https://vimeo.com/165199716

This was one of the most difficult 3D projects that I have ever had to tackle, for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, my specialty is 3D modeling, not animation. Additionally, my background is in hard-surface view models for games. This stands in stark contrast to the requirements for character and environmental modeling. Instead of focusing on clean geometry, both environmental and character modeling are distinctly more freeform, and require a completely different outlook to succeed in. On top of the stylistic difference, I was simply not knowledgeable in character modeling. This led to issues, particularly which how the clothing was modeled, and how the hands were positioned in the T-pose. Together these issues served to compound issues I was already having with the rigging and skinning. Combined, these errors resulted in an incredibly frustrating process, especially when my perfectionistic tendencies were taken into account. Finally, when I sent the file off to be renders, I accidently failed to include my textures, which resulted in a final animation which was completely lacking in textures. Even with the troubles that I encountered throughout the process, I was fairly happy with the outcome. The music and visuals came together to create a unified whole. Additionally, the camera work was successful in creating the spaghetti-western vibe which I was intending for.

This project had two main goals from the outset: to create a visually interesting and high-fidelity animation, and to draw attention to a cause which was both local to the Portland/Vancouver area and still personally important.

With this in mind, I chose a cause near and dear to my heart – the Columbia River Crossing. Having commuted into Portland for the entirety of my high school career, the growing congestion in the Portland metro area, specifically on the Glen L. Jackson and Interstate bridges was always somewhat confounding, especially given the fact that a good chunk of it could be alleviated simply by extending light-rail lines into Washington. With this in mind, reviving the CRC was an obvious choice for my PSA animation.

The animation itself was quite straightforward and stuck extremely closely to the initial storyboard, although there was some fine-tuning and re-recording required for the audio to strengthen the ‘call to action’ at the end of the animation.

From the outset, the plan for asset creation was to use illustrator to create all assets. This was for two distinct reasons. First, working in illustrator guaranteed that all assets would be vector-art, allowing for them to be scaled with no loss in fidelity. Secondly, using illustrator for all assets forces a consistent, stylized look, which pulls all of the assets together in any given scene.

Overall, I feel that I was quite successful in achieving both of my goals from the outset of the project, as well as overall creating a high-quality and persuasive PSA.

https://vimeo.com/155457145

https://vimeo.com/154930767

https://vimeo.com/154753511

https://vimeo.com/154212867