MAURITS VALK
PODRACING
Podracing is an animatic produced in Blender 5.0 made for a presentation at BCON Austin 2026. This animatic leverages the new Story Tools update that launched with Blender 5 which utilizes Scene Strips for Storyboarding and Previs.
This webpage provides a full breakdown of the process and how to utilize the scene strip workflow. Check out the BCON talk below and the file is free to download below.
This webpage is intended to be viewed on a computer monitor, not a mobile phone. Some features may be missing...
BCON Austin
This talk breaks down how we can adapt from being a 2D Story Artist to a 3D Story Artist and how we can leverage Blender 5.0.
Blender 5.0 is a game changer.
For years, Blender lagged behind other storyboarding software because it was not a 2D focused software. Story Tools is a project that lays the foundation for the future of storyboarding and previs. Released with Blender 5.0, it is now possible to create 2D storyboards, incorporate hybrid workflows and traditional 3D previsualization.
Story Tools Features
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There's a designated Storyboarding Workspace setup making it easier and faster to start working. The default setup provides a 2D Storyboarding workflow just like Storyboard Pro.
Scene Strips are Familiar
Scene Strips offer a familiar concept to artists coming from Storyboard Pro where each Scene Strip can represent one Shot. Instead of cutting the Scene Strip into Panels, we utilize the Storyboard Scene's Dopesheet to add keyframes.
VSE Sequencer Scene
Blender requires a separate Scene for editing Scene Strips together (explanation below). This works as an advantage because you can duplicate Edit Scenes to try new takes on your sequences.
Let's Talk About ...
Scenes!
Scenes can mean a lot of different things...
Whether you're doing 2D Storyboards, 2.5D Storyboards or Previs in Blender, Scenes can mean a few things depending where you're coming from.
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Scenes in Storyboard Pro are considered "Shots" because each Scene is it's own Shot that we cut up into Panels. Blender 5.0 can utilize this same philosophy and naming convention but instead of cutting up the Scene Strip, we add Grease Pencil keyframes in the Dopesheet inside our Storyboarding Scene.
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Instead of using a scene per shot, we can add multiple cameras inside a single scene and attach each individual camera to it's own scene strip. This allows us to leverage a single scene as it's own stage or set, if you will.
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Thus you can combine scenes that are purely 2D or contain 3D environments help our workflow in creating animatics.
- The Scene Breakdown -
Assets​​
​Jawa / Plateau / Desert /
Arches / Cockpits / Canyon
(Storyboard Scenes)
Edit 1
(Sequencer Scene)
I first assembled all the 3D assets in a separate scene called, "Assets". Once completed, I marked the objects as Assets which made it easy to access those objects in other scenes via the Asset Browser. Alternatively, you can copy/paste objects between scenes too.
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The other Scenes, Jawa through Canyon, are the separate scenes I used for the storyboarding and previs process. Each Scene acted as a new set where I used multiple cameras to capture the story, much like you would do in Live Action.
The Edit 1 scene represents the Sequencer Scene that houses all the scene strips from Jawa, Plateau, Desert, etc. You cannot have a Scene Strip that references it's own Scene inside that Scene's Sequencer, it'll will cause a bad loop.
ASSETS
The landscapes are generated using Blender's native A.N.T Landscape extension. I reduced the polygon count to make the scenes lighter.
For the sake of Storyboarding and Previs, modeling should be simple. Don't over do it and if you have pre-existing assets, use them.
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All the textures are hand painted directly inside of Blender, more on that in the next section.
Texture Painting
Texture Painting let's you paint directly on 3D meshes making it quick to stylize objects and add storytelling to your backgrounds!
Texture Painting is different from Grease Pencil. They are two different tools inside of Blender, Texture Painting is bitmap painting on to image textures that project onto 3D meshes. Add-ons like Paint-System help you manage image textures so you don't have to manually set up a web of shader nodes.
My Texture Painting Brush Pack
JAWA Set
There is one hero set that is surrounded by larger sets to extend the background out.
Note the line of action with all the cameras residing on one side of the line.
Some rocks for visual interest.
The JAWA scene contains multiple cameras.
Those cameras are bound to scene strips inside the EDIT 1 sequencer scene.
Assign Cameras to Scene Strips
To assign cameras to Scene Strips, go to the Properties menu then under Strip Properties. Set the Input to Camera and select the respective camera from your active scene.
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This allows you to have multiple cameras inside a single scene that can be assigned to individual scene strips making it easier to cut and edit footage together without managing camera markers on the Dopesheet.
DRAWING JAWAS
with Grease Pencil
Materials
Grease Pencil materials can consist of both stroke and fill materials allowing you to draw an outline and a fill at the same time. This is great if you're trying to block in key poses before adding in between poses.
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I like to use Draw Strokes on Back after I draw the elements that sit in front of the torso. This allows me to add the general shape of the character. Note: in Blender 5.1, you can toggle the stroke and fill options via a brush setting instead of from the material setting.
Visual Effects
Grease Pencil has a number of visual effects and modifiers that can help you add lighting, shadow and even manipulate strokes after you've drawn them.
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This helps save time on the backend when you need to add lighting and polish. Add a Rim effect to add a highlight and a Glow effect to make the eyes pop a little bit. The best part of visual effects are that they work across all drawings so you don't have to add light for each keyframe.
PODRACERS
The Podracer rig is parented to an empty allowing for more layered control. I first animate the empty to get the general speed and direction. The bones were animated to add turning and sway movement.
The cable bones are split into 14 segments to allow them to bend. The cable mesh was parented using Automatic Weights to naturally bend along with the bone.
The engines have a Copy Rotation Bone Constraint that follows the rotation of the cockpit. This makes it faster to animate the podracer banking into a turn. Once it's banked, I could go in and adjust the engines individual heights and rotations as needed.
Rigs are pretty nifty and worth the time setting up...
The cable connecting the two engines attach on either side via an empty using a Hook modifier. This allowed it to squash and stretch if the engines would move away from each other.
THE RIG
Compositing
Compositing is completely unnecessary for story and previs but it can help add a little flavor to your animatic so why not. Blender 5.0 introduced drag and drop compositing effects making it even easier. I just add the basics for bloom and animated film grain. If it's in the wrong order, no one noticed and no one cares...
Editing
The Final Assembly scene contains video strips from each camera rendered out individually. This allowed me to get real time playback in the Video Editing Workspace to lay in sound.
I duplicated the Edit 1 Scene to be able to reference the previous timing of the scene strips.
To lay in sound, I just dragged and dropped the files from a file browser.
Add-ons
At this point, you're probably wondering which add-on I used. It's my own add-on called, Whippet. It started out replicating the Storyboard Pro panel to panel shortcut experience (Whippet GP) then it lead me to making a simple camera management tool (Whippet Shots). Once I combined them together it became a full suite of tools all synchronizing keyframes, camera strips and scene strips.
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The latest build of the add-on helps speed up the Blender 5.0 Scene Strip workflow making it easier to add cameras and manage scene strips for you. You can still explore the Podracing file but to get the most out of it, it helps to have the Whippet add-on.
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There are other add-ons that are also worth checking out if you want more or different workflows:
