Joseph Adrianne Segarra

GHOSTBLADE_

Bachelor of Design Motion Capture 3D animation Compositing Character Animation Animatic Previsualization Audio Video Photography Illustration Mixed Media Environmental Storytelling Shaders and Post-processing Narrative Environment Technology Dystopia Utopia Science Fiction Realism

A short film that I have made called “The Ghostblade” introduces a full CGI film with CGI environment and characters that has an impactful story, exploring the realism and avoiding the uncanny valley in order to achieve it, creating a connection between the real life and the film, making it look more “real” rather than being just something behind the screen. I wanted the audiences to be able to see and accept someone as human, through empathy, despite having technological limbs.

My goal is to be able to make a mechanically augmented character that would be seen as realistic and as human as us despite being only 3D character. Given this project, I am able to examine the importance of realism in a CGI film in order to deliver a meaningful story of a never-ending conflict between technology and humanity through the eyes of someone unfamiliar to us.

The project has been a success with the help of understanding the methodology behind it, however with a few complications ahead due to technical issues and the amount of time both needed and wasted from a few steps of the pipeline such as painting skin weights. With the camera angles being able to do the storytelling, the amazing textures and real-time animations being able to avoid the uncanny valley, and the meaning behind the existence of each character, the film was able to create photorealistic sceneries with a meaningful story behind it. However, with further future development, I believe I will be able to make this project more meaningful and create a photorealistic masterpiece that can create a connection between the world of the characters in the film and our world giving us an insight of technology’s impact in our lives, both positively and negatively.