Leafy and Petals VS. The Storm from Jenna Seng on Vimeo.
I created this short animation for my Advanced Animation course at WSUV. I completed the work of 3D modeling all elements of this animation by using the software Autodesk Maya, and added the rain effect, sound effects, and music with the rendered frames in After Effects. This was my first 3D animation project to complete solely on my own.
The intended storyline of the animation was two potted plants journey to freedom. Leafy and Petals, the two potted flowers, begin the animation with a normal day of dwelling peacefully in their yard. A singular storm cloud drifts in first, and finds it’s place directly overhead of Leafy, the blue flower, Leafy does not understand why it is happening so he gets angry and tries to move out of the way of the storm cloud. The storm cloud follows Leafy’s every move which enrages the flower character further. It does not help too much that Leafy looks over and sees Petals continuing to bask in the sun unbothered. Leafy sprouts legs and hops over to start a fight with Petals. The rain cloud dutifully follows, as the two begin to challenge each other and the tension rises, a crack of lightning hits and the two turn to see a huge storm coming! The two have to band together to escape the storm which leads them to a forest where they take cover. At the end of the forest is a field of wildflowers where the two potted plants find their home with their more natural brothers and sisters.
My biggest struggle with this was working with the time limit of 1 minute which I actually ended up going over by a few seconds. I feel like this resulted in some of the scenes feeling more rushed. At the end of the day I would like to revise the project by cutting some things out, as well as, making some things simply more visually obvious so I can have effectively communicated the storyline without confusion of the viewer. I used CC particle world in After Effects to create my rain effect!
