Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Hydro City Zone Diorama and Badniks
Hi-res pictures - https://imgur.com/a/TZ96Qc4
Another diorama based off Sonic 3&K, my favourite game ever made. I expanded the scope a lot more for this one, since there are more badniks than the last zone, I wanted them all to be properly rigged, and I made the scene size far larger, complete with a 3D background that replicates the parallax layers of the original game in Act 2. Render times were pretty high thanks to the water displacement and Bifrost simulations. I had to learn the basics of Bifrost for the first time just to make the wake behind Sonic and the large waterfall. Will definitely try to do more of these in future down the line (Marble Garden will be next), but first I'd like to make some non-Sonic stuff for a while.
Breakdowns, wireframes and process pictures are included. Sonic and Knuckles rigs were created by TheBlueBlur. Original design and IP by SEGA and Sonic Team (1994 / 2017).
Sonic rig created by TheBlueBlur! Materials edited by me. https://gumroad.com/imeda3d#AZGHj
Knuckles rig created by TheBlueBlur! Materials edited by me. https://gumroad.com/imeda3d#FjRiK
Showing off some of the basic rig functions of each fully-rigged badnik.
A video showing the rig functions of each badnik.
Smooth preview of all the badniks (top), and their original low-poly geometry (bottom).
Blastoid
Buggernaut
Jaws
Mega Chopper
Pointdexter
Turbo Spiker
Some process pictures of the environment modelling and staging process.
Reference material from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994) and Sonic Mania (2017) used to create the badniks.
A few snippets of my time learning Bifrost to create the water effects. The main body of water is using a displacement shader while the splashes and waterfall are Bifrost.
Low-poly, unsmoothed wireframe renders of the diorama.
The water wouldn't render with the wireframe shader, but it was just a subdivided plane with a displacement map.
Raw version of the thumbnail.
