With children under eight now more likely to watch their favorite shows online than on terrestrial TV, platforms like YouTube and TikTok have seen an explosion in animated content.
BellyFant is one of the cartoons that has enjoyed huge success in this new paradigm, with its animated YouTube shorts garnering over 50 million views.
Impressively, the whole show is produced by an indie team of just four people who are spread out across the globe.
“It's a new concept in animation that you can create things with a tiny team, put them out independently, and have millions of kids enjoying them,” says the show’s creator Pete Dodd. “That was not possible only a few years ago.”
In this video, Dodd and his colleagues reveal how Unreal Engine empowered their small team to perform beyond capacity—and how working in a real-time environment puts the fun back into animating.
BellyFant is one of the cartoons that has enjoyed huge success in this new paradigm, with its animated YouTube shorts garnering over 50 million views.
Impressively, the whole show is produced by an indie team of just four people who are spread out across the globe.
“It's a new concept in animation that you can create things with a tiny team, put them out independently, and have millions of kids enjoying them,” says the show’s creator Pete Dodd. “That was not possible only a few years ago.”
In this video, Dodd and his colleagues reveal how Unreal Engine empowered their small team to perform beyond capacity—and how working in a real-time environment puts the fun back into animating.
Getting to grips with Unreal Engine for animation
BellyFant is a happy and curious elephant who loves to hang out with his best friend—a blue hippo named Toaster—while singing, dancing, and getting up to mischief.The show is created by a team that comprises London-based Dodd doing the scenarios, storyboards, and directing; an animator in India; and two people in Canada doing the CG. And that’s it.
By building an animation pipeline around Unreal Engine, this small team has been able to punch well above its weight.
“Using Unreal Engine lets us hit a high level of quality on a schedule that we just wouldn't be able to otherwise,” explains Dodd. “It fits the indie way of working perfectly.”
Courtesy of Mummysboy Limited
Unreal Engine Artist Rebecca Melander explains that the team had never worked with real-time animation workflows prior to working on BellyFant.
“We had no experience using any real-time engine—it was scary for sure,” she says.
Uncertain what to expect, the CG artist was quickly impressed with Lumen, UE5's dynamic global illumination and reflections system.
“We do a lot of interior shots in Belly's world and with Lumen’s indirect lighting and reflections, it really helped to bring a softness to the world,” she says. “It gave us depth.”
The sets in BellyFant have been designed with a low-poly aesthetic. When lit using Lumen, this environment springs to life.
“You get all that nice ambient occlusion, you get the light bouncing around—but you have the nice sculptural shapes of the low-poly world,” says Dodd. “That was a conscious choice on our part, to make it possible to produce quickly but have all the details in the background that we needed.”
“We had no experience using any real-time engine—it was scary for sure,” she says.
Uncertain what to expect, the CG artist was quickly impressed with Lumen, UE5's dynamic global illumination and reflections system.
“We do a lot of interior shots in Belly's world and with Lumen’s indirect lighting and reflections, it really helped to bring a softness to the world,” she says. “It gave us depth.”
The sets in BellyFant have been designed with a low-poly aesthetic. When lit using Lumen, this environment springs to life.
“You get all that nice ambient occlusion, you get the light bouncing around—but you have the nice sculptural shapes of the low-poly world,” says Dodd. “That was a conscious choice on our part, to make it possible to produce quickly but have all the details in the background that we needed.”
Courtesy of Mummysboy Limited
The team started out creating their animation in Houdini and Maya. The processed animation data was then cached: stored in a simplified format so it could be reused efficiently in Unreal Engine.
These caches were driven through a database used to to track files, versions, and shot associations.
“Then inside Unreal, we actually had a little button that imported all our caches, all our cameras, and that sort of thing into a shot-based workflow,” says CG Supervisor Jason Gagnon.
Using a cache-based workflow like this is useful when working between Maya, Houdini, and Unreal, because each tool has different internal systems, and caches provide a universal format they can all read without re-rigging or re-simulating.
These caches were driven through a database used to to track files, versions, and shot associations.
“Then inside Unreal, we actually had a little button that imported all our caches, all our cameras, and that sort of thing into a shot-based workflow,” says CG Supervisor Jason Gagnon.
Using a cache-based workflow like this is useful when working between Maya, Houdini, and Unreal, because each tool has different internal systems, and caches provide a universal format they can all read without re-rigging or re-simulating.
Courtesy of Mummysboy Limited
Fast real-time rendering for the win
Small teams can often get things done quicker. Decision making can be faster, it’s easier to pivot when new ideas arise, and there are fewer layers of approval.
But to really take advantage of this natural nimbleness, you need tools that are similarly fast and agile.
Having to wait hours to rerender scenes before you can view changes has the potential to bog the whole process down, negating some of the speed and efficiency that should be an inherent advantage of working in a smaller outfit.
For Melander, that’s where real-time rendering really shines.“Working with Unreal, we knew that we were going to be fast and efficient—we just didn't know how fast and efficient,” she says.
Melander started the project just doing texturing and asset work. She quickly realized it would be easy to move on to the look dev, setting up the props, importing the shots, and doing layouts. From there, it was a natural next step to start pulling the lights around.
Courtesy of Mummysboy Limited
“I was amazed how easy and interactive it was,” she says. “So then I thought, ‘well, hey—I can do this from start to finish’. So instead of having a team of people, it turned out to be just myself doing the shot production. It's pretty remarkable that you can turn out eight to ten shots a day as a one-man band, basically.”
The team also found that the collaborative review and iteration process was a more streamlined affair when working in a real-time environment.
“You can actually tweak materials, tweak lights on the fly—you can see those results,” explains Gagnon. “That means we don’t have to do a render, send it over to Pete. He can see those things right away just in a little ten minute meeting, versus a five day difference.”
Dodd recalls that when he switched from stop motion many years ago, he initially thought that working in CG would be similar.
The team also found that the collaborative review and iteration process was a more streamlined affair when working in a real-time environment.
“You can actually tweak materials, tweak lights on the fly—you can see those results,” explains Gagnon. “That means we don’t have to do a render, send it over to Pete. He can see those things right away just in a little ten minute meeting, versus a five day difference.”
Dodd recalls that when he switched from stop motion many years ago, he initially thought that working in CG would be similar.
Courtesy of Mummysboy Limited
“I had no idea I could be looking at grayness for weeks and months before you actually see a final beautiful image,” he says. “All that is different with Unreal.”
Dodd explains that the ability to work in final—or very close to final—pixels in the Unreal Engine viewport has made the whole animation process much more enjoyable.
“Unreal helps you get to the fun part much quicker,” he says. “And because anything that can get you quicker to a beautiful image makes you enthusiastic about the rest of the project, that's a huge gain.”
Dodd explains that the ability to work in final—or very close to final—pixels in the Unreal Engine viewport has made the whole animation process much more enjoyable.
“Unreal helps you get to the fun part much quicker,” he says. “And because anything that can get you quicker to a beautiful image makes you enthusiastic about the rest of the project, that's a huge gain.”