Models from the environment of 'Spirit'

Hello, my name is Gareth Sealy, I've enjoyed my time at the UTS Animal Logic Academy Master of Animation and Visualisation course. The experience has helped me improve my skills as a 3D Modeller/Sculptor and learn important studio procedures as well as working with some amazingly talented people, so sad that it's almost over... For our first collaborative short film project 'Spirit' I assisted the art and design team by concept sculpting environmental objects and characters to develop the right art direction for our short film.

After the concept stage of pre-production, we then began production creating assets. The 'Hero tree' which sits atop the main character's burrow is based on River red gum trees and art by UTS ALA 2020 students Tim Morrow and Rajitha Naranpanawa. The large rock is affectionately known as 'Pride rock' and was based on Jess Gu's concept art. The models were sculpted in Z Brush then retopologised in Maya.

'Ground Piece 03' is a path which connects to different carefully planned sectioned areas each modeller on the team created in Maya based on layout and art. I used Maya's sculpting tools on a poly primitive plane to carve out a nice path for our character, using a combination of organic and hard surface techniques. For the old man banksia tree I referenced a real tree in the front yard, the banksia 'brush' and leaves would be added later by the surfacing and fx teams. The model started out with a poly primitive cylinder and extruding faces along CV curves to create the branches. Although there are 3D apps out there which specifically create trees it was a fun challenge making everything from scratch testing our 3D modelling skills.