Sunny
Sunny was a short film I worked on over the course of two semesters in our classes Animation Lab I & II (ATCM 4316 & 4317) at UTD. The short film embarks upon the journey of our protagonist, Sunny, a circular cheery fellow as he moves to a city full of squares, and how his fate changes with his encounter of them. I worked as a modeler in the spring, but come fall, I had the privilege to work as the lead modeler, as well as take on the role of a lighter, and set dresser.
This is the shot I had the privilege to light! This is a shot from very late into the short film where Sunny has transformed himself into a square and is running up the stairs of a subway in a frantic. The entire shot was lit up in Maya using the built in lights from Maya as well as Arnold lights and rendered in Maya as well. The shot was then composited in Nuke and is the final product you see here.
During our fall semester of 2024, I worked on Sunny a lot. I did a lot of tweaks and fixes on Sunny's various models made last semester. The teardrop head, face, and mouth were done entirely by me though!
The Homeless Guy was the second most important character in our short film that I had the privilege to model. I modeled both his square and grumpy form as well as his rounded out self that appears at the end.
These are various other side characters I worked on in the 2024 spring semester. The characters on the left were made in mind with the concept art by our director Sean McComber. The characters on the right half were completely original and designed and modeled by me!
These are other various props I worked on in the 2024 spring semester. Varying from trees, cars, and different variations of signs.
Here are more props and high-rise buildings I made during both my spring and fall semesters. The stoplight beams were made in the spring along with high-rise buildings, which were used as buildings scaled large to be in the background of the foreground buildings in our shots. The sidewalk and roads were tweaked and worked on through both semesters that were used as the infrastructure through the whole short film. Lastly, the smaller props were used in a coffee shop building made in the fall.
Buildings I made during the spring semester. These assets were reused multiple times throughout various sets.