Link to the TikTok page. (There aren't any videos, but the filters are available)
__________________________________________________________________________________ Falling Leaves:
Witch Hat:
__________________________________________________________________________________ Artist Statement:
I didn't really know what I wanted to do with this project at the beginning, but the timing of autumn and Halloween inspired me to do a similarly themed pair of filters. I figured since we were trying to get people to use our filters that it would be best to go with something that I know will be popular. The first filter I started working on was the one with falling leaves. I personally love the way the leaves turn red, orange, and yellow as it completely changes our usual atmosphere of greenery. So, when I was picking out images to sculpt from, I made sure to pick visually interesting leaves that included a lot of colors. I used Adobe Photoshop for the leaves to make sure that the edges were clean. Then the animation was the next step, and I wanted to play around with keyframe by keyframe animation. So, in order to make a
consistent twirling effect, I used the arrow keys to change the X, Y, Z planes in rotation and the Z position in location little by little. As the leaves fall, they will fall faster due to the pull on the leaf from gravity, so I wanted to simulate that by adding more and more change to the axes the further we got down. You can't really tell in the effect as much, but in the program you can. The effect looks very natural and was very fun to make. The filter works by smiling, so when you smile there is an orangish tone that is applied and the leaves continue to fall as long as you are happy looking!
For the next filter I decided to go less warm-toned, and sculpt a witchy hat! I followed a tutorial that was linked in the other Blender Lab (5), which was supposed to be similar to a Harry Potter hat. I decided to do a hat because I focused more on the background with my first filter. In the tutorial the hat has a leather band that goes around it, but I decided to forgo that for personal look and style. After I sculpted it, I applied a material texture to it that was supposed to be reminiscent of a black glittery and distorted fabric and some smooth shading. I unfortunately could not figure out how to bake that material and shading into the item, so it looks a little more blocky on TikTok and EffectHouse. I also ended up finishing this filter AFTER Halloween... so I don't predict it to do that well because Halloween has passed and is not popular anymore. If I had time to keep going then I would have definitely rigged it and animated it as well. Learning Blender was extremely satisfying and I really enjoyed it, but Effect House was a little more aggravating to use. Overall, I thought this project was applicable to what I would like to incorporate into my job in the future, which is learning 3D modeling and I thought it was a really interesting introduction to TikTok, Blender, and EffectHouse.
