Big Buck Bunny
Encyclopedia
Big Buck Bunny is a short computer animated
film by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation
.
Like the foundation's previous film Elephants Dream
, the film was made using Blender
, a free software
application for animation made by the same foundation.
while online movie downloads and files were released on May 30, 2008.
The film was followed up with an open game titled Yo Frankie!
, in August 2008.
After the deaths of two of Bunny's favorite butterflies, and an offensive attack on Bunny himself, Bunny sets aside his gentle nature and orchestrates a complex plan to avenge the two butterflies.
, the short movie is the first project by the Blender Foundation to be created by the Blender Institute, a division of the foundation set up specifically to facilitate the creation of open content
films and games.
The film was funded by the Blender Foundation, donations from the Blender community, pre-sales of the film's DVD
and commercial sponsorship. Both the final product and production data, including animation data, characters and textures are released under the Creative Commons Attribution License
.
It was rendered on Sun Microsystems
' grid computing
facility Sun Grid
.
, UV mapping
, shading
, the render pipeline
, constraints, and skinning
. Also introduced during the project was approximate ambient occlusion
. These features were released to the public with Blender v. 2.46.
Computer animation
Computer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
film by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation
Blender Foundation
The Blender Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for the development of Blender, an open source program for three-dimensional modeling....
.
Like the foundation's previous film Elephants Dream
Elephants Dream
Elephants Dream is a computer-generated short film that was produced almost completely using the free software 3D suite Blender . It premiered on March 24, 2006, after about 8 months of work...
, the film was made using Blender
Blender (software)
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current release version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011...
, a free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
application for animation made by the same foundation.
Overview
Work began in October 2007. The film was officially released in an April 10, 2008 première in Amsterdamwhile online movie downloads and files were released on May 30, 2008.
The film was followed up with an open game titled Yo Frankie!
Yo Frankie!
Yo Frankie! is an open video game made by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation, originally scheduled for release in August 2008. It is based on the universe and characters of the free film produced earlier in 2008 by the Blender Institute, Big Buck Bunny...
, in August 2008.
Plot
The plot follows a day of the life of Big Buck Bunny when he meets three bullying rodents, Frank (the leader of the rodents), Rinky and Gamera. The rodents amuse themselves by harassing helpless creatures of the forest by throwing fruits, nuts and rocks at them.After the deaths of two of Bunny's favorite butterflies, and an offensive attack on Bunny himself, Bunny sets aside his gentle nature and orchestrates a complex plan to avenge the two butterflies.
Technical information
Following Elephants DreamElephants Dream
Elephants Dream is a computer-generated short film that was produced almost completely using the free software 3D suite Blender . It premiered on March 24, 2006, after about 8 months of work...
, the short movie is the first project by the Blender Foundation to be created by the Blender Institute, a division of the foundation set up specifically to facilitate the creation of open content
Open content
Open content or OpenContent is a neologism coined by David Wiley in 1998 which describes a creative work that others can copy or modify. The term evokes open source, which is a related concept in software....
films and games.
The film was funded by the Blender Foundation, donations from the Blender community, pre-sales of the film's DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and commercial sponsorship. Both the final product and production data, including animation data, characters and textures are released under the Creative Commons Attribution License
Creative Commons licenses
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
.
It was rendered on Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
' grid computing
Grid computing
Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...
facility Sun Grid
Sun Grid
Sun Cloud is an on-demand Cloud computing service operated by Sun Microsystems, a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation. The Sun Cloud Compute Utility provides access to a substantial computing resource over the Internet for US$1 per CPU-hour...
.
Improvements to Blender for Big Buck Bunny
As in the original Elephants Dream movie project, Blender developers worked extensively to improve the software in accordance with the needs of the movie team. Improvements were made in hair and fur rendering, the particle systemParticle system
The term particle system refers to a computer graphics technique to simulate certain fuzzy phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques...
, UV mapping
UV mapping
UV mapping is the 3D modeling process of making a 2D image representation of a 3D model.-UV mapping:This process projects a texture map onto a 3D object...
, shading
Shading
Shading refers to depicting depth perception in 3D models or illustrations by varying levels of darkness.-Drawing:Shading is a process used in drawing for depicting levels of darkness on paper by applying media more densely or with a darker shade for darker areas, and less densely or with a lighter...
, the render pipeline
Rendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
, constraints, and skinning
Skeletal animation
Skeletal animation is a technique in computer animation in which a character is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character and a hierarchical set of interconnected bones used to animate the mesh...
. Also introduced during the project was approximate ambient occlusion
Ambient occlusion
Ambient occlusion is a shading method used in 3D computer graphics which helps add realism to local reflection models by taking into account attenuation of light due to occlusion...
. These features were released to the public with Blender v. 2.46.