Blended things by Bupla.

Et Toque, the new illustrated recipe book by Clémentine Derodit.

2009-11-05T18:15:00.003+01:00

Some 3D designs for the animation of the release of the illustrated recipe book by Clémentine Derodit. Check the website here.

The book (in french) can be ordered here and there.

Buildings

2009-08-03T16:36:00.002+02:00

Futuristic buildings made for an illustration. The render will be different on the final ad, that we will published in september on the Bupla's website.

Cityscape

2009-06-15T15:16:00.003+02:00

We tried to render the city of the animation “Journée” with the current version of Yafaray render. We will certainly more experiment with this render in the future.

Déjà-Vu

2009-06-02T20:18:00.000+02:00

Our last show-reel Déjà-Vu is now online. Check it here.

Some stills of our next showreel: Déjà-Vu

2009-04-20T17:31:00.002+02:00

Three different styles which will be included in our Déjà-Vu showreel, which will be available soon. Done with Blender, rendered with Yafaray. Furnitures models from blenderarchitecture and Kinnarps.

Chiku Taku: the tutorial.

2009-02-28T10:36:00.002+01:00

Chiku Taku from Bupla on Vimeo.

The tutorial that covers the making of Chiku Taku is available here, with the blend file (11 Mo) here.

Robot

2009-01-26T19:54:00.004+01:00

Al always on stand-by, we're still working on our next video. This is a still-frame test. All is made with Blender with some postpro with Photoshop, even if we certainly could achieve the same with Blender's compositing system. We have hardly made more than 50% of the animation part.

A bigger version is available if you click on the image.

Best wishes

2008-12-20T10:06:00.002+01:00

Unfortunately, due to some other works, I've to postpone the movie. I'll carry on that in January, and will improve the story during the holidays.

Right now, I make the greeting card of Bupla, that will be a short video. These are the last backgrounds tests.

Merry Christmas to all.

FK/IK Struggle

2008-11-24T17:21:00.002+01:00

I'm working on the character's rig, and it's pretty hard. It's the first time I do a complete armature with FK/IK switching system. To help me, I've downloaded two well crafted rigs: Bilby Rig from Kajimba (rigged by PyroMonkey at PromotionStudios) and BipedRig by Cessen.

Thanks to them. Right now everything works, except for the IK/FK switch. I certainly need some help because I don't understand how to deal with it.

Rain tests

2008-11-13T10:27:00.003+01:00

Al: Rain test 1 from bupla on Vimeo.

These are the first rain tests. All this is achieve essentially by animated textures and compositing with Blender. It's not exactly realistic, but it's quite in the mood I want, and much faster to render than particles. I may add puddle pools and gutters though.

I will use the same process for the car and the character but it will be more complicated because they move and they have round shapes that makes water run.

Background compositing

2008-11-06T18:45:00.007+01:00

Recently I've worked on the compositing of the motel background. Blender's node editor is a really powerful thing that can greatly improve the mood of the renders. It works the same as layers in Photoshop or After Effects. My goal here is to remove the polish look of 3D CGI by adding noise or dramatic lightning. In the same time, it could hide poor modelisation or textures (which is definitely the case here).

The first picture is a render with compositing, the second without, and the third one a glimpse at the nodes I've used here.

The motel background

2008-10-28T17:45:00.010+01:00

This is the background of the motel. The camera won't move in this shot. On the top view, you can see some black planes. These are the matte paintings: some trees and props that are far away, so I don't need to model them, it's just some textures with alpha for the transparency. I will composite these layers later with composition nodes.

The Principal Character

2008-10-22T19:49:00.003+02:00

This is one of the character, in a very simple style. Materials are just here to show the colors, I'll UVmap him later.

For the moment he has no fingers and probably won't, which will simplify the rig and the animation. I had the same decision for his face: the beard will hide his mouth (but subsurf has made a weird shape that I need to fix). All these tricks are due to the short time I have to complete the animation, but not only. That's the way I'll design every character, background, or props in the video.

That's why I was hesitating between Smooth and Solid rendering. I really love the Solid aspect, it reminds me the beginning of the CGI, back in the 80's. I will certainly use that in another project, but not for this animation.

First models

2008-10-17T17:46:00.002+02:00

Here are the first models. The black car is the one of the principal character, so it's more detailed than the other two, and furthermore, we can see the inside. I'm really not a specialist in cars, but I like the style of these.

Backgrounds sketches

2008-10-17T11:41:00.002+02:00

Three other sketches for the different backgrounds. I've done a third version of the script, and there will be 7 different backgrounds at the moment, each one will combine modelisation and matte painting.

Sketches

2008-10-16T09:54:00.002+02:00

Here are the firsts badly drawn sketches of some backgrounds and of the principal character.

Story

2008-10-11T20:23:00.003+02:00

The story is really the part I find the most difficult, because I don't really know how to proceed. So I've decided to find something intriguing, and I hope, a bit interesting. It's based upon guilt and responsability. I won't say the whole plot (because it could evolve) but if I have to sum up it would be:

During a rainy night a man is forced to commit curious acts, that may change his life forever. (Yes, that sounds a little arrogant and ridiculous, but that the only way I can describe it now).

The mood is dark, “film noir”. I'll work the light in a theatrical type, very contrasted. The rain will be very important too, and will certainly be a technical issue with the reflects, the mist …

Technical details

2008-10-11T20:06:00.003+02:00

Some details about the movie: as I said before, it will be in black & white, rendered in HD 1280x720. All 3D made, but the style I want to achieve is a bit “graphic”. Modelisation and textures here are less important than the mood I want to carry. I'll put more work in the editing, compositing and directing parts.

On my schedule it must be finished for the end of the year (2008, I guess). I've started on the begining of october, so it's really short, because I can work on it just during my spare time. See you in 3 months to see if my expectations were right.

Al

2008-10-11T18:51:00.001+02:00

This blog will be dedicated to the realisation of a short animation: Al (title in progress), from the beginning to the end. I'll will show here all the stages of the process, just because I like visiting blogs which deal with it.

Al is a 3D CG animated short in black & white, made with the package Blender, with a little bit of After Effects for the post-processing (not sure about that, right now). The movie may be divided in several short episodes (less than two minutes).