LogInTake a closer look at the process behind making a CG character, matte painting, and more for this short film about a devoted priestess performing a ritual to restore the youth of an ancient rhino.
For this year's Rookie Awards, a team of six creative minds from the University of Hertfordshire presented Rebirth, a VFX short film set in a mythical realm facing an environmental crisis, where a devoted priestess performs a sacred ritual to restore the youth of an ancient rhino.
The making of Rebirth started over a year ago when the artists began brainstorming potential story ideas and outlining the basic requirements for the film, which included the presence of a real-life creature, opportunities for matte paintings, and a tribal aesthetic.
In total, the team has filmed four previsualizations and submitted three film versions for evaluation, take a look at the progress across the nine months of production below:
Rebirth
The Rhino, both adult and baby, has a pivotal role in the story. In addition to the main assets, artists also worked on transformation shots, requiring modeling multiple head and leg blend shapes that the animator could keyframe between. For the horn growth, a multi-layered procedural effect was developed, textured by hand, and then enhanced with procedural shading.
See some of Rhino's in-progress images and videos below:
Rebirth
Rebirth
Rebirth
As the authors explain, early into the production they were suggested to reuse the same animation across multiple shots. Below, you can see the early rig and animation tests along with a scene layout demonstration designed to ensure accurate interactions between the actress, environment, and the rhinos:
Rebirth
As for FX effects, they were done in Houdini 20:
"The process began with the muscle model. Francis carefully assigned constraint values to each muscle, ensuring realistic and accurate movement. Following this, he moved on to the tissue simulation phase. Here, he used the muscle and bone models as inputs and painted masks to define various tissue properties, ensuring that each muscle group behaved naturally, the final stage was the skin simulation.
Similar to the tissue simulation, he painted masks to specify different skin properties across various sections. This step was crucial in achieving realistic skin movement and deformation, adding a layer of authenticity to the rhino's appearance."
Rebirth
As every shot in this film included a VFX element, the artists chose to employ SynthEyes for its rapid and precise tracking capabilities.
Apparently, the matte paintings were inspired by Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, aiming to craft a fantastical and engaging world beyond the real footage. All paintings were done in Photoshop and projected onto cards in Nuke. The priestess' face was aged with FaceApp and Photoshop to simulate aging across various expressions, refining this with CopyCat for consistency. For challenging clothing, Magic Mask, CopyCat, and manual roto saved weeks of work.
The entire pipeline was USD-based, from models, animations, and lighting, all the way to rendering which was done entirely in Solaris using Houdini's Karma.
Rebirth
Rebirth
Rebirth
Rebirth
Rebirth
Rebirth
Check out the original Rebirth entry page for more details, pictures, and videos here. Also, don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.