"Birdgirl" Project Exploration

This was my assignment for SCAD’s VSFX 210 course taught by Professor Steele, which is a class that walks you through the pipeline to create a shot. The specific prompt for this assignment was inspired by the internet trend “Infinite Journey”, which I was very excited to try out.

Theme and Concept

"Birdgirl" came about as I was conceptualizing projects that would be a bit fantastical and explorative, but also give me a bit of a challenge. This is where the feathers came in. The scene came together quite quickly after I had the basic idea: A bird girl sits alone in a cage-like train car that crosses through the sky, as she gazes at the clouds she wishes she could fly through.

Bird-wise, I based the design off of a dove. Dove’s have always been a favorite bird of mine, mostly for their association with peace and freedom, which fit the concept at hand. While she seems peaceful on the outside, she still aches to be free and spread her wings. I struggled a bit with the lighting and color composition, at first wanting the cage to appear cold and empty, while the outside world was warm and inviting. However, I still wanted to have a certain color palette of sunset colors and soft bright whites. So I compromised a bit. While the interior is not too cold, I shifted the shadows to a darker purple that compliments the pinks, but still feels melancholic. 

Feathers and Character TD

Making this concept, I did not even know Houdini had a new feather system, which I thank Professor Steele for telling me as it gave me an abundance of new tools to explore. I dedicated much of my time on this project to analyzing the SideFX documentation on feathers.

Incorporating the feather system helped me get a better understanding of a lot of other things in Houdini too, such as grooming, deforming, rendering procedurals, and more. I intend to continue using this workflow moving forwards, and look forwards to doing so.

Being a student, it was refreshing to be able to create an assignment with so much creative liberty. I really enjoyed the creative liberty this project promoted, as well as the freedom to explore new technologies.