see the show reel 😕

[@TukaihaHithlec]

I can see why they’re calling it Juniper. Very clever guys.

[@Goefrei0516]

Goo NPR?

[@TukaihaHithlec]

@@Goefrei0516 JNPR was the name of the secondary team in RWBY, a show Dillon was hired to work on as a new lead animator after the creator and original lead animator died. After only one year, he left after a bunch of lead staff were fired when the company wanted to go in a different direction. Some of the original staff who worked on RWBY now work on a team with Dillon.

[@sendercorp]

Lovely ... More power to Goo . . .

[@Solizeus]

17:00 What an amazing video compilation... a black screen

[@ewomer100]

Whats the point of blacking out the feature bit?

[@osmmanipadmehum]

Hello maybe put link to reel.

[@demianpelos]

Merge it into main blender!!! This are amazing tools!

[@igorthelight]

19:04

[@LenaMilize]

🎉

[@3DModelingAnimationVFX]

Do you plan to implement it in game engines such as Unity or Unreal in the future?

[@nosirve9458]

i wish there could be an addon of this, or something builded inside blender with these techniques... 2D in blender is gaining a lot of popularity

[@Beryesa.]

I guess it'd be much easier to upstream a new engine rather than trying to convince eevee for specific needs, but let's see!

[@FlamingFoxProd]

He literally explained in the video why he can't do either lmao At least watch the video first damn

[@gonderage]

ya missed the part where he said the features in Goo Engine can't be done in stock Blender lol

[@nosirve9458]

@@FlamingFoxProd i watched the video, and I heard him… thats why I said “I wish”

[@screenkiduniya3717]

Hey anybody knows how to build the free version of goo engine

[@ThomvanVliet]

its completely black at @17.07 :(

[@igorthelight]

17:07 - an working time stamp ;-)

[@FirstLast-zc1vg]

Based for using Google Slides' Slate theme.

[@CariagaXIII]

alot of hoyo 3d models have been used alot as reference

[@123evilwolf]

I wanted to know if the one who made Houseki No kuni used blender.

[@rossbergin8221]

3Dx max

[@Huguillon]

I build Blender main and beta everyday with no problem...since last year I try to build goo engine, is impossible, I always got an error. I hope the new engine they are going to do come in addon form or internal in Blender

[@thorn-]

1. It cannot be an addon, because it changes source code and addons cannot do that. 2. Blender will not accept it for internal 3. Failure to compile is something specific to your system environment; I've compiled goo engine 3-4 times in the past 6 months.

[@madlookzvfx]

What is NPR

[@thorn-]

Non Photorealistic Rendering.

[@taranjk1]

It's funny how much effort is required to break realism.

[@Nyubug]

Why are light groups only for cycles right now.. so annoying.

[@figloalds]

I didn't even watch it yet, but I'm slapping the like button like an anime protagonist, because I see Dillon Goo I know it's going to be awesome, for his work is spectacular

[@MASTERCRAFT938]

Hello there. :D

[@igorthelight]

General Kenobi! xD

[@GoldenAdrien]

Loved the black compilation of things people have made with goo engine 😂

[@GarviHere]

folks at blender can not figure out how to show a video at bcon yet?

[@yqisq6966]

To sum it up: stylization > photorealism.

[@ethanissupercool7168]

Doesn’t an NPR engine already exist? (Malt Renderer)

[@igorthelight]

The more competition - the better ;-)

[@BebebnyaHuTao]

I didn't expect to see Raiden Shogun on Blender Official Channel Edit: and Dehya!

[@franciscosuarez4521]

What about Malt? Does no one use it? It's a separate NPR engine that's been around for a few years already, open source, and last I tried it, an addon that you can install in 1 minute, not a fork I feel it doesn't get any publicity at all, which is a shame

[@ishaan863]

12:25 the solid view is SO CURSED

[@Nisa-3D]

If your inspirations are refer to some hoyo 3d anime work please check honkai impact cinematics Genshin cell shading its nice and all but u have to see that

[@davidcapuzzo]

Wont Eevee next make alot of this redundant?

[@jmalmsten]

Watch until the end ;)

[@thorn-]

Not unless Eevee Next adds some features that aren't currently there, and also aren't on the list of things planning to be done.

[@iamawatcher9201]

It's a shame EEVEE Next is gonna ruin NPR for us Blender users. Not everyone wants PBR and Blender's single mindedness towards pushing PBR is really frustrating. For an "open software" it's not very open to users who want stylized or anime-like visuals.

[@Arjjacks]

There's literally a whole talk dedicated to the technical production behind Project Gold, Blender's next entirely NPR open movie project. Eevee Next isn't going to ruin anything, Dillon's already developing Juniper off of EN and EN won't lack for anything the current Eevee can do. Blender is all about feature parity before a legacy system goes anywhere. Why do you think the old and new hair systems are still sitting side-by-side? Or the two cryptomattes? Or the OBJ importer/exporters? Nothing goes anywhere until feature parity is achieved. Even Vulkan is only aimed as high as OpenGL at the moment.

[@btn237]

@@Arjjacks the whiners are annoying. They can seem to see past their own situation, or that there is an equal or larger number of people whining that their needs aren’t being met because Eevee isn’t as good as Lumen in UE for realtime photorealism. Blender isn’t open to NPR or anime users? This is a ridiculous claim. I’d love them to explain why Grease Pencil is getting an entirely new version, and being integrated more deeply into Blender with Geometry Nodes support..

[@Arjjacks]

@@btn237 100%. For every new update released or announced there's a dozen moaners complaining about this or that extremely niche one-off feature that would benefit them and only them "still being ignored/buried/abandoned/etc.", as if nobody else's needs exist or matter. Such a self-absorbed mindset.

[@iamawatcher9201]

@@Arjjacks That's because Blender NEEDS NPR for their next movie. They only ever develop Blender when it bests suits them or the industry that sponsors them, in a world where PBR is more prioritized by productions. Sure, they're working towards NPR *now* but for the entirety of the 3.0 series it's given us nothing except for Grease Pencil at 3.0. Dillon may be developing Juniper but did you even watch the talk? One of the big reason he's doing so is because Eevee Next is bad for NPR. Go here 19:48 instead of making stuff up. Blender isn't about feature parity when it's going out of its way to REMOVE core nodes that NPR needs. I'm guessing you've never actually used Eevee Next if you think otherwise, cause I have and there's little parity between it and regular Eevee. Take ANY NPR project right now into Eevee Next and it's just a bunch of black meshes. NPR in Blender has always been a uphill struggle since Blender does not care about it until they too need it. And I couldn't careless if Blender caters to PBR for the rest of its lifetime, that's their right to do so. But when Eevee Next is literally going to replace regular Eevee with ANOTHER PBR engine, that's when it becomes a problem especially when Cycles already exists and is perfectly fine for PBR. Eevee Next is literally solving a problem that no one had, and creating 100 more for us NPR users.

[@iamawatcher9201]

@@Arjjacks Like I said, 3.0-3.6 gave us nothing. 4.0 will also give us nothing. 4.1 will remove our ability to use NPR at all. But oh yeah totally, "wE'Re ASKing foR Too mUch". Continue living in your ivory tower.

[@user-uj4gr9ql4m]

can you call programming on Goo Engine "gooning"

[@user-oc6of2cd5r]

Call it Goo Engine, doesn't come with Goo (the substance) support, disappointment™©

[@Nathidraws]

Tell me it's free

[@daniyar.baltabay]