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Betapuru Digital
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Betapuru Digital
Posted Last Month
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Group: Forum Members
Last Active: Last Month
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Here's my second entry for the character animation category, titled "Zero Gravity: The Mission". This animation is inspired by two of my favorite movies, Armageddon (1998) and Moonfall (2023). Creating a cinematic animation like this has always been a dream of mine, and I finally took the leap to make it happen! The technical aspects of this project were challenging and complex, requiring a high level of knowledge and precision.  To capture the scenes, I avoided using screen recording software like OBS, as it heavily impacted my computer’s performance. Even with a powerful setup with AMD Threadripper Pro 5975WX, RTX4090, and 64GB RAM, I still experienced lag during production. The process was long and facing many technical issues and crashed, but thanks to iClone that have the Restore feature once you reopen back the project file. Which is our life savior! 
I used CC4 for facial animations and an astronaut suit purchased from the Epic Market Store. To fit my CC4 characters into the suits, I had to transform them into CC base characters, which added another layer of complexity. Animating the characters required synchronizing the motion of both the characters and their astronaut suits simultaneously. My scene involved two main characters, Brian and Marcus, along with two extra astronaut suits, meaning I had to manage 4 characters in total. Coordinating all of them through Unreal Live Link at the same time was a monumental task, but it was all worth it to bring this vision to life!
I also downloaded free high quality mocap motion from the Xsens website, including a skydiving motion that perfectly fits the outer space theme of my Zero Gravity animation. This motion captured the feel I was aiming for, and all I needed to do was extend the timing and slow it down to match the cinematic style I wanted to achieve.
The render pipeline for this animation was done using Unreal Engine 5.4. I’ll be sharing the Work in Progress (WIP) details of this creation soon. If any of you have questions about the animation process or want to learn more about how it was made, please feel free to ask. I’m here to explain, share my experience, and help anyone who’s interested in diving into this kind of technical animation work. Looking forward to connecting with all of you! I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I enjoyed creating it!
Zero Gravity : The Mission
 The project "Zero Gravity: The Mission" is a 3D animation short inspired by "Armageddon" (1998) and "Moonfall" (2023).
 The concept of this animation is inspired by my two all time favorite movies, which greatly influenced my choice: "Armageddon" and "Moonfall".
 The story begins with the launch of the Apollo spacecraft, carrying astronauts Marcus and Brian on a repair mission to a space station.
 Their mission takes a perilous turn when an alien swarm attacks, this element draws a direct parallel to "Moonfall," where the lunar mystery and its unforeseen threats form a central pillar of the story.
 Since this animation only requires the character's face from CC4, I chose the CC3+ base model to start morphing the character based on my imagination, as the body part will be using an astronaut suit.
 To make the short film more interesting, I added another character, using a template actor from CC4.
 Here are three views of my character, Brian, wearing the astronaut suit that I purchased from the Unreal Marketplace.
 I downloaded ready made assets from Sketchfab to incorporate into my Zero Gravity animation production. I used the Xsens station because the motion clip was sourced directly from the Xsens website
 All the animation and camera setup were done using iClone software, and then I used Unreal Live Link to record the entire animation.
 For the intense scene, I used a free mocap animation asset from Xsens, available at https://www.movella.com/resources/free-xsens-motion-capture-animation-assets to bring my animation to life.
 After recording with Unreal Live Link and transferring the animation to Unreal Engine, I created a simple outer space environment and added various particle effects, such as Apollo thrusters, LED lamps and an alien swarm.
 This scene shows the alien swarm appearing in outer space, where the tense music kicks in and the suspenseful action begins.
 Post-production stage, I focused on cleaning up the animation by removing unnecessary scenes and performing color correction to enhance the oppressive feel of outer space. Imported sound effects and tense background music to elevate the overall atmosphere Here’s a render test of the main character, showcasing their best body for my short film, hehe! 
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