Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Angel Island Zone Diorama and Badniks

Hi-res versions - https://imgur.com/a/FUn9AzI

A 3D fanart piece based upon my favourite game of all time - Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles! For convenience let's just call it Sonic 3. I originally had the idea to just model all of the badniks (the robots from Sonic games), but then wanted to showcase them in a unique themed environment, just like in the games. I admittedly didn't spend too much time on the grass/dirt and some other environmental details as the focus was more on the badniks, but it was great practice for making stylised, natural models! All materials were done in Maya, rendered in Arnold GPU.

This is my first major personal project since getting my animation degree last year and overall I'm pretty happy with it and would love to continue with more zones. Worth noting that the original sprite background is used in the scene as well. Credit to SEGA and Sonic Team (1994).

Sonic and Knuckles rigs made by TheBlueBlur - https://gumroad.com/imeda3d

I spent a long time trying to get that lighting looking just right. I really wanted to give the illusion of a dense tree canopy above, only letting in scattered shafts of light.

Even with Arnold GPU, these renders took a very long time! Unfortunately there's still some noise if you look closely, but I didn't want to waste several weeks getting each shot looking noise-free.

Since Knuckles is tricked by Eggman in Sonic 3, I wanted to portray him as looking a little bit more cocky and villainous. He's proudly showing off the seven Chaos Emeralds that he just stole off Sonic from the game's iconic opening sequence.

Ziplines are a unique gameplay component of Angel Island, so I knew I had to feature them in the piece somewhat. I figured having Sonic zipping downwards while chasing after Knuckles was a good representation of the game's story.

This shot was made mainly to showcase the Bloominator (flower badnik), but it features every other badnik as well.

The light shafts really pop in this wide shot.

Raw version of the thumbnail. Honestly not too happy with how the lighting turned out on this one, I was a little in a rush to get everything finished because rendering takes so long. Based on the American box art for Sonic 3 by Greg Martin.

Mostly smooth-preview meshes for the environment.

Low poly wireframe of Bloominator.

Low poly wireframe of Monkey Dude.

Low poly wireframe of Rhinobot.

Low poly wireframe of Caterkiller Jr, complete with the somewhat unused particles.

Monkey Dude and Bloominator - the first two badniks I finished, I originally posted this as a teaser on Twitter. Blmn8r was my first experiment with the aiCarPaint and I loved the results I achieved. MDude looked nice but I later gave him car paint too.

Rhinobot - this one was the hardest, mainly because of the helmet shape and eyes. I struggled trying to match the angry brow shape from the 2D concept art, and wasn't sure how to shape the eyes. In the end I left them as spheres sticking out the head.

Caterkiller Jr - would have been the easiest if not for the energy particles it emits. I created all three shapes of them from the game, but found it difficult to consistently light and pose them well in 3D, so I mostly avoided showing them off.

Bloominator modelling and materials process. The aiCarPaint shader did wonders for capturing the colour fade as seen in its original sprite from the game. I loved the look of bright paint flakes.

Caterkiller Jr process. I experimented with lots of different ways to make the particles glow - emission, mesh lights, point lights through a translucent mesh, but it ended up being a little out of scope for what I was doing, so I left it on the side.

Monkey Dude process - was torn between a few slightly different design incarnations of this one, since it appeared in Sonic 3, Sonic Mania, and the animated Sonic Mania Adventures shorts.

Rhinobot process - the longest one no doubt, I actually started on this one first, and finished it after doing Monkey Dude and Bloominator. Happy with how it turned out, but still could use some minor touch-ups for sure.

Palm tree process with a sprite reference from Sonic Mania Plus (2018), which brought back Angel Island. I preferred the colours and detail in this version and used it over the original sprites from 1994.

Enviro Process (had to split between multiple images because it was too large!)