ESCAPE

Director
Animator
Music: Yelo

ESCAPE is a short CG film about a woman caught in the cold ice cages and chains.A piece of  beautiful melody recovers the world. She escapes there and walks into nature, where she embraces her lover, the goddess of nature.






Director/Animator: me
Music: Yelo
Faculty Advisor: Michael Patterson, Jordan Halsey,Moses Journey
Special Thanks: Harry Chen, Shengluo Zhang, Xindi Zhang









I have always been fascinated by non-linear narrative and impressionistic storytelling. In this particular piece, my focus was on CG and real-time animation, aiming to explore the expression of emotions and moods through virtual media and also sharpen my technical skills.







The creative process presented numerous challenges. It was the first time I tried Unreal Engine 5, a system that was entirely new to me, demanding a considerable amount of time to get familiar with. Fortunately, Jordan Halsey's Unreal Engine class played a pivotal role in facilitating my understanding and improvement, providing me with a foundational knowledge of the system.





Collaborating with Harry on the stems growing animation was another significant aspect of this project. He ingeniously developed a tool in Cinema4D to generate dynamic animations of stems and leaves growing, contributing to the overall visual richness of the piece.




It was also my first attempt at using Houdini, primarily for integrating it into the Unreal Engine workflow. With guidance from Professor Jordan Halsey, I created several basic assets including terrain, water ripples, and merged Mixamo animations.




 






Cinema4d, Octane, Unreal Engine 5, Houdini, After Effects