One set, eleven steps
A tenement, Glasgow, 1936
Three rooms, a lobby and a close stair, designed the way an art department designs a set. Each step is an episode of the series, with a guest who does it for a living.
A series on Rhino in the UK film and television art department
Oblidah:Set Design
From Brief to Build.
Conversations with the people who design and build sets for film and television, and how they use Rhino to do it. Hosted by production designer Olly Williams.
01 / 11 Read
Why Rhino
The script says what has to be built. The template says how: millimetres, tolerances and layers set before the first line is drawn.
EP 02A production designer
02 / 11 Mass
Massing a Set
The brief becomes volumes at full scale, so a director can stand inside the set before anything is detailed.
EP 03A draughtsperson and architect
03 / 11 Survey
Capturing Reality
A phone scan of a real stairwell comes in as reference, registered to the model. It informs the design; it is not built from.
EP 04A filmmaker who scans
04 / 11 Concept
Render to Concept
A quick render becomes a concept frame: light, mood and a camera position a designer will sign off.
EP 05A production designer
05 / 11 Parametricise
Conversational Parametrics
The panelling is described in plain English and comes back as a Grasshopper definition that regenerates when the brief changes.
EP 06A Grasshopper developer
06 / 11 Automate
Rolling Your Own Tools
A short script places every baluster along the stair and numbers the rooms. Read it before you run it.
EP 07An assistant art director
07 / 11 Library
The Asset Library
Cornices and ceiling roses from real supplier profiles, kept as named, scaled blocks that last a career.
EP 08UK moulding and plaster makers
08 / 11 Draw
Construction Drawings
A section through the model becomes a plan the workshop can build from: line weights, dimensions and a title block.
EP 09A supervising art director and a construction manager
09 / 11 Print
3D Printing for Pre-Vis
The stair hall at 1:25 for the table. About 0.2 mm on the printer is about 5 mm at full size.
EP 10A draughtsperson
10 / 11 Hand off
Set Dec, Props and the Web
Construction, plasterers, painters, set decoration, props and effects each take their part of the set.
EP 11A set decorator
11 / 11 Set in motion
Setting It in Motion
The designed set becomes moving previs a director can react to, on the lens they will shoot.
EP 12An animator and studio founder
Oblidah:Set DesignSheet 02The seasonScale 1:1Rev A
Season one
Twelve episodes. Episode 01 covers the whole pipeline, with me in the guest's chair. Episodes 02–12 follow the order in which an art department makes a set, each with a guest who does that step for a living. Every episode runs 30 to 60 minutes, with shorts and an audio edition. Members get the project files.
EpisodeTitleGuestIn the library
How a set gets from a script to a stage, who hands what to whom, and where Rhino sits in a UK art department.
Watch the whole pipeline ↑Why a production designer moved his work into Rhino, and what changed for his department when he did.
Step 01 / Read in the pipeline ↑Turning a brief into a scaled massing model a director can stand inside.
Step 02 / Mass in the pipeline ↑Scanning a location with a phone and using the scan to plan sets and cameras.
Step 03 / Survey in the pipeline ↑Getting from a quick render to a concept frame, with AI where it helps and a designer's eye where it matters.
Step 04 / Concept in the pipeline ↑Describing a parametric rig in plain English and getting a working Grasshopper definition back.
Step 05 / Parametricise in the pipeline ↑Commissioning small Rhino tools from an AI assistant, reading them, testing them and keeping them.
Step 06 / Automate in the pipeline ↑Building a library of named, scaled mouldings and plaster profiles with the people who make them.
Step 07 / Library in the pipeline ↑A drawing set the workshop can build from, and what a construction manager reads first.
Step 08 / Draw in the pipeline ↑Printing a model the team can hold, and what its tolerances mean at full size.
Step 09 / Print in the pipeline ↑How set decoration and props take over from the art department, and how the work is shared.
Step 10 / Hand off in the pipeline ↑Turning designs and concepts into moving previs a director can react to.
Step 11 / Set in motion in the pipeline ↑The thesis
AI turns every Rhino user into a potential developer.
A set designer who can describe a tool in plain English can now have it written, read it, test it and keep it. The departments that gain most already work to tolerances, blocks and drawing standards.
Anything measurement-critical going to construction is still checked by a person.
In September 2026 I built Luthier, a Rhino plug-in that sets out a 12-string guitar ready for fabrication, by describing it to an AI assistant. The assistant wrote the script, then the package that installs it. It took a few passes.
The panels illustrate the method. They are not the plug-in's source.
BriefPass 1 of 3
luthier.yak written / Command: Luthier
TopWireframeLayer: CUT
Oblidah:Set DesignSheet 04WorkshopScale 1:1Rev A
Tools from
the workshop
Small tools I have built for my own work, most of them by describing them to an AI assistant and then reading, testing and keeping the result. Working tools appear in the episodes.
LuthierRhino plug-in
Sets out a 12-string guitar ready for fabrication: body, bracing trimmed against itself, and kerfed linings, as curves.
WorkingNamed-view batch exportPython for Rhino
Exports every named view in a file in one pass, so a set of reference frames comes out named and in order.
WorkingHDRI MakerRhino package
Turns bracketed camera frames into a 360 HDRI for rendering, with a smaller file for the viewport and a loader inside Rhino.
In developmentlook.pyRhino render toolkit
HDRI skies, mood and atmosphere presets and slider dialogs, for quick lighting studies on a set model.
In developmentpano2splatCapture tool
Turns a 360 panorama into a Gaussian splat: a walkable reference of a real space, taken with one camera.
In developmentOblidah:Set DesignSheet 05For studiosScale 1:1Rev A
Oblidah
for studios
Rhino training and pipeline work for art departments and productions, delivered by working art department people.
01
Studio Programme
Rhino training for art departments, delivered on the lot or in the studio. A two-day foundation, a five-day pipeline intensive, and a term-long programme for a department. Delivered by Olly with a small bench of working art department trainers.
02
Pipeline Integration
Setting a production's Rhino pipeline up in prep (templates, block libraries, drawing standards, scripts) and supporting it through the shoot on a service agreement with agreed response times.
03
Production Embeds
Olly joins a production's art department for prep weeks to set the pipeline up from inside.
04
Toolkit Licences
The Oblidah templates, libraries and scripts licensed to a studio or department, with updates.
Enquire by email
Priced per engagement.
Oblidah:Set DesignSheet 06MembershipScale 1:1Rev A
Membership
The episodes are free on YouTube. Membership holds the project files, the monthly library packs and the Q&A. It opens with the first episodes; Standby opens in month four.
Apprentice
£5/ month
- Project files for every episode
- Uncut walkthroughs where the guest agrees
- Members' chat
LibraryThe current month's drop
Designer
£15/ month
- Everything in Apprentice
- Monthly asset pack
- Monthly live Q&A, last Sunday, 19:00 UK
LibraryFrom your join date, plus a 6-month rolling back-catalogue
Studio
£35/ month
- Everything in Designer
- Quarterly portfolio review
- Episodes one week early
LibraryThe full archive from launch
Standby
£200/ month
Five seats
- Everything in Studio
- One 30-minute call a month
- A direct channel
LibraryThe full archive, plus 1:1 access
Membership page
Asset packs land on the 1st of each month.
Oblidah:Set DesignSheet 07AboutScale 1:1Rev A
About
I'm Olly Williams, a production designer. I have spent twelve years in UK film and television art departments, from art department assistant to senior art director.
I trained in architecture, have taught Rhino to art department colleagues since 2015, and run the British Film Designers Guild's Rhino 3D course. My grandfather, a film art director, co-founded the Guild in 1946.
Oblidah is the series and the studio work. My design portfolio is at oliverwilliams.com, and my sculpture project, Twelve Sittings, is at 12.oblidah.com.
- Bohemian Rhapsody
- Loki
- Silo
- Gladiator II
- The Last House
