Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/710451
www.postmagazine.com 45 POST JULY 2016 EDUCATION & RECRUITMENT The majority of the work was done out- side of class, with long hours spent in the school's computer labs. The group credits Yi for developing the story, after O'Neal and Locantore came up with the theme built around Rock-paper-scissors. "I think what is most appealing about our film is the uniqueness of the con- cept. It is so simple, yet hasn't really been played out before," says Locantore. "What does a visual representation of Rock- paper-scissors look like? We barely had anything to go off of, and our creativity was open-ended the moment we settled on the concept." A Cutting-Edge Concept The filmmakers tried to create a look for the film based on the story they wanted to tell. "Every aesthetic choice we made is closely related to the story," says Yi. "For example, you can see that lots of environ- ments in the film are very graphic. It was challenging to create the graphic look in CGI, but we all knew that it was very important for us in order to make Paper's forest believable." The artists looked to Ivan Earl's back- grounds in Sleeping Beauty for inspira- tion. "It's very graphic but also has depth to it," adds Yi. "We wanted to create that look in CG." For modeling the characters, the team used Pixologic's ZBrush and then re- mapped the models in Autodesk's Maya. The props and environments were also built in Maya. ZBrush provided the bump maps and surface details, while Adobe's Photoshop was used for "anything that involved color," Yi says. Basic animation was done in Maya, and lighting in Pixar RenderMan's new plausible system in Maya. Compositing was accomplished in The Foundry's Nuke. The software ran on the school's HP Z800 workstations. The biggest technical challenge, all agree, were the dynamics of Paper's skirt. "None of us had really worked with simu- lations before," says Locantore. In addition, the crew made cracking sims for Rock, along with believable tree destruction. "All of that consisted of smart materials and simulations, kept simple," says O'Neal. Rendering was taxing, as the group had to share the school's renderfarm with other students in the graduating class. "This meant we had to keep renders short and efficient, and try to optimize as much as we could. This was one of our toughest problems due to our long render times on some of our biggest shots," says Locantore. "Scissors alone took hours to render because he was very reflective." Winning Game Looking back on the experience, Yi says she is glad that the group stayed the course and did something that is differ- ent and fresh. "It's much easier to follow what's been done or what's been success- ful. But, we really tried to avoid that. I am happy we didn't give up [on the project], and I will definitely keep that in mind during future projects," she says. Right now, O'Neal is working at Psyop as a freelance animator, Locantore is a lighting apprentice at Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Yi is a freelance character designer/vis-dev artist. All three realize that, for the most part, the student thesis may be the only chance for animators to do their own thing, and they are glad they had the opportunity to work on their own creation. "Never stop creating. The best stuff comes from the work you do on your own time," advises Locantore. "Be bold, and do something you love," adds Yi. 'The Kiss' Love can be fragile and beautiful. "The Kiss," an animated CG short by Demorrius Sims, a student at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), illustrates this concept in a moving way. In the film, a butterfly brings two puppets to life for a romantic encounter. "I wanted to illustrate that many different elements must align for this to happen, and also how those elements are a result of both internal and external forces impacting our lives in ways that we cannot control or predict," says Sims. In addition to directing the film, Sims also completed all the look-develop- ment and pre-production work, includ- ing storyboards, animatics, style frames, mood boards and music selection. During production, he did scene setup, camera animation, lighting, shading, rendering, and compositing. He credits Michael McWethy with character animation, Brittany Williams with character setup and modeling, and Eric Anderson for the butterfly effects animation. The filmmaker mainly received feed- back in class, with the work then per- formed outside of class hours. Work on the project began during winter 2013 and was finished a year later.