At Bomper Studio, I had the opportunity to showcase my skills and enhance my expertise through the production of the studio’s first-ever character animation project. The short film titled ‘Coffee Run’ was a thrilling self-commissioned venture, which allowed me to exhibit my prowess in diverse areas such as simulation, lighting, modeling, texturing, and rendering, utilizing cutting-edge tools like Octane, C4D, and Houdini.
I was responsible for producing all simulation and FX components during the production process, utilizing SideFx Houdini’s native solvers. The Vellum solver was employed for hair grooming and simulation, while FLIP was used for handling liquid simulations. Additionally, all particle and smoke effects throughout the animation were generated within Houdini, enabling me to oversee and streamline the entire simulation process.
We produced a face animation test, which involved me developing the character’s skin shader using Substance Painter and Octane. Early versions of the character’s groom were also integrated, complete with simulation, to identify and address potential issues prior to the final production phase such as collision detection with the glasses, ultimately ensuring the final product met the highest standards of quality.
Look development for a foam setup and material that I built from scratch, utilizing a blend of instanced objects and textures. This approach allows us to achieve art-directed animation on top of the foam without the need for time-consuming simulations, including non-simulated liquid for background shots.
One of my favourite simulation tasks throughout the entire short, creating the disgusting ‘jellified’ milk effect. To achieve this, I created a highly viscous FLIP fluid simulation and com,bined it with point-deforms and blendshapes to help artdirect the motion and maintin the solid shape throughout.
Below is a selection of my favorite shots from the Coffee Run short, showcasing some of the tasks that I had the pleasure of overseeing during the entire production process. As a skilled and experienced member of the production team, I took on various responsibilities, ensuring that the project was executed with precision and creativity.
You can watch the full video in its entirety below, and for project breakdown and full list of credits, visit Bomper Studio.
