Serendipity is a twenty second short made by me and five others over the Summer of 2022 at Texas A&M University. We had the opportunity to work alongside industry professionals at DreamWorks Animation to guide and mentor us over the course of ten weeks.
As this course is primarily reserved for graduate students, I was very fortunate to be among one of the few under graduates allowed to participate.
Responsible for Layout, Rendering. Character Model, Character Rig, Prop Animation, & Sound
RIGGING
This project gave me a great opportunity to expand my rigging skills. While previously only having experience with rigid body rigs, I was challenged with creating a quadruped rig with soft body deformations.
During this process, I created a separate ribbon rig system that I could implement into the dragon's neck and body. This technique gave our animator greater control over the dragon's neck and pelvis while allowing for more smooth, realistic movement.
add the drawings of story concept here from whiteboard
MODELING
I was also responsible for creating our dragon's model. The original look we aimed to achieve was a stuffed animal that could have been hand-made in the medieval ages. We decided to give the dragon plush a friendly appearance with a stuffed body and floppy limbs. After a month of receiving feedback and critique, the dragon's mesh was completed and ready to be rigged and groomed.
Character Concept
Final Product