{"id":77164,"date":"2021-06-14T14:51:17","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blender.org\/?p=77164"},"modified":"2024-10-15T15:32:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T13:32:59","slug":"blender-and-the-rabbids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blender.org\/user-stories\/blender-and-the-rabbids\/","title":{"rendered":"Blender and the Rabbids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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By Julien Blervaque and Yannick Castaing, Ubisoft Film and Television- Paris<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Between January 2020 and March 2021 we were quite busy at Ubisoft Animation Studio (in-house studio of Ubisoft Film & Television) working on a 70min long special episode of our TV series Rabbids Invasion.<\/em> This episode is named Rabbids Invasion: Mission to Mars<\/strong><\/em> and it will be released at the end of the summer on France Television and on Netflix worldwide in 2022.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We handled the storyboard, previz and editing stages internally while the following steps were done by partners studios: Supamonks<\/a>, which worked mostly on Blender, Anima<\/a> for a great part of the animation and Miroslav Pilon studio<\/a> for the sounds and voices. To facilitate the production the movie was divided into 3 acts of about 23’ each. We chose to use the version 2.83 of Blender because it was a LTS and we needed stability on the project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The challenge for us – apart from using Blender in this kind of big production for the first time, which was pretty exciting – was to offer to our movie director a very flexible previz environment so that he and the artists could concentrate on the quality and unleash their creativity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Update 12-jan-22: All add-ons are available now below<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Shot Manager: <\/strong>https:\/\/github.com\/ubisoft\/shotmanager<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
Stamp Info:<\/strong> https:\/\/github.com\/ubisoft\/stampinfo<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
Mixer:<\/strong> https:\/\/github.com\/ubisoft\/mixer<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
Video Tracks<\/strong> (experimental): https:\/\/github.com\/ubisoft\/videotracks<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
Asset Bank<\/strong> (archive): https:\/\/github.com\/ubisoft\/assetbank<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
The production <\/h2><\/a>\n\n\n\n
Yannick Castaing (VFX Supervisor):<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before talking about this special Episode of Rabbid Invasion I want to talk about the incubator team of Ubisoft Film & Televison: we have used Blender for many tests, trailers and small exercises that were made only to convince key people inside our studio, so we had to focused on the creativity more than on the technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had to onboard different people from different backgrounds, and after a few days of training it was easy, even with people less technical, to use Blender for their job. I do believe the best asset of Blender is to be able to break the big wall between 2D and 3D artists and make them work together easily (even if they are using the same tools differently). Furthermore, as a proof that Blender is stronger than ever, the quality of what we made was on the exact same level as other DCCs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On this Rabbids episode we were a small team in production, mixing skills like storyboarding, layout and look dev: 3 artists were coming from the usual storyboard department and 2 others had a 3D background. The result was so impressive that our broadcaster was amazed when they saw the previz, considering that it was much more immersive than a classic animatic.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the consequences were bigger than aesthetic and storytelling, because Supamonks, our CG partner, had all the right data about assets, lighting, and space. Even the colorscripter told us that they had their best work experience, because they had low definition assets with pre-lighting giving them a solid base to iterate!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, this organic team suffered from the distance (because of the pandemic), and we had to find solutions in order to work and communicate well. Blender 2.8x in production was a first for some of them and created some aftermath in other steps. This version of Blender changed so many things in the workflow that people had to shift their habits and mindset to embrace it well. The price of mixing 2D and 3D can also be heavy for storyboarders, as everyone ask them to work quickly and effective and we sometimes lost the flexibility of drawings but gained some consistency because of the 3D assets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our partner Supamonks was also very interested in using Blender on their side, and with my help, they went from zero to a solid pipeline in a few months which allowed them to make final assets final lighting and rendering on this 70 minutes episode. As a first experience it was a tough challenge that they successfully overcome! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Workflow and tools<\/h2><\/a>\n\n\n\n
Julien Blervaque (Sr. Tools TD, Head of UX):<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was in charge of the graphic workflow and to do so I took inspiration in my experience of live action filmmaking and stages. Thanks to our TD team we designed and developed several tools that quickly became the backbone of our pipeline.
Good news is several of these tools will be released soon to the community!!! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stamp Info<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
As you know in production it is mandatory to keep track of the context and origin of every rendered image in order to closely follow the advancement of the project. Blender already has a feature to write metadata on pictures but we needed more flexibility and additional information, such as the frame index of the image in various time systems (3D, edit…). We also wanted to have a more customizable layout. I then started to write my first add-on for Blender ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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