INSTINCT - graduation movie
It's been a long time since I published anything and I suddenly felt like sharing what I did on my graduation film last year.
I had the opportunity to go through many departments, as a lead or as an artist, it was the kind of experience you don't forget.
It's hard to sum up a year of work, so here's a selection from the tasks I did, maybe it will give you some ideas, you never know.
The script was originally written by me, and then reworked when my group was formed.
There were eight of us to make this short film. There were ups and downs, advances and delays, a tight schedule that was kept despite some nasty surprises, and a few sleepless nights in the end.
Overall, it was a unique experience from a human point of view.
I was primarily in charge of the pipeline and production, and the creation of tools. That's what I do now. I discovered I wanted to do this job during the year.
My second speciality was rigging. I did a body rig, two human facials, an octopus plus a bunch of fish, moray eel, shark and crab. Not everything was used but it was fun to do :)
2D Keyshot of the appearance of the octopus. Objective, to give an atmosphere and identify future FX
2D Keyshot of the descent along the wreck. The framing was validated but we did not choose this artistic intention.
Another 2D keyshot, the script changed and this moment is no longer in the film but it was fun to do.
A rough moment of action
A rough of the final framing, we didn't know yet if we would end up with a outline shot or a close-up.
Concepts and plans of the wreck
A bit of RBD, we wanted to recreate a metal effect in a simple way.
In addition to the rig, I added a Vellum setup. It was only used in cases where the octopus head was visible.
A vellum setup for the suits. Finally, I simply used blendshapes to simplify the workflow as much as possible.
Our props and items were all rigged for easy dressing. This tank is a bit too much rigged :)
Among the rigs we didn't have time to use, there is this shark.
This shark was not really used at all in the end, but it was textured.
This moray eel was not used either. At first a scenic element, it was finally just cut. For its rig, I had reused a tentacle.
Some R&D on sediment clouds
A coral module, modelled and assembled using maya MASH
Another coral module, modelled and assembled using maya MASH
I also co-created a scatter tool to spread the corals on the wreck.
The biggest problem with our film was the motion blur on the grooming. After weeks of research, we decided on the 2D motion blur solution. It was even prettier at times.
Our shots averaged between 400 and 900 frames. I created a pipeline that makes light scenes, multiple people working on the same shots at the same time and rollbacks.
Finally, some compositing. This shot is one of the ones where I had the most fun. The difficulty of the sequence shot was to connect each shot well.