"My heart has passed thousands of miles from the past, back to the wide wide world."
Video
Project Time: 2017 Partners: Stanlyn Lu (Screenwriter, Editor), David Chen (Original music), Manning Qu (Mo-cap performance) Advisors: Mimi Yin, Todd BryantTools: Unreal Engine, Motion Builder, Maya, Rhino, Blender, Adobe Fuse, After EffectsShows: Dec 8, 2017 – IAC, 555 West 18th Street, New York Aug 2, 2018 – Expanded Cinema, Vol.3 Opening Reception @NY Media Center by IFP
Estranged Stars is a non-linear storytelling and three minutes’ animation film created for InterActive Corp’s 120-foot long video wall in West Chelsea. The story is about a reunion of two old friends, who were both musicians and chose different life paths after a turning point of their career. Using montage and flashback in storytelling, we tried to depict the inner activities of the two figures.
I used motion capture to create all the characters’ animations, Adobe Fuse to build up the models and Unreal Engine to render the whole story, and lots of other 3D software got involved, of which some were totally new to me. I also learned to be a film director to set the cameras and move the characters. In just 3 months, I’ve taken away so much from this project.
Making Process
Using Motion Capture to record the motion data
Modeling characters and using Motion Builder to attach motion data on models
Building the scenes in Unity and setting camera sequencers
Cinematic rendering
The ratio of the screen is 10.666 : 1.0. It was huge and a challenge of composition of each frame. I found out that there were several scenes like piano keys, a crossing train, menus of Japanese restaurant, and subway platforms or Time square were particular looking good in this ratio. That’s why I put the story under these camera angles and how we developed this story.
The final show at IAC