Project Storm Animated Title Sequence

Overview

Using 3D animation software and cinematic techniques, the designer envisioned and created a series of “sets” that were then animated and rendered to produce an opening title sequence. This animated title sequence aimed to build upon the brand and universe established in the previous Star Wars movies while adding a more cinematic visual to the opening title.

Challenges

The major challenge of this project was designing all the different animation scenes. To make them all feel cohesive, it took a lot of visual planning and detailed work, and iterations to get a consistent feeling through all the shots. Another major challenge was the complex timing and organization of the animation. I found the best solution was to create a detailed animatic I used to preview and iterate on each shot of the project quickly.

Tools Used

  • Maxon Cinema 4D
  • Octane Render Engine
  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Adobe After Effects

What I Did

  • 3D Scene Building
  • Animation
  • Dynamic Simulations
  • Texturing
  • Lighting
  • Rendering
  • Compositing
  • Editing

Where It Started

I love title design.
They push the boundaries of what’s possible in film and television. They show us different points of view or styles that the final media couldn’t. For my school capstone project, I wanted to make a title sequence for a Star Wars movie, but that gave me a problem.
I think that it is one of the most recognizable openings to any movie series, but it’s not a title sequence, and that got me thinking. What would a Star Wars title sequence look like if it was done in a more cinematic style? And that became the challenge.

The Process

Inspiration

Starting with a mood board, I collected images and things that inspired me. There were two main things that I used for inspiration. The first being Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the second being the opening title sequence from HBO’s TV series Westworld.

Story Boards

Storyboards are early sketches of the project. They allowed me to illustrate the different visuals, motion, and assets forming my vision for the project. Each storyboard iteration was viewed from a story and visual perspective with a group of advisors. After a few iterations and finalized, the storyboards were used as the blueprint for constructing the elements and scenes.

Building The World

The biggest challenge for the project was creating these elaborate scenes that had to feel cohesive and represent the Star Wars universe. The five sets all have drastically different visuals while borrowing elements or themes from each other. This was the most time-consuming step of the process as there was a lot of iterations and problem solving to get things to work and look just right.

Animation

Using keyframes to control X, Y, Z positions, rotation, and scale over time, the animations were created and timed based on the pre-selected music pieces. All animations were built by hand, adjusting the timing curves to tweak them to desired looks and timing.

Texturing

The texturing was done in the Octane node texture builder. The speed and customization that Octane provides allowed significant control over all aspects of the textures. Various techniques and tools were used, such as dirt maps, black body emission textures, displacement maps, and alpha channel patterns.

Compositing

Once each scene was rendered out of Cinema 4D, they were color corrected, using a combination of curves exposure and custom LUTs from the Redgiant Magic Bullet Looks plugin. The general VFX, such as the helmet holograms, were added in this step to enhance the 3D base scenes. I then combined all the assets in Adobe Premiere Pro to produce the final cut. The final sound effects, music, audio mix, and transitions were added for the final export.

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