Behind the Scenes Time Lapse - Banana Split (Read Description)
Hello! My name is Gabriel Miller and I am a 3D Artist and Animator.
This short animation was created for the 48-Hour Animation challenge hosted by the UCF Animation Production Club which I am a part of. For this challenge, the APC gave us limited time to create a short-form animation based on a predetermined prompt. The prompt that was selected for this challenge was: "Split" which was announced on Friday 9/6/24, giving us until 9/8/24 to create the animation. Below I talk about my experience and some fun facts about the animation.
-- Notes --
For this animation, I wanted to reintroduce myself to Blender (the software that I used to create this animation), as well as teach myself some new skills to challenge myself. To do so I combined my prior knowledge with some online tutorials to learn new things as well.
I primarily utilized one online course from Skill Share that I have linked below. This course was created by SouthernShotty3D (his YT is linked below) and is an all-around course that helped me re-adjust to Blender as well as teach me some tips and tricks. I mainly used this course just for modeling the Red Panda character, which I started the project off with. I then used what I learned from the course to help me with modeling the other assets in this animation, skills such as the subdivision surface modifier, and the tips on texture painting.
Almost everything that I did in this animation was created from scratch using very little outside resources. The only pre-made source that I used was the clay material that makes all the models in the animation look like they were made from clay. This material came with the same skill share course for anyone that is interested in playing around with it.
In total this animation took nearly 11 hours to make. However, a lot of my time was spent learning new skills and I feel like if I were to attempt this animation from scratch again I could probably save a lot of time.
-- Fun Facts --
The red panda character is comprised of the complementary colors of orange-red and teal on an RGB color wheel. His fur was comprised of shades of orange-red while his scarf was made of a complementary teal color to help it stand out more. I applied some color theory knowledge to the character design and I think it actually helped a lot when painting the character.
The red panda character is heavily inspired by the design of the main protagonist in the 2022 Indie game called "Tunic" with the idea of having a fun little animal character with a colorful scarf. Tunic is one of my favorite games of all time and is where a lot of the inspiration for the character came from.
All of the sound effects used in this animation are from an old video game originating in 1992 on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. If you don't recognize it, the game is: "The Legend of Zelda; A Link to the Past" and it is also one of my all-time favorite video games. I have linked below the video I used to gather all the sound effects if you want to check it out! (The shot of the Red Panda holding up the Sundae over his head is also Zelda-inspired)
The original idea for the animation was to have the red panda character split a lot with an axe, which fit the theme of the prompt. However I wanted the character to hold a sword and not an axe, so I later pivoted to the idea of a sword swing to cut down the banana as shown in the final animation.
-- Summary --
I had a lot of fun creating this animation from scratch and for the APC here at UCF. I look forward to more projects that the APC announces and I most definitely want to start creating my own personal projects.
If you have read this far, THANK YOU VERY MUCH and if you want to see more work in the future, it would be greatly appreciated if you like the videos and subscribe to help me grow and expand my channel to a larger audience.
-- Links --
Animation Sound Effects: • Legend of Zelda - A Link to the Past - Sou...
Skill Share Course: https://skl.sh/4edLgqK
SouthernShotty3D YT Channel: / southernshotty
-- Music used --
Song: Sarah Jansen - Far Away
License: Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
/ @sarahjansenmusic3170
Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com
Song: Tokyo Music Walker - Way Home
License: Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
/ @tokyomusicwalker4038
Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com
Song: Sappheiros - Embrace
License: Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ZVHXQZAIn...
Music powered by BreakingCopyright: https://breakingcopyright.com