Animated Short - Cheetah 3D
This was my first animated short and attempt at narrative storytelling in the CG medium. I did everything myself the summer after I graduated from high school and I am still quite proud of it.
In this project, I really learned about bump mapping for texturing, how to light a scene and how to hard surface model all desk details. This film was my first exposure to environment modeling because I wanted it to look like a desk that somebody would have actually used which meant that I had to dress it as if it was actually used. This was also my first experience rendering a long term project in multiple stages. I completed this entire film on one computer and still credit it as my first animated short.
This short was actually inspired by a comic my friends and I wrote when were in 3rd grade.
Stoneheart ~ Animated Short
This was my second animated short I made after my first semester of college. I wanted to try going for a more organic look and also tried to tackle some more serious themes.
On this project, I learned the basics of how to dress an outdoor set for a jungle/outdoor setting and make it appear like real nature. While I did model a majority of the plants visible and all of the characters, I drew inspiration from real life palm trees. This short film was also my first attempt at modeling an environment that needed to be outside which meant I needed to have a singular light source to simulate sunlight.
Also inspired by another friend’s interest in Moai, I liked the idea of this short being about how the Moai figures came to be.
Animated Short Series: Stop Motion
In these short films, I was experimenting with a couple of different things. The primary goal was to mimic the look and feel of stop motion animation. Rather than rendering complex sets with all the details I threw in my previous shorts, I thought it would be a fun challenge to composite the animated figures into actual live action photos.
In this project, I learned about compositing, character animation, writing and how to replicate photorealism in a short film setting. This was also an opportunity to see what it was like to create episodic narrative pieces which I learned was quite challenging but also very fun. I developed a workflow that would make it easy to return to when I want to make some more jokes with lego figures. This was also a first collaboration with a friend on any of my animated shorts. We both wrote these together and I did the animation, rendering and compositing.