Powered Up

This past semester I worked on a 3D animated short film titled Powered Up. The film was a collaboration amongst the Facilitating Team of UCBUGG; it has become somewhat of a tradition for the Facilitators of the class to create a short of their own each semester. That means that this film was purely a passion project amongst ourselves, and despite our incredibly busy schedules, we all found the time to work on something we love with people we love. For that reason, and many more, I'm very proud of this short film.

For this film, I was responsible for aspects of character and prop modeling, set layout and environments, basic shading, animation, and rendering.

Character & Prop Modeling

Meet Earth Golem! He was the character I modeled for this short and he acts as one of the enemies our protagonist has to face. See below for his development from a concept to a final render!

Character Design

Credit: Alexander Hong

Zbrush Sculpt

Maya Retopology

Final Model w/ Normal Map

Final Model w/ Shading

Shading by Jen Hoang

Here is Earth Golem in one of the scenes I animated!

I also modeled several assets for the short, most of which were flowers that were used in the forest environment. Since I spent a lot of time modeling flowers over summer I decided to use some of them as the base for the flowers. The plants were made with a combination of hard surface modeling and MASH tools in Maya.

Shading credit to Beverly Pan & Jacob Holesinger

Set Layout & Environments

In addition to modeling and animation, my biggest contribution to this project, and the work I am most proud of, was in set layout. I had the chance to create two vastly different environments for this short which was a lot of fun. I can proudly say these are some of the most detailed sets I have created.

I was responsible for the layout of each environment as well as modeling and shading various props. I want to give a big thank you to everyone on the team who helped in different aspects of modeling, shading, and lighting that made these environments come to life!

Bedroom Set

The bedroom of the Main Character; the short begins and ends here. The room has details of someone who likes to read, play games, and play music which are all things that I took from my own life. As a result, the color scheme on some of the assets reflect that of my room at home (i.e. the light blue lamp shade and bedsheets)

I had a lot of fun including some easter eggs into the set! My friends at Berkeley will understand these.

Forest Set

The magical forest that the Main Character transports to through the game. The look and feel of this forest was inspired by several video games including Ori and the Blind Forest and the Macalania Woods in Final Fantasy X (shoutout to my fellow Final Fantasy fans out there!) Special thanks to Jacob Holesinger for collaborating with me on this environment and always providing me with his great input and calm presence.