Mechamorphosis

Info

Directed by Ilaria Colavito
Produced by Alberto Scotti D'Albertis
Animation by Steven Lall
Music and SFX by Helios Lyons

This project was created at Escape Studios with the help of tutors such as Michael Davies, Steven Lall and Gregorio Piscitelli as well as artists such as Andrea Lacedelli and Daniel Di Stasi

Introduction

The aim of this project  was to create a complex animation by mixing various disciplines and technical skills. As a main goal, Alberto Scotti and Ilaria Colavito wanted to enhance their skills in teamworking and prepare themselves to work in the industry, thus they decided to collaborate together to develop their strengths.

Alberto was responsible to create the tearing and melting simulations using Vellum Cloth and Grains inside Houdini as well as Grooming, Rigging and Layout. While, on the other side, Ilaria was in charge of the hard-surface and organic modelling, texturing, lighting and look development of the Caterpillar and its environment.

Alberto's Thoughts

This project seemed simple at first, but made us aware of intricate challenges linked to creating a photo-real CG character. In my case, this was my introduction to the Vellum tools as well as their roles in the CFX field. The rigging process was also a great learning experience, since I had to create a system that would allow our animator to control both the high-res organic mesh and the mechanical skeleton within it.

I would have liked to experiment more thoroughly with Tetrahedral meshes, since it is the preferred tool for soft body simulations. However, due to the fact that the flesh was getting destroyed throughout the shot, I had to opt for a Vellum Grain setup. This pushed me to learn how to specifically break constraints and modify attributes such as the stretch stiffness on an animated cache, so I could create the melting and peeling effects. The main challenge was to make sure that the skin and flesh caches looked as part of the character. 

The grooming process of the caterpillar didn't involve any simulations nor deformation, but it was essential to break up the silhouette of the caterpillar. The cached hair, which sticks to the peeled skin, was then poly-wired and sent to Maya for rendering.

Additionally, I created some simple nCloth caches on Maya to add a natural motion to the leaves which move around the subject.

I am generally satisfied with the result and even though my setup isn’t optimal, I enjoyed learning new tools that Houdini offers

Ilaria's thoughts

This project was an intense journey that made me discover many aspects of the VFX world unknown to me. First of all, the subject chosen was great for my specialization, as it allowed me to work on both organic and hard-surface modelling. It was the first time I created an organic creature and through this I could hone my previous skills and build new ones. For example, I discovered alternative ways of retopology and how to optimize an high-res model.

The mechanical skeleton was definitely the character that caused the most problems for both me and Alberto. In my case, one of the main initial challenges was building the model, because I had no concept that guided me during this phase. Going through small steps, and taking breaks to reflect on how to proceed helped me to overcome this barrier.

The texturing, lighting and lookdev tasks are always my favourite parts for the reason that I found gratifying observing the world from a close point of view. Because this project had a nice combination of organic and hard-surface textures, it let me challenge myself and learn even more.

One of the most important lessons I learnt was how to optimise a heavy scene in 'Maya' with the use of alembics, standins, and render layers. I had never explored this aspect of the vfx pipeline before and by studying different methods I managed to reduce the rendering time and get a high-quality image.

As a final thought, I would say that this last project of the Master's programme gave me the possibility to enhance my technical skills, but above all, it taught me how to work in a team and how to communicate more efficiently in a professional environment.