Coquille - ESMA

by Annadanton, Cassandrabtn, Justine, JustineAubert, and loicgirault on 6 Apr 2024 for Rookie Awards 2024

Short graduation film made during our last year at ESMA Lyon. Directed by Anna Danton, Loic Girault, Maud Chesneau, Gregoire Callies, Justine Aubert, Cassandra Bouton, Gatien Peyrude and Justine Raux. Music composed by Nans De Jesus

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Coquille - ESMA

by loicgirault

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In a small French cove, Bernard, a self-centered hermit crab, loses his shell. With the help of his peculiar friend Maurice, they both must confront the dangers of the beach to find a new one. They are gearing up to embark on an adventure that will alter their lives forever.

Teaser

Movie

Still Frames

Shots - Breakdowns

FX - Create a realistic believable sand

One of the main challenge was simulating grains for the sand. Gregoire CaIlies spent most of the year on R&D, focusing on simulation, texturing, optimization, to achieve the most realistic effect possible.

He started with a simulation of RBD grains, then assigned random grain shapes with different levels of detail depending on the distance.

For texturing, we exported everything into Maya and we utilized the flexibility of RenderMan's random shaders to create a convincing variety of grains. The real challenge remained in keeping everything light enough to allow those handling rendering to work without too many issues.

We developed a procedural sand shader, primarily used for look development on the sandcastle, but also as an underlayer for the grains, allowing us to lower the scatter density in the main purpose to optimize the scenes. Alternatively, just texture sand in the background.

Assets - Create Photoreal models using photoscan

For the majority of our secondary props, we opted to utilize Photoscan on assets previously gathered from the Calanques of Marseille. This approach enabled us to create a substantial number of high-quality assets within a short timeframe.

The process that we have put in place for the scan will include 3 to 4 circles, varying depending on the complexity of the object being scanned following the "bottom > middle > top" position pattern. These scans are performed in 'loops' containing between 40 and 60 photos, captured at regular intervals.

To ensure precise capture of objects, our setup will be equipped with three light sources (borrowed from ESMA Lyon), each fitted with polarizing filters, as well as a black cloth to eliminate background distractions. These filters are crucial for removing unwanted specular reflections from the scans. Additionally, a third light source is dedicated to capturing Subsurface Scattering (SSS).

From this journey from south of France, We also gathered several photos, which we will use as matte paintings for the beach shot, as well as for the rock opening our film, enhancing the realism of the scenery while reducing the time spent on asset creation. However, a quick sculpt of the rock will still be carried out to accurately integrate shadows and animation in post-production.