For many years, Urs looked after his aging mother in a town that has long since seen better days. Determined to find a better life for the both of them, he embarks on a perilous journey up a mountain, carrying his mother on his back. But is it all worth it?
Still making the rounds at film festivals all over the world, ”Urs”, a visually striking, emotionally-charged short film by Moritz Mayerhofer, had its humble beginnings as an ambitious thesis project.
"Since this was a thesis project, I had several limitations, time-wise and content-wise. I used that to my advantage. Identifying and working within your limitations actually helps you find out what's really important in telling your story.The technical limitations of a particular software can usually be supplemented with different tools in the pipeline. There's always a way to work around something, as long as you are open-minded and most of all, patient,” says Mayerhofer.
“To be honest, I was surprised at how smoothly everything worked together in the end. It encourages my belief that there is no need for a dogmatic use of one tool over the other. I found that if you just use what's better for you and the project, you'll get better results."
This open-minded approach to executing his ideas came from the formative nature of his film school training, "At the Filmakademie in Baden-Württemberg, I had the freedom to experiment with many techniques, trying to find out which would be my favorite.
While searching for a method that would be interesting to focus on in a professional career, I moved from visual effects to stylization, then eventually to character animation, and finally animation directing. It was here that I was able to utilize all of the skills I had learned over the years to make this film."
The film has a very distinct look, like a painting come to life. Achieving such a look in a student animation film is no easy task, yet the results speak for themselves. Moritz describes the workflow and how LightWave 3D played nicely with the other tools in his pipeline:
"All objects were built and shaded in LightWave 3D. Texturing was done in Bodypaint and Photoshop. For rigging and animation, we used Project Messiah Studio, where we could start animating, even before the models and the rigs were completely finished. Based on 2D-layout drawings, my team and I created over 50 Matte Paintings.
They were then put into the backgrounds of the 3D scenes for reference, and later used for compositing. It became a bit tricky when I needed 3-dimensional camera movements that had to be ported to all of the different tools. Thanks to the Point Oven plug-ins, we were able to exchange the camera motion and the baked character animation from Messiah to create camera projections in Maya and LightWave, as well as the FX animation in Houdini and Maya."
Moritz started using LightWave 3D in 1996, inspired by its use in Babylon 5, and its affordability to a student with limited financial resources. "It took me a while to get familiar with the intricacies of the software, but one thing I really loved from the get-go, was the non-Windows user interface.
LightWave 3D also won me over with its powerful modeling tools and really fast navigation. I love to do camerawork in it, since it is incredibly intuitive and fun to work with. LightWave's shading system and rendering possibilities are absolutely fantastic, making it the most reliable tool in my pipeline."
Even after 14 years of using the program, Moritz feels there's always more to learn. He considers the LightWave community a resource that is available to everyone who uses LightWave for their creative needs. "When it comes to highly advanced techniques that are over my head, I feel lucky knowing that I have many amazing artists at my disposal, who are part of the LightWave community, offering their guidance and support."
Learn more about this amazing short and where you can see it by clicking HERE
An interview by NewTek Inc.
Originally published on NewTek.com
