Supernatural Climate Change - Catalogues

DEPLETE Catalogue for Media Art Nexus

by Andronicus Koshy

abstract.

Deplete presents a possible outcome of a world, shared between her bountiful resources and the unending greed of man.

ideation.

Initially, I thought of making this a loop. But then that would justify the character’s consumption since the land would replenish itself completely at the end.

So, I moved towards the direction of showing a new world, it blooming, and then a character coming in to cut it off at its peak.

ideation..

And then to emphasize growing greed, I decided to let the character grow in size as it consumes more and leaves the land decayed.

process.

Because I knew this would be a heavy 3D project, I jumped straight to C4D to do tests; using the experiments to work out the direction this piece would take (instead of the usual drawn storyboards).

workflow.

I used: Zbrush to sculpt the wooden log Substance Painter to texture that Cinema4D for environments Redshift to render (and Material Blender to touch up the wood material) After Effects to composite the sun and sky + adding camera shakes (my first time!)

experiments.

experiments..

attempts.

To do the wood disintegration I first sculpted 3 pieces of wood: a big trunk > medium plank > thin stick.

The plan was to morph the 3 objs together in c4d, but that didn’t work out because the number of points in each obj were too different.

Then I tried animating Fields with a displaced version of the objs using Noise Shaders, but that gave a very exaggerated effect that wasn’t working out for me.

attempts..

For the plant growth, I used the reverse method of the wood decay attempt. So, Linear Fields and Plane Effectors that basically let the duplicated shapes start from size 0, then increase to full size as the animated Fields goes over the ground.

This worked out very nicely for me, but the file was super duper buper heavy since each plant (or primitive shape) needed to be multiplied from a range of 10,000 to 150,000 in order to fill up the scene ground completely.

oh well.

I was happy with the visual result, but each frame was taking 5-7mins to render. So, I planned to render the shots out quickly and then do the colour corrections, rim lighting and blurring in After Effects.

To further optimize my renders, I created duplicates of the project files and deleted all unnecessary elements not seen in the camera for each scene. I also chose to create the sun and sky in AE, instead of rendering a native or IBL sky within C4D.

That’s about it.

Thank you for reading and watching!

Andronicus Koshy Animator | Compositor Portfolio site @leftclot

ARTIST REFERENCE

ABSTRACT

MOOVER is a satirical commentary on how cow farts are a huge contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions of methane gas, bringing about this Supernatural Climate Change

YUE MINJUN’s clones and their hysterical smiles really exude how lightly we take certain situations and issues for

DAVID SHRIGLEY’s wacky sense of humour in his simple yet satirical illustrations really matched with the kind of humour I wanted this piece to have

MOODBOARD

TECHNIQUES

BEEF/MEAT Instead of just using red and yellow to represent the meat, I tried to include other colours that could intensify the look and make it more interesting to look at

EARTH TOPOGRAPHY Drew a link between the meat tendons/fats and the topographical look of land. Thought it would be a good transition

DIMENSIONS Calculated the size of the 10 square building screen and downscaled it into a canvas size of 2120 x 1440px Blocked out the areas where the screen would curve and the sides of the screen

PROCREATE Did frame by frame stop motion for the entire animation

FARTS Played around with opacity to recreate the gaseous appearance of a fart / methane gas

INITIAL SKETCHES

Used a pencil textured brush to achieve a sketchy doodly like effect Essentially the whole animation is a compilation of a huge number of gifs!

I just layered them over one another in PREMIERE PRO

STORYBOARD

Realised After Effects was too difficult for me to achieve what I wanted to. Fell back to my expertise in Procreate instead

Ina’s Pro Tip!: Label your scenes so that it’d be easier to refer to and build the animation

Initial storyline

Storyboard for the Musician

Made duplicates of the canvas so that I can fill in the respective scenes easily when necessary

PROTOTYPE

| BIOGRAPHY

LEE SI YING AUDREY

FINAL (STILLS)

is an Interactive Media Student who can draw better than she codes (HAH) She loves wacky stuff and calls her art, f(art)s - thus this entire animation about cow farts :) She hopes to spread joy to people through her f(art)s

CONTACT ALEE050@E.NTU.EDU.SG PORTFOLIO AUZWEE.MYPORTFOLIO.COM

1Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Media Art Nexus DA9012

IRREVERSIBLE BLISS

Supernatural Climate Change AY2021/22 Semester 1

Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

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ABSTRACT

Irreversible Bliss is a commentary on humans greed with natural resources for their own benefits which has exacerbated the climate change crisis. It is also inspired by the “Green Urban Utopia” that lends its name to city of Singapore because of their efforts to incorporate nature back to this concrete jungle due to its already geographically disadvantaged location and lack of natural resources.

The animation follows the process of tampering with organisms that later reveals a manicured man-made garden city landscape, in response to civilisation’s last resort to preserve its last contact with nature at the brink of an official depletion of natural resources. The mix of natural and man-made wonders, blurs the line of fantasy and reality forcing civilisation to live in peculiar, anthropocene environments and coexist with artifical ‘natural’ beings.

Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

SCENE 1 -

Cell Manipulation

SCENE 3 -

Peculiar Habitat

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pg. 11 - 13

pg. 18 - 23

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pg. 14 - 17

Supernatural Climate Change

Media Art Nexus DA9012

SCENE 2 - Bubble Expansion

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

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RESEARCH “Green Urban Utopia” BBC nature documentary Planet Earth II, David Attenborough.

Singapore

A Garden City to a City in a Garden

Intersection between technology, nature and culture

Rejuvenate urban parks and enlighten streetscape with world-class gardens

Natural vs Man-made

Interconnectedness of ecosystems

Mix of natural and manmade wonders, blurs the line of fantasy and reality

Ecosystems are collections of Nature’s energy conduits.

Energy is the operating currency which connects and drives all animate and inanimate objects in the Universe.

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Media Art Nexus DA9012

Manicured man-made garden city landscape

Hybridised digital-natural elements Using systematic, hierarchical elements of geometric and/or organic elements e.g. abstract/non-abstract shapes, flowers, trees, mountains in unexpected, artificial representations as a final attempt to revive the city Dichotomy between man-made and natural elements: / beautiful yet eerie / ethereal yet destructive / lucid yet obscure

Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

VISUAL REFERENCES

Velocity Walid Aziz 2021

Experimental Collection 01 Shane Hanlon 2021

Illustrations for the book about bacteria Alexander Nazarenko 2021

colorful organic.

Vinicius Araújo 2021

UNAPOLOGETICALLY ALTERED Exploring a future where plants created through gene-editing technology will become of the norm. Using lines and motions to represent the tampering of organism’s biological structure.

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One night by the Orchid Tischk Barjanzi 2018

Media Art Nexus DA9012

MATRIARCHY For Foreign Beggars Where you are, Tischk Barjanzi is not Who you are 2019 Tischk Barjanzi 2017

PEACEFUL DREAMSCAPE A reimagined future where nature and humanity coexist and work parallel to one another. An anthropocene reality with an abundance of converging lines and shapes.

Ecotherapy Khyati Trehan 2020

New York Times, Sunday Review Cover Khyati Trehan 2020

Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

MUSIC INSPIRATION KEYWORDS ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

Ambient Peaceful Dramatic Sombre

AUDIO REFERENCE ✦

Weather soundscape

✦

Raindrop

✦

Piano String instruments Slow tempo

✦ ✦

00:07s - 01:28s Grass – Silent Partner (No Copyright Music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlohuOGWzG8&list=PLsrXtkGZIXI4gddxyrUv59WznnE31VLYw&index=5

01:49s - 02:50s Where Silence Is Nonexistent – A Himitsu (No Copyright Music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXi_NANO3tA&list=PLsrXtkGZIXI4gddxyrUv59WznnE31VLYw&index=4

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OPENING SEQUENCE

00:00s-00:08s Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

STILL IMAGES

Irreversible Bliss

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00:09s-00:33s

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After Effects plug ins used: Borix FX Sapphire Visual Effects • Sapphire Distort Trapcode Suite Maxon • Trapcode Tao

Advanced Lightning

01

Function: Conductivity State

Function: Turbulence

Sapphire Distort

02

Tampering of organisms The animation starts with an influx of faded organisms lingering in the background, then becoming more prominent as the animation progresses.

The 2D cell organisms is created using After Effects ‘Advanced Lightning’ tool and a plugin called ‘Sapphire Distort.’ The 3D shapes that bubbles in proximity to one another is created using another plugin called ‘Trapcode Tao.’

Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

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Youtube Tutorials

Simulation Effects in Adobe After Effects CC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWmax5ukRq4

00:35s Bubbles surfacing The background of the scene suddenly turns from black to blue using the ‘Gradient Ramp’ function. The blue background takes its colour from the colours of the previous scene’s bubbles.

Bubbles can be seen slowly surfacing and enlarges in size.

00:37s Metal liquid lingers The bubbles reflects the process of the organisms being tampered and refined, by evaporating into water molecules.

Metal ores join the scene to show that they have been chemically processed as well.

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00:40s

CC Mr Mercury This simulation effect on Adobe After effects allows you to take any given image and create liquid blobs that look like burning, floating embers.

The movement of these blobs can be determined by adjusting the birth rate, velocity, gravity and longevity (sec) to what you want the animation to look like.

Supernatural Climate Change

Media Art Nexus DA9012

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

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00:57s

01:02s

01:04s

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The concept from the process of boiling and materialising this organisms, the bubbles takes form into possible future landscapes. Each unique and distinct from one another.

The bubble enlarges until it finally fills the screen, and the next scene shows the manicured landscape in its full glory. This transition between the 2 scenes was created by using the two images of the landscape masked in the shape of the bubble, then layered on top of one another. The bottom layer was blurred using the ‘Gaussian Blur’ and both layers were feathered on the edges.

Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

STORYBOARD The initial storyboard is sketched on an iPad using Procreate and is a rough depiction of this utopian, anthropocene landscape as a result of our constant tampering and growing greed with our depleted natural resources.

The storyboard follows a single landscape with lots of unusual, unorganic assets coming in lots of shapes and sizes. It follows a single camera shot manoeuvring its way through this somewhat foreign territory.

Irreversible Bliss

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ASSETS

Youtube Tutorials

Cinema 4D Absolute Beginner’s Tutorial Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aQWFrAzJhY&t=1071s

Volumetric Noise in Cinema 4D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iKuNKnPT3M&t=54s

Desert Plateau, Landscape Design Cinema 4D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5RssYaUocI&t=951s

Floating Cloth Effect In Cinema 4D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjv8oqAuLz0&t=207s

Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

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Software used: Cinema 4D + Redshift Subdivision surface The subdivision surface tool from NURBS is a critical function thats splits faces of a mesh to smaller faces, giving it a smoother overall appearance.

Predefined objects The primitives group contains all predefined objects to build and model on top of. I selected and used a range of shapes to create my end assets.

Deformers Using the shapes, I can easily bend and twist the predefined objects to a desired shape.

Object Hierarchy Subdivision surface Predefinied objects Deformers Deformers Deformers

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WORKSPACE

Supernatural Climate Change

Media Art Nexus DA9012

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

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01:12s 01:30s

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Pecular Habitat The last 30 seconds of the animation is slow-paced from the movement of the camera angles, to the assets slowly rotating and expanding, unlike the other 2 scenes where there were dynamic visuals constantly moving and regenerating. The pecularity of this habitat is masked under cheerful, upbeat music and bright, bold colours depicting an ideal, utopian state.

Some familiarity behind this landscape is depicted through the plants and the trees on the hillside landscape, however the frozen water particles in the air suggests something catastrophic has become of our natural resources.

Supernatural Climate Change

Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

BIOGRAPHY Fenella Zalfania Alfri

Contact: Portfolio:

nel.alfri@gmail.com fenellaalfri.com

Fenella is a final year student at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media specialising in Product Design and Visual Communication. Fenella is a dedicated multimedia designer who is eager to contribute to the digital landscape. Her attentive eye for detail and problem-solving skills led to her passion for creating seamless, user-centred digital products. She hopes to further immerse herself into the product field, develop her skillset and learn from equally passionate designers in the industry.

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Fenella Zalfania Alfri U1831402H

Irreversible Bliss

Media Art Nexus 26 DA9012

GOH SZE KEI

S

Bloom DA9012 ✦ MEDIA ART NEXUS

CATALOGUE

abstract

Abstract Bloom follows the journey of a little car – from a dark and desolate world devastated by climate change, to a world full of hope, growth and life.

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ideation

Themes

Concept

1

With these two themes in mind, I wanted to create an artwork that would show how we can come to learn to coexist with nature, and execute it in a way that makes the viewer feel calm and somewhat joyful.

Coexistence Human activity has caused ecosystems and biodiversity to decline rapidly.

We need to learn to coexist, to move from a “protected” to “promoted” nature.

2

Reconnection Developed in Japan during the 80’s, shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) promises health benefits simply by spending time under the canopy of a forest.

If a person visits a natural area and walks in a relaxed way, there are calming, rejuvenating and restorative benefits to be achieved.

3

Sketches With the subject matter in mind, I began sketching out some layouts and scenarios for the car’s interaction with the landscape.

4

Rough Storyboard 1 The car travels through a bleak landscape, surrounded by smog and decay.

At the end of the road, it comes across a glowing bud.

The bud blooms into a flower, attaching itself onto the car.

2 The car and the flower float off together, dispelling the smog and darkness.

Particles spread, causing things to grow.

The car travels through different terrains, until it comes to the end of its journey, becoming one with & part of the landscape.

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References: Subject Matter I first began collecting reference images for the subject matter – micro-organisms, micro landscapes, fungus, bacteria in petri dishes, little mushrooms.

I wanted to create a landscape of many little things interacting with each other.

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visual development

7

References: Artists I wanted my work to be warm, simple, playful, colourful, soft, grainy, dreamy and calm, so I went to find artists whose works evoked these feelings.

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visual development

Rosa Sawyers Rosa Sawyers is a graphic designer, image maker and film maker based in Brighton/Glasgow.

Alexis Jamet Alexis Jamet is a French graphic designer and illustrator.

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Final

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final look

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technique & effects

+ + + + + +

vignette grain turbulent noise turbulent displace cc lens vr chromatic abberation

+ + + + + +

camera lens blur roughen edges pucker and bloat trapcode particular trapcode form trapcode starglow

biography

id=Sze Kei

Goh Sze Kei

contact szekei.goh @gmail.com

bio Hello, I’m zk! I’m a Singaporean illustrator and graphic designer.

I like creating fun and colourful works.

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DA9012 MEDIA ART NEXUS

AY2021/22 SEM 1

Affinities Process Journal

GWENDOLYN SAY music by VICTOR PHILIPSON

Abstract

Concepts

Problem

Affinities imagines the healing and growth that can take place if we begin to understand our relationship with nature as one of reciprocation and connection, rather than one-sided exploitation.

KINCENTRIC ECOLOGY

CLIMATE CHANGE

The fundamental belief that everything is part of a big family.

We have to provide for the world in return for the things it provides for us.

Due to our endless exploits of nature’s resources for our own use, we are losing many natural spaces, which is the main reason why the climate is changing at such a rapid rate.

YIN YANG Opposite forces are actually interdependent in the natural world. It is a way of understanding the universe as a place of interrelated forces and beings.

SHINTO An ancient Japanese faith that worships the kami, which are spirits of nature.

Shinto rituals are meant to keep the human soul in balance with the spirits of the natural world.

The Message

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE

Endless exploitation for human gain and benefit

Connection and reciprocation

Artist References ABBY SPENCE ↳ Playing with positive and negative space ↳ Interaction of solid shapes and linework

hau_kun ↳ Movement with lines ↳ Kaleidoscope art

LUKAS BERAN ↳ Stylisation, rendering of fluid lines and forms

GIZEM VURAL ↳ Frames within a frame

Storyboard ↳ Initial storyboarding for Media Art Nexus wall format at North Spine

ROUGH DESCRIPTIONS 1.

Scene opens with three frames: sky, sea and earth.

2.

Clouds, waves and leaves grow from the sides of the frame.

3.

A pair of birds, fishes and flowers appear and move within the frames.

4.

They morph into spheres and gather in the middle, starting to spin.

5.

Kaleidoscopic images form to represent a harmonious merging of forms.

↳ Adaptation for 10Square LED wall format

Sketches ↳ Developing a stylised version of main elements to be used in the animation

Software + Visual Experiments

→

→

TOUCHDESIGNER ↳ Generative visuals intended for second sequence of the animation ↳ Look of visuals too inconsistent with the illustration of the first sequence

AFTER EFFECTS ↳ Using CC Glass to try and make the elements look more 3D ↳ After deciding on the Kaleidoscope effect for the second sequence, elements were given a solid colour instead

↳ Additional layer of elements with ‘Vivid Light’ blending mode to increase the depth of the kaleidoscope

Final

Integration of worlds showing the possibilities and beauty of an interconnected relationship with nature

Tutorials

(clickable links)

TOUCHDESIGNER EXPERIMENTS

↳ Line transfer by paketa12

AFTER EFFECTS

↳ Illustrator to After Effects workflow

by Ben Marriott

↳ Coloured spectrum using audiovisual input by Noto The Talking Ball

↳ Morphing shapes by MOBOX Graphics

↳ As I didn’t have a high level of understanding of After Effects, I learnt the basics and then combined different basic strategies to create a complete animation, while focusing on making the linework look good in Illustrator.

Effects

↳ Kaleidoscope effect tutorial

by NBC Motion

↳ Line animation tutorial

by Andrew Pach

↳ Trim Paths ↳ Masks ↳ CC Glass ↳ CC Kaleidoscope ↳ CC Particle World

Thanks for reading!

ABOUT ME! Hi, I’m Gwendolyn and I love illustrating, designing, and creating interactive works.

I’m passionate about the good that design and art can contribute to our world, and I am constantly looking for ways to integrate art and life in meaningful ways!

gwendolynsay.com gwendolynsay@gmail.com

Meltdown is a short animation about a boy experiencing climate anxiety. He choses to cope with the situation by denying reality, refusing to accept the fact that the earth is deteriorating.

But as he lives in his own head, climate change continues to take its effect in the real world. The boy’s repressed emotions eventually become too much to bear and swallows him whole just as what climate change will eventually do to our planet.

:

The project’s goal is to turn the static building facade and passageway into a living, moving digital painting.

It is about the positive outlook of the future for the earth, climate change and sustainability.

SUPERNATURAL - Of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe.

The Garden of Earthy Delights (1490-1500)

by Hieronymus Bosch

What came to mind when I first thought about the word ‘Supernatural’ were the topics like Surrealism and the themes of Utopia and Dystopia, the worlds of unreality.

The Persistence Of Memory (1931)

by Salvador Dalí

CLIMATE CHANGE - The long term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place.

Causes Human Activity.

When we burn fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal, greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere thereby trapping heat from the sun.

Effects Rising temperatures and sea levels, heavy precipitation, shrinking glaciers, species extinction etc. Weather events and natural disasters are more frequent and severe.

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/climate-change/

:

Also known as Eco-Anxiety, Climate Anxiety refers to the worry about Climate Change and its effects. It is caused by an increase in environmental crises, experienced directly or via news reports.

Individuals with eco-anxiety may experience feelings of vulnerability, helplessness and emotional distraught over potential planetary destruction. This may be to the point where everyday choices can leave them feeling anxious and guilty.

With a play on the word ‘Meltdown’, I wanted to relate these feelings of helplessness and frustration of an individual suffering from climate anxiety together with the deterioration of the planet.

Guilt

Dread

Emotional distraught over potential planetary destruction

Frustration over feelings of little control as individuals

Avoidance

Trauma Helplessness

https://www.psd.gov.sg/challenge/ideas/trends/eco-anxiety-the-psychological-impact-of-climate-change

I knew that I wanted to create an animated illustration, one that depicted a character in a dream-like scene so I looked up for a few artists whose works reflected that quality.

MAOI

(https://www.behance.net/9469361498a79/)

LITTLE OIL ART

(https://www.instagram.com/minayuyu/)

3 Main Stages of the animation: 1. Boy lies on top of ice sheet (Ice sheet melts) 2. Boy floats on water (Water level increases) 3. Boy submerges into the water

(shown through stills and sketches)

My initial plan was for the sequence to begin with the boy frozen in the ice but that was eventually scraped because it hindered the scenes following it.

I was also really concerned with the colours, line-weight and textures used because I was not sure which would be ideal for the media screen.

Animating frame by frame in Procreate is a very tedious process so I looked to see if there was any way I could automate and speed up the process. I redrew the sketch in Adobe Illustrator (AI) and tried bringing it into both Adobe After Effects (AE) and Adobe Photoshop (PS).

The animation made with AE was too fluid and did not match the rough, textured animation I wanted. PS was a good in between AE and Procreate but at that time I had already set the colours and textures I wanted to go with and I simply could not recreate them the same way in PS.

Illustrating and Animating via the iPad App Procreate

Using the freehand selection tool to select a portion of the illustration.

Confirming the selection + clicking the select tool to show transform functions

Dimensions can be keyed in so there is no need to manually adjust and risk being inaccurate!

Procreate as a built-in animation assist and turning that on helped made animation a lot easier. 1layer or 1 group of layers = 1 frame.

Frame rate and the onion skin opacity can be adjusted as you wish.

Apart from being able to duplicate layers and edit only the parts to be animated, another function that helped me a lot was the freehand selection tool. Before I figured out I could do this, I was re-drawing each ice sheet every new frame and that was very time consuming. In addition, the strokes that I’ve drawn were far too inconsistent and it made the animation really messy because there were just too many changes per frame.

(a little about me)

HELLO I’M JULIA! I’m currently in my third year of studies as an Interaction Design Major at the Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media.

I love creating and all that it entails.

There is so much to discover in the world of art and design and my goal is to explore all of them. I may not be good at all of them but at least I’ve tried and had my fun!

EMAIL: juliaseahmx@gmail.com HP: +65 98893719

HORSEMAN OF DEATH

SOME TECHNIQUES I’VE LEARNED ALONG THE WAY Before

After

ALPHA MOTIF EXTRACTION one super quick way to get things done is by using alphas to assist your sculpting speed. I selected a few favourites and put them into photoshop I would bring the image into photoshop and then invert the alpha channel. What I want is the pattern to be in white.

SOME TECHNIQUES I’VE LEARNED ALONG THE WAY -

ALPHA MOTIF EXTRACTION

I will import the inverted image from Photoshop into Zbrush and It will be an alpha brush where I can Paint onto a plane.

This plane will reflect the white parts of the image.

I will extract that and it will be my motif model.

This was a super fast way to generate motif, It required a bit of research. But of all the stuff I tried to do and learn for this module, this was one of the most Interesting and beneficial ones.

SOME TECHNIQUES I’VE LEARNED ALONG THE WAY ANIMATION BLENDING In unreal engine, I learned that you can blend animations together. Animation blending has allowed me to create more types of variations on animations by simply putting 2 or more animations on the sequencer/ timeline.

I got very interesting results.

FIN

an animation by

Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar U1830509E

THE UNINHABITABLE The story of fluffie on a quest to find a liveable habitat in the year 3020

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

About Artist References Storyboard Tutorials Music

Abstract It’s the year 3020 and the flora and fauna on our planet are extinct. The final species of a livingbeing called fluffie who have been preserved in outer space, was sent down to find a suitable habitat for its family. Join fluffie as it embarks on its journey while experiencing the repurcussions of extreme heat due to climate change.

Renderings

Concept Climate change has threatened all living species.

With humans being continuously reckless in our habits, the year 3020 have not worked out in our favour.

The location is set in Southeast Asia, particularly the tropical climate here in Singapore.

Situated near the Equator, it’s no surprise extreme heat temperatures have triggered the infestation of vector-borne diseases that have since wiped out the entire living species.

As fluffie goes down to inspect the potential habitat, it realises that the damage is irreversible, and its life is in danger as it is attacked by these viruses.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

Rationale To depict the disappearing security we’re facing

Fluffie Fluffie is a cute, furball meant to create a sense of attachment with viewers to establish deeper connection and evoke a sense of loss as viewers follow its journey.

It is lab-grown and have been preserved by scientists who have sent it to outer space just before all species were wiped out. Fluffie was meant to be hope for a restart for living species.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

About Artist References Tutorials Music & Storyboard

Research Theme chosen: Vector-borne diseases in Singapore due to extreme high temperatures

Renderings

Inspired by The scene in ‘The Incredibles’

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

Storyline with concept The lab-born fluffie is supposed to represent an animal that has been nearly extinct. It’s to show the growing number of animals whose fate have deteriorated at the hands of mankind as we continue being reckless in our destructive ways to the climate.

The year 3020 has been set for Fluffie to find a habitable planet and the planet that is remotely a potential has unknown threats. Fluffie embarks on its journey to set sight on this planet.

All it has ever known is life in the conservatory where it was preserved for this very purpose. It passes through a train-like vortex that takes it to the portal.

The portal then takes it to the potential planet.

As it reaches, the planet seems like a playground, an exciting new landscape for the young fluffie.

However, danger arises as it was unable to adapt to new extreme temperatures where the attack vector-borne viruses, tragically drowned Fluffie.

Colour Signigication of scenes: Purple > Pink > Orange-Pink Coolest

Warmest

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

About

Tutorials

Artist References

Music & Storyboard

Johana Kroft

Artist References

Renderings

https://foundation.app/@johanakroft I was inspired by how she translates colours and 3d effect of characters in the world that she built that are dynamic and playful. I wanted to convey this effect to an otherwise darker theme that I explored in my animation.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

Artist References Gleb Kuznetsov https://dribbble.com/glebich I was inspired by his dreamscapes and how he was able to generate interesting textures in a monochromatic way. The visuals were static but they look dynamic. I enjoyed the play of light and shadow that he achieved and again, the stellar 3d effect.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

About Artist References Tutorials Music & Storyboard Renderings

Tutorials Since I was very new to the world of animation, I wanted to challenge myself to learn a new software, specifically Cinema 4d as the 3d world really excites me. I am originally a Visual Communication & Product Design major. So here are some tutorials that have really helped me achieve what I generally wanted to.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

01

Fluffie

Tutorials by:

Fur, texture, lighting

Fattu Tutorials, WestDrake

To create the hairs

To create pattern on fur

I used the Redshift plugin for my final fluffie.

Tip: Add ‘Redshift Object’ to the ‘hair’ material so that everything is rendered in Redshift.

Fluffie

Landscape

Animation

Lighting

Special fX

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

02

2d-3d

Tutorials by:

Landscape, Reflectives, Deformers, Displacers, Converting Rhino to c4d

Ross Mason, Theo Kerr, Minh Pham

Landscape tutorial with water

Landscape tutorial with Redshift

I tried combining 2d and the 3d world Tip: For Product Design students: You can use Rhino software to build the environment or certain elements and bring it into Cinema 4d For Visual Communication students: You can use vectors or illustrations and combine with 3d world. Create layers for depth.

My attempt at wavy floor

Fluffie

Landscape

Animation

Lighting

Deformer Tutorials

Special fX

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

03

Beginner’s

Tutorials by:

HDR Backplate, Basic Shapes, Revolving, Water Dynamics

Softer, CG Shortcuts,

My attempt at Beginner’s Tutorial

My attempt at animation

My attempt at animating water Tip: Water takes very long to render so plan time wisely

Fluffie

Landscape

Animation

Lighting

Special fX

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

04

Splines & Bouncing

Tutorials by:

QuickVFX, Digital Meat, Greyscalegorilla, Fattu Tutorials

Spline, Constraint Tag, Bouncing, Collision & Softbody

Bouncing Ball Tutorial

Dynamics of objects down steps

Using Spline & Parent Constraint to move pods on track Tip: Parent Constraint Tag to attach pod to track

Fluffie

Landscape

Animation

Lighting

Special fX

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

05

Speed, Dynamics

Tutorials by:

Emitter, Timlines (F-Curve)

Darkins Digital Gymnasium, c4dUK

Timlines (F-curve)

My attempt at using emitter to emit and multiply object in random. Use ‘rigid body’ for object and ‘collider body’ for floor and input the specific number of frames

My attempt at animation

Tip: Takes very long to render so plan time wisely

Fluffie

Landscape

Animation

Lighting

Special fX

// 13

Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

06

Light & Texture

Tutorials by:

Lighting scene, HDRI, Redshift Textures Maps

Vincent Schwenk, Poly Haven, Effectatron

Download FREE textures & HDRI. This is very helpful to make your environment have better lighting and objects to have realistic textures

Setting up light scene. The link in the picture will take you to a playlist with all the useful tutorials Tip: Don’t have to set up too many lights as it will take longer to render.

Just the basics! (if you’re a beginner like me)

Fluffie

Landscape

Animation

Lighting

Applying textures with Redshift after downloading from HDRI Haven

Glowing Object

Special fX

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

07

Animation

Tutorials by:

After Effects (Trapcode), Collision Bounce, Caustics, Metaball

Red Giant, , Fattu Tutorials, Dope Motions

Collision Bounce Effect

Trapcode in After Effects can produce really cool motion graphics that are really interesting and quite instant.

Fluffie

Landscape

Animation

Lighting

Caustics

Metaball

Special fX

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

About Artist References

Sound Inspiration

Scene 1 00:00-00:30

Tutorials Music & Storyboard Renderings

Keywords

Link

other-worldly vortex mystical

shorturl.at/dowTU shorturl.at/tuvCV shorturl.at/cpASV

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

Sound Inspiration

Scene 2 00:31-00:60

Scene 3 00:61-00:90

Keywords

Link

bright & mystical discovery suspenseful

shorturl.at/enxDW shorturl.at/iuwLZ shorturl.at/lCGQ0

Storyboard Follows the story of Fluffie from the laboratory, which is the home it has ever known, to a journey through the portal to the planet.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

About Artist References Tutorials

Renderings These are stills of my animation from the different scenes, with multiple camera angles.

Music & Storyboard Renderings

Scene 1 Scene 2

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

The train-like vortex from the outer space where fluffie was preserved.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar U1830509E

Scene 1 Scene 2

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

Renderings This is the transitioning portal between the outer space and the potential liveable planet. It discovered a light particle emitter that it followed, taking it to Scene 3, the playground.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

About Artist References Tutorials

Renderings These are stills of my animation from the different scenes, with multiple camera angles.

Music & Storyboard Renderings

Scene 1 Scene 2

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar U1830509E

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar

DA9012 Media Art Nexus

U1830509E

Biography Email

Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar U1830509E

wiyah1996@gmail.com

Contact

+ 65 91277420

Website

https://wiyah1996.myportfolio.com/

About artist

Wiyah is an aspiring designer who is a final year undergraduate at Nanyang Tecnological University, majoring in Product Design & Visual Communications in the School of Arts, Design and Media.

She is an eager designer who constantly aims to create meaningful design and effective branding through focus of user experience and interaction.

She often seeks for an alternative angle to communicate effectively and hopes to produce designs that are thoughtprovoking in the 2d and 3d realm. Her passion in branding have always invoked a sense of curiosity in creating a more coherent user experience.

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Shariffah Nur Alawiyah Binte Syed Kassim Al-Muthar U1830509E

Click to view link to animation

The Uninhabitable

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DA9012

ELEMENTAL SUHANA GUPTA

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DEFINE

ELEMENTAL/

/ˌɛlɪˈmɛnt(ə)l/ adjective adjective: elemental 1. forming an essential or typical feature; fundamental. concerned with chemical elements or other basic components. denoting uncombined chemical elements.

2. related to or embodying the powers of nature. (of an emotion) powerful and primitive.

noun noun: elemental; plural noun: elementals a supernatural entity or force thought to be physically manifested by occult means.

Origin late 15th century: from medieval Latin elementalis, from elementum ‘principle, rudiment’ elemental

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QUOTE

"AI IS THE BRIDGE BETWEEN ART AND SCIENCE"/ - Pamela McCorduck

American author of books about the history and philosophical significance of artificial intelligence, the future of engineering, and the role of women and technology. elemental

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THEME

the five elements of

NATURE/ water earth fire air space

&their journey with CLIMATE CHANGE/ elemental

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THEME

CLIMATE CHANGE/

Climate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns.

The landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade.

The report "is a code red for humanity", says the UN.

elemental

TOOLKIT

NIGHT CAFE/ image generation An open-source platform with pre-trained AI models and resources to train models from the start.

The pre-trained models can be easily accessed on the website.

Easy to use text to image models with specifications on number of iterations and size. https://nightcafe.studio/ elemental

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MOODBOARD

elemental

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- generated images

TOOLKIT

VQGAN + CLIP/ google colab ~ animation

VQGAN + CLIP stands for Vector Quantized Generative Adversarial Network and Contrastive Language–Image Pre-training.

The notebooks use python as a coding language.

It is a text to image coding model (which also has the function to use pre determined images) that generates a sequence of images, after a collaborater enters the value for various specifications such as (iterations, frames and seed).

The images are then animated by inputing a different set of variables to determine image quality, frames per second etc. https://tinyurl.com/VQGANCLIPAnimationModel elemental

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FRAMES

WATER/ - glaciers - ocean - seas - coral

elemental

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FRAMES

EARTH/ - forest - trees - greenery - jungle

elemental

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FRAMES

FIRE/

- forest fire - heat - flame - burn

elemental

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FRAMES

AIR/

- tornado - wind - storm - cyclone

elemental

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FRAMES

SPACE/ - planets - stars - galaxy - darkness

elemental

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SOUND

MUSIC/ water + earth + fire + air + space ~ sounds of nature represent the unique elements that exist cohesively as one in nature a journey through the elements to depict climate change

elemental

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BIOGRAPHY

ARTIST/ SUHANA GUPTA

(she/her)

Suhana is a third year Computer Science student at Nanyang Technological University, she is also minoring in Film. She has a keen interest in art and the possibilities of using Artificial Intelligence to generate art. Suhana hopes to continue her research in the field of Computational Creativity. She believes in creating art to inspire change. suhanagupta2001@gmail.com +65 90774341

elemental

DA9012

suhana gupta elemental

Artwork by Ashley Tan

For Media Art Nexus DA9012

The Underwater Flight

THEME THINK LIKE A MOUNTAIN To think like a mountain is to have a complete appreciation for the profound interconnectedness of the elements in the ecosystems. It is an ecological exercise using the intricate web of the natural environment rather than thinking as an isolated individual.

CONTEXT BIRD MIGRATION

PROBLEMS

Birds migrate to move from areas of low or decreasing resources to areas of high or increasing resources. The two primary resources being sought are food and nesting locations.

Birds are migrating earlier than usual due to changing temperatures.

(Global Warming)

WHEN? Changes in environmental conditions (length of the day) Birds’ internal biological clocks can also detect when a season shifts, (changes in light and possibly air temperature)

They also have lesser stopovers (which means lesser food to eat) due to loss of habitat/human construction.

Food may not be ready yet (e.g. the plants or insects are not in breeding season yet) when they arrive at these stopovers to rest and eat.

What if...

Birds had to fly underwater?

ABSTRACT In 2800, there is lesser land for birds to stopover while migrating due to rising sea levels. As a result, they evolved to be able to fly underwater, following the currents of the sea to reach their destination.

MOODBOARD Colours

Movement

Patterns

Organic

ASIAN INFLUENCE KYOTO MARBLE Kyoto Marble is the only company in the world that still practices the Kyoto Marble print technique today.

THE KYOTO MARBLE PRINT TECHNIQUE PREPARING THE STARCH 1. Different coloured starch are blended in a rolling

machine repeatedly that results in the specific colour.

2. Stretched starches are cut into pellets and packed

together to be rolled into a flat sheet, resulting in the

individual colours being stretched.

3. The starches are then pressed again and cut into

specific shapes

PREPARING FOR PRINT 1. The starches are then wrapped around a cylindircal

streel roll 2. Bandages are wrapped around it and left for 24 hours.

PRINTED FABRIC! 1. Unique marble texture (No pattern is exactly the same) 2. Bright colours

https://www.instagram.com/kyotomarble/?hl=en http://www.kyotomarble.com/kyotomarbleEN/ https://youtu.be/pVMCEVjCe5I https://youtu.be/rhYzrQbIlc8

ARTIST REFERENCE XAVI BOU In a project called Ornithographies, he creates mesmerizing images by taking many photographs per second and stitching up to 3,500 or more of them together.

https://www.audubon.org/news/how-xavi-bou-makes-his-mesmerizingportraits-birds-flight https://vimeo.com/370007362

NATURE REFERENCE STARLING MURMURATIONS Known as starling murmurations (due to the sound produced by the multiple wingbeats involved), this sky dance sees flocks gather together, swooping and twisting across the sky in one spectacular swarm.

https://animals.howstuffworks.com/birds/starling-murmurations.htm https://youtu.be/oqMS5fn0LbM https://youtu.be/uV54oa0SyMcV

STORYBOARD/INITIAL STYLEFRAMES

1

Patterns and movement of marble

2

Sunrise

5

Introduction of Birds

6

Birds cutting through the “sun”

9

Lava sun fills up the composition

10

A different coloured sky

3

A different coloured sky

4

Lava sun fills up the composition

7

Reveals a watercolour sky behind

8

Birds will dive into the sea & meet other lifeforms

11

Sunset

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End

DESIGN PROCESS 1.1

BACKGROUND (SKIES)

The background of the skies were generated on TouchDesigner.

The direction, colours and intensity of the movement can be adjusted accordingly.

Liquid paint marbling Effect in Touchdesigner

by Noto The Talking Ball https://youtu.be/w4DXtVWdlYg

DESIGN PROCESS 1.2

BACKGROUND (SUN)

The marbling texture of the sun was done on illustrator first, then using turbulent displace on After Effects to animate it.

Fractal Noise texture is also used on the edges of the sun so that it blends more into the sky background.

Creating a moving trippy visual under 3 minutes in Adobe After Effects [Livestream Highlight]

by Dreadlabs https://youtu.be/SXR8PL3VvqY

1.3

BACKGROUND (SEA)

The background of the sea was done on After Effects - CC Snow effect (Opposite direction so that it flows upwards like bubbles) - Radial blur (Sun shining from top) - 4 Color Gradient (Coloyr of the sea) - Fractal Noise (Texture of sea surface) - CC Glass (Texture of the sky reflection on the surface)

Seabed Under-water After Effects Tutorial

by VDODNA https://youtu.be/pZ6fShUxtoo After Effects Tutorial - Underwater scene with light rays and bubbles (Deep Thought Pt1) by short-form video https://youtu.be/pjdmXYRzAWg

DESIGN PROCESS 2 TRANSITIONS The wave warp mask is used to transition from the sun to the sky and vice versa, for a more organic feeling.

Unique Swipe Transition | After Effects Tutorial

by Manuel does Motion https://youtu.be/7SB-sRsg_Es Wave warp trails flying orb | After Effects tutorial · Master Study of Flatwhite Motion

by NoSleepCreative https://youtu.be/HswPRuVbeSM

3

LIFEFORMS (BIRDS & FISHES)

Trapcode Form - 3D model of a blood cell as a base form - Bird (sprite) to line up the surface of the 3D model Trapcode Particular - Fishes (Trapcode Preset) in the background - Fast Box Blur applied on the fishes to bring the focus to the birds

AE particular motion path - Ericlecture

by Eric Lim https://youtu.be/GgmK9lfUq8I Trapcode Suite (Playlist)

by Red Giant https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUWySMuyy_cEl_SuiL0GkfcxqEJWTFe8r

FINAL OUTCOME

ARTIST INFO ASHLEY TAN

txl.ashley@gmail.com

Ashley is currently a design undergraduate of the School of Art, Design and Media from Nanyang Technological University, majoring in Visual Communication and Interaction Design.

As a designer, she enjoys designing for meaningful and enjoyable experiences and also creating works that enable people to think and reflect upon themselves.

Music done by: Coline Schoens Truchet