Animated film · 2019
Roborovski
Premise
A thimble-sized hamster lives in Marvin's Pet Shop and waits to be adopted. Dev Patel and Tilda Cobham-Hervey directed the short.
Rick's contribution
Rick was Art Director and Technical Director. He set the film's visual language and designed the real-time pipeline that produced it.
- Set the look: palette, materials and lighting for a stylised, semi-toon world.
- Built a custom semi-toon shader library so characters and sets read as one designed world.
- Built the world at ten times real scale so camera and lighting behaved physically at a hamster's size.
- Designed an Alembic pipeline that brought animation into Unreal within GPU memory limits.
- Set up a low-cost capture pipeline: Rokoko suits for body performance and iPhone AR face tracking for faces.
Method
EngineUnreal Engine 4, final frames rendered in real time
LookCustom semi-toon shader library
ScaleWorld built at 10× real size for physical camera and light
AnimationAlembic caches, managed within GPU memory limits
CaptureRokoko suits for body, iPhone AR face tracking for faces
Frames
Outcome
AwardYoram Gross Award for Best Australian Animation, Flickerfest 2021
FestivalAdelaide Film Festival, 2020
FundingScreen Australia
Film
Credits
Directed byDev Patel, Tilda Cobham-Hervey
Art Director / Technical DirectorRick Pearce
StudioSpectre Studios
Selected prior work by PHAZE founder Rick Pearce. Produced at Spectre Studios with directors Dev Patel and Tilda Cobham-Hervey. Rick's role: Art Director / Technical Director.