Tippy Topper Short Film - University of Central Florida (UCF)

Art Director and Modeling Lead
Project Overview
A short film about a fledgling Jello who gets too curious about his final destination in a massive food processing plant, a mistake that sends him through an intense gauntlet lined with taffy pullers, burners, cakes, and knives.

The short film was developed by a team of 15 Undergraduate Students from the University of Central Florida and released in May of 2022. Since its release, Tippy Topper has won several awards and official selections in several film festivals including Overmountain Animation Festival, Oniros Film Awards, Short Stop International Film Festival, Top Shorts Film Festival, Central Florida Film Festival, Central Florida CineFest, among many others.
My Contributions
In my last two years as an undergraduate at UCF, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve as both the art director and 3D modeling lead on the production of Tippy Topper. In these roles, I was able to shape the overall visual style and aesthetic of the film, working closely with the team to ensure that everything was cohesive and consistent.

I also took on the responsibility of creating and implementing a lot of the 3D models and assets used in the film, as well as coordinate and support team members to deliver high-quality results.

With a team of only 15 people we had to wear multiple hats during the production, allowing me to gain a diverse set of skills and take part in all production areas from end-to-end.
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3D Models: Oven, Stove Burners, Spiral Slide, Billboard Sign, DEX.
Concept, 3D model, Textures
As Modeling Lead for our team, I oversaw the creation of all the 3D models in the film, ensuring they met the high standards we set for ourselves.

Moreover, I worked on multiple models from end-to-end, starting from visual development, all the way to surfacing and implementation into the scenes.

For the models below, my direct contributions were as follows:
Oven model: concepting, 3D modeling, UV unwrap, textures, surfacing.
Stove Burners: concepting, 3D modeling, and UV unwrap.
Spiral Slide: 3D modeling and UV unwrap.
DEX (mechanical hand model): 3D modeling and UV unwrap.
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Oven - Final rendered model
Oven - Model
Wireframe view 01
Wireframe view 02
UV Unwrap
Stove burners - Final render
Stove burners - Model
Stove Burners - Wireframe view
Stove Burners - UV Unwrap
Spiral slide - Final render
Spiral slide - Model
Spiral slide - Wireframe view
Spiral slide - UV Unwrap
DEX (Hand character) - Final render
DEX (Hand character) - Model
DEX (Hand character) - Model
DEX (Hand character) - Wireframe view
DEX (Hand character) - Model details
DEX (Hand character) - Wireframe view
DEX (Hand character) - UV Unwrap
Textures and trim sheets.
Concept, 3D model, Textures, Surfacing
One challenge we had with our environment was finding a way to quickly iterate on background elements to populate the factory without too much repetition. To solve this issue, I created several procedural textures and two different trim sheets that we could use for both our factory walls and our background machinery.

To create the assets:

I created the procedural materials using substance designer and substance painter.

For the trim sheets, I started in photoshop with some rough sketches to determine the layout of the different texture elements, then used Maya to block out the different sections using box modeling techniques. After that, I imported my mesh to Zbrush for detailing and to create the ID maps. From there I imported everything to substance for baking and texturing. Lastly, I surfaced the assets with my finished texture maps and played around with the UV's to achieve the final look.
Trim sheet 01 baked & textured
Trim sheet 01 model
Trim sheet 02 baked & textured
Trim sheet 02 model
Factory Walls - environment model (maya viewport)
Factory Walls - environment model (maya viewport)
Factory Walls - final render
Procedural metal panels material (substance designer)