CERVUS ROSTRATUS - The beaked deer (2023)

We would like to present to you our short film "Cervus Rostratus - The beaked Deer" and give you an insight into the entire process of how this creature came to life. At the end, you can watch our VFX breakdown!

The Story of CERVUS ROSTRATUS

The project CERVUS ROSTRATUS is a docufiction written and directed by Tobias Eckerlin. The two-and-a-half-minute short film is about an unusual ancestor of the deer family, showcasing its fossil, distinctive features and the challenges of its discovery. Through visual effects, the “beaked deer”, CERVUS ROSTRATUS, can be resurrected and witnessed in its natural habitat: a prehistoric forest.

The Idea

The idea for the project stemmed from wanting to learn the whole process of creating a photoreal creature from concept to final rendering. Early on, we had the idea for a documentary style approach, drawing inspiration from BBC’s “Walking with Dinosaurs” and Apple TV’s “Prehistoric Planet”.

This approach required the creature to feel like a real animal. Additionally, we wanted to demonstrate the potential of VFX for scientific and educational purposes. We opted for a fictional creature mostly to have freedom in the design and to explore what makes a believably realistic animal and what doesn't. Alongside our own research of prehistoric animals, the amazing mentorings by Stuart Sumida and Gael Kerchenbaum helped us greatly in understanding creature anatomy and combining it with our ideas - we wrote a backstory for its anatomic structure, lifestyle and habitat.

Concept Art & Sculpting

Concept art by Valeska Bruns

When creating concept art for CERVUS ROSTRATUS, our primary goal was to develop a design that seemed believable and anatomically accurate. It was essential for us to create a creature that looked like it could have existed in reality. To achieve this, we drew inspiration from real animals for its body structure. The anatomy of a deer was our base for the body, while we referenced the ostrich-like bird Cassowary and the golden eagle for the head.

The main concept task was to blend elements from these animals to craft a design that was both functional and visually appealing. This process involved multiple iterations and careful consideration of various factors. After extensive deliberation, we settled on the final design that best captures our vision, which we then continued with into the sculpting phase.

During the concept phase, we had gathered references and started a rough sculpt. The deer’s skeleton was created through a combination of kitbashing and hand sculpting while key bones like the skull, hoofs and shoulder bone were done from scratch.

Throughout the entire procedure it was important to respect the underlying anatomy for later simulations while achieving appealing shapes.

For detailing, we focused on areas with less fur. The head was particularly interesting because of the bone crest and the beak, which we realized with a combination of hand sculpting and rock brushes. The fossil and museum armature were a mix of sculpted details and procedural solutions. Balancing detail levels and following natural wrinkle patterns was essential to ensure believability. Therefore, we chose to stick to a picture of the Cassowary as our one main reference.

We want to thank Fynn Große-Bley, who helped us a lot with his feedback and sculpting approach along the way.

Detailed view of the model including the skull. Click to enlarge.

Here you can see the skin/model first, followed by the muscles and finally the skeleton.

The pictures show the armature modeled for the skeleton in the museum and the fossil components attached accordingly.

Sculpt by Tobias Eckerlin, muscle sculpting by Till Sander-Titgemeyer

The Shoot

After translating our concepts into CG, we prepared for our on-set shoot. Following location scouting, a storyboard was created, as well as 3D prints of our sculpted head and leg. One was used as framing reference, the other for ground contact. Additional data, like LIDAR and lensgrids for matchmove, chrome and greyball, macbeth chart, hdris, fur references, etc. to match our lighting were also part of the equation. We later shot additional water droplet plates in the studio.

DoP Vincent Eckert, Onset VFX Supervisor Fabian Peitzsch

Storyboard by Valeska Bruns

Animation, Rigging & CFX

When it came down to animating the beaked dear, combining real-life references of different animals presented a particular challenge. The body of a deer – a herbivore – and the head of an eagle – a carnivore – inherit completely different ground rules for mobility. The difficulty lay in making the combination of both believable. That was the point at which we had to deviate from our real-life references. At the same time, this is also what makes the animation so exciting.

The animation rig was created with a custom-made python solution inside of Maya. The simulation setups for muscle, fat and skin were also built in Maya using the Ziva’s FEM-Solver.

Through constant feedback between rigging, concept and modeling we tried to achieve anatomical correctness – a necessity for a believable quadruped rig with muscle simulation. During the process our knowledge expanded, particularly in deer and bird anatomy, as these were the main references we chose for our creature.

Animating fantasy creatures is commonplace in the VFX industry. Our animation mentor Michael Aerni prepared us very well for this in this project and helped us every step of the way. For rigging and CFX, our mentor Mauro Giacomazzo provided valuable feedback and tips.

Rig & CFX by Fynn Aurich

Animation by Lilli-Luisa Heckmann

Pipeline

During the production, we utilized the power of USD to create an exchange system between departments, as well as collect and setup all shots for rendering in a parallelized structure – instead of the “normal” waterfall structure – which allowed for faster iterations inside every department.

Beyond that, we also developed a small animation pipeline that included tools for various DCC applications.

Grooming

For grooming, we used the Houdini Toolset as our base and for building custom tools for hairgen and shading to accomplish a photoreal look – all with the help of our great mentor Natasha Santiparp. Hair and skin shading consisted of a mix between hand painted Mari details, projected microdetails and a custom hair shader, to blend between different strand systems.

Groom by Fabian Peitzsch

Shading, Lighting & Compositing

Lighting was done in Houdini Solaris, which streamlined the process by consolidating all shots into one file and facilitating the sharing of setups. Adjustments could then be made according to scene requirements.

For the museum sequence, we kept the main focus on the fossil and just added enough light to the background to give shot context. In contrast, the forest sequence was more complex, as the plate was filmed with difficult weather conditions. Besides matching the shot, we wanted to push the lighting for what we initially aimed for. Through a combination of HDRI, manual lighting adjustments, flags & gobos, we were able to balance the integration and adjust the lighting to our needs.

Our fellow student Vincent Maurer helped us in compositing to improve the overall look. Final color grading was done in Davinci Resolve for cohesion.

Shading by Fabian Peitzsch, Compositing by Vincent Maurer, Lighting & grading by Tobias Eckerlin

THANKS FOR READING!