“Il Baracchino” is an adult animated series written and directed by Nicolò Cuccì and Salvo Di Paola, with the animation studio Megadrago based in Palermo, Italy.

The series is set in the gritty yet vibrant world of stand-up comedy. The story follows Claudia, an idealistic aspiring art director, in her desperate attempt to save a crumbling, yet legendary comedy club. To revive the venue, she recruits an improbable lineup of tragicomic performers including a chain-smoking pigeon with caustic humor, a “boomer” reincarnation of Leonardo Da Vinci, even the Grim Reaper himself. You can watch the first episode here.

The series, an Amazon Prime Original in Italy produced by Lucky Red and Megadrago, features a stellar cast made up of some of the major Italian stand-up comedians and actors and uniquely blends various animation techniques, from 3D to stop-motion and traditional 2D, creating a surreal and unforgettable visual language.

This article is based on the presentation by Nicolò Cuccì and Andrea Cigognetti from Blender Conference 2025 in Amsterdam.

Nicolò: This wasn’t going to be a traditional 3D animated series. We wanted a mixed-media show that blended 3D animation, stop-motion puppetry, and various artistic styles while maintaining a consistent feel throughout. The noir aesthetic was central to our vision: a dark, stylized world where comedy and drama could coexist.

The challenge was: how do you create visual consistency across multiple animation techniques? Our answer was to ground everything in the animation itself. No matter what technique we used (3D, stop motion, or mixed media), the animation principles would remain the same, giving the show a unified visual language.

When Andrea (head of CG) joined as technical supervisor, he immediately focused on two topics: character rigging, and previz setup. Character rigging required a diversified approach due to the different character designs, while the previz setup was urgently needed as the team basically skipped the traditional storyboarding phase and started working immediately in 2.5D space.

Andrea: When it comes to rigging, one of our breakthroughs was the UV Warp modifier. This became the foundation for multiple characters, allowing us to create paper cutout-style animations in 3D space. The most elaborate use was for our Leonardo da Vinci character. We essentially created a 2.5D character using five texture tiles mapped onto simple box geometry. It looked ugly as a raw model, but once everything came together with the UV Warp modifiers and careful driver calibration, the effect was magical.

We spent considerable time with character designer Bart D’angelo testing different poses to achieve that paper cutout feeling. Did we need to make the user interface renaissance-themed for Leonardo’s rig? Absolutely not. But we did it anyway because it was fun, and that joy in the work translated to the screen.

For Leonardo’s mouth, we used a curve connected to bones, with the gradient achieved procedurally through geometry nodes. The mouth itself was created entirely through shaders. We even applied the UV Warp method to Leonardo’s props, extending the technique beyond just character animation. This procedural approach saved us countless hours and gave animators intuitive controls.

Most of the R&D budget went into Claudia, our protagonist. Her design is part Olive Oyl from Popeye, part classic animation, with an artistic touch that made her feel like a 2D stop-motion character brought to life in 3D.

We built Claudia’s rig on top of Rigify, using bendy bones for her rubber-hose arms. But the real innovation came with her facial animation system. Thanks to Inês Almeida, we developed a shape key selector inspired by previous work by Vertex Arcade. Animators could pose Claudia’s face intuitively, mixing and matching expressions from the storyboard reference, while still having the ability to tweak individual controls for unique poses.

The result was a hybrid system: shape keys for quick, expressive poses combined with traditional rigging for fine control. This gave our animators the freedom to push Claudia into exaggerated poses that would have been difficult or impossible with either system alone.

Nicolò: One of our most interesting challenges was Claudia’s anger management transformation. The original concept couldn’t be achieved with our standard rig, so we explored alternatives. We initially tried clay motion in Blender, but I wasn’t satisfied with the results. Eventually, Andrea found a solution by mapping the 2D concept art directly onto a mesh.

The rig was surprisingly simple (just two chains) but it gave our animators exactly what they needed. We had to create many anger management moments throughout the series, and this approach made it possible.

One of the most transformative aspects of our production was switching to a Blender-based storyboard workflow. In the early stages of pre-production, we used to create storyboards on paper, randomly on post-its and printer sheets, but everything changed when we adopted Grease Pencil for previz.

Working with Alessia Lenoci, our story supervisor, we used a system where we could create 3D previews with 2D animated characters drawn in Grease Pencil. This enabled us to do camera movements on 3D sets with 2D drawn characters, and the layout we created was almost identical to the final renders, several months later.

This approach changed how we thought about scriptwriting. The gap between having an idea and seeing it on camera became so small that writing became a much more collaborative experience. The creators, scriptwriters, and artists could all be in touch with the filmmaking process simultaneously.

Our layout process was integral to making our mixed-media approach work. Because we were combining 3D animation with stop-motion puppetry and various other techniques, we needed a robust previz system that could accommodate all these elements in a unified space.

The layout stage was where we established the foundation for each shot. We worked out camera positioning, blocking, and most importantly, lighting intent. This was especially critical for shots that included stop-motion elements like Luca the pigeon. By establishing lighting during layout, we ensured that when the stop-motion animation came in, it would integrate naturally with the 3D characters and environments.

Because everything existed in 3D space within Blender, including our 2D-style card characters and Grease Pencil storyboards, the layout stage gave us an accurate preview of the final result. This meant fewer iterations and more confidence in our creative decisions before committing to final animation and rendering.

Nicolò: We wanted the animation to be the unifying element across all our varied visual styles. We developed a consistent animation language that worked whether you were animating in stop motion, 2D, or 3D in Blender.

Our approach was rooted in 2D animation principles. We focused on strong poses that were grounded and appealing. Everything was staged to face the camera and look good from the intended viewing angle. This 2D-inspired approach worked beautifully in 3D space, especially with Andrea’s character rigs.

The production schedule was intense. At the peak, we were asking animators to deliver 40 seconds per week (sometimes as low as 20, but often at that upper limit). To make this possible, we made a crucial decision: no spline animation. Everything was done in stepped mode with holds, and we gave animators complete agency to choose their timing: twos, threes, fours, whatever worked best for each shot.

Andrea and I knew from the start we’d use EEVEE for rendering. The decision wasn’t just about speed (though rendering a 4K, six-episode series at 24fps certainly required efficiency). EEVEE excelled at NPR, which was perfect for our mixed-media aesthetic.

We locked ourselves to Blender 3.6 LTS and benefitted from the continuous improvements provided by the Blender development team during our production window.

Andrea: One of our boldest decisions was to eliminate the post-production department entirely. We didn’t have a compositor on staff, and coming from the VFX industry, I was tired of juggling endless layers. Instead, we used “real-time comp”: a workflow where everything, including cards for 2D-style characters, existed in 3D space and rendered together.

This approach had multiple advantages. Characters on cards could be lit consistently with the rest of the scene. We could see our final shots in near-real-time. Luca the pigeon, who was stop-motion animated, could integrate seamlessly with 3D characters because his lighting was established during the layout process.

We developed several shader tricks to achieve our noir atmosphere. For “studio lighting” effects, we used animated shaders on geometry: simple but effective. By over-scanning the camera, we created glare effects that suggested theatrical top lighting.

We extensively used vignette to emphasize elements, create fake depth, and suggest volumetric lighting. In one shot, we faked a mirror reflection by duplicating the animation output and making it reflective through a projected map in the shader. An empty controlled the projection, giving us convincing reflections without the render cost of actual mirrors.

Some of our most complex shots combined stop-motion, 3D characters, effects, and crowd simulations all in a single frame. We optimized heavily, rendering multiple characters on the same tile whenever possible.

The series was primarily black and white, which helped maintain our noir aesthetic while also being practical for our pipeline. But we did have one episode in color, achieved through texture and shader work that allowed us to maintain our established workflow while expanding the visual palette.

When we first started, we had animated only 9 minutes of content in our entire lives. Now we were facing 100 minutes of production. With limited experience and time to build a studio pipeline from scratch, we decided to emulate the Blender Studio pipeline one-to-one. Everything the Blender Studio team had documented on studio.blender.org became the blueprint for our production management process. 

Some of the fundamental tools and processes adopted where:

• Kitsu (and the Blender Kitsu add-on) to keep track of all production tasks, from early story reels to final renders.
• Shot builder add-on, used to construct all shots based on info stored on Kitsu.
• Flamenco, for render management of long sequences, and also the final export of the episodes. Making use of our in-house render farm enabled us to re-export entire episodes within a few minutes.
• Subversion (SVN), for version control. While at times challenging for artists from a usability standpoint, this gave us the ability to track changes, collaborate with minimal conflicts, and maintain a stable production environment.
• Watchtower, for intuitively visualizing the advancement of the production. 
• Next to that, many other aspects of the Blender Studio Tools where followed, such as the naming conventions, the Blender launcher system, etc.

Our pipeline revolved around editorial in a constant feedback loop. Everything started with a storyboard, then moved through a back-and-forth with editorial. Same for asset creation and character rigging, which fed into layout and then to editorial.

Effects, lighting, everything operated in this circular pattern, constantly ping-ponging with editorial to maintain the overall vision. We edited the series using primarily Blender’s Video Sequence Editor. This tight integration meant we weren’t exporting and importing between different software packages; everything stayed within the Blender ecosystem.

Nicolò: While creating “Il Baracchino” we also ended up building Megadrago, our studio. Our team was small (about 20 people) but every single person contributed ideas that shaped the final show. The team’s collaborative spirit was the best part of this journey. “Il Baracchino” proved that a small Italian studio using open-source tools could create a high-quality animated series for a major streaming platform. We didn’t just make a show; we built a studio, a pipeline, and a team capable of tackling ambitious projects.

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who worked on “Il Baracchino”, to the Blender Studio team, the Blender developers and to the Blender community that made our production possible. If you’d like to discuss the production in more detail or have questions about our pipeline, find us at megadrago.it.

“Il Baracchino” is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video. The series was produced by Megadrago Studio using Blender 3.6 LTS.

Blender Foundation is thrilled to announce that Netflix Animation Studios is joining the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron.

This support will be dedicated towards general Blender core development, to continuously improve content creation tools for individuals and teams working in media and entertainment-related workflows.

This membership is a significant acknowledgement of Blender becoming more embedded in high-end animation studios’ workflows. I deeply appreciate this strategic initiative from Netflix Animation Studios as an investment in a diverse, public, and open-source friendly ecosystem of creative tools that will benefit the global community of content creators.

Francesco Siddi, CEO at Blender

Netflix Animation Studios’ corporate membership with Blender reflects our ongoing support for open-source software in the animation community. We are proud to be the first major animation studio to support Blender’s continued development and growing adoption by current and future generations of animation professionals.

Darin Grant, SVP Global Technology at Netflix Animation Studios

Netflix is one of the world’s leading entertainment services, with over 300 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time. Discover more about Netflix Animation Studios at https://www.netflixanimation.com/

Blender, the world’s most popular free and open-source 3D creation software, offers a comprehensive solution for modelling, animation, VFX, and more. Maintained by the Blender Foundation, it’s the tool of choice for a vast global community of professional artists and enthusiasts, committed to open collaboration and 3D technology innovation.

As announced in September 2025 during the Blender Conference, the Blender Foundation board is welcoming three new members this year: Dalai Felinto (Head of Product), Fiona Cohen (COO), and Sergey Sharybin (Head of Development). They will join Francesco Siddi (CEO), while Ton Roosendaal transitions to the newly established supervisory board.

As mentioned in the original announcement, preparations for this transition have been extensive. As the Blender project continues to grow, some evolution is natural, but our core values and commitment to the mission remain unchanged: putting the best 3D technology in the hands of artists as free and open source software. 

We are excited to embark on this journey together, and we wish everyone in the Blender community a great 2026!

Francesco Siddi
Fiona Cohen
Dalai Felinto
Sergey Sharybin

Last week, the very sad news reached us that Blender developer Germano Cavalcante de Sousa passed away on 24 November 2025.

Germano had been dealing with leukemia for over a year. He was quite open about it and shared updates in his weekly reports. During this period, Germano kept being involved with Blender when possible. Everyone was impressed by his spirit and passion for his work on Blender. 

Germano started as a triager and mesh editing team member in early 2017. Because of his architecture background, he wished to work on improving precise modeling tools for designers, which was the main topic worked on for many years.

I can’t express how saddened I am by this news. We will severely miss him and we will cherish our memories of Germano. Our hearts go out to his family and friends in Brazil.

Ton Roosendaal, and the entire Blender Team
Amsterdam, 8 December 2025.

If Blender helped you with your projects this year, we’re asking you to help us back.

For the past year, you’ve had access to professional 3D software, completely free. No subscriptions, no licenses, no limits. Blender has been there for your projects, your learning, your art, your business.

Today, we’re asking for €5.

That’s it. If every active Blender user contributes €5 this month, Blender Foundation would meet its entire yearly funding goal for 2026.

Blender’s strength comes from a simple idea: the best 3D technology should belong to everyone. But maintaining and improving professional software isn’t free. It takes developers, designers, and infrastructure.

Blender does not have corporate owners or subscription fees. It has its community.

If Blender was worth €5 of value to you this year, please donate today. If it was worth more, you can give more. Every contribution, no matter the size, keeps Blender growing strong, independent, and free for everyone.

We understand that not everyone can afford €5, but please consider sharing this so the message is received by those who can.

Do your part. Donate €5 (or more) this month.

Thank you for being part of the Blender community!

Francesco Siddi
Blender Foundation

Introducing an innovation space within the Blender project, where designers and developers can work together on challenging or future-facing projects, to keep Blender relevant in the years to come.

Over the years, Blender has grown and matured into a powerful and complex piece of software. With its unstoppable release cycle, a massive, highly demanding, and diverse user community, natural technical debt, and complex technical dependencies, shipping new features and general improvements requires more and more effort and coordination.

Software stability and reliability have become critical for individuals and companies. As a consequence, development efforts focus on those aspects, offering progressive improvements of existing functionality only when these are clear enhancements of what is already there.

This makes it more challenging to innovate, think outside the box, experiment, and break things.

To facilitate this essential aspect of product development, the Blender Foundation is establishing a new project: the Blender Lab. This is the innovation space where designers, developers, and researchers work together on challenging and future-facing projects that will help Blender stay relevant in the years to come.

A lab activity is a project that brings innovation to the Blender project, and contributes to Blender Foundation’s mission. The project should face some unknowns, but also be handled by a team or individual with sufficient domain knowledge to solve them. Lab activities are meant to be independent of Blender releases.

Lab activities are always public and visible on blender.org/lab. Here the ongoing projects are presented, sharing objectives, timeline and participants. Intermediate builds for testing and feedback will be available here as well.

To get started with this initiative, here are some projects that qualify, and that are listed:

• Beyond mouse and keyboard (touch and pen)
• Beyond mouse and keyboard (VR/XR)
• Volume rendering
• Light transport

Some more projects that could be added soon:

• USD Authoring
• AI and ML technologies, starting with a Blender MCP server

Lab activities can be grouped in two categories:

• Applied research, which is the main focus of the lab. Developing and eventually shipping groundbreaking solutions based on the latest research and knowledge in the field
• Academic research. For example, this can be achieved by participating in projects organized by institutions such as universities and research centers, where Blender developers offer an advisory role on how technology can be implemented in production software.

The goal is to start with a limited number of projects, assessed by Blender Foundation with the support of key Blender contributors. During the course of 2026, more guidelines will be defined and shared. If you are interested in submitting a proposal for a Lab project, you can do so by contacting Blender Foundation and sharing a public document where you describe the project and make a compelling case for it. The adoption of a project depends on many factors, including funds availability, relevance to the Blender missions, experience of the applicant, and more.

Special credit goes to Ton Roosendaal for advocating for this project since 2018. At the time the Blender project was not able to allocate resources to the initiative, but today, thanks to growing community and corporate support there starts to be a path for it. Future campaigns and partnerships will be crucial for the success of this project. You can make this happen by joining the Blender Development Fund at fund.blender.org.

Francesco Siddi
Blender Foundation

Blender Foundation announces its annual user survey, with the goal to learn and understand:

• The user community demographics: age group, geography and professional background, etc.
• Common use cases and workflows
• Most wanted improvements
• How people connect and get involved as contributors
• How the community spends money (donations, marketplaces, training, etc.)
• Future direction of the project

The anonymized results of the survey will be publicly shared in an illustrated and commented format, and also as a raw dataset.

Login with your Blender ID to fill in the survey (public results will be anonymized).

Your input will help shape the future of Blender.

Thank you!
Francesco

Welcome to the FOSDEM 2026 Media Creation Tools Devroom Call For Participation. The contributor communities of Blender, Godot, Krita, and other popular media creation tools are gathering at the largest open source software event of the year to discuss roadmaps, ongoing and upcoming projects, challenges. If you are running an open source project in the media creation space: connect, join, and share your story!

• Submission deadline: Dec. 1, 2025
• Announcement of selected talks: Dec 15, 2025
• Conference dates: Jan 31 and Feb 1, 2026
• Media Creation Tools devroom date: TBC

The default duration for talks is from 15 to 30 minutes, including discussion. If your proposal is selected, you will receive an email confirmation with further instructions.

The devroom focuses on media creation software and tools. From well-established to new, up-and-coming projects, everyone is welcome. The talks can cover the following subjects:

• Product design discussions
• Development and engineering of media-focused application
• User stories
• Roadmaps
• Community discussion or presentations

Submit your presentation idea via the FOSDEM 2026 Pretalx system, from November the 15th, 2025.

Your submission must include the following information :

• The title and subtitle of your talk (please be descriptive, as titles will be listed with ~500 from other projects)
• Select “Media Creation Tools” as the track
• Select “Talk” event type
• A short abstract of one paragraph
• A longer description if you wish to do so
• Links to related websites / blogs / …

If you have any question about participating to the media creation tools track, please get in touch with Francesco Siddi: francesco at blender.org.

FOSDEM is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate.

• FOSDEM is free to attend. There is no registration.
• FOSDEM website

Blender Conference 2025 wrapped up a few days ago! Yet another great event bringing togehter artists, developers and contributors from the Blender community worldwide.

As usual, you can enjoy all the recorded presentations on Blender’s YouTube channel, and on PeerTube.

Overall, feedback was positive. Compared to previous years, food and venue rating slightly declined, while overall satisfaction with the event remains very positive. When it comes to the program, satisfaction is back to “extremely high” from last year’s “high”. The variety, depth and quality of many session was appreciated!

Nowadays, over 60% of respondents are coming to Blender Conference as part of their job. Overall, 79% of respondents plan to come back next year!

The top ten favorite presentations, in no particular order:

• Lightning Talks & Suzanne Awards
• A glimpse into “Flow”
• Blue Prince : Beyond The Doors
• Funny Legs: a 2D show by a 3D animator
• II Baracchino – Donuts don’t die in vain
• I’m a Complete Hack – But This is how simple techniques still make a big impact
• Making of DOGWALK
• The Illusion Engine: The Secrets to Realism
• Keynote
• VFX workflows for Sonic the Hedgehog 3

The event was made possible thanks to the contribution of many people and made memorable thanks to all attendees and speakers. Special thanks to Amerpodia and the Felix Meritis staff, to Creative Technologies audiovisuals and especially to the Blender HQ and remote teams for making this an amazing experience.

See you next year!
Francesco