Neither Donkey nor HORSE
We are currently working on the animated opening scene for a short film, with asset creation including shaders, snow VFX, and 3D terrain from Gaea, alongside software and AI pipeline development. The team, consisting of two aspiring directors, Jay and Jin from Hornet, another animator, and myself as the technical artist, is focused on creating a pre-visualization and finalizing the look development.
Our goal is to achieve a stylized Chinese ink painting aesthetic in 3D that feels hand-painted. To meet this goal, I’ve experimented with Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, CSM AI for 2D-to-3D conversion, Blender plug-ins, and stylized asset packs.
I’ve also generated over 30 mountains and terrains for the scene. The film is currently in the festival circuit and has been shortlisted for a Student Oscar nomination—we’re awaiting updates soon!