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Veronika Zelentsova 

BA [Hons] Animation

Driven by her deep passion for CGI, Veronika is a 3D artist committed to continuous learning and mastering her skills. She specializes in modeling, texturing, and animation, with an unyielding ambition to reach her dream in creating captivating digital worlds.

Under the Spell teaser
Technical breakdown
As the narrative of my film is set in the forest and requires a lot of nature elements, I had to make a choice between creating environments in Autodesk Maya or a game engine. Since I was aiming for a more realistic nature look and considering time constraints, I chose to create the forest in Unreal Engine so that I could focus more on other elements of my film. The house was modeled and rendered in Maya, then composited together with the UE background using After Effects.
The house was modeled in Maya, textured in Substance Painter, and rendered in Arnold using an HDRI that mimicked the lighting in Unreal Engine.
Characters: Sculpting is done in Zbrush, Retopology and UVs in Maya, Texturing in Substance Painter, Garment in Marvelous Designer, Rigging and Animation in Maya.
Under the Spell

For my graduation project, I decided to create a short animated film designed to showcase my diverse knowledge and comprehensive 3D skills. Driven by my passion for this medium, I challenged myself by meticulously studying various areas of the 3D animation production pipeline, including modeling, texturing, rigging, simulation, animation, lighting, and compositing. To optimize the project, I carefully planned the production, identifying key elements, software requirements, and the specific skills I wanted to highlight. Where appropriate, I strategically streamlined certain tasks to focus on demonstrating my core strengths.

Synopsis:
Once bored of her studies, a girl named Elle leaves her house with her cat and goes into the woods to collect some apples. While resting under the tree on her way home, she sees magic dust floating in the air. She wants to escape, but the dust enchants the girl, and she follows it through the forest to a mysterious place with runes. The dust transforms into a forest elf who turns the girl into one of her own kind. The forest seems to swallow her.


From Caricatures to Realism: A Comparative Study of Disney’s Classic Animations and Live-Action Remakes

In my thesis, I compare the original animated versions of Disney's The Jungle Book and The Little Mermaid to their live-action remakes. I argue that the shift towards realism diminishes the films' original charm and emotional impact. Live-action filmmaking simply cannot replicate the vibrant expressiveness of animation. The fantastical environments, the exaggerated character designs (particularly the animals), and the heartwarming humor of the originals are lost in translation. This ultimately compromises the emotional connection these films once held for audiences. I believe that possibly a choice in favor of traditional 3D animation could offer a far more successful and artistically fulfilling approach to reimagining these classics.

Animation
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