 Welcome back to another product review, and today I'm going to take a look at the art of book of a VR project called Baba Yaga. Full disclosure, I was sent this book by Baobab Studio for review purposes. That is the book and it's glory, front and back, the spine. And if we take this off, beautiful looking or really nice texture, front and back. The release date of the book is actually today, October 26th. This is a hardcore version, price is around $40, depending where you're going to get it. And if you're watching this year, I'm going to give you a discount code of 10%. Just put in the code JDH10, I'll put a link in the description. It's also blended in. You can see this. Thank you Baobab for providing this to my viewers. You can also get it as an Amazon ebook. But before I continue, you might be wondering what is Baba Yaga and who is Baobab? Well, let me tell you, it's a VR animated short. It's kind of an interactive short and I'll show you a couple of shots here from the trailer. Or you can carry the lantern and come with me. Fresh me from the village, head straight to Baba's Kitchen. Who dares to enter my forest? Don't know. Keep her distracted. I'll get us out of here. I promise. Of course, in 2D form, it's never quite the same as being fully there with the full scale in a VR environment, which is so cool. But if you want to check it out, link in the description to the trailer, the studio and all the information about the project. I'll put the link of the trailer in the description. Of course, go check it out. And of course, the Baba Yaga webpage and the Baobab Studio webpage as well. If you don't have a VR headset, I hope that you have a friend who has it. I really recommend that you go check it out. It's really cool because it's not just kind of a limited animation where you kind of go in and check things out and you got some interactive bits here and there. It's a fully animated production and the animation is really bananas. Most of it is done on twos. Some of the other aspects are done fully spying on ones, but it has a really cool effect to it. And I'm really blown away by the animation and I feel really bad for the animators because if in VR it's you don't have cuts, it's just one continuous piece of work until it might blend into a different section of the story. But I was watching this going, that's a long shot to animate and it's really cool. I mean, you look at the history of the studio. It has nine Emmy awards, two Emmy awards. I mean, it's a good studio and the talent behind it is fantastic. So if you look at that resume, you might not be surprised, but the animation is really complex. The acting choices are cool, like a lot of asymmetry, really nice posing. I was really blown away by the animation. It don't just take my word for it in terms of the quality. The Baba Yaga animated VR film is the winner of three Emmy awards, Outstanding Interactive Media, Outstanding Directing Team, Outstanding Individual Achievement and Character Design. Not surprised because it's awesome. But the super cool thing about the VR thing is that you can choose the story and the story has multiple endings, which is also really neat. But once you're done, you can have a audit commentary. So as you go through the whole experience again, you got the creators talking about the project. I'm Ken Fountain. I am the animation supervisor here at Bay of Babs Studios. And the cool thing was, first time around, I was playing it, did everything and you're supposed to do interactive and everything. Second time around, I just sat back, watched the story, listened to the commentary, I didn't do anything. And it will do the story choices for you. If you don't do anything, it will wait and it'll just make the choice for you. So you can technically just sit back and watch the whole thing, but you could really concentrate on the animation again, which is bananas. It also has an art of section, which is fairly small, hence the art of book, which I would recommend. And then it has a making of, and it's behind the scenes footage. So you have the creators involved in a couple of interviews. It does so much for animators. But you also have animatics. You have facial tests. You have animation tests. You have some final shots, artwork. It's really cool. It's also fairly long. So it's not kind of like a fluff piece, but you can't scrub. So when I watch it, I thought, this is really neat. How long is this? And all you can do is play and pause. So I don't actually know how long it is. I didn't time it. I wasn't expecting it to be that long. It's really comprehensive. So if you watch it, set some time apart that you can actually finish it. But as a whole, it's really cool to have the experience, the commentary, art of, and a making of. That's pretty neat, I gotta say. And I also captured the credits because I wanted to see who did the animation, who the animators are. Shout out to Michael Wilson here. So go check it out. If you have, let me know. I'm curious what you did. I checked it out on my Quest 2. It was great. But let's get back to the book here. Let's go back just quickly to show you 155. I think it's in total 159 pages. You get ones upon a time embarking on the adventure. So you got your four words. Let's go through. It's a big book. So I'm going to go through in a faster form. Get some of the character designs here. If fairy tales come alive, meet the characters. It's, again, an intro text. That's your sister. So you don't play this character, but you are watching her. And it's Magda. Get some early designs here. Got some design explorations. You got the lantern, which you can interact with and use at one point. Continues on with storyboards. Full page artwork. The chief, which is the mom. The weaponry here. Cool. These are cool. Then you got Sasha, which you are playing. Get some storyboards again. And then of the force. That's where you go into at the very beginning. Baba Yaga. You got here explorations of that character. It's also really cool, the intro. Again, I don't want to say too much. It's probably going to see it anyway. But the direction, like the story direction, the screen direction, just is really well done in terms of where you're supposed to look. But the tricky thing in VR is that it's 360. You get to look wherever you want to go. And it has with the flower kind of guides you where to look, the sound design guides you where to look. It's over really well done in terms of the framing with some 2D elements and 3D elements in terms of the staging composition. It's really cool. Also, in terms of 2D elements, everything is in 3D, but some of the effects are hand drawn in 2D. And the art style, the art direction of it is really cool, especially towards the end. Spoiler, but the effects are really neat. It's awesome designs. Look at this. It's great. Lots of detail here. I love this here, the floating eyes. These little things here and some of the elements where it's not like a loading screen, but it kind of prepares you for the next sequence and next scene. You get these little things that kind of float around all animated on tubes and even like their little animation. The attention to detail is really cool. I mean, the theme here is really cool. And it really is. The effects here, more storyboards, two-page design, spoiler. Like I said, spoilers. Entering reality, touring the world of Noro. That's really neat too. The very beginning is more like a 2D cut out kind of like a pop-up book that kind of tells the beginning story until you get into the actual 3D part of it. That's cool. I love this here. That's really neat. Some color keys here. Look at that. More details. That's the kind of the beginning style, how the story is told in the prologue. It's very cool. Look at this. That's cool. Love this. It's really a detailed art of a good thing. Home sweet home. That's where you start. This is also really neat. This is on the left side. You see the bed on the left side you got. Here are some family portraits and images there. That's the bed. That's where you start. Yeah, these are so great. And the cool thing too is that as you continue the story, there's always enough of a kind of urge to continue and a guide to where to go, where sometimes in some of the VR stuff, you are kind of waiting when you start wandering around to see, well, what if I put my head through this geometry and what can I look at? And there's enough flow and in the pacing and the storytelling that you never feel like I got to wait. Well, let me look at something. There's always something going on, but it's not rushed. That's something else that also knows that was really cool. Walk in the woods. These are neat. Ooh, that's the beginning. When she starts off, it's really nicely silhouetted. 360, Paramount View, Force and Stormset. That, Plants and Vines, Animated 3D. Yeah, that's cool to see how they break it down. Yeah, it's neat that it's just images and that's in the art, but it shows you how they went around staging the whole thing with all the layers. That's why it's cool to have VR art books. Yeah, these are cool too. So it's at the very beginning. That cool designs. Neat. Chompy Plant, Base Breakdown. That's also an element that happens at the very beginning with this here. The little ones are super cute. Again, this is kind of the interactive element. Also, you can use controllers of course, but it's also a hands-free experience. That's a funny thing. So the first time around, I wanted to use the controllers just in case to see how it goes. And then when I went through the second time around, I just used the fingers and the tracking is really good. You do all your things with your fingers and it's just a different feel of not having to hold controls. You're just freely moving around and using your fingers. Also really well done. And you can see this in the trailer footage where it's kind of like a graphic shape in terms of the animation. Very stylized, very cool. Look at this here, that's cool. Some storyboards. Where stuff catches the fire spoiler. The house that hunts. Right, and then after that, that's also really neat. How this ginormous house on the legs comes towards you. After this here, it turns around and then grabs you. These are cool. And then you are in the interior. A little page, lots of artwork here. That's cool. Cooking Island, Knowledge Island. That's neat too. That's the intro of Baba Yaga. Also really nicely done with the sound design which is super cool. That's neat. Love that. Look at this. Cauldron texture reference. That's the good stuff. That's when it gets to the anime in it. I just like when effects are not... Sometimes you have a tendency in CG features where everything is stylized, the character design is stylized and there's some stylization throughout. But then when it comes to effects like fire, water, hair, all the sim stuff is simulated where it's kind of photo-realed in terms of not just the look but also the physics and timing. And in this case it's not, it's all hand-drawn with very specific stylized movement to it. I love that. That's the cage that you find yourself in. There we go. We headed towards the end. Spoiler. You got multiple choices towards the end here. Optionally ever after. Nice. And then you can choose what you want to do. Grab the mask, yes or no. The flower, yes or no. Good acknowledgments. And then credits. Full page ending here. And then we have that. And then it's empty. And there you go. Baobab Street of Production. Again, a really nice book. Really nicely done. Bring this back. Like I said, a limited edition hardcover with only 500 copies printed. And a really beautiful book overall. It really is fitting for the whole production, the overall quality of the animation, the art design, the music, the voice acting. It's really super cool. So if you do have a VR headset, I highly recommend you check it out. If you don't have a headset, I highly recommend you find some with a headset and check it out. It's super cool. And again, the book is out today. Check it out. Link in the description with all the information to the book, the studio, all that good stuff. So that's that. Thank you for watching. And if you liked this, let me know. Let me know in the comments as well. Subscribe if you don't want to miss any of my other uploads. Feel free to do so and hit that bell button so you get notified for my next uploads. And that is that. So thank you for watching till the very end. As always, thank you for your patience. And I will see you in my next upload.