SoM Holiday Card Animation 2019
Personal project - School of Motion community
Inspiration: My boys really started to get into the Polar Express leading up to the holiday's this year. Building a train set was a good challenge for me to expand my abilities in Cinema4D. I was also beginning to learn Redshift, so I used this project as an opportunity to apply my new knowlege.
My final theme was: "This Holiday season, share the ride!"
I modeled all elements in the scene from scratch. I learned quite a bit along the way. Here was my first iteration of the concept, which is basic in form as I worked to get all the primary elements laid out and working.
I built the scene as if it were on the floor of a bedroom because of the inspiration from my kids. The inspiration for modeling of the train came from ride-on trains at amusement parks.
Once I got the basic elements down, I moved on to texturing and lighting. I changed the floor to a textured image to make it appear more like a bedroom carpet. I also built a faux window so I could animate the sun light coming in to reinforce the bedroom theme while creating a "hero" element that draws your eye. Finally, I textured the train to look like plastic to give it more of a toy-like look and feel.
Final video execution: