What happens when rhythm, cooking, and 3D art collide? Meet Enes Aksakal, the freelance 3D artist behind "Octo Beat" – a playful, beat-synced animation that earned 2nd place in the DRÆM SEQUENCE Challenge. In this interview with Fox Renderfarm, the industry’s top cloud rendering services provider and render farm, Enes walks us through his four-week creative journey, from taking inspiration from Nintendo's rhythm games to mastering real-time rendering in Blender and Eevee.
Fox Renderfarm: Hi Enes! We are honored to have you here! Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Enes: Hi! I'm a freelance and hobbyist 3D artist. In my free time, I enjoy working on creative projects, watching films, and exploring different techniques to improve my skills. I’m especially interested in behind-the-scenes content, particularly for animated and stop-motion films.
As a freelancer, I support game projects by creating game-ready characters and assets and providing design guidance when needed.
In my work, I like to combine realism with stylized characters, often drawing inspiration from films and games.
I’m always aiming to learn something new and experiment with different workflows and techniques to keep improving.
Fox Renderfarm: Congratulations on winning 2nd place in the DRÆM SEQUENCE Challenge. Can you briefly introduce your project and explain how you tackle the theme?
Enes: The project is a stylized, rhythm-based animation centered around a cooking scenario, where actions are synchronized to the beat to create a playful and engaging experience.
At the beginning, I explored several different ideas based on the theme of rhythm and beat. My initial approach was more music-driven, where each drum hit would trigger an action in sync with the beat. However, I wasn’t fully satisfied with that direction.
I then shifted my focus and took inspiration from games like WarioWare and Rhythm Heaven, aiming for a more playful concept with a simple and easy-to-understand story.
WarioWare © Nintendo
Rhythm Heaven © Nintendo
This led me to the idea of using cooking as a central theme, since it’s something familiar and instantly recognizable. Combined with stylized characters, it allowed me to create a visually engaging and accessible experience while still staying true to the rhythm-based concept.
Octo Beat © Enes Aksakal
Fox Renderfarm: Could you share the creation process for your work? What software did you use, and how long did it take you?
Enes: I didn’t document the process visually, but I followed a structured workflow throughout the project.
In the first week, I focused on ideation, gathering references, and creating initial blockouts to explore composition and timing. In the second week, I refined the blockouts and established the camera movement and overall pacing.
Process © Mantaframe
The third week was dedicated to creating and refining animations and simulations, with a strong focus on syncing actions to the beat. In the final week, I worked on texturing, lighting, and rendering to bring everything together.
Process © Mantaframe
Blender was my main software for the entire project, including modeling, animation, and rendering using Eevee. I also used Marvelous Designer for creating clothing and 3DCoat for texturing.
The entire project took around four weeks to complete.
Fox Renderfarm: How did this challenge push your skills in a new direction compared to your previous work? Were there any unexpected obstacles when creating a beat-synced visual?
Enes: I try to learn something new with every project, and for this challenge, I focused on improving my workflow using Eevee. It was my first time working with it, as I had previously only used Cycles, so I explored how to achieve lighting that fits my stylized look in real-time rendering.
I also spent more time working with Marvelous Designer, both for creating clothing and simulations. I even used it to simulate the stove flames to achieve a more playful, stop-motion-inspired style.
One of the main challenges was syncing fast and sometimes hectic movements to the beat while keeping everything readable. I was inspired by games like WarioWare and Rhythm Heaven, and translating that kind of timing and style from 2D into 3D was not always straightforward. Using techniques like holding certain poses for a few frames helped reinforce the rhythm and clarity.
Another challenge was combining these exaggerated movements with realistic cloth simulation, since the motion itself is quite unnatural, but the clothing still needed to behave believably.
Fox Renderfarm: Have you tried or heard about Fox Renderfarm’s services before? What is your impression of our cloud rendering services?
Enes: I’ve heard about Fox Renderfarm before, but I haven’t had the chance to use it yet.
My impression is very positive, especially in terms of scalability and efficiency for handling more complex or time-intensive projects. Cloud rendering services like this are incredibly useful when working with larger scenes or tight deadlines.
For this project, I used Eevee, so I didn’t require external rendering, but I can definitely see the value of using a service like Fox Renderfarm for more demanding workflows in the future.
Fox Renderfarm: As AI continues to rise in popularity, do you find it helpful in your CG workflow, or do you prefer working without AI entirely?
Enes: I see AI as a useful tool in certain areas, but I don’t rely on it in my personal workflow.
For me, the creative process and continuous learning are the most important aspects of working in 3D, so I prefer to develop my skills manually rather than aiming for faster results through AI. Especially in personal projects, I enjoy going through the full process and refining my work step by step.
That said, I can see the benefit of AI for supporting tasks, such as generating smaller background assets or helping to speed up certain parts of a workflow. However, I would usually prioritize using existing assets or creating them myself, depending on the needs of the project.
Enes’ Social Media
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mantaframe/
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/enesaksakal
