SpongeBob 360° VR Experiences
I had the opportunity to work on two SpongeBob VR projects for the Official SpongeBob YouTube channel. The first takes place in the Krusty Krab and the second in SpongeBob’s pineapple house.
I was responsible for figuring out how to faithfully recreate the 2D SpongeBob art style in a 3D space. After much experimentation, I settled on drawing the BG on an equirectangular grid so animation and BG painting could be achieved through traditional means before wrapping the video 360°. I handled making the prototype and BG layout before handing it off to the BG painter.
Original Layout
Final BG
Once the technical aspects were nailed down it was time to figure out what the characters would do in the space. It was my job to source clips from iconic SpongeBob episodes and edit them in a way that would flow naturally and feel believable in the VR environment. This took the form of a rough animatic that included the original show footage, stage direction, and easter eggs that would play out in the background while the main action took place.
After the story was approved, my next task was to make another animatic from a bird’s eye perspective so the director and animators would know the blocking of every character throughout the video. I included much more specific screen direction in this animatic because it was essential to make the idle characters look like they were behaving naturally and not just standing around waiting for their scene to start.
For the sequel it was decided that the blocking animatic would be more helpful to animators if it was in the equirectangular format they would be animating in.
Once that was approved it was time to hand everything off to the director and animation team. After clean-up finished the animation would be given to me to composite into the equirectangular BG and make sure everything was timed correctly and masked into the scene. The final video was then send off to the audio editor and published on the SpongeBob YouTube channel where it quickly rose to be one of the most popular videos in the channel’s history.
Client: Nickelodeon
Studio: Cartuna
Story Editor, Compositor, BG Layout, Technical Director: Ben Bishop