Thomas Marsaudon and his team joined us to talk about the organization and workflow behind their graduation project, the Jungle Race, a film about a race between monkeys on a post-apocalyptic island.
Introduction
We are a team of ten artists who have just graduated with a Master's in 3D Animation from Brassart School. We all come from different backgrounds, but we are all passionate about animation and cinema. We met at an animation school and became good friends!
Hi! I'm Loïc Noailhat, and what I love most is bringing all kinds of creatures to life for films or games. Whether they're winged, bipedal, quadrupedal, skinny, or massive, I enjoy creating them all! I've been passionate about designing creatures of every kind since I was little, so I looked for a course that would allow me to turn this passion into my career.
Hello, I'm Quentin, and I specialized in FX for our short film. I've always been a movie enthusiast, though I never imagined working in the industry. It was after high school that I discovered 3D art, and gradually, my curiosity turned into a true passion. Today, I enjoy bringing dynamic and immersive visual worlds to life.
I'm Thomas Marsaudon, a 3D Environment and Lighting Artist. After completing a high school diploma in science, I discovered that my true calling lies in the creative industries. As someone passionate about art, cinema, and video games for many years, I didn't hesitate to dive right in. I was in charge of the environmental work for the city and the jungle in the short movie, and I was the main Lighting Artist on the majority of shots.
My name is Charles Lardenois, and I worked as a 3D Modeler and Animator on the Jungle Race project. I've always loved creating, painting, building, and imagining. That passion is what led me to join the five-year 3D Animation and VFX program at Brassart. During my time there, I met amazing people with whom I truly enjoyed working and growing, both artistically and professionally.
Hi, I'm Tristan, a 3D Artist specialized in Surfacing. I've always loved animated films as a whole. I grew up with Pixar and DreamWorks movies, as well as cartoons like SpongeBob, and nowadays I'm also into anime and Japanese animated films. For me, it's a universe where anything can be represented with a freedom that defies imagination.
My name is Ezvin Manhes, and I worked on the special effects for our short film Jungle Race. Before entering the school, I did not know 3D or the technical side of filmmaking. I simply enjoyed watching movies with impressive visuals. That curiosity gradually grew into a real desire to create my own.
My name is Cyprien Cotton, and I work as a rigging artist on the Jungle Race project. Since childhood, I've been passionate about fictional and fantasy worlds, and I discovered the world of 3D by chance. For me, rigging is the perfect balance between creativity and technicality.
I'm Justine, and after obtaining a high school diploma in literature, I immediately joined Brassart School because I've dreamed of working in the animation film industry since I was a child. On the Jungle Race project, I mainly worked on the creation of several characters from the concept phase to modeling. I was also in charge of clothing design and digital matte painting for this project.
My name is Nathan Stefen, and I have always been passionate about cinema and video games. Since I was a child, I have been impressed by the way works of art can leave a lasting impression on us. It was a logical step for me to pursue a career in this field. I was mainly responsible for directing the short film, as well as doing the animation, compositing, and editing.
My name is Camille Tessier, and I work in production management. I discovered the animation industry during my final year of high school, and after completing a scientific degree, I decided to study at Brassart School. As a fan of cinema, drawing, and teamwork, I found that this world was the perfect fit for me. I worked mainly as a production manager and character artist on our short film.
Jungle Race Project
Team: We learnt all our skills at school from a variety of teachers. We also further developed our skills through self-directed research and tutorials. Throughout our studies, we worked on several small group projects at school, like short films and video games, often in teams of four or five, but Jungle Race is our first movie.
Tristan: Jungle Race is our 3D graduation project. The story takes place on a deserted post-apocalyptic island where monkeys compete in a chaotic car race. It's not just about speed. The race is full of violence, sabotage, and dirty tricks. The idea was to mix the fun energy of a cartoon with the intensity of a survival setting, creating a unique and over-the-top atmosphere where anything can happen.
Nathan: Some of us had already worked together on school projects in the past, but never as a full group. Since we were also friends outside of school, we wanted to create something together, and this final-year film allowed us to make that happen. We started from my original script and then reworked it as a team.
Nathan: A big part of our inspiration came from the race sequence at the beginning of Ready Player One, as well as from the Mad Max films. We also drew inspiration from video games like MotorStorm and the trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2.
Charles: Our primary goal for this project was to create a fun and dynamic short film, far from the kind of work typically done for graduation projects. We didn't want to burden ourselves with a storyline or a moral, we were after pure action. But that doesn't mean the film doesn't tell a story.
This choice freed up both time and motivation, allowing us to experiment with lots of new things that we had never tried before. We wanted to create a rich, detailed film that would visually strike the audience. The action genre was the perfect fit for that.
We relied heavily on a wide range of action film references, which played a crucial role during the shot design and storyboard phases. We focused on capturing the dynamic energy and rhythmic intensity characteristic of iconic action sequences. This also guides us in the selection of textures, 3D modeling styles, and lighting setups to reinforce the film's atmosphere.
Nathan: Given the complexity of certain shots, translating them into 2D was a complicated step. But since it was pretty clear in my head, the film really took shape in the layout. As for the color script, we wanted to do something very colorful and very intense that would fit well with the tone of the film.
Thomas: Working with a detailed blockout in Maya allowed us to better visualize the environment, scales, and vehicle movements, making the track more dynamic, while also allowing us to start animation early and establish solid foundations that saved time later in production. Then we import it into Unreal to have a rough overview of the project.
Modeling
Charles: The entire modeling process for the film was done in Maya. This choice allowed us to streamline our workflow, especially for rigging and animation, by keeping everything within a single software environment. Although the film adopts a stylized visual approach, the asset modeling was kept as realistic as possible, and stylistic elements were mainly conveyed through textures.
Since we were working in Unreal Engine, all assets had to comply with specific poly count constraints to avoid overloading the engine during scene rendering. A major clean-up and poly reduction pass was carried out during production to optimize performance.
Loic: For all our characters, we aimed for a semi-realistic style. We started with the sculpt in ZBrush, adding sharp and angular areas as well as larger eyes. The textures were created in Substance 3D Painter, designed to feel realistic with micro details and a wide range of colors that vary depending on the monkeys.
The clothing, made in Marvelous Designer, follows this realistic approach in terms of texture, while the fur, created in Maya, brings balance with clumps and specific shapes.
All our characters also have strong characterization. We leaned into clichés to make them iconic, and everyone ends up having their favorite. We'll let you choose yours!
Creating the Settings and Texture
Thomas: The Vegetation has been created on SpeedTree, done at an advanced stage of environment modeling, creating unique and varied assets (trees, bushes, flowers, and wild plants). We got inspired by real tropical species but enhanced them for recognizability and color. They were placed in the environments using Unreal's foliage tool or manually, with some plants designed specifically in relation to other environmental elements.
Camille: First of all, we did a lot of organizing and coordinating within the whole team to ensure that everyone was working on something and not getting in each other's way. There was a lot to do, so we had to manage it smartly to make the process as fluid as possible, using ShotGrid, Miro, and Discord.
We also used some technical and specific tricks, such as managing Unreal blueprints to plug animations into our characters in all shots and reusing the same modeling as much as possible to save time (see car modeling workflow).
Thomas: To efficiently build our environments, we relied on modular kits to create rich, lively, and varied settings. Different elements, such as buildings, city assets, jungle ruins, rocks, and ground pieces, were modeled in Maya and ZBrush, textured in Substance 3D Painter, and imported into Unreal separately for set dressing. Asset placement was guided by camera views to ensure efficiency and avoid work in areas that would remain invisible in the final shots.
Justine: As for the creation of the digital matte paintings, we began during the first year of production by running tests in Nuke, using layers we had previously worked on in Photoshop. Since the process was very time-consuming due to long loading times, we decided to place the matte painting cards directly into Unreal, which made background integration easier without the need for camera matching.
Tristan: To manage the textures, we used different solutions since the technical challenges were not the same for the characters, the cars, the ground, and the environment. We mainly worked with Substance 3D Painter, especially for skin and car body details. To save time, given the number of characters and vehicles, we created several smart materials for different surfaces (metal, fabric, chrome, etc.).
A significant part of the work was also done in Unreal, both to optimize textures and to keep strong visual control thanks to parameter adjustments. We also used decals and displacement on ground planes to easily add more detail to the environments.
Tristan: For example, the beach sand was a real technical challenge for us. We needed something detailed, non-repetitive, and with variations, without being too performance-heavy. In Unreal, using material functions, we implemented a system that adds detail depending on the camera distance, as well as layered blending to create variation at different scales.
We also developed a system that manages sand moisture based on water height, and another that blends the texture with rocks and objects in contact with the ground.
Animation
Cyprien: The animation was one of the biggest challenges of the film. Since the team wasn't specialized in it, the quantity and complexity of the animation were very ambitious for the project. However, thanks to technical solutions and discipline, we were able to meet the needs of the film.
Let's first talk about the animation style: we amplified, even exaggerated, the movements of the vehicles and characters, while staying close to realism. Having characters mainly sitting also helped make the animation less demanding.
Moreover, we had to choose efficient rigging solutions due to the large amount of work involved: 7 characters and 25 vehicles. To achieve this, we chose motion capture to animate the characters. This decision was justified, first, by the need to save time, partly to simplify the rigging using the HumanIK tool available in Maya, and partly to make animating the characters easier.
Secondly, this option allowed us to quickly obtain a solid base of convincing animations, which we then cleaned up by removing unwanted movements and exaggerating them.
For the vehicles, we created a simple but effective rig, and, most importantly, one that was reusable for each vehicle. A common rig base was developed, which could be resized to fit each vehicle. Some vehicles were more demanding, such as the motorcycles or the Monster Truck. These two vehicles received their own unique rigs, with a large suspension system implemented.
Justine: Regarding the facial animation of the monkeys, we chose to create blend shapes in ZBrush to have full control over facial deformations. This also allowed us to exaggerate their expressions and give them a slightly cartoonish look.
Quentin: For the visual effects, we mainly worked with Houdini, which allowed us to create complex simulations. For all simulated objects (except pyro effects), we chose to export them as Alembic (.abc) files, making it easier to import them into Unreal Engine.
For smoke, fire, and other pyro simulations, we primarily used VDB (.vdb) exports to integrate them into Unreal Engine. This required a significant amount of R&D to properly handle VDB integration within the engine. For the heaviest simulations (like explosions), we rendered them directly in Houdini Solaris to keep Unreal Engine scenes lighter.
These renders were then composited in Nuke. One of the biggest challenges in terms of VFX was managing the gore. We had to strike the right balance between realism and stylization to stay consistent with the film's visual universe.
Ezvin: For Jungle Race, a bloody car race, we had to create many vehicle crashes. To save time across shots, we built reusable setups in Houdini, including a crash system using RBD tools, adaptable to different types of vehicles like cars, vans, motorcycles, and even monster trucks. We also developed setups for tire smoke and exhaust effects using Pyro tools, which helped us quickly add detail to drifting and acceleration scenes.
On the character side, we built CFX setups for each character: one for cloth and one for the groom. Clothes were designed in Marvelous Designer, groomed in Maya with XGen, and everything was imported into Houdini. Thanks to our Vellum-based setups, we could simply load the animation, tweak a few parameters like wind, and simulate efficiently. We also used similar setups for character assets, like the gorilla's chain.
Beyond these tools, we handled more complex FX directly in shots like liquid, fire, explosions, and gore. All of which required careful technical work and artistic adaptation to match our visual style. For the final scenes, we also added crowd simulations using Houdini’s crowd tools.
Nathan: To give the film a very cinematic feel, we chose the Cinemascope 2.35:1 aspect ratio, which really helps capture the action and allows for striking compositions. For the directing, we wanted to create some long takes with a lot of choreography, and we constantly asked ourselves how a real camera operator would shoot the scene in real life with a crane, handheld camera, dolly, etc., to make it feel as immersive as possible.
We also paid special attention to the soundtrack, which is made up of music from different genres to give each sequence its own mood. The sound design is raw and detailed, helping the viewer really feel like they're inside the race.
Thomas: The film's lighting was designed to feel natural, progressing from realistic high-noon sunlight to warm jungle under-canopy lighting, and finally to an epic orange-pink sunset for the ending. A global lighting setup was applied in each environment and adjusted per shot, while additional lights were used on characters to emphasize their actions and emotions. HDRI skyboxes provided the background skies without casting any light.
Thomas: Unreal Engine's fast rendering lets us iterate quickly with low-res renders. For the final images, we tested various modes and settings to move away from the typical video game look and achieve the desired Lumen and post-process results. We enhanced the groom, colors, lighting, and volumetric fog using Console Variables. Features like motion blur were handled directly in Unreal Engine, while AOVs were exported for extra flexibility in Nuke. Our goal was to push Unreal Engine to its limits.
Nathan: For post-production, we used Nuke to integrate certain VFX that weren't rendered in Unreal Engine. We also added flares, bloom effects, and particles created in Nuke, like sparks or flying dirt. Finally, we did the color grading in Premiere, where we also handled the editing.
Conclusion
Cyprien: We completed this project alongside our studies. This project represents our final film proposal for our graduation, and it was completed over the course of 2 years. It began in May 2023 with a 4-month preproduction phase, followed by a year and a half of production, and ended with 4 months of postproduction.
Team: The first main challenge was to work with Unreal Engine, learning how it works, and creating a functional production pipeline that allowed us to integrate all the software used.
The second main challenge was to reach a consensus among the 10 team members during every meeting and key decision-making, all while maintaining the original values and ambitions of the film.