[NPR Engine] Announcement! Official Blender Project for NPR! Open Movie!

This is the big moment we've been waiting for! The last few years of working on Goo Engine have all been leading to the moment where we can finally integrate the NPR features we've been researching into Blender official! We'll be contributing to the development and design ourselves, and guiding the direction of NPR in Blender.

OPEN MOVIE ANNOUNCEMENT

• Alongside the NPR Engine development, we'll also be producing a short Open Movie project to test out the build!

• All Open Movie assets will be released here on Patreon!

• NOTE: Character in the image is not related to the Open Movie. We'll be starting preproduction on it in early 2025!

NEW ASSET RELEASE

We're finally releasing several of our assets from over the years! Starting with three of our best BGs:

• BG - The Makoto Shinkai Postbox scene that started it all!

  • This was our first Goo Engine scene

  • Combination of foliage and hard surface solutions

• BG - Arknights Night and Day interior set

  • Extensive use of the curvature node on hard surface

• BG - Desert "treadmill" for Nameless Road set

  • Features real time NPR ground smears for any environment

  • Showcases solutions for treadmills on complex sets

  We'll also be releasing all Open Movie assets here on Patreon as we develop it! And more assets to come! Stay tuned!

Some FAQs:

• When will the NPR branch officially be integrated?

  • Probably in a year or two!

• When will the Open Movie be released?

  • Sometime mid to late 2025! Assets will be released around the same time

• Will there still be Goo Engine updates?

  • Yes! We have some updates coming today!

  • NOTE: Even after the NPR branch gets integrated into Blender, we'll likely still be adding our own custom quality of life tools and features to a custom Goo branch for our internal studio that we'll be releasing here, too.

• How do I get access to the assets?

  • All assets will be available to members pledged to the Assets tier (formerly Experimentals), as usual! However, as a thank you to our patrons, today's release will be made available to all Essential members!

  • Open Movie assets will only be available to the Assets tier (formerly Experimentals)!

• How often can we expect asset releases?

  • Starting today, each month we'll be releasing at least a few assets from our projects! This includes backgrounds and props. Human characters will typically not be included, as Emily is already sold separately. But creature rigs will be available.