21 February 2021

Animation: A Vine on a House based on the story by Ambrose Bierce

 


My latest gothic horror animation is based on a very short story by Ambrose Bierce, read it here if you like, and is itself fairly short. Like my previous Bierce animation, this one also strays quite a bit from the text as I try to make it relevant and more visual. For all the character, save one (the man on the porch) I used a free character generation application called "Make Human" which lets you create realistic humans with slider controls, including dressing, rigging and weighting. This means you can, hypothetically start using them in minutes and creating them takes only a few minutes as well. It is a huge time saver, especially for subjects that are not required to be created in a specific style or have to do anything unusual or complicated. I used this as a starting point and repainted the clothing myself and added controls to the rigging to make moving then less of a bone by bone affair and it worked for the most part. 

The setting itself took few months to put together. It is one location but one that ages and rots over a long time period. I wanted the fade from past to present to be noticeable but for the house to retain enough features that no one would thing the location had changed. 

I found the Make Human models were not suited for some of my rigging techniques. At least I could not figure out how to use them which was  ashamed because there are some plugins I rely on for every project that I could not use. I did find some work arounds but making them walk was really a challenge so I had to limit that as much as possible. 

This IS a horror short so there is some blood and violence but nothing like we see on TV show everyday. I do hope there is a little shock or 2 for people watching, however.

6 comments:

T' said...

I think you really pared this one down to the bone, and I don't think we lose anything. It's a moment, a moment of horror and then that moment rediscovered. The setting is really nicely done; it feels creepy without screaming that it's creepy. I liked the characters, though I hate to say that I could see what you mean about it being hard to make them walk. That's a shame. You really pared down the story, which while having horror in it somewhere, was rather hidden, likely because it was written in different times. Yours has a feeling almost of a Hammer film, or adaptation to a more modern time without ruining the basics of the story. I don't think we really miss anything by not having more characters. There's not a lot of depth to the original. And the jump-scare ending just adds to its more modern feel. Cool beans, Vince!

Behemoth media said...

I have to admit the idea of trying the jumps are was interesting to me. I wasn’t sure it would work at all. The application to make the characters Is pretty cool but obviously it has limitations and I have to learn more about how to use it. Walking is always hard, I don’t seem to get much better with it! Thanks for looking and reading the story to compare. Bierce wrote some iconic stuff but not very visual or detailed

Fav Cous said...

I can tell you, I was surprised (for both screams). The vine was really creepy and had me on edge. Great job! Thanks for sharing.

Vincent-louis Apruzzese said...

Thanks cuz! I wasn't sure it would work but it seems to!

Fav Cous said...

Also, I loved the butterflies. They were great!

Odette Allard said...

J'ai adoré il y a beaucoup de détails et j'ai sursauté à quelques reprises.
Good job.