FEATURE
Big VFX on a budget
“WE focusED on REDucing
REnDER T imE”
The ‘small team, big project’
phenomenon is most often seen
in film festival and competition
entries, which every year just seem
to get better and better.
Take DREAVELER, an entry
to 2018 Pause Fest, Australia’s
premier creative, tech and business
event (vimeo.com/251461815). It’s
a captivating, all-CG short set in
a future world where death only
exists as a type of euthanasia. The
subject may be a little grim, but the
CG dreamworlds are utterly awe-
inspiring. So it’s certainly a surprise
to learn that its creators, Taehoon
Park, Hyunsup Ahn and Jihoon
Roh, made the project in their spare
time and over the course of just
three months.
“We spent one month for the
story and animatic, and two months
for production,” says Taehoon.
“We mainly used Cinema 4D for
animations and rendering, After
Effects for colour correction
and compositing, and Maya and
Marvelous Designer for the
character modelling.”
So how did they get it all done
so quickly? “We focused strongly
on scene optimisation and reducing
render time,” says Taehoon. “I
used an awesome GPU-biased
renderer called Octane, which is
super fast and realistic – I’d totally
recommend it to everyone.”
But more important than
technical shortcuts was having the
right mindset, he stresses. “I don’t
think you need a large number of
people,” he believes. “As long as
they have the ability, two or three
people can make great scenes. The
important thing is good teamwork.”
“EmbRAcE T hE REsTRicTions”
DREAVELER stands testament
to just what can be achieved in
your spare time, and that was
exactly the thinking behind
another inspiring short, created
by a small team at Blue Zoo
Animation Studio in London.
VIA (vimeo.com/242073421) is a
short animated film that tells the
journey of life through the use of
epic, beautiful environments and
meaningful character animation.
“I wanted a project that I could
work on during spare moments
between work projects,” explains
“We focused strongly on
scene optimisation and
reducing render time”
Taehoon Park, 3D artist & motion graphic designer