Space Frog and Attic

This entry comprises two projects. Firstly, we will explore the process of creating the space frog, followed by a presentation on the creation of the abandoned attic.

Feedback is always appreciated. I hope you'll like it!

space frog

Have you ever pondered the possibility of a frog constructing a rocket and venturing into space? The goal was to capture the viewer's attention by gradually unveiling an adorable little frog through a sequence of shots.

modelling

The Rocket was primarily constructed using Blender. The can and cardboard were modelled using modifiers and geometry nodes, while the glue was shaped using sculpting tools, and I did the tape using curves.

I used Mari to create the textures. The paper is one thing I would've liked to edit, it is still a bit too smooth. If you have any ideas I'm more than pleased to revive feedback!
In general, I think the texture sells pretty well in the final render.

This is the environment from shot 3. The other shots used the same environment, but from different angles and slightly improved for every scene. For example in the first shot, where I put additional sticks to sell the shot more.
the environment consists of a mixture of quixel assets and textures from textures.com.

Zoe Becker deserves credit for creating the impressive frog model and textures. Thanks to her exceptional work, I was able to quickly begin rigging this adorable creature.

rigging

The process of rigging was relatively uncomplicated, yet it played a vital role in animating the frog and bringing it to life. I constructed a fundamental rig with various controls, as showcased in the slideshow, that was used to create the animation on all shots. I rigged the frog in Maya.

simulation

The shoe simulation for the first shot was the first time I created water simulations in Houdini. The sim contains a more watery liquid and a very sticky mud-like liquid.
While I acknowledge that there is room for improvement in my liquid simulation skills, I take pride in how my first attempt came out.
I then exported the sim as alembic to combine it with the environment in Maya.

I didn't focus on the lower part of the simulation in this shot, because the feet are not featured in this shot. But I wanted to show it anyway because this shot has the most movement in the cloth.

For the cloth, I used the Maya intern cloth system nCloth. It worked really well on the third shot, but here on the walk shot, I had trouble getting the cloth to deform and still keep the look of a rough woven fabric.

I also used the nCloth system to create the reed flowing in the wind.

compositing

I used Nuke to give the project its final touches. It was very satisfying to see the shots coming together and working as one project. Here is my nuke tree for the cute space frog.

credits

In this project, I worked closely together with my co-student Zoe Becker. She was responsible for the modelling, texturing and animation of the frog, our main character. The project wouldn't exist without her dedication to this cute little fella and I'm looking forward to working with her again.

Environment contains models from Quixel bridge and textures.com.

reference images

abandoned attic

modelling

I created the glasses, the ivy, the doctor's coat and the leaves on the ground. Here you can see the process for all of them.

Zoe Becker took on the responsibility of modelling the remaining elements, including the walls, doors, and desk. She also skillfully textured these models, along with the ones created by Zeno and Ayan. Additionally, Zoe played a crucial role in addressing any last-minute model fixes as the deadline approached.

Zeno Braun modelled the rope and the water sprinkler and Ayan Galimzhanov modelled the ground and the stairs.

After every model was finished, I put them together in Maya, lit them and rendered them out with Vray. 

compositing

In this project, the compositing focused mainly on removing noise and adding more depth. I had problems getting Vray to render out noise-free images in a reasonable amount of time in this project, but with denoising and additional tricks, it looked acceptable in the final result.
Here you can see what I did in Nuke.

reference images

credits

Without the help of Zoe Becker, Ayan Galimzhanov and Zeno Braun this project would've taken way longer and probably wouldn't look like it does now. Special thanks go to Zoe as she was always the second pair of eyes and helped me a lot in finding the right colours and bringing the project to its best.

credits for both projects

Thank you all!

I hope you enjoyed the short journey of how I created both projects! I'm very proud of what I'm able to achieve after this short amount of time that I'm focusing full-time on learning 3D.
But I still have a long way to go and nothing helps me more than feedback, so don't hesitate to leave your thoughts or idea in the comments or write me on LinkedIn!

Thanks for reading!