3D Animation Pipeline - 2023 Collection

After I spent the previous year immersing myself into multiple aspects of the 3D pipeline, this year marks my first year of exploring actual 3D character animation. As you can expect, it has been equal parts overwhelming and satisfying! ;-)

Below you can find my demo reel for 2023 so far:

My largest project would have been the challenge to think of a scenario and animation for an audio clip that included prerecorded dialogue. As this audio clip contains 2 characters talking about a picture, I thought: why not put a spin on things and consider one of them a type of animated spirit, having the core concept revolve around a ghost picture? That way I can make the ghost character float and play around with the body mechanics, adding a pinch of extra challenge.

This would also be my first time creating an animation containing different sequential shots! As such, I had to experiment quite a bit with my camera work, continuity, timing and so on.

I positioned, lighted, animated and rendered the scene (the Vespa is an old low poly experiment of mine!), which included the lovely free Amanda and Dude rigs provided by respectively Artem Dubina and Animprops. I created a custom fresnel shader for a 'ghostly' look on the Dude.

As for the shader, it was fun practicing with all kinds of effects that you can achieve by mainly adjusting material properties. The 'blob' below is actually a simple high poly sphere as mesh, but with a custom shader network applied!

Material properties are also fun to practice on more tasty endeavors than a blob of entrails! Such as the whisky bottle below.

Lastly, the Vespa was originally included in a diorama that I used to practice my general modeling and texturing skills.

Back to animation: the character rig that can be seen at the end of my demo reel was rigged by me.

It is quite challenging to ensure that a rig has all the complex functionalities that it needs, and that your character is able to move in a pleasing manner. But like solving a complex puzzle, this too was incredibly fun to engage with.

To conclude our journey throughout the animation pipeline, we can't forget about the joy that creating 3D characters can be! It is quite the task to sculpt, retopologize and texture an appealing character and make sure that it is animation-ready. But seeing your character slowly gain form and come alive is nothing short from magic.

The below character is based on an amazing Yooka-Laylee concept art by Nicholas Cole:

Overall, 2023 has been an amazing year.

I hope to continue my journey further into the future, creating 3D artwork that is able to evoke a sense of wonder in people!

All the best,

Glenn