ZAN

17/09/19 - 05/12/19

3D / 2D Animated Short Film

Collaborative Project

Roles: Project Lead, Art Lead, Concept Artist, 3D Character Artist, Texture Artist, Character Animator, 2D Animator, Compositing

BRIEF

This project was created as part of an Animation Production class, a collaborative subject which aims to simulate a 3D production pipeline. The task was to create a 1 - 3 minute animated short based on a myth or a legend within 12 weeks. Story and execution were left up to interpretation and no further criteria were specified. The term was split into 4 milestones: concept pitch, asset creation, previs, and final delivery. Each period lasted 3 weeks.

overview

Four other students and I worked on this animation for 12 weeks. I was nominated as Project Lead and held the responsibility of team and project management alongside the production workload. We decided to work with a toon-shaded highly-stylized look because of time constraints as the approach we used was almost half the render time of standard surface shaders. This was a project that challenged me in many ways, both in my software knowledge as well as soft skills.

ZAN

ざん

残

斬

惨

餐

REMAINING

LEFT-OVER

EXCESS

BEHEADING

DECAPITATION

WRETCHED

DISASTER

CRUELTY

DINING

STORY

化鯨

BAKE-KUJIRA

Bakekujira, or ‘ghost whale’, is a Japanese mythical creature which takes the shape of a ghostly whale skeleton. They are said to appear on rainy nights gliding across the surface of the sea near whaling villages. A whale sightings are rare and catching one would have been a blessing for poor fishing villages as the meat and oil were profitable. However, fisherman claim that the souls of these whales would become Bakekujira and go on seeking revenge against humans.

Zan lies tied up in chains at the bottom of the canyon as its remaining flesh is being hacked off by the village workers. Only the upper torso is still intact while the exposed inner ribcage has serves as the Khan’s residence. Filled with kerosene lamps, candles, and opium only a visage of the figures inside is visible through the thick haze. A slave presents the Khan with a bucket of fresh whale fat for a taste test. Meanwhile, the growing dark clouds fill up the sky, and with a lightning flash, heavy rain disrupts the village’s routine. With a deep rumble, a wave pours down over the canyon wall sweeping away all light and life in its wake. The flood’s force breaks the chains trapping Zan who reignites with life. Once the flood has almost engulfed the canyon, the whale breaks the water’s surface and flies away into the night sky in the form of the Bakekujira.

CEL-SHADING INSPIRATION

Environment CONCEPT ART

The environment was inspired by grand canyons and rock villages. The aim was to create an arid and desolate setting that feels grand and settled in so a concept of a village living inside a Colosseum shaped canyon was what we went with. Furthermore, this type of environment required less modeling which made it easier to meet deadlines. Initially, we wanted to use the flowing texture of Valley of Fire but this was changed in favor of a more rugged look

Canyon Details

Canyon Cross-Section & Ritual Circle

BAKE-KUJIRA CONCEPT ART

Bakekujira’s appearance isn’t elaborated passed the ghostly skeleton form in fables so we had a lot of freedom to push the aesthetics into high-fantasy. For the whale design both traditional depictions of the ghost, fantasy whale concepts and deep-sea creatures were combined to get a new interpretation of its look.

Wale Coloration

Concept No.1

Wale Coloration

Concept No.2

Wale Coloration

Concept No.3

CHOSEN

CHARACTER CONCEPT ART

For the village and its inhabiting Mongolian nomadic tribes were researched and referenced. The following facets of Mongolian traditional culture have been integrated into the project:

- Yurt aesthetics and structure

- Traditional Mongolian dress

- Mongolian embroidery and ornamentation

- Characteristics of nomadic lifestyles

Nomad Hairstyle Concepts

I wanted to base the facial features on ball-jointed-dolls because they are usually very stylized and since they are 3-dimensional objects it's easy to predict how the features would perform in 3D. The following makeup variations and hairstyles are based on elements of traditional Mongolian dress and customs mixed in with other tribal and oriental motifs.

I wanted to push their dress towards fantasy rather than realism because of how fantastical the rest of the world we created was. Although Mongolians were always covered from head to toe, I wanted to convert the high desert temperature and tribalism through a lot of revealed skin.

Female Nomad

Makeup Concepts

Male Nomad

Makeup Concepts

Arnold aiToon shader test

Nomad Clothing Concept No.1

Nomad Clothing Concept No.2

Tattoo Pattern Concept - Female

Tattoo Pattern Concept - Male

CHARACTER Modeling & texturing

The heads and bodies which I sculpted in ZBrush were retopologized in Maya for animation. The clothes were created in Maya and everything was textured in Substance Painter.

During this stage, some flaws in my designs became evident, such as facial features not being prominent enough, an overabundance of small detail, and clashing patterns of cloth and tattoos. Due to this some aspects of the original design were changed.

These two models are the only character models used in the animation. Initially, we planned on creating a village chief along with these two models, however, due to time constraints he was cut out. I created three different color variations of these models: red, orange, and yellow.

3D ANIMATION

I was in charge of the animation in the following shots because they required facial animation and I was the most experienced in this area. The main challenge I encountered during this stage were fingers. I found that I made the fingers too thin and the space between them too wide which made it hard to animate the hands.

2D ANIMATION

I drew the frames for all of the 2D animations. However, I did not ink them as I gave them to my teammates to trace and auto-fill in Animate. This was my first time animating the elements in 2D and there is still much to learn about achieving a more characteristic motion.