I developed the concept for this project after being constantly bombarded with updates about AI's encroaching ubiquity in design and creative pursuits. It seems destined to play a big part of the world going forward, whether I want it to or not. Some people love it, some people hate it. I'm pretty firmly in the "hate it" camp.
I often roll my eyes at all the AI hype, mostly because the people (I think they are real people) that write and post about it like it's a religion or gospel here to free us all and offer some sort of creative salvation. I just look at it as lazy shortcuts that empower the less talented and driven people, not to mention its abuse of intellectual property and ability to fast-track fraud and deception for scammers. Often it's just touting a tool we already have with bots having a circle jerk in the comments. It's forcing its way into my life and career whether or not anyone asked for it.
So I channeled that vibe in this 3D piece. I have a longer version in mind I might get to one day. The idea that your brain is no longer necessary; apps and prompts are going to do all the work for you. Don't think, just generate.
Modelling
I started in Cinema 4D using volume modelling and made this dopey looking character. He's got a pot-belly despite a thin frame, felt like he belonged as the test subject or guinea pig here in this experiment. Using the Volume Builder I had an interesting setup where I was able to create a procedural model that updated his topology based on the Voxel Size. This way you could control how detailed you want the mesh without doing and subdivision modelling. I ended up using the volume builder a lot in this project, I really enjoy this tool inside Cinema 4D and find a lot of uses for it.
I'm a much better hard surface modeler than anything anatomical or organic, so I like having volume builder control while getting a fairly good and useful topological result. I had to retopologize a bit and add in the hands separately, but it got me 90% of the way there and that helps a lot.
Character rigging: also not my jam. But this guy is basically bordering on death, being comatose is something my rigging skills could handle. Once I positioned him in the chair, he really only moved a little bit beyond that pose. So I manipulated some hand movements and head turns, and he was good to go. Don't ask him to rise up and do jumping jacks, he is 100% not built for that.
Animation
The animation was a lot of subtle or simple movements. I wanted him to have this empty stare, like the lights are on but nobody is home. He's still able to function, just barely. It's a different state of mind than characters you would usually animate with full agency, so I tried some fun stuff. I found it funnier to offset his blinks so that the eyelids opened and closed disjointedly. It was also fun sending his pupils in different directions throughout the sequence.
The primary animation allowed for some fun secondary animation, mostly focused on the tongue flapping around with drool flying. I did the drool with a combination of Cinema 4D's newer particle system combined with a volume builder. The particles were part of the volume so they looked like one seamless piece when connected to the mesh located on the tongue. Also got some jiggle on his lower mouth, just a bit.
The brain tank has a couple movie references in it. It's sort of like plugging into the Matrix, but with the brain removed from the body. The brain and motion was more interesting being suspended in the air when it was getting shocked. You'll also notice the cart full of blue pills ready to be consumed like candy, another hat tip to the movie. The red light below it is a bit of a nod to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Felt like these were thematically appropriate for the short. Also, let's mix in a modern twist on a bit part of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest while we're at it.
Look
Overall the look of this took some time for me to develop. I've been a big fan of the Redshift toon shader so I have tried using it in some personal projects. I felt like the look of doing his skin purely as cel shaded felt a little weak, so I tried to introduce some sub surface scattering from a skin shader as well. It's interesting to see both options as stand alone looks, and i feel like the blend between the two shaders is much more interesting. To me that's the goal where you should aim for in creative projects: find the intersection of multiple interesting things.
I also nailed town my process for fully tapping into ACES for color management going between Cinema 4D and After Effects. I had used it sporadically but it made such a difference on this project. Instead of just eyeballing whatever the default is in the sRGB default is when you bring something in from Cinema 4D, I used ACES and the range and quality of the images was just night and day.
Simulation
The brain explosion was also a fun pursuit for combining tools. I built a simple explosion inside Cinema 4D's Pyro system. You can export this as a VDB and then use it as a sequence inside another volume builder with the volume loader object. This turns smoke into this fluid mesh, rather than being a vessel for a typical volume shader. I then manually animated some other parts that meshed with the pyro simulation to become once smoky looking piece. My take on those physical simulations is that you can tweak it forever and it still won't be perfect, so it helps to mix in some manual design and animation to make it look much closer to the way you specifically want to. I used MoGraph to clone some specific smoke pieces in there to add to the sim, specifically on the tail end where it fades out. I could cache a million sims and not get floating, wispy detail like that purely from the physical settings, so it's best to just add it in yourself.
Overall I am happy with the work and how it turned out, I liked manifesting the feelings I actually harbored about AI and my creative pursuits. I'm not sure where the future will take us with thousands of hours of experience and knowledge taking a back seat of a prompt box. Just shut your brain off don't think too hard about it.
