This project has been cooking fot quite some time now…
My name is Jonathan, I’m a Director/VFX artist based in Los Angeles. Back in October 2023 I set out to assemble a production team to shoot a short concept trailer for the famous animated film from 2001 Atlantis The Lost Empire.
I wanted this project to be bold, beautiful and most importantly, full of blender FX. I’ve been using the program since I was in high school and have leaned on it for many professional animation gigs here in town and abroad. This gave me the confidence to nearly single handedly take on a project of this scale.
For models such as the: Excavator, Sub-pods, Martag, and Leviathan, I enlisted the help of a professional modeler. He created extremely detailed pieces using Maya and handed them off to me to light, texture and animate using Blender. The Ulysses Submarine was a model I created myself from scratch in Blender. The frame wrapped around the glass dome at the front is a deceptively simple design! I also modeled and kitbashed the bridge for close up interior shots.
One of the shots I’m most proud of is the wide shot featuring Whitmore’s mansion. This is actually a real landmark called The Gamble house located in Passadena. Me and my cinematographer, Brendan, drove up and shot some plates of the house to use as a base for the comp.
From here I made a cutout of the house to add in my own sky and create room for striking volumetric lighting effects. I also added light inside the house to sell the time of day as late evening. I extended the front lawn, added a paved driveway, some statues and a period accurate vehicle with Mixamo charaters driving it inside!
A simple particle system for the rain was added. I also used dynamic paint on the statues and the car to simulate the shiny dark appearance of wet stone and metal. As a final touch, I added water drops on the lens using After Effects.
As you can see, the scene is very bare bones when seen through any other point of view.
This project is filled with complex scenes, same as the ones I listed above. These happen to be my favorite so that’s why I wanted to share them with you here!
You can watch the full trailer on YouTube now! 
It’s only 2 1/2 minutes and you won’t regret taking a look!
