Introduction :
September 2024: I started off the year by going to screenings to get inspiration for our major project. I knew that my group would consist of Nicolle and Ellen because we planned to be last year, so any short films that had narratives or styles that would match our collective vibe, and skillsets were the kind of films I was looking for. I attended the Dublin Animation Film Festival at DLR Mill Theatre. (insert leaflets, pictures) The experience was great, and I had the opportunity to see some of the amazing 2D films from down south as well as talk to the students that created them. I also went to the BSOA 175 Animation Screening at Oh Yeah Music Centre, where I got to see some first-place graduates’ films. I really enjoyed going to these screenings and it really helped me ignite the drive and understand the possibilities of what I wanted to produce for my final film. I shared the details with the group, encouraging others to join, though it seemed not everyone could attend due to scheduling conflicts. The screening itself was impressive, showcasing animated masterpieces with unexpected voice-acted characters. Notable pieces included a visually striking film titled YerMa and out of control. I shared these insights with the team, highlighting artistic techniques like 2D composited textures.
Pre – Production:
Collaborative Ideation and Story
Discussions started around utilizing specific animation styles for our projects. I advocated for prioritizing story development before delving into visual styles. I also suggested storyboarding and proposed utilizing tools and effects such as painterly shaders.
Week 1, we got started in thinking about possible narratives and conceptualizing art styles. One of the narratives that stood out in the screening was Irish myths/ folklore or traditional legends. We considered Banshees, seal women, Fin McCool, etc. As a team writing exercise, we each wrote short stories, about a paragraph or two long, and we all read each other’s work.
Based on Rachels advice and the fact that we liked them we narrowed it down to two stories. I suggested a story based off local history, which is also an anecdote that my secondary school history teacher has told me. Shout out to Dr Martin. The story is about Belfast Zoo being bombed during WW2, Belfast Blitz and an elephant called Shelia, where she ran through someone’s house and created an elephant shaped hole. This story would be a light- comedy and we liked that aspect of real life being so cartoonish.
24/09/24 – We moved our conceptualizing from class into MiroBoard, Major Project – Miro where we gathered more references. I drew some concepts relating to the stories and I started scriptwriting to hopefully flesh out the ideas some more. To have a good foundation for the short film I went over multiple revisions of the 2 stories with my team. Which at this point consisted of Aaron, Nicolle, Ellen and me.
Ideation and Exploration
I focused on drafting stories and preparing preliminary storyboards. Feedback loops were established, where I shared drafts and explored themes like slice-of-life narratives. We agreed to refine these ideas collaboratively in upcoming sessions.
Over week 2, I drafted the first rendition of the stories we liked the most in class, and we had a meeting over them, in which I gathered feedback from each other and revised them. We aim to have one group meeting a week over our discord server and that Friday afternoons, if possible, have meetings in person.
Above is the first draft based on Nicolle’s IDEA. I wrote this story in a linear but with hints of expressionism.
Summary: Henry, a lumberjack, is grieving the loss of his wife, Emma. To honor her memory and the oak tree they carved their initials into, he builds a boat from the tree’s wood and sends it out on the lake with roses. Back in his cabin, surrounded by photos of their life together, he finds solace in carving wooden statues of Emma. One evening, he imagines one of the statues comes to life, and they relive precious memories. He later finds himself surrounded by the statues, feeling the magic of the oak tree pulsing through the wood, and the room is bathed in golden light as the statues begin to glow. It’s a tale of love, loss, memory, and a touch of magical realism.
I also did a first rendition of The Belfast Zoo story.
Summary: In 1941 Belfast, something hectic unfolds at grumpy old Mr. O’Malley’s house. It starts with animals like elephants, monkeys, and a penguin appearing in the street. Then, a soot-covered monkey emerges from Mr. O’Malley’s chimney, followed by a biscuit-thieving parrot entering through the window. As Mr. O’Malley is overwhelmed by the chaos, a knock at the back door leaves everyone in suspense.
Style, inspiration and references:
I mention how at the screening there was a short film by a 2019 graduate from ulster animation called Rebecca Blair.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3om2LY Her Short Film is called, “Out of Control.” I was inspired by her CGI attempt of Claymation appearance and my teammates agreed that there were plenty of references online and features that real stop-motion Claymation to take inspiration from. Especially now that computer generated Claymation has now become so popular with the likes of Aardman transitioning to computer style animation while keeping the look and feel of real-life plasticine.
Through my research I found an article insert article that show cases how to recreate a clay Aardman clay material in Unity.
Other films I was inspired by was a 2D film show at IDF by James Naughton called every other weekend, Rachel Dixon’s film, “Stan by Me”, Wallace and Gromit, BBC’s Gruffalos child. Through my research, we also came across this 3D artist, southern shotty know for blender clay stop motion.
- Every Other Weekend – Official Trailer – IADT on Vimeo
- Stan By Me – Official Trailer
- https://youtu.be/9ZLT7i4BDcM?si=NMZ5sdZMjGNhKtlV
At the end of the day, we received feedback from our lecturer, that we needed to decide on one story and that we needed to make notes on the technical tests like clothes or hair early, if we plan to implement them in our film.
Later that day we put a vote up on discord and with the guidance from our lectures we decided to go with “TEA AT MR O’MALLEYS” a story set in 1940 Belfast blitz, about an old man and an elephant that escaped the zoo.
Character designs and environment Concepts
27/09/24 – Before our concrete roles, Originally, we had 5 characters, but we advised that was too much workload, so we minimized it to 3 for Week 3, in preparation for the Pitch presentation. we all had a go at designing the 3 main characters for the film, Mr O’Malley the old man, Postman, Elephant.
I then Rendered this into a clay look. The character design was heavily inspired by the art style of Ethel and Ernest.Ethel & Ernest – Trailer
My inspirations also were brought by old stop motion studios in the 2000s that made postman pat and fifi the flowerpot. Aaron did field research taking pictures of animals from the actual Belfast Zoo, Cultra and the wartime museum which helped develop the creative design more. I made prop studies from the photos Aaron took.
1/10/2024 – I began expanding my initial rough concepts into full design using pureref and (Insert concepts), blocking out the 3 sets on blender: Street, living room / stair way / kitchen using 5D planner because I was not near a computer.
I was appointed as the short film’s art director and group leader since the story was my idea. I made the first rough storyboard and animatic from the story board. A lot of the shot choices were influenced in slapstick common tropes and natural quirkiness of animals in other animated films like Aardman’s zoo animal interviews and Madagascar the movie.
The main feedback that we got was to solidify our roles in the project and some plot questions such as, is the elephant anthropomorphic? is it Bipedal?
08/10/24 – After the pitch presentation and the feedback that we got, I had to revise the script again. I leaned more towards local charm and I researched about the real elephant Sheila, and integrated her into the story.
We decided as a group that the short film will be animated by all of us. As the director and team leader, my role is to guide the project’s vision while balancing creative ideation and execution. I also contribute as an environment artist, focusing on creating immersive settings and lookdev. We solidified our roles with Aaron, the environment artist; Ellen; and Nicolle, the character artists.
09/10/24 – I also created 3D character models for the previs. However, they were not used. The temporary environment for the previs was a model bashed from sketchfab and some models were mine.
Environment Art studies and designs
13/10/2024 – we had a group meeting table reading of the script, personal progress and art style revision on how the three main characters personalities should be.
I brought air dry clay for my group to examine the look and feel of actual clay. 
I also looked at everyone’s work and gave each other critics, e.g. if the elephant could be more rounder and to soften Mr O’Malley’s design.
In the Miro board, Aaron’s and I made a list of all the essentials props and sets we need for our film.
https://youtu.be/-VnbVdfaW6Y?si=8nIMtcI0ZGipxdLm
From the beginning, I knew we wanted a rounded yet realistically stylized look—like something carefully hand-modelled, not manufactured. The balance was tricky: not too cartoony, not hyper-real. More like visual storytelling through shape language—soft corners, solid silhouettes, and purposeful simplification.
Story board, animatic and Previs
19/10/24 – I finished up the animatic and edited it for the preproduction presentation
Previs Opening scene:
Scheduelling
22/10/2024 – we received feedback to try animating in twos and do an art style test with planned textures. How we could express the elephants more human like emotions , I proposed using the addon by southern shotty which converts your ones into twos giving it a slightly choppy stop motion look.
Production:
25/10/2024 Production tests
28/10/24 – I was also experimenting with procedural / PBR texturing and geometry nodes. A
29/10/24 – received feedback from Dara: the main character too detailed, add bomb sound to animatic, start modelling and texturing. We had some issues making scenes low Poly, I really emphasized that so our scene wasn’t too high Poly/ too heavy for better play back.
05 / 11 /2024 pre-production presentation
Feedback from the presentation
During this time, I was losing motivation on Major project as I was working on my dissertation as well and I was going through illness. Early on, I outlined that pre-production needed to be fully completed by mid-November. This included finalizing our storyboard, asset list, design references, and environment layout, so that we could transition into the modeling, texturing, and rigging phases without delay. I communicated this deadline to the team clearly and regularly, ensuring that we had a shared understanding of our progress expectations.
Scheduling
Once pre-production wrapped, I moved us into the production phase by encouraging team members to take ownership of specific animation sequences based on our storyboard.
3D Environment
I started modelling the environment based on the concept. For the 3D Previs and b
I was inspired by the long, slim terraced houses from Wallace and Gromit sets.
File Management and Organization
To handle the growing volume of assets and models, I set up a structured folder system on OneDrive. This ensured that every team member could easily upload and access files. Separate folders were created for environment assets, character models, and props, each organized by version and date. Regular reminders to keep file names consistent and include descriptive labels minimized confusion and streamlined integration into the main project.
Asset Modelling Workflow
11/24 – At the outset, I compiled a list of assets to be modelled and assigned responsibilities to team members. Since I already had some models from earlier on in the production like the doors, sofa, walls. i started with the interior first. I created modular walls to make the set versatile when doing shots.
Adding shapekeys to props for animation. I actively worked on implementing shapekeys for props like the picture frame, allowing it to be interactively picked up or moved around during animation
Interior nearly Completed
I incorporated Aarons models into the interior scene.
I experimented with geometry nodes to give the fireplace a chipped stone look.
I began modelling the street scene.
Andrea
**Bigger props:**
– couch ✅
– lamp✅
– street lamps✅
– road✅
– fireplace✅
– rug✅
– picture frame collection✅
– kitchen sink,cupboards✅
– curtains, pillows, drapery✅
– house ext and shops✅
**Smaller props:**
– vase and flowers✅
– broom✅
– clock✅
– porcelain ornaments✅
– books✅
**ACTION PROPS**
– newspaper (rolled and folded)
– fifteens
Aaron
THINGS THAT NEED TO BE MODELLED
**Bigger props:**
– cooker✅
– picture frame and rosary✅
– biscuit tin✅
– teapot and cups✅
– tables / coffee table✅
– rocking chair✅
– shops
– china cabinet✅
**Smaller props:**
– rations/tins/ bottles✅
– jar of sweets✅
– radio✅
– mirror
– books✅
I reviewed Aaron’s initial models, providing feedback to improve topology and optimize for textures. For example, when Aaron shared the rocking chair model, I noted potential texturing issues and advised segmentation for better retopology. This iterative feedback loop fostered a constructive workflow.
Aarons topology was lacking, and I stressed the importance of good topology so that we didn’t run into problems later on.
Talk about the Clay Doh shader on blender market and stop motion add on, was a suggested shader to use by the lectures however its a paid program and by then we already has a shader made.
Project Advancements and Refinement
1/25 – By this time, our Miro board and server was fully populated with ideas/concepts, and the team’s workflow became more synchronized. I made an effort to ensure everyone stayed updated on key decisions and provided my feedback regularly. Discussions around story pacing, character development, and visual aesthetics became more detailed, focusing on balancing ambition with feasibility.
As we progressed, I coordinated closely with Aaron to finalize street designs and interior elements. Ellen and Nicolle’s character designs began taking shape, with regular updates shared during meetings. I asked nicolle to help out with the environment.
I facilitated discussions to address challenges, such as resolving shading issues in Aaron’s china cabinet model. Ellen contributed by suggesting beveled edges to minimize mesh distortion. Despite juggling multiple tasks, I ensured the team stayed on track. For example, I shared progress on the house remodelling, emphasizing the importance of timely updates.
Refining Artistic Vision – texturing and modelling
Experimenting with hand painting textures in blender. Using Ucupaint.
By January, our focus shifted to refining details and aligning with our artistic vision. Aaron’s environment assets began coming together, and I collaborated with him to adjust lighting setups and textures for a cohesive look. Meanwhile, Ellen and Nicolle’s character designs underwent final tweaks, ensuring they matched the scene’s atmosphere.
I made a nee fireplace.
Above is the main procedural textures I use both inside and out and the rest of the textures are either baked or are image textures.
To streamline our workflow, I proposed using a shared folder structure for assets. This allowed Ellen and Nicolle to drop finalized models, which Aaron and I integrated into the scene. Regular check-ins helped resolve bottlenecks and maintain alignment. I had to retopologiez alot of aarons works. 
22/01/2025- Today was a revelation. I finally understood that when using procedural textures in Blender, I don’t need to UV unwrap them—huge time-saver. The parameters are controlled algorithmically, which gives me more power to fine-tune scale and texture fidelity directly through scale nodes. I shared that with the team to keep us consistent.
26/02/2025 – I experimented heavily with procedural brick textures adding layers of Voronoi noise, grains, cracks through the node editor.I made notes on color tones (beiges, warm hues, desaturated teals), I emphasized topology consistency across all assets. Even if we’re not going hyper-detailed, proper topology helps with clean UVs and smooth shading—especially when baking normals from high to low-poly or using modifiers like subdivision. I made sure everyone understood: good modeling = good textures = good final shots
Using stencils, aiming for that authentic 1940s elements to the china plates and teapot. Also tackled curtains, kitchen props, and lighting tweaks
We talked about lighting today too. I got the lamp and environmental lights working, experimented with cycles bloom effect in the compositor layout and kurawarahs painterly filter. Henry suggested the addon paint. 
Aaron’s render tests were promising. Also reminded Aaron to unwrap warped props for correct texture orientation.
Texturing , PBRS, Geometry nodes
02/2025 – Learned a brutal lesson: you can’t bake procedural textures directly off geometry nodes. That meant reworking how I approached some assets. Also realized baking textures isn’t a one-pass thing—diffuse, roughness, metallic, normals all need separate attention. It’s slow and painful.
But once I do one house, I can reuse that data. Experimenting with the Use height maps more” unless they were obviously warped They add dimension without the poly cost. Started baking high-poly details to low-poly meshes for things like the cobblestone roads. 
This tutorial was 4 years old so I had to figure out how to do this again with trial and error and I think the results paid off.
- Geometry Nodes: I used these for some environment details (like scattered stones, dirt buildup, painterly effect, or random prop placements, fuzz )I took advantage of modifiers like array and displace
I had to emphasis that since this was a heavy geometry node that you would only apply it just before rendering out your scene. I also added a selection node using vertex groups to exclude the parts that you want to have fuzz. Which the original did not have.
- Procedural to Painted Workflow: I developed a technique where I’d build a procedural shader with multiple noise and texture layers, bake it down into image maps, then do hand-painted touch-ups over that. It’s hybrid and tedious but gives the best visual control.
Material Reuse: Once I finalized materials for one house, I started duplicating and tweaking those across other props. It’s become a reusable, evolving library—less chaotic than starting fresh every time. Using Array Modifier.- Revisiting The Tea liquid Simulation: I created one for Act 2 and Act 3
- Scattering Addon called bagapie helped my scatter rocks and grass collections across the brick floorl
Optimizing blender , rendering
Optimization was a consistent task for me. They reported progress with a quick check-in. I learnt that putting render settings to simplify, turning modifiers off in viewport and only staying on viewport layout increased play back frame rate. As well as keeping parts of the scenes in collections while working on animation. I spent some time in march doing this on everyone’s copy of the scenes 1,2 3,4. I made sure thing was in collections so that people would have control over how the fast the play back was for animating depending on if u has so many objects in the scene or not. Also making sure all modifiers were turned off in viewport and that in the properties tab, world rendering is set to simplify – 1, so that subdiv is turned off in viewport aswell.
I took responsibility for coordinating our production schedule and maintaining momentum throughout the course of the project. Establishing a clear timeline was critical, especially given the collaborative nature of our workflow and the various stages we had to complete—from pre-production through to final rendering.
We held weekly team calls, typically scheduled on Sunday or Monday evenings, which served as key alignment points. I worked to be flexible around team members’ availability, ensuring that everyone had a voice in planning while still keeping our deliverables on track. I emphasized communication and consistency over rigid attendance, as long as progress was visible and files were updated accordingly.
To support our timeline, I regularly issued “Sunday targets”—milestone checklists aimed at progressing animation, rigging, and asset integration. For example, by February 21st, I asked the team to ensure characters were fully rigged, texture bakes were organized and finalized, and scenes were optimized for animation and render. I found that clearly defined goals like these were highly effective in driving momentum across departments.
As we approached final delivery, I set a hard deadline 12th for all project materials to be completed. This aligned with the internal submission timeline and the End of Year Show requirements. I suggested to submit backwards from this date, ensuring that final renders, animation polish, and print materials (such as the project poster and art book) were submitted with time to spare.
Animating pipelines
4/25 – Team dynamics were occasionally tested by tight deadlines, but open communication and mutual support ensured everyone was animating/ working towards it. Personally, I learned the value of patience and adaptability while guiding the team toward our shared goals.
Henry suggested adding a dolly zoom for a dramatic effect. Henry acted out / suggested moves the only man and the elephant could make. Like the old man clubbing his walking stick angrily.
creeping reference :
dolly zoom reference:
Animation was labeled a top priority, especially in the run-up to final weeks. I emphasized that animation and continuity needed to be finished before sound or other polish elements .I had Nicolle and Ellen to blocked out scenes based on the storyboard, with Ellen and Nicolle collaborating to divide sequence responsibilities . A backup method was also mentioned—duplicating characters like O’Malley and copy-pasting keyframes to preserve animation timing when transfer bugs occurred .
Final feedback before easter
Our final presentation received generally positive feedback, especially in terms of tone, atmosphere, and visual design. The tutors praised the textures, materials, lighting, and music—acknowledging that the world we built was working effectively in conveying the story and mood. There were specific compliments about the use of materials, with our shaders and lighting setups being described as “really nice” and “cool.”
However, the primary feedback focused on the animation, which was still considered to be in a rough state. Tutors pointed out issues with timing, movement fluidity, and character-object interaction. Scenes like the postman knocking at the door and the old man reacting were highlighted as needing more clarity and stronger character performance. They encouraged us to tighten the pacing and reduce character sliding, and to add more exaggerated timing in certain actions for comedic effect.
From a storytelling perspective, they emphasized the importance of visual communication. One key critique was about a scene involving a photograph—where the emotional connection between the elephant and the character wasn’t clearly conveyed. The tutors felt the visual storytelling wasn’t strong enough to communicate that the elephant reminded the character of a lost friend. That feedback reminded us that even subtle narrative beats must be readable to an outside viewer, especially in a short format.
There were also some technical notes on materials and shaders, particularly regarding the skin shader on one of the characters. While the clothing materials looked polished, the skin appeared too smooth and plasticky. I was advised to revisit the shader—either by refining the displacement or converting the displacement alpha into a subtle roughness map to break the shine. These kinds of small material tweaks were necessary to bring consistency across all assets.
To fix this I just changed the normal map node and linked it into a bump. Getting Rid of that awkward seam around the nails.
Another problem was how the UV changed from the original rig. Yet they had the same rig. So to combat this I Ctrl + Link to link mesh data which transfered the uvs over to the old uvd elephant.
On the lighting side, while most scenes were well-lit and soft, there were moments of overexposure that broke cohesion. I’ll need to revisit those shots and ensure that brightness remains controlled throughout each sequence.
The recommend light settings that I found were between (from harsh to soft) 3000W to 1000W> or less with an area light. for the exterior, I just put a sun.
Internally, I noted a few consistency issues that still need to be addressed before final render—scene scaling problems (like oversized fences and miniature newspapers), mismatched props, and lighting inconsistencies between shots. I mentioned during the presentation that if each minute of footage takes a day or two to render, we would need to finalize our polish pass quickly and begin batch rendering by the end of the week.
Overall, the feedback helped affirm what was working while giving us very clear and actionable direction for our final polish. We’re close—but the final step is about tightening animation, correcting scaling, refining visuals, and locking the story beats. Once those are in place, I’m confident the piece will land with impact.
Post Production:
Clean-up Sessions
As the project became more complex, I introduced a version control system for specific blender files, to track changes and prevent overwrites of models and assets. I implemented occasional cleanup weeks where I ensured everyone had the same update version of the scene. Which meant i always had control of what the final product should look like, providing additional security and quality control for the team. I created folder where it contained all the correct versions of assets and updated textures.
rendering
I use two calculators to estimate how many machines I need and how long the render would take and they are fairly accurate https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/3d-render-time and online frame calculator , Which calculated the estimate time my animation would finish rendering, In this case for 1350 frames running at 1min 30 secs ro render one frame, it would take approximately 2 days. For a hurdle I had to jump over was the school computers sleeping after 3 hours. I had found a software called caffeine zohron that allows computer to stay awake for as how long it needs to , to render. So minus the time it took to re render certain frames I rendered less than a week.
editing
I took it to after effects to edit our short film. I found after effects very quickly to pick up and i was surprised with the variety if different animatable effects. I imported the clips as png sequences and from then it was just adding.
Some clips, because of varied lighting, had to be colour graded either warmer to the clips before and after.
I achieved this transition by masking an keyframing and tracked the masking areas of a clip on top of the elephant.
The wiggle/ camera shake that you see in certain shots was done by adding an adjustment later and applying wiggle positions. Adding a motion blur effect overlayed to blend the clips together.
Initially I wanted to add Henrys After effects Plug in called Twitch – Jitter however there was an un remove-able watermark.
I also enabled time remapping to slow some parts down for example, like that shor where the old man picks up the cracked picture frame. FX steam I added for the tea cups where from FX elements.
Reflection:
As a dedicated member of this collaborative group, my role has often revolved around bridging the gap between creative ideation and practical execution. Alongside a diverse team, each member brought unique strengths to the table, from creative leads to technical experts. These past months have been a journey of creativity, learning, and teamwork, and this diary captures the essence of those experiences.
If i were to approach this project again, I would consider my won wellbeing when it comes to sharing the workload and people managing different set of skills. Though I do think I handled being a team leader in this project and that whenever my team mates needed support or a problem to fix I did my best to fix it.
I would also reconsider how I document my progress, in the process of this RnD I perhaps could have been more proactive in screenshotting things or recording work.
Overall I am proud of my growth that I have gained through this projects. I am more confident in geometry nodes, understanding them and being able to make my own such as the random colour generator and painterly shader. I am also very happy with the overall visuals and art direction that I have lead in this film, which I wouldn’t have imagined to achieve a year ago. In my first time being a head environment modeller and designer, I think my progress has excelled in the last two semesters and those skills I will value and put towards my next project.
In conclusion, I am so excited for the world to see my first film and to perhaps inspire a few young animators to the endless possibilities that comes when you apply yourself fully to creation.