“Touch Grass”
A short film I made over the course of two weeks for Hellavision’s “Web 5000” open call. This was inspired from my recent adventures playing Elden Ring, and follows the story of a Twitch streamer getting frustrated with a difficult game and deciding to take a break from gaming, go outside, and touch some grass. I sculpted all of the characters in Adobe Medium, and did the rest — rigging, animation, lighting, texturing, rendering — in Houdini, with bits of help from some Blender tools for face mocap and smear frames using Joey Carlino’s Auto Smear Frames tool.
Both video game character designs were inspired by Elden Ring. You can see references as well as the raw sculptures below.
Some BTS
Gaming chair, microphone, and controller modeled by Kael Brandjord. Monitors modeled by me. Webcam modeled by Nick Drivas. Desk from The Happy Toolbox.
House and trees modeled by Victor Heinemann. Lawn and grass modeled by me.
Castle & landscape modeled by Victor Heinemann.
Animated Twitch layout designed by Nick Drivas. You can see this on the character’s screen in one of the shots.
Cat character that I designed, sculpted, and rigged for a previous short. You can spot him on the desk in one of the shots.
Smear frames were created using Joey Carlino’s Auto Smear Frames tool for Blender.
Full Credits
Created, Directed, & Animated by Matt Siegel
Produced by Anca Vlasan
Voice Acting by Connor Whealton and Matt Siegel
Music & Sound FX by Bobby Wagner
Models by Matt Siegel, Victor Heinemann, Kael Brandjord, Nick Drivas, Rowan Tsiguloff, Han66st, and Mehdi Shahsavan
Special Thanks to Alex French, Sishir Bommakanti, Joey Carlino, Hidetaka Miyazaki, and Rezuaq