Metamorphosis | Real-time | Film

Trailer

“Metamorphosis” is a short real-time computer graphics film. It is a fantastical journey, and conveys tragic emotions. It was based on a daydream I had drawn on a piece of paper. The core idea is the humanoid butterflies, ghosts of the lost world that tell the dream of a beautiful ruin. The butterfly, which are often used as metaphors for change and hope. Through the use of virtual production (combining CG animation and motion captures), “Metamorphosis”explores my experience of lost memories, the decline of traditional culture, environmental disasters, climate change, and animal extinction.

A butterfly is resurrected from a rare specimen collection and explores the ruins of an ancient civilization that leads to a mysterious underground frozen cave. In the cave, the butterfly meets the Butterfly Man, who is an amalgamation of many other butterflies. The two dance and transform between the human and butterfly shapes. The frozen environment gradually melts, plants and organisms begin to wake up around them. Eventually, the butterfly man is blown away by the wind and becomes part of the natural environment. Metamorphosis reflects my concerns about human memory of lost time. The film explores philosophical ideas about life forms decomposing and then transforming into new organisms, between dreams and reality, and between humans and creatures.

FILM

Poster

Metamorphosis | Thesis film | Environment ｜ Screen Shot

Unreal Engine 4 | Houdini | Maya | Zbrush | Substance Painter & Source

Metamorphosis | Thesis film | Environment ｜ Water cave | Level 2

Metamorphosis | Thesis film | Environment ｜ Ice cave | Level 1

Environment | Indoor

Wireframe

Environment | Desert Garden

Color Tone | World Design

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Modeling | Texture | Zombie Deer

Zombie Deer was modeled and retopologied by using Zbrush. Texturing the deer with Substance Painter and Quixel Megascans. As a FBX file was imported into Unreal Engine.

Rigging by Leon Cruz

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Screenshots | Desert Garden | Deer

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Texture | Zombie Crow

Time Tunnel | Touch Designer |

Shader By: Shayu Su

In order to bridge the two worlds(desert and cave scenes), a portal animation was created inspired by the idea of “quantum warp” using GLSL on Touchdesigner. Raymarching is a natural fit when it comes to fulfilling scientific ideas such as Lorentz Contraction and Doppler Shift. These techniques and equations give power to the shader in simulating visual effects reaching infinitely close to the speed of light, in this case, “ray”. For future development, we aim to further develop the visual complexity and potentially combine character animation with the shader fully on Unreal Engine by translating GLSL into HLSL.