Fart.ai
Fart.ai. The AI software the helps optimize the farting experience. Fully created by me. Writing, design, animation, 3d modeling, rigging, compositing, sound design, etc. Full project breakdown below.
Project Genesis
Fart.ai began as a way to showcase some of my skills that had not yet appeared on my reel. As a freelance Motion Designer, I often found myself creating work I thought others wanted to see, rather than the work I truly loved. This project was a chance to highlight my passion for character-based animation, storytelling, and comedy.
Conceptualization and Scriptwriting
AI was a pretty important part of the conceptualizing, and script writing process. To establish the brand identity, I used AI to generate logo ideas that merged fart motifs with AI iconography. From there, I designed several iterations of a potential logo, and quickly landed on the one I liked.
With the logo in place, I moved on to writing the script. Recruiting help from ChatGPT, I developed a detailed explanation of my concept, incorporating gag and joke ideas I had for the app’s features and received some amazing results. Through iterative feedback, refinement, and ultimately my own writing, I had a script that captured the vision of the project. I was even surprised with a couple of genuine laughs.
Moodboard
Creating a Moodboard is a crucial part of the process. It serves as a visual roadmap for the project’s design. I sourced images from Pinterest, Vimeo, Youtube, and Google Images to help guide the visual development. I loved the modern and energetic look in a lot of the 3D character renders you see. I initially intended to incorporate tech related app close ups, but decided the character animation was the direction I wanted to go.
Radioplay and Storyboarding
One crucial part of my process is creating a “radioplay” of the project. A radioplay is an audio version of the animation. Music, voice over, and rough SFX laid out in Adobe Premiere that will serve as a timing template to assist in the creation of the storyboard.
Using Adobe Photoshop, I created a storyboard with rough sketches for each shot, aligning them with the radioplay audio.
In hindsight this stage reiterated to me the importance of thorough planning. While the crude drawings I used helped get a broad view of the project, the crudeness left room for ambiguity in areas that later ended up costing me. For instance, I had a few different directions I thought the fartbank scene could go. The people in the office could have been stuffy rich shareholders, they could have been young people, they could have been bored, lazy people. These intentions all affect the types of characters I would design, and if I had nailed that decision down in the storyboard phase, I would have saved so much time toiling with the different types of characters in 3D. Not inventing anything new here, but this was definitely a lesson learned the hard way.
Character Design
One thing I have always loved doing is designing characters. The challenge and creative expression it offers fires me up completely. I wanted each character to look unique, and have personality that served the scene. Spanning this across 18 characters proved to be challenging. Trying to make the characters unique, while also adhering to the visual language of the project proved to be a challenge, but learned a lot along the way!
3D Production - Modeling, Lighting, and Texturing
This project marked my first foray into 3D explainer videos. I greatly underestimated the sheer amount of work that designing, 3D modeling, rigging, lighting, and texturing would entail. Lighting and texturing were easily the most challenging steps in this project for me. If there was a point I considered quitting, it was definitely here… Thankfully I could lean on feedback and encouragement from trusted friends and colleagues.
I decided on using rim lighting to accentuate the character’s form, and make them stand out from the background gave a ton of personality to the shots, in addition to a 3 light setup/ HDRI image to light the rest of the scene. I used Mixamo to rig the characters, and then modified the rigs using Cinema 4D to have IK controls.
Rinse and Repeat
Once the Living Room shot was complete, and the visual language had been solidified, I moved on to design, model, rig, light, and texture the rest of the shots! This was a doozy. All in all this process took about a month.
Animation and Rendering
With the groundwork laid, I moved on to animation—my favorite part of the process. I planned out exactly how many frames each shot would need to be, and broke down a rough "dope sheet" to mark how many frames each action would take using the timing from the radioplay audio.
From there I blocked out rough position keyframes for the major movements of the scene using the dope sheet timing, and slowly added more nuance to the animation as I went. Oftentimes, I would animate the main gestures of the hips first, as the hips dictated the majority of the body's motion. I would then animate the bend in the spine and neck to create overlapping action, and then animate the arms, legs, and save the facial animation for last. Start off broad and simple to make sure the timing + blocking of the scene is right, then gradually add detail as you go.
Compositing, Editing, and Sound Design
The final details on the project. Compositing, editing, and sound design. These are the finishing touches that really bring a project to life. After nearly 2 months of work, I was finally done with Fart.ai!
Reflection and Lessons Learned
Fart.ai was a transformative project, reaffirming my passion for character animation and storytelling. It highlighted areas for personal and professional growth, emphasizing the importance of meticulous planning. Moving forward, I aim to be more diligent in pre-production, ensuring airtight planning for story, visual language, storyboards, and character designs. This project taught me that while the journey may be arduous, the rewards of perseverance and creativity are invaluable.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my journey with Fart.ai. I hope you enjoyed, and I wish you and your farts well.
