The Baby Blue Crew’s Protest
Imagine a 3D animation so remarkably realistic that even experienced 3D artists would struggle to differentiate it from real footage.
An animation that illustrates the depths to which anti-AI sentiment could reach within a community of creatives, as they express their protest by transforming the streets into their canvas. Can’t quite visualize it yet?Well, we did it for you.
Once we revealed that our team was behind creating the animation, it came as a surprise to many of our followers, including experienced CGI and VFX artists. They confessed to being completely fooled by our work, as they had thought the reel we shared on the Instagram account digital_art_is_dead, had been indeed recorded on a camera by a group of artists we randomly found online.
“The character of Rick B. is a 3D artist trying to make his art less accessible to AI, by expressing his creativity in a non-digital way.”
– Dániel Régi, creative director
The prank
As spraying graffiti on public property is a criminal offense, our CEO became furious upon his initial viewing of the clip, presented to him without any comments. His reaction was a clear indicator that he had taken the bait. Managing to successfully pull such a prank on our CEO, himself a distinguished 3D artist with a sharp eye, not only bolstered the creators confidence to continue with the project, but also secured the necessary funds.
“Besides being a great opportunity for research and development, the clip also serves as a testament and proof to that we are able to realize much crazier ideas then ever before.”
– Márton Zoltán Tóth, Chief Creative Director
The Devil in the details
To be as efficient as possible, we crafted our own scripts to automate repetitive tasks. These scripts proved invaluable in achieving realistic movement—a critical aspect in creating an animation indistinguishable from genuine footage. As seen in the creative process interview below, these scripts, combined with a range of solutions from our R&D department, were crucial in realizing our desired visual aesthetic.
The pinnacle of our efforts was the creation of a makeshift camera tracker. It played an important role in providing an in-house solution using a uniquely built setup that involved an HTC Vive controller connected to a live rig in 3Ds Max. Paying attention to the tiniest details, since the video claimed to be shot in Austria, we made sure to stick an Austrian toll pass onto the speeding car’s windshield, along with the splatters of squashed bugs to make it look real.
For a fair deal, we managed to get the right to use the fitting tunes of Onyx – TurnDaFucUp, for which we are grateful to Snowgoons.
Behind the mask of Rick B.
We’ll let the talented minds behind the concept explain the ideas, techniques and workflow in their own words through the clip below. Get some insight into problems and solutions, hardware and software used, and the artists approach to making this ambitious project not just come alive, but in realistic enough way to fool even the very best of us!