Big Buck Bunny is out. It’s a ten-minute short film created entirely with free, open source software, with all of the 3D modeling, animating, and compositing done in Blender. (Blender is awesome. I’ve been using it on and off for around ten years now and it’s pretty much amazing. The free part helps, too. :P)
Anyway, I liked Big Buck Bunny a lot more than Elephants Dream (their first short film, released two years ago). And while of course it isn’t perfect, you can’t really beat free. The movie itself is licensed under the Creative Commons, too.
So, a critique. Great characterization. The fur’s amazing. (They added that to Blender specifically for this film, by the way.) Character animation is really good, too. At first I wasn’t sure I’d like the story, but it turned out better than I expected. Cinematography is excellent in most places. The music is pretty much perfect. The credits are creative. (Though I could have done without the very last part.) And as a whole, the film is deliciously gorgeous:
And:
That said, I felt some of the sunlit scenes were a bit too bright and washed out. Sure, that’s how it is outside at noon, and I’m sure they wanted a light, happy mood as well, but I wanted some darkness, some contrast. (I enjoyed the second half of the film more precisely because of that — most of it was in shade, and it was so much more soothing.) Some of the cinematography wasn’t perhaps as good as it could have been, too.
But that’s about the only criticism I have. It’s an incredible improvement over Elephants Dream, and the Peach team deserves serious kudos for pulling this off. It’s amazing what a little passion can do.
Watching the film, by the way, really makes me want to start creating short films in Blender. :)
[tags]Blender, Big Buck Bunny, Elephants Dream, Peach, Orange, Creative Commons[/tags]
Comments
Ah, blender… Gonna have to watch this one. I use Maya almost exclusively these days, but I do miss open source. If only my modeling were up to snuff with my animation, rigging, texturing and lighting, but that’s where practice comes in :)
I’ve dabbled around a little with the trial version of Maya, and I really prefer Blender’s interface, actually. (But then I’ve used Blender more, and familiarity usually does get preference. :)) My 3D skills are still embryonic, but I’ve decided to throw my heart into it and really get good. I just need to put the time in… When are you going to get your portfolio up on your website, btw? :)
Maya’s learning curve is what deters most newer 3D types. Once you learn it though, it is the most wonderful interface I’ve ever seen. Although I do like 3ds max’s particle engine better.
As far as my portfolio goes, my photography portfolio has to get put up first, which should hopefully be in a few days. Once my backlog of customer and business work gets out of the way, I’ll get back to my personal stuff :)
Someday I’d like to give Maya another whirl, but in the meantime, Blender’s got my focus. :) I’ve started drafting out the storyboard for a short 3D animation I’m going to use to bootstrap myself into the skillset. We’ll see how it goes…
Email me when you get your portfolio up.
Throw in your two cents