3D Animation for Film

These 3 animations were done during my time at 3dsense Media School. Each one spanning over a month and bearing its own set of difficulties and challenges, as well as lessons learnt. I was definitely able to grow as both an artist and an animator thanks to the guidance and feedback from my teachers and peers. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of animating these projects and seeing my ideas come to life definitely serves as a reminder as to why I initially wanted to become an animator.

Parkour

This was my final project for term 2 at 3dsense Media School. Going into this project, I wanted to work on my weakest link when it came to animation, which is body mechanics. With that in mind, I chose references that were out of my comfort zone and would push me to my limit. The reference I compiled and pieced together were also inspired by both different scenes in various anime as well as the rooftop scene in the 2004 Catwoman film.

This project was also my introduction to animating camera movements and it also introduced me to the terror known as gimbal locks. I struggled very much with the posing of the characters as there were times when I was unable to find references that matched the poses I wanted at the correct angle, hence it taught me to improvise and use my references as for what they are- references, and rely on my artistic sense and feedback from my teachers and peers to make sure they look realistic and as accurate as it can be to my chosen camera angle.

Overall, there were many takeaways that I gained from this project and despite the struggles, I found myself fearing body mechanics less and enjoying the process of animating it more. 

Progression Reel

The next two projects were done during my third term at 3dsense Media School. For our third term, they introduced us to a whole new world known as acting. Initially, I dreaded the reference taking as I struggled with expressing myself in front of a camera. It was hard trying to express my ideas through my own body, face and acting choices. But through this experience, I was definitely able to learn more about acting such as what are bad acting choices to avoid and what makes for a good and interesting shot, how different emotions can be expressed through body language and facial expressions, and it also taught me to overcome my fear of being in front of a camera.

Pantomime

For this project, I was inspired just from seeing a strangers' blind date experience whilst I was getting my dinner after class. While their date went well for them, I wondered what it would be like if it hadn't? Or if the date had been someone who was completely different from what they were expecting. With this, I came up with my reference after experimenting with various acting choices and getting feedback from my lecturers and classmates.

For the blind date whom they weren't expecting, I wanted a rig that would definitely cause quite a shock hence I went with Hotel Transylvania's zombie rig.

What I had not expected whilst recording the reference was that the hand shaking at the end of the shot would be one of the more complex animations that I had ever done. It also taught me that even in the most complex and irregular of movements, there would still be arcs. This was actually pointed out to me by my lecturer whilst he reviewed my blocking. Since then, I find myself being able to identify arcs better- be it in real life, through observing people's motions or through animations and films. 

Progression Reel

Dialogue

The dialogue assignment came after our pantomime and it definitely bumped up the difficulty. Whatever I had learnt from pantomime carried over to this assignment with a whole new challenge of its own- lipsync. Lipsync was definitely hard to understand initially with many shapes being shared by different vowel consonants and some blending with each other. Taking a reference of myself saying the line definitely helps as it taught me to observe for the keyposes, important vowel shapes and which shapes blend with each other to form the different phrases.

For the idea behind it, it was definitely inspired by DC’s Joker and it had been a dream of mine to attempt to act out a character like him. I tried to incorporate elements of him especially through the facial expressions which I felt was where the his personality shows the most.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this assignment the most and I look forward to animating more dialogue shots in the future.

Rigs are Kunoichi by Kiel Figgins, Sam by Gabriel Salas, Zombie from Hotel Transylvania by Sony, Apollo by Ramon Arango.

Props and environment were mostly from Sketchfab, Turbosquid, parkour environment is from Kitbash3d’s Neo City and pantomime environment was done by an alumni from 3dsense Media School, Brandon from DGA06. 

Progression Reel