Gardening For The Apocalypse
The Texas A&M Visualization Summer Industry Course tasked Team Coffee Crusaders with creating a 20 second digital short story. The challenge was to tell a story simply by panning through a environment to reveal a surprise treasure.
Gardening For The Apocalypse tells the story of a post apocalyptic gardening shed. Although the shed is dark and dingy, it appears there is a survivor alive and he is desperately trying to grow plants. As the camera pans across the shed to the searing sound of a geiger counter, many dead plants and failed attempts leave the viewer in despair. But suddenly, the camera catches the light of a window. Following the light's path to a crack in the floor, the camera sneaks down below the floorboards to reveal a lone bright tomato growing. There is hope!
The project was mentored by digital artists from Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar, Brazen Animation, ILM, Velan Studios, and Cubic Studios.
SOFTWARE USED:
Autodesk Maya
Renderman
Houdini
Substance Painter
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Clip Studio Paint
Coffee Crusaders: Walker Register, Ani Barseghyan, Caleb Miene, John "Garvin" Beltz, Jason Lee, Katelyn Noble
Gardening For The Apocalypse
Video tells a hopeful story of recovery after disaster, flowing from a post-apocalyptic scene through multiple failed attempts to successfully growing a tomato. Final animation diverged slightly from initial storyboard for simplicity and enhanced impact.
This lighting key was developed with an initial whitebox. The team knew that godrays would play a key part of the lighting and VFX. I worked with Dave Walvoord from Pixar to find the best blend of clarity and grunge.
