Ersatz Pre-Viz

This is "Ersatz". It's a word for "bad replication". The project was a part of my Undergraduate Thesis for 3D production back in 2019-2020. For the thesis, I produced and developed a 3D short under a tight schedule and budget. The production schedule was 4 months (17 weeks) and a budget of 150$ to develop this entire 2.5 minute short. I produced, wrote, directed, designed, animated, lit, and rendered all on my own machine from home, finishing the project during quarantine.
I used Blender and ZbrushCore to make everything. I used the money to purchase kitbash assets and a basic story class. I built a 3D real-time cavern generator inside Blender to massively decrease development time. It's basically a complex stack of displacement modifiers using UV's and Vertex Groups. The bag and mushroom prop at the opening is made by Alissa Slenes. I asked her to help and she could build her portfolio.