BU NCCA Undergraduate Degree Show 2022

Degree Show 2022 BA (Hons) Computer Animation Art & Design BA (Hons) Computer Animation Technical Arts BA (Hons) Visual Effects

Welcome to the Undergraduate Degree Show of the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA).

This showcase represents the culmination of three years’ work from across our three undergraduate programmes: • BA (Hons) Computer Animation Art & Design • BA (Hons) Computer Animation Technical Arts • BA (Hons) Visual Effects.

For over 30 years, the NCCA has defined the discipline of computer animation as ‘science in the service of the arts’ – a philosophy that continues to guide our teaching and practice and is reflected in the work presented here. The projects this year are a mix of video artefacts, VFX and interactive experiences reflecting a range of themes including mental health, the environment and cultural heritage applications.

We are pleased to see students experimenting in tools and practices which reflect current industry trends, such as real-time rendering, previsualisation and AI driven concept art.

It is difficult to overstate the challenging years this cohort has had to endure. Most of their degree has been taught and assessed online.

Practical elements such as life drawing, production workshops and acquisition were taught remotely, and access to the labs pre-2022 was mainly with remote desktop technology. It has been especially difficult for our students to interact with each other socially or professionally, and to develop relationships with colleagues and practitioners which are so vital for their future career. It is for this reason that events such as this are so essential.

Through the course of their studies, our students have been immersed in the academic study of aesthetics, design, cinematography, maths and computing, alongside contemporary production techniques that underpin modern practice. Guided by academics from a broad range of related disciplines and practitioners with extensive industry experience, our students have demonstrated excellence and maturity in this inherently multidisciplinary subject.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our friends from across the animation, VFX, games and associated industries for supporting us, and to our students and staff for enduring these challenging years through hard work and passion for their discipline. We are all very proud of our students’ achievements and wish them a prosperous and exciting career.

Richard Southern Head of Department National Centre for Computer Animation Visit: vimeopro.com/nccaanimation/undergraduatedegreeshow2022 n2n

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Group members

Christie Gosling n Modelling, lighting, groom

House of Curiosities House of Curiosities is a short introductory environment sequence depicting a study belonging to an alchemist recluse, who is drawn towards the obscure and hoards his magical and macabre collections, findings and fascinations in his study.

Oliver Soyer n Visual effects, texturing

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Group members Cameron James Clack n Director, lead animator, storyboard artist, lighting, compositing, editing

BOND BOND is a sweet short story about two brothers, Cam and Alex, and explores the unbreakable and priceless bond of sibling love. Older brother Cam is leaving for his first day of high school, but Alex isn’t.

Alex is upset about being left behind. We are taken through Cam’s happy memories of the two brothers as Cam seeks to understand why his brother is so upset, finally concluding with Cam reassuring and comforting Alex, promising that no matter what, he will always be there for him. The message of BOND is the importance of a sibling’s friendship and its everlasting union.

Jonathan Dunkley Gyimah n Rigging, VFX

Dylan McGrenaghan n Environment design, environment modelling, character animation

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Milieu Milieu, the main protagonist, is suddenly dropped into a giant and beautiful new world confused and dazed. However, upon landing she bears a black mark that is sure to spread. She wanders through a dense forest with her small companion she encounters to find many broken statues representing broken pieces of herself that went long neglected. She must wander through the rough terrain of the forests to find help and come to terms with her past hardships and learn to love herself once more to restore the balance of the land, before the black mark consumes her entirely.

Alesha Warsop n Modelling, texturing, environment design

The Revenue House The Revenue House is a game environment made for the environmental exploration game. The game starts in 19th century St. Petersburg and follows the same flat in one of the revenue houses throughout the next century. The project intersects authentic recreation with the artistic development of a level design. The environment aims to provide visual clues for the player to guide them through the room and the story of the flat. In the starting level, the main room features the office of the primary occupant. His name is Sergey and he is an aspiring writer and a loving father, very excited to have his first big publication. However, Sergey’s past involvements lead to him being arrested, which kickstarts the whole story of the game. n8n

Alesia Karchevskaia n Rigging, environment design and modelling, lighting, Real-time graphics (Unreal Engine 4)

Catja Larsson n Modelling, texturing, Unreal: landscape creation, asset integration, materials

SAGA - Rise of a Valkyrie SAGA is a game steeped in Norse mythology, where you play as a newly risen Valkyrie. The character wakes up outside a small village after the events of Ragnarok, and finds that all the people have vanished. During the game the player explores the world and helps souls return to the world by repairing Picture Stones, which become portals for the souls.

For this project I created the first village and the location with the first Picture Stone, with the final artefact being a teaser trailer for the future game. The main focus was on design and storytelling.

Pearly Farewell Pearly Farewell is a Mertiodvania inspired 2D platformer that acts as a visual metaphor for the necessity to let go of the past in order to move on. The goal state is collection of 33 pearls in three different areas, with three player characters, all versions of the main character, Sophia, that correspond to distinct times in her memories. After completion of the platformer element of the game, Sophia will face her own Damocles’ sword and will have a choice to give or keep the collected pearls, which are crystalised memories that the subconscious chose to forget. The true win state happens only if player character chooses to give the pearl away, otherwise they will be returned to the beginning of the level with all progress lost, as they were not ready to let go.

Anna Kovalenko n Game design, 2D sprites creation for paper 2D plugin in UE4, in-game aesthetic, Unreal Engine 4

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Group members Robert Catley n 3D modelling, hard surface modelling

Inked Inked is a short 75 second animation about a young girl and her father discovering their bond is as close as ever, despite being separated in the aftermaths of a divorce, after a magical dragon comes to life from the father’s tattoo. It is a fantastical story about an endearing relationship many atypical familial audiences may relate to.

Echo Cheung n Rigging, animation, lighting, hard surface modelling

Mae Moran n Pre-production artist (primarily character designs), director and producer, character modelling/sculpting

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Group members

Nina Devine

Alex Moore

n Modelling, texturing

n Modelling, texturing, lighting

Samuel Guest

Chloe Rodrigues

n Animation, grooming, cloth simulation

n Directing, producing, pre-production design, character modelling, compositing

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Spare Change Spare Change is a short twominute character-based animation. The animation demonstrates the use of experimental animation integrated with a stylised, recognizable environment. The story encourages empathy for both key protagonists, Amari and Aria, and visualises the sensations and phenomena they experience through the jazz music being played by the male protagonist, Amari.

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Group members Benjamin Johansen n Modelling, texturing, lighting, rendering

Rafael Pinhal

The Taste of War

n Director, lead FX artist, sound design, editing

The project depicts a smoothie being created in an exaggerated, destructive sequence that conveys imagery of war and natural disasters. However, at the end it is revealed to be a child’s birthday party.

Liam Röder n FX, modelling, lighting, rendering

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Group members

Charlotte Lee n Modelling, texturing, simulations

Our Ocean Our Ocean is a short, fully CGI commercial highlighting the damage human waste causes to the ocean. The project explores a lively, fantasy underwater environment. This is then contrasted by litter which drifts across the screen, revealing the same environment now lifeless, polluted and permeated with rubbish.

Jake Southern n Lighting, lookdev, cinematography

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The Making of Demolition

Alessandro Canonico n FX, compositing, modelling

The aim of this project was to create a realistic, fully computer generated, interior scene of a house being destroyed by an earthquake in an interesting and out of the ordinary way. The piece contains rigid body dynamics and fluid simulations as the main jewel that take by far the most screens-space when it comes to simulations, however particle simulations as well as procedural techniques were used to complete this piece. While the scene aims to be believable, the events are very unlikely if not impossible to occur in the real world; creating a realistic looking, original piece. I took the roles of FX artist/TD, and animated the entire sequence and was responsible for the simulations like dust. I also completed the compositing for all the rendered shots.

The Valley The Valley is a project that focuses on environment creation and FX. A magical shield protects a floating rock in the centre of a forested valley.

Harri Cameron n Simulation, tool development, environment creation

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Rani Rani is a short animation inspired

by Bollywood films.

It follows Rani, a princess, as she leaves her palace to go on a boat journey around the world. n 20 n

Group members

Tanisha Nagevadia

Kyle David Thomas

n Previs, storyboarding, character design, character modelling and texturing

n Modelling, compositing, visual effects

Ash Norris

Blythe Wood

n Animation, visual development, character and prop design

n Hard surface modelling, texturing, lighting, compositing

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Group members Rosa Benitez n Real-time, environment art, texturing, programming

Pandora’s Painting The project is a prologue of a visual narrative game inspired by Lovecraftian horror and Greek mythology. Set in 1932, our main character, Hope, finds her late mother’s study where she discovers strange unknown items and eventually finds a painting. She falls into it and discovers a scary alien unfamiliar world, full of unknown organisms and giant creature sculptures. There, she finds a beautiful box which she has the unstoppable urge to open, continuing the cyclical family curse of being too curious and opening Pandora’s Box.

Emma Fogarasi n Tool development, simulation, Real-time, programming, layout, lighting, procedural modelling

Jessica O’Donovan n Character, hard surface modelling, character design

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Group members Cairo Gaches n Effects, procedural modelling, programming

Völuspá Völuspá is a short, effects heavy, animation on Norse mythology, depicting the final resting place of Thor and Jörmungandr after their battle at Ragnarök. The animation starts by flying over the water of a stormy fjord alongside the body of Jörmungandr, to reveal a house on fire.

Inside we see carvings depicting the battle and successive shots alluding to Thor dying on his throne.

Sarah Hiley n Modelling, texturing, lighting

Emilie Solem n Modelling, sculpting, texturing, compositing

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Group members

Jessie Kelly n Animation, modelling, previsualisation

Kit Kit is a project that aims to inspire environmental action in teenagers. It shows the story of a young boy who finds a fox in a forest and learns to appreciate nature.

Flavia Macovei n Procedural modelling, Python programming, rigging, texturing, lighting, rendering

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Group members Felicity (Flick) Broadley n Animation, storyboarding, lighting, compositing

Rodrigo_Mendes n Character/environment modeller, texture artist, secondary animator

Oliver Wesson n Rigging, rendering, producing, animation

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Out in the Fells Out in the Fells is a film about a queer young man, sent away from home, who finds shelter with another young man in the wilderness. It’s a film about how even if you’re not in a safe place to come out at home, or if you came out and weren’t accepted, your identity is still valid and there are people who will accept and love you for who you are.

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Lina Lina is celebrating her birthday with her little creature friend. She becomes insecure about the way she looks because the advertisements are showing unrealistic beauty standards.

Her creature friend shows Lina how to love and accept herself so she regains confidence.

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Group members

Yuxiao Du

Junzhi Sun

n Effects, environment modelling, facial rigging

n Storyboard, concept art, animation, lighting

Julia Grzebyk

Androula Theocharous

n Concept art, texturing, modelling

n Concept art, lighting, modelling, texturing, Real-time graphics

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Group members Cayenne Lau n Animation, concept art, character design, character modelling and texturing, illustration

Project Grove Stephen Tang n Unreal blueprinting, rigging, hard surface modelling, shader development

Will Proctor n Environment design, modelling, texturing, effects

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Project Grove is a short demo of a dark fantasy, isometric puzzle game, set within a magical grove. The player controls Lieve, a young woman who wishes to escape the Grove in the hopes of exploring the outside world. To do so, she has been set trials by her father, which she must complete in order to earn her freedom. These trials take the form of exploring the demo’s four levels to complete these puzzles, while telling the story with a visual novel style format. These levels also use optical illusions throughout, as both part of their design, as well as a part of the puzzle mechanics.

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Vedran Horvat n Animation, rigging, character design and development

Shady Shady is a short film telling a straightforward narrative of a spineless thief that gets betrayed by his own shadow due to greed. The design of the piece is inspired by short comic strips and traditional animation. It’s comprised of both 3D and 2D animation working in tandem to achieve the desired look.

Violetta Sinner n Modelling, texturing, lighting, Unreal Engine

The Workshop For my final major project I decided to create a game environment in Unreal Engine. The project is about a mad scientist in a fictional universe who creates his illegal experiments in a large workshop.

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Morrow A one-person project focussing on environment modelling and lighting.

I created a city environment in a cyberpunk and solarpunk style. I wanted to use the contrast between these styles in combination with the cinematography to make a statement about fear and sustainability.

Josja Pijpker n Creature design and modelling, hard surface modelling, compositing

Turan Rajabova n Character design, modelling, texturing, animation

Touma This animated diorama follows Touma, a young samurai apprentice who’s tragically lost his Master and desires to avenge him, facing the greatest evil known to mankind.

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Group members Agnese Bianchi n Producer, storyboard artist, development of 2D animatics, screenwriting, 3D environment and 3D assets designer, 3D environment and 3D assets modeller, 3D character modeller, lighting and rendering, compositing and video editing, sound designer

Francis Lee n Animation, character animation, character design, concept art

Emili Tullila n Storyboarding, previs, character design and visual development, texturing

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Guido - The Guide The Guide is a story about an enthusiastic tour guide lizard named Guido, who takes a grumpy duck and his excited family on a birthday-adventure-of-a-lifetime around the world!

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Group members

Micaela Balbuena Goni n Texturing, motion capture cleanup, additional character animation

The Zone The Zone is an experimental animation that tries to capture the feeling of zoning out through music. The music and concept of this artefact have been developed following study groups and interviews.

The project was realised almost entirely in Unreal Engine 5.

Lisa Milanesio n Directing, modelling, rigging, animation, simulation, VFX , LookDev and compositing

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Rita Matos Ferreira n Animation, rigging, lighting

Symbosis A plant human (Leaf) that is dying decides to still water the other plants. One day a flower that Leaf is watering grows up into a plant human (Kelby). As a gesture of gratitude Kelby waters Leaf, who regains strength once more, starting the process of symbiosis.

Faten AlMaskati n Lighting, animation, modelling

Friday Gatherings Bu Saleh is making last minute preparations and anxiously awaiting a visit from his daughter and grandchildren. Although he seems frustrated by the short notice, it slowly becomes evident how much he cherishes these Friday gatherings with the ones he loves.

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Jessica Hinkins n Modelling, texturing, rigging animation

Personal showreel I’m interested in specialising in 3D modelling and texturing for games and film. I have a particular like in creature and character modelling with horror and fantasy aspects. I also would like to develop my hard surface modelling skills further in the future.

Pipeline development for Convolutional Neural Network training with Houdini

Pipeline Development for Convolutional Neural Network training with Houdini

Intangible Cultural Heritage Preservation using Unity and Vuforia Traditional Egg Decoration

Ana-Maria-Cristina Ureche n Programming (python, C++, C, MEL, Hython, C#, GitHub, CMake), realtime graphics (Unreal Engine 4, Unity), machine learning, pipeline development

Presenting high interest in tool development, maths, and new technology and a love for knowledge and challenging problems. Lately I have been focusing on the application of machine learning and augmented reality in media and have developed a pipeline for artists to use in Houdini to train their own Convolutional Neural Networks for computer vision problems without them having any programming skills. n 41 n

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Luke Evans n Sculpting, modelling, texturing, Lookdev

The Creature The Creature is a project I undertook in order to expand my experience working within the creature creation pipeline, it was an opportunity to try out some concepting which I don’t usually do but most importantly, it gave me a project to further develop my skills in anatomy sculpting, texturing and also Look development and I’m very pleased with the result.

Gabriela Majcher n Modelling, groom, rigging

DOGUE style DOGUE style is a short fashion film set in a studio environment, featuring a stylised chihuahua named Francis as the main character.

Inspired by the increasingly trending canine couture, the project aims to showcase the dog model in a fashionable outfit while capturing it as confident and full of glamour. n 43 n

Group members

Sasha Alexdottir n VR production, creative pre production pipeline, directing and cinematography, VR research in sensorics and synaesthesia

Virtual Afterlife

Daniel Evans

The project is a short film made through VR Staged Production: an advert for ‘virtual afterlife’ – a virtual world where people can carry on living after their death. The commercial is presented by a woman who lives there, presenting all the benefits a person gets by purchasing their afterlife program. The commercial stops due to equipment failure, showing a twist in the story and the virtual afterlife…

The film is fully shot in virtual reality with real time acting and virtual camera.

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Bence Franko

Alone

n Animation, rigging, modelling

My project is a 3D animated interpretation of a play made by Samuel Beckett called Act Without Words I. I created a short animation that tells the story; I wanted to use body language to express the character’s feelings and tell the story. For this project, I used a few different software’s to get the desired result, mainly using Blender to do the rendering and compositing of the animation and modelling the environment. I also used Maya and Substance Painter for modelling, rigging, animating, and texturing the animation’s main character.

The NCCA would like to thank Framestore for hosting our Undergraduate Degree Show this year.

Framestore, 28 Chancery Lane, Holborn, London, WC2A 1LB

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The Faculty of Media & Communication Weymouth House Bournemouth University Talbot Campus Fern Barrow Poole Dorset BH12 5BB www.bournemouth.ac.uk/ncca

vimeopro.com/nccaanimation/undergraduatedegreeshow2022 11446-07/22