PROJECT OVERVIEW

The purpose of this animation is to teach audience members about the environmental impacts of artificial light at night. To do so, it utilizes a specific case study where light pollution has an impact on moth caterpillar populations. It had been determined in the past that light affects adult months but its impacts on caterpillars is a recent discovery. This assignment practiced animation and compositing techniques. The visuals include 2D and 3D elements to further develop skills in 3ds Max as well as Adobe After Effects.

Details

Client: Rex Twedt (Animation III)

Audience: General public interested in science

Software: 3ds Max, VRay renderer, Pixologic ZBrush, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition

Date: Fall 2021

Presentation format: MP4 with audio

FINAL DELIVERABLE

PREPRODUCTION

STORYBOARD

PRODUCTION

HIGHLIGHTED 3D TECHNIQUE - RIGGING

One of the most challenging parts of this animation was learning and utilizing rigging for the first time. It first created the caterpillar model in Zbrush. Next, the model was brought into 3ds Max and skinned. I added bones to each segment of the caterpillar and started to keyframe the movements of the caterpillar by moving specific bones.

It took quite a bit of time to ensure that the bones were keyframmed in the correct positions in each frame and that the weights were correct. In the soft due screenshots below, the animator was still working on correcting the weights to hide “folding” errors in the model’s topology.

The final model was painted in Zbrush and further textured with VRay materials. A slight hair effect was also applied to the caterpillar to give it a more lifelike appearance. Rigging is a fun challenge that will be exciting to learn more about and create more complex movements in the future.

REFERENCES

Boyes, D., Evans, D., Fox, R., Parsons, M., & Pocock, M. (2021). Street lighting has detrimental impacts on local insect populations. Science Advances, 7(35). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abi8322