YOUR VIRTUAL PARADISE
2022 ANIMATION
DESCRIPTION
With a desire to escape her mundane life, a girl enters a video game simulation after seeing an advertisement on TV. With expectations for an extraordinary experience playing games and having fun with friends, she begins to have strange and eerie encounters with NPCs and quickly realizes the game is not as polished as advertised.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Your Virtual Paradise was inspired by many concepts, the most prominent being the idea of the metaverse and being trapped in a video game. I’ve always been inspired by these concepts and how they are portrayed in films such as Jumanji or the show Black Mirror. I wanted to take these concepts and create an animation using 2D and 3D elements for my thesis project.
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I decided to combine 3D spaces with 2D characters to explore 2D animation. To create the animation, I used Blender to assemble the 3D scenes and Blender’s grease pencil tool to draw the 2D characters. Once the scenes were rendered, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere was used in the final editing process to add text and finalize the trailer.
The significant challenges encountered in creating Your Virtual Paradise included various rewrites of the script, time management, and issues in the rendering and editing phase. Various rewrites of the script were required to simplify the trailer, so anyone would be able to grasp the concept. Time management became an issue when drawing out the 2D characters because I had no prior experience drawing 2D animations, and I did not have the preferred equipment to draw the 2D characters, having to use my laptop trackpad for the drawings. Finally, some issues were encountered in the rendering phase, such as specific scenes requiring more time to render, resulting in many details needing to be decreased.
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In making Your Virtual Paradise, many valuable lessons were learned, and I gained a considerable amount of knowledge about the animation pipeline and different roles within the industry. Creating this animation granted me the opportunity to take charge and experience the various responsibilities of an animator, digital artist, compositor, and more.
CREATIVE PROCESS DOCUMENTATION
PROGRAMS & RESOURCES
Various 3D assets were downloaded from CG Trader and BlenderKit.
PLANNING & PROCESS
The planning process for my thesis project, Your Virtual Paradise, began in September 2021 and continued until the end of the project. The concept of being trapped in a video game was inspired by films that use a similar concept, such as Jumanji or the Playtest episode from Black Mirror. Your Virtual Paradise was also inspired by the idea of the metaverse, a concept I have extensively researched for the past two years.
The idea of Your Virtual Paradise began as a 3D 7-10 minute short film. After some consultations and brainstorming, the idea for the short film to turn into a 2D 1-2 minute trailer was proposed by one of my professors at Ryerson to ensure I met the deadline for the project. This option ended up being the best course of action as it allowed me to focus on learning the basics of 2D animation and focus on the quality of the trailer.
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With approval from my professors, I began writing the script in Celtx for the entire 7-10 minute trailer. I then cut down the script to specific scenes I could include in the trailer.
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After figuring out which lines to use in the trailer, I created a storyboard and animatic to express my ideas. The lines and scenes were once again altered in the final editing process.
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ANIMATIC
3D SCENE CREATION
To begin creating the scenes in Blender, I first planned which assets I would need to download, as I was on a schedule and would not have time to model each asset individually. Many assets were downloaded from websites such as CG Trader and BlenderKit.
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Once the assets were downloaded, I did some basic modeling and assembled the assets into the scenes in Blender. Some features, such as the game menu in scene two, were created in Photoshop and placed in the scenes as 2D panels. When the backgrounds for the scenes were complete, the lighting was roughly placed. At this stage, some scenes were cut to be able to meet the project deadline.
2D CHARACTER ANIMATION
The most tedious aspect of the trailer was creating the 2D character animation. With the Covid-19 pandemic and variants still a significant concern while Your Virtual Paradise was in production, getting the preferred equipment to draw the characters was difficult, if not impossible. I ended up using my laptop and trackpad to draw the 2D characters. Using a trackpad was not ideal; however, I ended up enjoying the style of the 2D characters when the animations were complete.
RENDERING
With the scenes fully assembled and 2D characters drawn out, the final step in Blender was to reconfigure the scene lighting, animate the cameras, and render the scenes. Some longer scenes would take 1-3 days to render on my MacBook Pro, even when settings were changed to make the rendering process shorter. Some details were also decreased to lessen the rendering time.
FINAL EDITING
After each shot was rendered, the final trailer was assembled in Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere. After Effects was used to arrange the shots and add animated typography, and Premiere was used in the final stage to assemble the audio, including dialogue and background music.
CONCLUSION & SCREENING
The final trailer may not be as long as I originally planned, but I am content with the final product. Cutting it down to a trailer allowed me to focus on quality and explore 2D animation in Blender. This trailer is intended to be a single-channel video and has been submitted to MaxEx to hopefully be included in the Senior Thesis Exhibition.