EVOKE : to bring or recall to the conscious mind.
(according to Google, at least)
What started as a study in using reflections in Blender turned into one of my favorite projects in recent history.
I've really liked the idea of having an object being "hidden in plain sight," as though there is some sort of barrier preventing it from showing up. In playing around with Blender's shader materials, I was able to create an effect where an object (in this case, the rounded square representing glass) can alternate between being reflective and transparent, depending on the shader mix.
From there, it was important to find a catalyst for the mesh to change its transparency. Enter an all-time mograph superstar: a ball.
Once I had the basic idea that I wanted to work with, I started to search for the ancillary aspects, such as the overall theme and the music. One word that came to mind was evoke, in that these gradients, hidden in plain sight, are being evoked to the surface for recollection inside whatever consciousness this scene is supposed to represent (that's about as descriptive as I could get in brainstorming). With that, I found a music piece that I had stored in the deep recesses of my computer's storage and brought it back front-and-center. I suppose evoking really is the theme of this piece.
I began to create the scenes that the ball is navigating through. It was important for me to use various camera angles and depths to showcase how the ball is really traveling all over this space of consciousness in order to bring back the gradients.
I came up with a quick storyboard to identify the off-angles I wanted to work with, and from there, I brought them into Blender to make the real magic happen.
With the scenes set up, and the music ready, it was time to get to animating the ball. Animating in 3D always presents a slight challenge as managing the camera's perspective and the object's transformations can be difficult to get right. Showcasing the impact that the ball creates as it bounces off of the mirrors can be difficult when other objects are also commanding attention. That being said, I'm really proud of how I was able to navigate these challenges to create something awesome.
All of that out of the way, with a little bit of color correction in After Effects "in-post", here is the final result:
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