INSECTICIDE

INSECTICIDE is a student film I directed over four and a half months. In my role of director, I wrote the film with the story creators, planned out all actions and shots, animating cameras and blocking out movements as soon as we storyboarded, as well as stayed on top of the pipeline to make sure all tasks were delegated and being completed efficiently. I animated the majority of Phil's shots using motion capture through Rokoko as a basis, followed by cleaning and hand animating in Cascadeur to adjust for his abnormal proportions. I also animated some of the worm in Maya, which was very difficult as using a rig based on a single joint chain meant adjustments toward the center of mass would affect everything outwards, thus requiring more adjustment and keys. I also worked with our 2D animators to receive all their animations with alphas, so I could integrate the 2D with the 3D as planes with animated textures. All 3D effect work was done by myself, which involved two main parts: Phil's thrusters, and the giant explosion at the end. Phil's thrusters were created using two nCloth simulations, one for the innermost flame, and one for the outermost. The thrusters then were given an animated looping texture driving base color, opacity, and emmission. I created the explosion with Embergen, using particles to drive volume, and using the lab as a collider. There was a lot of back and forth with this to get it right, and the render did not do this justice. As the project neared completion, I was in charge of rendering, comping, and sound design. INSECTICIDE was a massive undertaking and I could not be more proud of what we accomplished.

Created using: Maya, ToonBoom Harmony, Cascadeur, Rokoko, EmberGen, Redshift, After Effects, Premiere, ProCreate, Blender, Substance Painter, and Substance Sampler
Individual Time Spent = 128 hours