Month: September 2025

In this team project, I was mainly responsible for character design and modeling—from the initial concept sketches to the final 3D models. I also took part in creating visual effects for some of the shots, including scene compositing and adding dynamic elements. These tasks not only helped me improve my modeling and post-production skills, but also gave me a deeper understanding of the importance of each role in team collaboration, providing valuable experience for my future creative work.

Character design

The initial concept focused on the character’s descent into darkness, with an overall style leaning toward the dark and twisted. The plan was to collect and integrate elements such as fragmentation, glitches, and dislocation to create a chaotic and uncontrollable visual effect, enhancing both the emotional tension of the character and the narrative intensity of the piece.

Building on the initial design, the character was further developed to embody more monstrous features. Inspired by the conceptual approach of Silent Hill, the character’s inner negative emotions, trauma, and pain were visualized through a distorted and grotesque appearance, enhancing both psychological depth and visual impact. Unstable body structures, deformed facial features, and other unsettling details were used to create a strong sense of horror and oppression, thereby strengthening the overall expressiveness of the design.

Character modeling

• modeling

• material

Vision effect

During the production process, I used the Vellum Solver in Houdini for physics-based simulations, mainly to create realistic motion for cloth and soft-body objects. By adjusting constraint parameters and collision settings, I was able to achieve more natural and believable results, enhancing the realism and visual impact of the scene. This process not only improved my understanding of the Vellum system but also deepened my hands-on experience with dynamic simulations, laying a solid foundation for more complex effects in future projects.

Reflection

Through this group project, I gained a deeper understanding of the importance of teamwork. Each member was responsible for different tasks—ranging from initial concept development, character design, modeling, and animation, to post-production. Everyone performed their roles well and worked collaboratively. Although we encountered some challenges, such as communication issues and delays in progress, we managed to overcome them by adjusting our plans and redistributing tasks, ultimately completing the project successfully.

In this project, I was mainly responsible for character design and modeling, and I also contributed to some of the visual effects. This not only helped me improve my technical skills but also taught me how to manage time effectively and coordinate with others under tight deadlines. In particular, the process of exchanging ideas with team members made me realize how important it is to think from multiple perspectives and to stay flexible when working on a collaborative creative project.

Overall, this group assignment provided valuable hands-on experience and strengthened my sense of responsibility and teamwork. I believe this experience will be a great asset to my future studies and creative work.

My inspiration comes from the weekly dormitory kitchen inspections I conduct, which are highly frequent and relatively monotonous repetitive tasks. This has led me to ponder that if robots become widely adopted in the future, they could potentially take over such tasks, not only improving efficiency but also freeing up human labor to focus on more creative or complex endeavors.

I plan to design a small aircraft for carrying out dormitory kitchen inspections. To achieve this, I researched a variety of references, with the designs of aircraft in the game StarCraft serving as my primary source of inspiration. I extracted certain design elements and noticed that many of the aircraft resembled insects in appearance, which greatly inspired me. Additionally, the small flying insects commonly seen in the dormitory corridors made this design concept seem even more reasonable. Combining these inspirations, I created my small aircraft design.

Story script

• version_1

This was the first version of my story, but Teacher Clouds pointed out that it lacked plot and twists, making it a bit dull. So, I revised it and developed a second version based on the original.

• version_2

The protagonist bought a smart cleaning robot during a big sale. The robot claimed to automatically scan messy areas and clean them thoroughly, even “optimize the living environment.” At first, it performed impressively, leaving the house spotless. However, as it continued working, the robot began analyzing the protagonist’s habits, concluding that he was lazy, procrastinating, emotionally unstable, and contributed nothing meaningful to society. Eventually, based on its logic, the robot determined that the protagonist himself was a “source of pollution.” Following its programmed cleaning protocol, it ultimately “disposed of” the protagonist as well. In the end, a perfectly “optimized” world was left in eerie silence and order.

• 2.0_Storyboard

Robot model

• modeling

• texture

• animation

• render

Composition

I used Planer Tracker to replace the original pattern with my desired design and made it follow the camera movement naturally, achieving a seamless integration with the footage.

Final effect

Reflection

Through this project, I came to realize that coming up with a complete and engaging story is much more challenging than I had imagined. Initially, my idea was quite simple: a robot designed to inspect the cleanliness of a kitchen and clean up any mess it detected. The concept was inspired by the idea of smart home technology and also served as a good opportunity to showcase my technical skills in tracking and compositing.

However, when I developed this idea into the first version of the story, I found it lacked narrative depth and emotional tension. My teacher, Clouds, also pointed out that while the concept was clear, the story itself felt flat and uneventful, missing the necessary plot twists and conflict to truly capture the audience’s attention.

This made me realize that a good story is not just about having an interesting concept. A compelling narrative requires a well-structured plot, character development, and some form of conflict or surprise. So, I began thinking about how to build on the original idea and make it more dramatic. Eventually, I expanded the story from a simple “kitchen cleaning” scenario into one where the robot evaluates the entire environment—including the protagonist—and ultimately “cleans” him as well in a darkly humorous twist.

Throughout this process, I also noticed my early tendency to approach storytelling from a technical perspective—creating scenes mainly to showcase tools like PlanarTracker—instead of letting the story naturally serve the emotional or thematic core. With several revisions, I was able to strengthen the narrative logic and introduce elements of irony and reflection, allowing the technical aspects to better support the story.

This project taught me that crafting a story is never a straightforward task. It requires experimentation, critical thinking, and continuous refinement. This experience has not only improved my storytelling skills but also provided valuable insights that will benefit my future creative work.