3D Animation
ESE'S GIFT
This animation is a single continuous shot, which orbits the subject in a smooth, elliptical path. This technique was an experiment in translating real-world camera movement into a digital environment.
Year :
2025
Category :
Academic
Client :
Master's Cine Skills class
Project Type :
Oner
Project Description:
Ese’s gift is an exploration of two potent emotional states: dissociation and rage. It began as an unconscious effort to give these feelings a form, to build a digital world that mirrors an internal landscape. The piece asks a quiet question: when has rage not been a constant, simmering presence? It starts off with Ese(mirrored) in a fantasy land representing disassociation and then as the camera pans out you get a more realistic 3d space, with books scattered around and ese sitting on the floor, representing her rage.
This animation is a single continuous shot, which orbits the subject in a smooth, elliptical path. This technique was an experiment in translating real-world camera movement into a digital environment.
As always, my deepest thanks to my brother for the incredible original score, which gives this world its pulse.
(For anyone who doesn't know my middle name is Ese and it means 'gift' , interestingly both Esan and Urobho)
Project Analysis & Challenges:
The animation begins as an intimate close-up on two Ese’s mirroring each other’s dance moves. It then unfolds via a continuous 360-degree helical camera move, simultaneously pulling out and upward. This dynamic motion reveals a vast, contrasting landscape, completely transforming the scene's context and scale while maintaining a single, fluid perspective. The central innovation was the hybrid technique of bridging physical and digital filmmaking; the camera's motion was captured by physically filming a red board with tracking markers using a mobile phone, and this real-world movement data was then tracked and imported into the adobe after effect then into cinema4d to drive the camera through the fully digital environment.
A significant creative challenge was designing a scene that worked at two extremely different scales; the composition had to be visually interesting in both the extreme close-up and the final wide shot without either view feeling cluttered. This initially required the strategic removal of bookshelves that created too many competing points of focus. Furthermore, integrating disparate elements from multiple software sources—including DAZ Studio, Clo3D, and Polycam photoscans—required meticulous work to ensure consistent scale, texture quality, and lighting. Finally, smoothing the inherent minor jitters from the hand-held camera pass in the digital timeline without losing its organic feel was a delicate post-production task.
Camera Tracking
The camera is the star of this piece, and its motion is a carefully crafted blend of art and technology. The chosen path is a helix—a combination of a 360-degree orbit and a vertical pull-out. This is far more dynamic than a simple zoom or straight dolly shot; the orbital motion continuously reveals new information from all angles, while the upward pull-out creates a sense of grand revelation, perfectly supporting the narrative journey from small detail to large landscape. The use of a physically tracked camera is the key differentiator, as it retains the subtle accelerations and micro-imperfections of a human operator. This "hand-held" quality injects a layer of authenticity and weight that is incredibly difficult to animate by hand, making the digital world feel tangibly real.
Beyond its path, the camera itself "breathes" and evolves. The most sophisticated technical achievement was the animated focal length and field of view. By shifting the focal length from 50mm to 22mm, the camera actively participates in the storytelling. It begins with a longer focal length to focus on details and minimize distortion on the miniature elements, and ends on a wider focal length to exaggerate the perceived depth and epic scale of the final landscape. This shift, combined with careful depth-of-field control, is a masterful simulation of a complex, real-world camera technique.
More Projects
3D Animation
ESE'S GIFT
This animation is a single continuous shot, which orbits the subject in a smooth, elliptical path. This technique was an experiment in translating real-world camera movement into a digital environment.
Year :
2025
Category :
Academic
Client :
Master's Cine Skills class
Project Type :
Oner
Project Description:
Ese’s gift is an exploration of two potent emotional states: dissociation and rage. It began as an unconscious effort to give these feelings a form, to build a digital world that mirrors an internal landscape. The piece asks a quiet question: when has rage not been a constant, simmering presence? It starts off with Ese(mirrored) in a fantasy land representing disassociation and then as the camera pans out you get a more realistic 3d space, with books scattered around and ese sitting on the floor, representing her rage.
This animation is a single continuous shot, which orbits the subject in a smooth, elliptical path. This technique was an experiment in translating real-world camera movement into a digital environment.
As always, my deepest thanks to my brother for the incredible original score, which gives this world its pulse.
(For anyone who doesn't know my middle name is Ese and it means 'gift' , interestingly both Esan and Urobho)
Project Analysis & Challenges:
The animation begins as an intimate close-up on two Ese’s mirroring each other’s dance moves. It then unfolds via a continuous 360-degree helical camera move, simultaneously pulling out and upward. This dynamic motion reveals a vast, contrasting landscape, completely transforming the scene's context and scale while maintaining a single, fluid perspective. The central innovation was the hybrid technique of bridging physical and digital filmmaking; the camera's motion was captured by physically filming a red board with tracking markers using a mobile phone, and this real-world movement data was then tracked and imported into the adobe after effect then into cinema4d to drive the camera through the fully digital environment.
A significant creative challenge was designing a scene that worked at two extremely different scales; the composition had to be visually interesting in both the extreme close-up and the final wide shot without either view feeling cluttered. This initially required the strategic removal of bookshelves that created too many competing points of focus. Furthermore, integrating disparate elements from multiple software sources—including DAZ Studio, Clo3D, and Polycam photoscans—required meticulous work to ensure consistent scale, texture quality, and lighting. Finally, smoothing the inherent minor jitters from the hand-held camera pass in the digital timeline without losing its organic feel was a delicate post-production task.
Camera Tracking
The camera is the star of this piece, and its motion is a carefully crafted blend of art and technology. The chosen path is a helix—a combination of a 360-degree orbit and a vertical pull-out. This is far more dynamic than a simple zoom or straight dolly shot; the orbital motion continuously reveals new information from all angles, while the upward pull-out creates a sense of grand revelation, perfectly supporting the narrative journey from small detail to large landscape. The use of a physically tracked camera is the key differentiator, as it retains the subtle accelerations and micro-imperfections of a human operator. This "hand-held" quality injects a layer of authenticity and weight that is incredibly difficult to animate by hand, making the digital world feel tangibly real.
Beyond its path, the camera itself "breathes" and evolves. The most sophisticated technical achievement was the animated focal length and field of view. By shifting the focal length from 50mm to 22mm, the camera actively participates in the storytelling. It begins with a longer focal length to focus on details and minimize distortion on the miniature elements, and ends on a wider focal length to exaggerate the perceived depth and epic scale of the final landscape. This shift, combined with careful depth-of-field control, is a masterful simulation of a complex, real-world camera technique.
More Projects
3D Animation
ESE'S GIFT
This animation is a single continuous shot, which orbits the subject in a smooth, elliptical path. This technique was an experiment in translating real-world camera movement into a digital environment.
Year :
2025
Category :
Academic
Client :
Master's Cine Skills class
Project Type :
Oner
Project Description:
Ese’s gift is an exploration of two potent emotional states: dissociation and rage. It began as an unconscious effort to give these feelings a form, to build a digital world that mirrors an internal landscape. The piece asks a quiet question: when has rage not been a constant, simmering presence? It starts off with Ese(mirrored) in a fantasy land representing disassociation and then as the camera pans out you get a more realistic 3d space, with books scattered around and ese sitting on the floor, representing her rage.
This animation is a single continuous shot, which orbits the subject in a smooth, elliptical path. This technique was an experiment in translating real-world camera movement into a digital environment.
As always, my deepest thanks to my brother for the incredible original score, which gives this world its pulse.
(For anyone who doesn't know my middle name is Ese and it means 'gift' , interestingly both Esan and Urobho)
Project Analysis & Challenges:
The animation begins as an intimate close-up on two Ese’s mirroring each other’s dance moves. It then unfolds via a continuous 360-degree helical camera move, simultaneously pulling out and upward. This dynamic motion reveals a vast, contrasting landscape, completely transforming the scene's context and scale while maintaining a single, fluid perspective. The central innovation was the hybrid technique of bridging physical and digital filmmaking; the camera's motion was captured by physically filming a red board with tracking markers using a mobile phone, and this real-world movement data was then tracked and imported into the adobe after effect then into cinema4d to drive the camera through the fully digital environment.
A significant creative challenge was designing a scene that worked at two extremely different scales; the composition had to be visually interesting in both the extreme close-up and the final wide shot without either view feeling cluttered. This initially required the strategic removal of bookshelves that created too many competing points of focus. Furthermore, integrating disparate elements from multiple software sources—including DAZ Studio, Clo3D, and Polycam photoscans—required meticulous work to ensure consistent scale, texture quality, and lighting. Finally, smoothing the inherent minor jitters from the hand-held camera pass in the digital timeline without losing its organic feel was a delicate post-production task.
Camera Tracking
The camera is the star of this piece, and its motion is a carefully crafted blend of art and technology. The chosen path is a helix—a combination of a 360-degree orbit and a vertical pull-out. This is far more dynamic than a simple zoom or straight dolly shot; the orbital motion continuously reveals new information from all angles, while the upward pull-out creates a sense of grand revelation, perfectly supporting the narrative journey from small detail to large landscape. The use of a physically tracked camera is the key differentiator, as it retains the subtle accelerations and micro-imperfections of a human operator. This "hand-held" quality injects a layer of authenticity and weight that is incredibly difficult to animate by hand, making the digital world feel tangibly real.
Beyond its path, the camera itself "breathes" and evolves. The most sophisticated technical achievement was the animated focal length and field of view. By shifting the focal length from 50mm to 22mm, the camera actively participates in the storytelling. It begins with a longer focal length to focus on details and minimize distortion on the miniature elements, and ends on a wider focal length to exaggerate the perceived depth and epic scale of the final landscape. This shift, combined with careful depth-of-field control, is a masterful simulation of a complex, real-world camera technique.