Hellyfish VFX breakdown
06/02/15 10:01 Filed in: Case Study
Post by Pryce Duncalf - Creative Director & Production Lead at Munk Studios
With our new showreel online and new projects lined up, we thought it was time we started posting some of that really interesting behind the scenes stuff.
Here at Munk, we are heavily into our creature creation, so we were absolutely chuffed to pieces when former Psyop compositor 'Patrick Longstreth', one of our U.S allies, asked us to work on his short film 'Hellyfish'. After he showed me his hilarious, work in progress, trailer which included an epic shot of a giant jelly fish smashing through a pier, I was sold.
With our new showreel online and new projects lined up, we thought it was time we started posting some of that really interesting behind the scenes stuff.
Here at Munk, we are heavily into our creature creation, so we were absolutely chuffed to pieces when former Psyop compositor 'Patrick Longstreth', one of our U.S allies, asked us to work on his short film 'Hellyfish'. After he showed me his hilarious, work in progress, trailer which included an epic shot of a giant jelly fish smashing through a pier, I was sold.
Our brief was to rig and animate the small and medium sized mutant, killer, jellyfish 'galloping' along the beach. As fun as this brief may sound, it wasn't an easy task. A pitfall that I have regularly come across when animating tentacles, is unlike most creatures that are animated in 3D, jellyfish don't contain any bones. When using a rigging system that is primarily based around bones, its difficult to know where to begin. However, after tireless R&D, we managed to create a system that we were happy with.
So the next task was to animate this creature, 'galloping' along the beach. So where do you begin? Not many of us have seen a jellyfish 'galloping' along a beach, mainly due to the fact that they turn to slimy piles of jelly when you take them out of water, but the concept was so beautiful, it just had to be figured out.
It became clear that the rest of this task was to be left to the imagination, a practical task of visualising how these tentacles would work if they were actually used to propel a heavy creature at speed. I began studying the way octopuses moved along the bottom of the seabed. The reference was the closest I could find of an 8 legged creature running, but still far from a 'gallop' due to its weightlessness, so I had to once again turn to my imagination and visualise a horse attempting to gallop with tentacles instead of legs. I also looked into the way spiders transfer their weight and use different legs for different purposes. All of these factors resulted in achieving the 'galloping' jellyfish you see in the award winning short film 'Hellyfish'.
Once my work was done, it was passed onto Patrick the accomplished nuke guru who seamlessly inserted the 'galloping' jellyfish into the scenes. You can see the visual effects process below. Enjoy!
So the next task was to animate this creature, 'galloping' along the beach. So where do you begin? Not many of us have seen a jellyfish 'galloping' along a beach, mainly due to the fact that they turn to slimy piles of jelly when you take them out of water, but the concept was so beautiful, it just had to be figured out.
It became clear that the rest of this task was to be left to the imagination, a practical task of visualising how these tentacles would work if they were actually used to propel a heavy creature at speed. I began studying the way octopuses moved along the bottom of the seabed. The reference was the closest I could find of an 8 legged creature running, but still far from a 'gallop' due to its weightlessness, so I had to once again turn to my imagination and visualise a horse attempting to gallop with tentacles instead of legs. I also looked into the way spiders transfer their weight and use different legs for different purposes. All of these factors resulted in achieving the 'galloping' jellyfish you see in the award winning short film 'Hellyfish'.
Once my work was done, it was passed onto Patrick the accomplished nuke guru who seamlessly inserted the 'galloping' jellyfish into the scenes. You can see the visual effects process below. Enjoy!