[Completed]: Agent Buck Bunny (Make a Splash in Amsterdan)

Contests Make a Splash in Amsterdam
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So, after carefully considering the time I have until the deadline, I decided to join this Blender challenge with only three weeks left!

I know I have very limited time, but regardless, I decided to go big and try something really hard (for me, at least).

I chose to recreate the Agent 327 splash screen but using the characters from the Big Buck Bunny short as the actors.

I can’t actually remember the exact Blender version I first used back in 2006 or 07, as I was only a little boy trying to learn game development at the time, but I surely remember that the production of Big Buck Bunny was a big deal in that period. Fast foward some years and Agent 237 was released, and it simply blew my mind… And for those reasons, I decided to mix something from that distant time I started using Blender with a very cool splash screen from the Agent 237 short.

So, this is my starting point.

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And this is the quick concept I came up with:

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The challenge was going to be really hard even using cycles and the hair sim, but having to make everything realtime raises the bar to a whole new level. I also have to recreate 4 characters from the Big Buck Bunny short and put it all together in a nice looking scene. I already started sculpting them, and my goal is to have nice looking models, not technicaly refined characters ready for animation, which would be impossible given the time frame until the deadline. Thats it for now, I am going to be showing some timelapses of the character creations in the comming days, as well as other updates to the scene.

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Cool concept! Good luck!

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I haven’t been able to find your account on SketchFab, and I’m trying to follow all the challenge WiP-posters there – link please?

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@homspau Thanks! Yours is looking great too, very cool concept!

@KickAir_8P It is wiljunior33 - Sketchfab, but I haven’t post any model there yet

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To start, I decided to address the big elephant (or bunny) in the room first. I sculpted the bunny using some frames from the short as reference, and did a VERY basic retopology so I can paint and pose him in this early stage, to check if I am going to the right direction.

Here is the reference:

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And here is my version so far. I will get back to the texturing and grooming later (if the paiting is not enough, I will consider adding a few fur cards to make the model pop), all I need for now is a rough idea to see if everything is looking decent.

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Here is the bunny’s wirframe. It is a very rough and dirty retopology, but more than enough for a single pose and a single facial expression (I will use some shape keys for that). I will also add a multires modifier later to sculpt some fine details, which will be baked to the low res as a normal map before uploading to Sketchfab.

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Today I am going to be working on the rigging and posing, and will try to start the sculpting of the other animals.

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If I’m not mistaken, the movie files should be available somewhere so you could use the actual BBB as a base for your work :slight_smile:

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I’ve looked into it, but it seems that all the links to the project files are broken nowadays. Which is fine, because I was going to try to sculpt some animals even before I discovered this challenge, so its the perfect opportunity to do it for the competition and for improving my skills :grinning:

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Time to post some updates. I have been working on the main models until now, the Bunny, the tree, the squirrels and the chinchilla. Luckly I was able to find two of them online, so I didn’t have to model them from scratch. Still, I repainted them all, so the fur would look better without having an actual layer of simulated hair over it. I am still planning to add some haircards later, but for now I need to take care of the rest of the scene, like the expressions, positions, and the other elements, like the leaves, fuits, vines, etc. The tree I had to model as well, as it would be very difficult to find one to perfectly fit my idea. I guess the composition I have envisioned from the beggining worked pretty well with all the main actors together, as shown in the shot below.

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The two animal models I found were Frankie and Gamera, shown below before and after the quick paintjobs I made.

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Frankie: before and after.

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Gamera: before and after.

Also, here is my version of Rinky, or as I call him, the Weirdo.

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There is still A LOT of work to get this piece wraped up.

Finishing the character models (eyes, expressions, tails)

Adjusting their positions.

Modeling the spear, fruits, leaves, vines.

Adding the hair cards.

Optmize everything, and last but not least, upload it to Sketchfab and bring the whole thing to life with all the amazing filters and options of the platform.

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Hey! As we’re entering the final days of the challenge, I’d like to give you some helpful tips to make sure you can successfully complete your entry. Please see my new post on the FAQ topic.

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There’s only a few days left, so I’d start stress testing this on Sketchfab so you’re not caught flat footed. Make sure to get it on Sketchfab by Thursday, September 15, and tag it #bcon22challenge.

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So, it is finally done!

The last few days were really crazy, I havent got much time to post the proccess updates, but now that is concluded I hope I can share more about how I got from that abstract poorly sketched first concept to the final scene on Sketchfab. The challenge was HUGE, but I knew that from the beggining, as I was the one to blame for envisioning such a complex scene. The proccess was really difficult, and I almost gave up after the first days, not being confident enough that I was going to be able to delivery a decent piece. I am glad I keept going when things werent looking so good, because now I can say that I am happy with the result. I hope my work can show, even if just a little bit, how important and central Blender is and has been in my life for the last 16 years. For most of the time, it was a hobby, a way of getting my head of school, college, and later on of my stressful dayjob at a bank, but since a few yers ago I decided to fully pursuit a carreer in CG and game development, and I own everything I am doing today to the wonderful people from the Blender Foundation and the open source community.

Enough talking, here is the final model on Sketchfab. Now I have to organize all the prints, files and the big mess I made to get this piece done, so I can share a bit more of the technical aspects of the project, mainly the optmizations and the realtime aspects of it.

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Hey! Just a quick reminder that there’s now less than 12 ours remaining to wrap up your challenge entry - submissions close at 2022-09-15T21:59:00Z, GMT+1 (click on the link for some international times).

If you haven’t done so already, please review this post which contains some essential information for preparing your submission.

At the very least, upload your work to Sketchfab as soon as possible and add the #bcon22challenge tag.

It’s also a good idea to add a link to your WIP topic in the description of your Sketchfab model so we can easily find it.

I’ll also keep a close eye on the FAQ topic today, so if you have any issues or questions please post it there as soon as possible.

Good luck!

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Hey! We just announced the winners - check it out!