Project Goal: Create a 3D animated short film for my Game Development BS degree capstone project.
In Loving Memory is the culmination of work across a semester of pre-production and a semester of production. The affiliated classes - Game Design Studio I & II - provide students with an environment to form groups and create either a playable video game or a short film. Professors dissuade students from choosing to work solo, but due to commitments between semesters (see
Rejuvenation), I could not join a group with my classmates. However, just because I wasn't working with anyone in my class didn't mean I had to work alone. I took this "solo" role as an opportunity to produce. I recruited many talented artists to join my project - some I had worked with before, some I hadn't worked with but knew were skilled, and some I had never met but discovered through open calls. The team I put together is so incredible and I am so pleased I got to work with every single one of them. The video above is still a work-in-progress, but it's clear how hard my team and I worked to come this far over just a semester. Please enjoy and keep an eye out, as I expect this project will go much further!
The majority of this film was made in Unreal Engine 5.3. The body animation was done using OptiTrack optical motion capture and keyframing in UE5 while the facial animation was keyframed in Reallusion's iClone 8. Model building was done in Maya 2024 with textures made in Adobe Substance Painter. The characters were created in Reallusion's Character Creator 4. Audio editing was done in Adobe Audition, Adobe Premiere, and Logic Pro. Video editing was done in Adobe Premiere.
Below are some of the assets created originally for In Loving Memory. One of the goals with this project was to have as much original content as possible, and with these assets (along with others such as the character models and the vase of lilies), the audio track, all FX and text editing, I am very happy with the outcome!
