Institute Astrophysics of Andalusia
Mars in a box

  • Motion · 3D · fashion · 3D print

Project focused on science students in European schools, within Mars In A Box we find our protagonist, Aelita, the queen of Mars.

Year

2022

Client

IAA


Commission

Colectivo Verbena

Tools

Cinema 4D

Marvelous designer

After Effects

Photoshop

Stable Diffusion

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Colectivo Verbena conceived and designed the project from the beginning, my mission was to bring the 3D character to life and animate it with its great personality, previously designed by them.

Our protagonist is inspired by the novel of the same name "Aelita" and like in the book, she reveals that her planet is dying due to an environmental catastrophe. That's why, inside the box, Aelita has prepared a series of experiments to recruit young scientists from the solar system who can save Mars (our high school students).

All these instructions are contained within the box supposedly sent by the protagonist. I was able to contribute the transmission at the beginning and end, where we can see Aelita in a 3D hologram with a pyramidal projection on a device.

Project from Colectivo Verbena
Character and fashion design made by Awmanda

Character design | Made by Awmanda

Wow! Sooo Coool project with R&D, experimentation, 3D, and animation... Where do I sign up? These are some steps we went through to reach the final animation (you know, a smooth motion if it's also smooth organized).

3D progress | Modeling and Shading

Perfecto! With the approval of the model and shader, I can now work on the bones and incorporate the character's personality into their movements and expressions (with Cinema's "Pose Morph", it was going to be easy-peasy). Aelita was a teenage queen with a lot of attitude and flowww!

3D progress | Rigging and Clothing

At this point, we entered the final stretch. We had approval for each part of the character, we only needed to animate and synchronize it with the audio + a little bit of magic in postproduction to feel like part of the movie... C'est fini!

Aelita in hologram | Demo
(video made by Colectivo verbena)

Aelita in hologram | First experiment (00) and instructions

Aelita in hologram | Final experiment (06) and farewell

Oh, that's not all...

It turned out sooo great! But... Aelita had so much potential and we couldn't appreciate her to perfection in those transmissions, so I landed on Mars to do a fashion photoshoot, and this time she gave it all to the camera.

In this photoshoot, I used Stable Diffusion (AI technology that wasn't yet trendy in the summer of 2022) to generate tileable textures and give me some new ideas that went beyond my moodboard (my main references were Querida y Playful)

Fashion film | Photoshoot on Mars

Fashion photos | Photoshoot on Mars

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Making-of | Photoshoot on Mars

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Very cool project Carlos, but... We want to see something physical. What did the students find? Can we see your Aelita in physical form?

Colectivo Verbena designed the entire structure of the game, visual identity, the website, a complete packaging, different experiments, a card game, and dynamics with instructions that the students came across as they completed the activity. You can find the full project information on the official Eurpean website of Mars in a box.

It all starts with a box sent from Mars, in which they scan a QR code that leads them to my first animation and instructions from Aelita. After opening the box, they find all the experiments as we can see below. The following photos were made by Colectivo Verbena.

The Box from mars + Aelita 3D printed

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A huge hug from mars!!!

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Next project

NFT universe