The motion design short from Kevin Gautraud offers a Sagan-inspired meditation on our small moment in the vastness of time; produced with Gaea, Houdini, Cinema 4D, and OctaneRender.
OddBeast has shared with AWN their motion design production of the opening film for Half Rez 2025, which aims to visually express the collective anxieties of creatives who face an uncertain future as emerging tools and technologies reshape their industries. You can enjoy the short below.
“I chose to ground the short in responses particular to fears about making a living in today’s creative fields where the rate of change feels insane at times, overwhelming artists with existential questions,” said OddBeast executive creative director Kevin Gautraud. “Sometimes, ‘I don’t know’ is the most truthful answer anyone can give.”
In creating the film, Gautraud tapped into his own response to such anxieties: a meditation on the vastness of time and our small moment in the light, along with ponderings that brought him perspective. In the film, visuals of barren yet eerily majestic landscapes take viewers back to Earth’s origins, giving way to the explosion of life.
“For this project in particular, I was inspired by Carl Sagan and his own personal philosophy,” added Gautraud. “He was awestruck at the grandeur of nature, curious about the origin of life, and humble about the extent of human knowledge. It's about making people feel small, strange and somehow okay with that.”
Gautraud used a range of tools to give his concept life, including QuadSpinner’s Gaea; Houdini for a handful of simulation-based effects; and Cinema 4D for final assembly and rendering using OctaneRender. A grant to OddBeast from the Render Network Foundation allowed the team to render scenes quickly using their RNDR network platform.
Check out the opening film now:
Source: Oddbeast
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
