Navigating Echoes
Navigating Echoes is a short film collaboration with animator Bridget Olson; it provides a glimpse into the journey of a strange creature as it travels through a mathematical world of fractals. These 3D fractals — called Mandelbulbs — come together to form a never ending dimension that repeats infinitely at a smaller and smaller scale. The cyclical repetition draws parallels to our own spiritual growth, comparing how the warm concept of reincarnation might be similar to the cold math formulas that derive the fibonacci spiral.
My roles in the film were designing/modeling/texturing the environment, texturing/rigging the character, lighting/rendering the scenes, and compositing the files with post process effects.
Our technical goals were to examine mandelbulbs as environments within a VFX entertainment setting. We used a program called Mandelbulb 3D to generate fractals using mathematical formulas, which were then exported out of the program as image layers. These image layers were then compiled in an image processing software called Fiji, where they were converted into an obj file for use in ZBrush. The mandelbulbs were then cleaned up and uv mapped, and their low subdivisions were sent to Substance Painter for texturing. Finally, each fractal was brought into Maya and compiled together to create a strange environment for our character to explore. The environments were lit and rendered using either Arnold or RenderMan.
Rough fractal objs brought into ZBrush
The same fractals, now textured in Maya and rendered with Arnold
Our main character was developed from a mixture of real-life creatures that exhibit fractal elements in their physical structure: the spiral of the nautilus shell is an example of this that draws parallels to the golden ratio. While developing this character, we drew several potential designs based around these elements and eventually decided upon the squid goat design below. We took the design into photoshop and developed 200 color palette swaps of him, using Magic: The Gathering cards as references for general color combinations.
3 point lighting with Arnold and wireframe. Texture maps include: basecolor, normal, roughness, metallic, clear coat, subsurface, and displacement
Some of our initial color palette swaps during development
