Deece - Not Your Monkey
Role - Director, Edit and VFX
This was a bit of a passion project for me, created in my spare time over a couple of months. I'd just got myself a new PC so I really wanted to put it to work, rendering everything in Cinema 4D, using Octane and comping in After Effects.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/1cb8e948-4b6c-416d-a9ef-8f6452f90365_rw_1920.jpg?h=04c7a4bd1acba91fd7f2cd9fb9d1c164)
I was a one man band on this project so I really had to pick my battles. I ended up sourcing models online to use for the statues. I then textured them myself using a mixture of images and procedural shaders. I wanted to create an Octane Material that I could apply to each model without having to tweak them individually.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/e576b60e-1dc6-4f81-bef0-5053b6c96a30_rw_1920.jpg?h=e4faf667317f19c82a42175fce19a499)
The environments were a mixture of purchased and modeled assets. I wanted it to have a Melbourne feel so I modeled a lot of the Melbourne specific stuff myself.
I used Octane Scatter to scatter leaves throughout the scenes. It's a great tool for adding detail as the geometry is calculated at render time which speeds things up. You can also use textures to distribute the particles, so I was able to have more leaves towards the gutters for example.
I re-textured everything with Octane.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/6e7c946c-5186-47ee-be91-b194d0df2da6_rw_1920.jpg?h=31b4cb521705c7c96d7e11594ad6a291)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/6044a002-bf9d-4ebb-92a9-848ef6df6d16_rw_1920.jpg?h=6a446efe708998a08e04b10eed4ebc8a)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/eab6d08d-7c37-4272-af4c-64b7a39179ee_rw_1920.jpg?h=379a268b43940ea2a8dcfcad25cdb685)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/81e674d8-fd40-4c76-9d69-f2f5501486fd_rw_1920.jpg?h=9ad73d20cea734d01fdf54f3d5a3e382)
The second verse follows a single character as he breaks away from his statue and goes on an abstract journey. I used the Voroni Fracture object inside Cinema 4D to break away the surface of the statue. The energy glow around the character was created using Video Copilot's Saber plugin. I had a matte pass for the character so I used the Auto-trace feature in After Effects to give me mask paths that I could use to drive Saber.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/51722e3c-48f7-4f62-911b-47b5ab20ac2d_rw_1920.jpg?h=b96f3e72081ceeed7c639487f6d5ef8b)
I layered in a bunch of glows and optical effects using the GenArts Sapphire plugins. They were really fun to play with, below is an image that shows the Cinema 4D view-port, the raw render and the final composite.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/03c5c611-9b5b-41ae-a797-875c578a60dd_rw_1920.jpg?h=cba4e31dea03a12bcd032c0720f0bba3)
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/44a129d0-1c13-4edb-8f05-8c5d487b2eb2/3f901cae-6d01-4c94-a8b7-df81cff65478_rw_1920.jpg?h=1665f389b60b4e7cb5117761b3ae5bc9)
Overall it was a great experience, I learned a ton about Octane and texturing. I can't wait to start the next project!