Hey Reader,

Zach here,

With fresh inspirations and resources from the 3D world.

Today I’ll start with a new 3D challenge straight from Pixar, followed by a cool car animation breakdown and a new 3D character course from Blender Secrets.

Let’s dive in.

​New Pixar RenderMan 3D Challenge "First Contact"​

3D challenges are sprouting like mushrooms all around, but this one is pretty special. Pixar just announced its 12th annual 3D render challenge, this time named "First Contact".

To participate, you need to create a render around the theme of first contact with aliens using Pixar’s RenderMan as the rendering tool (It's available for free for non-commercial projects with a neatly integrated Blender plugin).

Another rule is using the provided assets (quite a nice bunch of them) for your storytelling, so you don’t have to start building everything from scratch. What counts most is your idea and the execution (and if you need help with that, you can get feedback for your work-in-progress directly from Pixar pros).

Another cool thing about this challenge is the long time you have to prepare your creation. The deadline for submitting final artworks is November 10th, 2025.

​Join the challenge here​

​"Heritage" Animation Breakdown​

I shared the amazing "Heritage" animation in one of the previous newsletters, and now its creator, Josué Zabeau, has shared a breakdown video in which he shows a little sneak peek at how it was made in Blender (and other software, like EmberGen for smoke and fire and DaVinci Resolve for compositing).

One thing that’s great about this is how he designs the shots and focuses on what’s important while omitting anything unnecessary for the shot. This includes only adding models of buildings that will be visible through the camera, utilizing camera culling for the trees, and using image backplates for background elements.

These and other clever tricks, like cloud gobos to make lighting more interesting, help to elevate shots’ quality while keeping the project at a manageable scale.

The breakdown also shows how color grading and compositing add the final touch to the frames, transforming them from okay to great-looking. It doesn’t show much of how it’s done, though.

If you want to learn the secrets of professional compositing in Blender, I highly recommend our Master Compositing in Blender course by Daniel Nees.

​"Anime Girl in Blender" - A new 3D Character Course by Blender Secrets​

Jan van den Hemel (Blender Secrets) has just released a new course on modeling and texturing a 3D anime girl in Blender. You can get it now with a 50% Early Bird Discount.

Coupon code: EARLYBIRD

​Get Modeling and Texturing an Anime Girl in Blender (affiliate link)

You might wonder how is this course different from our "Master 3D Characters in Blender" course?

I’ll try to explain the differences between the two and help you decide which one is best for you (or whether you might want to get both).

Jan’s course is shorter and focused on a simpler, stylized character, so it's more suitable for beginners, though it contains great tips that even pros can benefit from.

Our course is a bit more advanced and dives deep into sculpting, anatomy, retopology, and even more advanced Geometry Nodes techniques, which will take your 3D character workflow to the next level. (That’s why taking both courses is not a bad idea at all if you’re serious about making great 3D characters).

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That’s all from me today. Have a great weekend, and till next time.

~Zach