The latest work in BUCK’s ever-expanding “Get an Airbnb” campaign builds on their signature miniature universe creatively and technically with this light (and obsessively detailed) take on the proverbial cabin in the woods.

Ege Soyuer, Creative Director, BUCK: “‘Surrounded’ takes the world we’ve developed for Airbnb in an exciting new direction. Instead of positioning an Airbnb on an empty stage where the focus is on the home itself, this Airbnb is nestled into a full-frame, immersive forest.

“This evolution introduces a range of creative and technical challenges – from building a procedurally generated forest that felt handmade to crafting naturalistic water simulations and animating a large cast of human and animal characters while ensuring everything retained the authenticity of the Get an Airbnb universe.

“One technical breakthrough in ‘Surrounded’ was developing a procedural tree foliage system. This world needed a lot of trees, and we needed them to grow, move, and react naturally while still feeling handcrafted and small-scale.
 

“Every element was designed to make the world feel real yet artfully imperfect in all the right ways.”

 
“We started with high-resolution tree models, carving away details and refining their shapes before procedurally generating simplified leaf clusters in Houdini. These clusters were then animated in Maya to simulate natural growth before being brought back into Houdini, where we generated masses of organic curved splines (almost like hair) within each leaf cluster’s volume – mimicking the needles of coniferous trees.

“Finally, a subtle secondary simulation was added to soften the movement and make it feel tactile and true to the physicality of a small-scale model. This process was a major breakthrough in creating miniature-style trees that feel both realistic and handcrafted while remaining fully animatable.

“Beyond the developments in foliage, the film also utilizes fluid simulations for water and a huge cast of animated animal characters. Every element was designed to make the world feel real yet artfully imperfect in all the right ways.”
 
 

 

Client: Airbnb

Production: BUCK
Group Creative Director: Joe Mullen
CD: Ege Soyuer
EP: Kirsten Collaboletta, Kim Stephens
Producers: Alex deSanto, Laura Garcia Lopez, Hanna Stolarski, Andre Araujo
Design Director: Shannon Rollins
Art Director: Carmel Gatchalian, Sung Hyun Kim
Head of 3D: Bill Dorais
Production Coordinator: Jonah Higaonna, Matthew Padua, Seth Wiles-Young
Storyboard/Cel Artist: Jake Armstrong, Tim Beckhardt, Ben Chan, Shelby Chan, Deco Daviola, Matty Deans, Syd Fini, Max Forward, Stephen Loveluck, Philippe Matheus, Blake Patrick, Tristyn Pease, Michael Relth, Will Rosado, Harry Teitelman, Anna Wang, Ruoyu Wen, Khylin Woodrow, Junyi Xiao, Tinghe Yang
Designer: Stan Chan, Marcus Collins, Matteo Berton, Jose Flores, Arron Ingold, Matthew Kam, Alex Kiesling, Rich Kelly, Chelsea Lee, Dan Muangprasert, Tom Moore, Ben Nichols, Hanna No, Johan Papin, Grace Park, Joel Plosz, Grace Poole, Pierre-Nicolas Riou, Conor Smith, Fernando Utreras, Jigyu (Jigs) Yoon
2D Animator: Dan Cantelm
Editor: Heather Bartholomae, Billy Kostka, Talia Mazzarella, Mark Ryan Myers, David Vendette, Jonathan Weisburst
Technical Director: Jens Lindgren, Nathan Shipley
3D Lead: Shane O’Hara, Kat Smith
Modeling/Look Dev: Scott Denton, Rui Huang, Ivan Joy, Ruxin Liang, Filipe Machado, Shane O’Hara, Kat Smith
Rigging Supervisor: Ernesto Ruiz Velasco
Rigging: Hernan Ares, Max Chalnick, Juan Carlos Barraza Mendoza, Nico Sanghrajka, Regina Ciccone
3D Animation Lead: John Karian, Ida Zhu
3D Animation: Alvaro Michelena, John Karian, Ryan Page, Thomas Shek, Ida Zhu
3D Lighting/Compositing: Rui Huang, Ruxin Liang, Kat Smith
FX Supervisor: Marc Steinberg
FX: Jacky Jackson, Carlos Moran Villanueva, Vraja Parra