Organic DNA Animation

Artwork Works in Progress
1

Hi everyone!

Here is my last experiment with Blender: a growing organic DNA animation.
Everything, from modeling to compositing has been done in Blender (rendered with Cycles).
It is inspired by medical imaging and a vfx from the movie Prometheus.
I wanted to concentrate on the shape, and give it a dirty organic looking animation.

Here is a rendertest I made yesterday (60% of the 1920x1080 px resolution):

Added a few sounds for fun from video copilot; I’ll do better for the final result!

Here is a single picture render test:

WIP-1.jpg1920×1080 208 KB

Here is a pic from the 3D view:

WIP-2.jpg1707×942 217 KB

I did fix a few things; my computer is going to render the animation today and tomorrow, when I am not in front of it! I will post it once it is finished. note: every single frame takes between 30s to 2 min to render, without compositing of course (I use the Branched Path Tracing; a little more work to edit, but a far better result!).

Don’t hesitate to give me your feedback, and I’d be happy to answer to your questions if you have some!
Moreover, it is going to introduce the blog I will soon start, with WIP and tutorial tips!

Keep on blending :slight_smile:
cheers
Brice

2

Great job! I really liked it! I also love the sound design. :slight_smile:

3

Nicely done on the animation. I’m curious on the bubbles… where those particles or something else? The color pallet and compositing is quite nice as well.

4

Thanks ShadowCamero :slight_smile: glad you liked it! Concerning the sound design, you should take a look at videocopilot’s motion pulse pack! There are lots of good sounds, and it’s not that expensive!

5

Thanks for your comment harleynut97 :slight_smile: actually I did use 3 particles systems: 1 big box that emits bubbles inside (volume emission), 1 plane that throw lots of bubbles while moving around the DNA shape (with force fields), and the dna emits particles that stick to it (no physics).

Bubbles are just a group of 3 lowpoly icospheres that I slightly deform so that it doesn’t seem too “artificial”. Because of DOF and vector blur, their low polycount doesn’t shock that much (at least, I believe…)! :slight_smile:

6

Well done, I’d be curious to know how high are your samples turned up?

7

Hi Jared.Owen! Thanks for your comment! :slight_smile:
About sampling, I have used the branched path tracing with those settings (square samples option disabled):

AA 6
Diffuse 4
Glossy 8
Transmission 8
AO 1
Mesh Light 1
Subsurface 4
Volume 14

Clamp direct to 4 and indirect to 0.6 to avoid a maximum of fireflies!

GPU Rendering with a single GTX770.

Branched path tracing was the best way to render pretty good quality in the smallest amount of time.

8

A great example of how keeping something relatively simple can make a great visual piece.

I couldn’t help but wonder if you used the opening shots from the movie Prometheus as your reference material?

9

:slight_smile: Lots of thanks domb3026! Yes! you are right! I did use Prometheus as my reference material (as I said in my 1st post).

Yet, I found it a bit too dark… I loved the organic animation and the shader! So I tried to make something that looks alike.
Blender can make it, and make it well! :slight_smile:

Next week, I think I will post a making of + smalls tuts. Even if it is far from being the animation of the year, it would be a pleasure to share my experiment :slight_smile:

10

Oh here is the WIP. I would like to know about the bubble materials, thank you for sharing.