Escape from Jabiim

"Escape from Jabiim" is our Skyup Academy's final group project! We have recreated a scene from Disney+'s "Kenobi" series by Deborah Chow. Get a behind-the-scenes look at how we pulled off the CGI shot and the making-of process from concept to completion.

Our group was formed by nine people, dived in single sections directed by the modelling, texturing, lighting and animation leads. Everybody worked on something of course the specialyzed skills and interests of the individual ruled the way we divided the work.

The first part of the work was to find in various episodes of the tv series every single asset and prop that appeared in the two shots we had to realize. We had to discover and distinguish the single assets, studying the enviroment and understanding how the most complex assets were made originally.

During the production we used what originally was our reference board to show the assets we realized, soon it became a wonderful showcase for our improvements to the shots.

While we were modelling, we couldn't wait to start the shot, after a first camera matching of the animation we created a simple blockout with temporary characters, assets, environment and lighting so that we could pre-visualize the final product.

The modelling part was long and complex, we had to re-create an iconic character like Darth Vader, a so recognisable character that we culdn't miss his shapes. The Jabiim destroyer was probably the most complex asset of the production but following the instructions of our modelling lead we got it right.

In the meanwhile we kept working on the animation, always with the reference on our side so that we wouldn't miss anything.

The texturing part was faster but not easier, we had to texture primary and secondary props, always thinking about what the audience would see the most in order to keep the project optymized and workable.

Finally we got the final assets, here are the results:

Since when we started the project we always worked on the lighting and the animation getting differents results and gradually improving.

and of course we experimented a lot with the special effects in order to get the spaceship reactors right.

Here's a little explanation of how the entire workflow went:

In conclusion it was a great experience both on the 3D and on the human sides. Working wth this team was amazing and a special thanks goes to Skyup Academy that followed us for the entirety of the project.