Ceiba Y Sus Raíces Taínas Short Film
Teaser Trailer
Directed by Brithney Rivera: Modeling, Set Dressing, Exterior Look Development, Exterior Foliage Simulation, Shading, Lighting, Render Wrangling, Compositing, Color Grading
Produced by Jacqueline Ferreira: Character Sculpts, Texture, Cloth Simulation, Concept Art, 2D FX, Storyboards, Illustrations
Produced by Megan Schmitz: Character Animation, Character and Prop Rigging, FX Animation, Previs, Layout, Editor, Animation Coordinator
Email me if you'd like access to the final film as a password protected link!
Ceiba Y Sus Raíces Taínas has screened at the following Festivals:
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BAM: Brooklyn Academy of Music Kids Film Festival (2025)
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NYLFF:New York Latino Film Festival (2024)
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NYLFF x San Juan in Distrito T-mobile(2024)
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Women In Animation Film Festival (2024)
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Sidewalk International Film Festival (2024)
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Screen It! International Film Festival (2024)
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Fist Up Film Festival (2024)
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Afro-Latino Film Festival (2024)
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New York Animation Film Awards (2024)
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NYICFF: New York International Children's Film Festival (2024)
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ASIFA-East Animation Film Festival (2024)
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The Academy of Arts and Science's Dinos After Dark (2024)
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Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival (2024)
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International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival (2023)
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Lusca Film Festival (2023)
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Sustainable Stories Film Festival (2023)
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Bushwick Film Festival (2023)
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San Francisco Latino Film Festival (2023)
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¡Tú Cuentas! Cine Youth Festival (2023)
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Together! Disability Film Festival (2023)
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MY HERO International Short Film Festival (2023)
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School of Visual Arts: Film of Distinction (2023)
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Final Concept Art
Characters by Jacqueline Ferreira
Coquí by Brithney Rivera
Ceiba Exterior and Interior by Matthew Olfindo
First 11 second Animation Test
This was our first time laying out the environment and visualizing the space our character would live in. We show this to compare our journey in Look Development, Animation, and Compositing with you! In less than a year, we have progressed immensely. This lighting was done in April of 2022 too! So much learning in such a quick amount of time :).
Disability Pride Reel
As an early test, we did an animation of our main character in her wheelchair for Disability Pride Month in July 2022! After this reel, we changed her wheelchair, because we realized there were several issues with her arm clipping through the wheelchair.
Disabled people often have custom wheelchairs that are adjusted to the person's body, making it easier to maneuver in spaces. We wanted Ceiba to have that in her design.
Each color stripe has a meaning:
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Red - physical disabilities
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Gold - neurodiversity
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White - invisible disabilities and disabilities that haven't yet been diagnosed
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Blue - emotional and psychiatric disabilities, including mental illness, anxiety, and depression
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Green - for sensory disabilities, including deafness, blindness, lack of smell, lack of taste, audio processing disorder, and all other sensory disabilities
Character Turntables
1. Each character has their own controllable Specular roughness map. I created character masks for prominent parts of their bodies to adjust their maps per shot, dependant on the lighting of the scene. This is important, as I didn't want our characters to feel as though their skin is washed out in certain scenes dependent on the lighting. In Live Action, filming actors with dark complexions often come with the issues of feeling the character blend in with night backgrounds, because scenes are not properly lit.
In CG, characters with darker complexions might have a broad roughness map that are often applied to characters with lighter complexions, and lose depth in their face. With our controllable maps, I could tweak maps around portions of the body in the slightest way that make our characters really be the focus of attention on the shots.
2. A solo turntable of our main character Ceiba. Jacqueline Ferreira textured all aspects to be realistic and also stylized. She also created the original character sculpt from a base model, and modeled the character's clothes in Marvelous Designer. I fully modeled the wheelchair and character hair, while also re-topologizing the character model. Ceiba is sitting in her wheelchair thanks to the Rig Megan created.
Ceiba Close-Up
Closeup of Ceibas face, textures by Jacqueline Ferreira. Shading by Brithney Rivera. Jacqueline used her mom as a references for the different tones of pigments on Ceiba's face. For lighting purposes, I created a node system that could control the specular map around specific areas of her face and body. I made areas more or less rough depending on the weather, and context of lighting in the scene.
Rig Tests
Here are some rig tests Megan has created to show how our characters move. We are using Advanced Skeleton to get the basic structures down.These tests don't show the clothes, since they were simulated.
Secondary Heroes
You CANNOT have a Puerto Rican film WITHOUT the iconic Coquí! Additionally, we treated Ceiba's wheelchair as its own character. Jacquie did some phenomenal texture work on the chair! I spent alot of time modeling it. We ended up having TWO DIFFERENT chair models. Our initial model resembled more of a hospital chair. IT SUCKED to animate in though, which is REALISTIC to how disabled folks feel. We made Ceiba a CUSTOM BUILT Chair, reflective and accurate to her body type, her necessities, and her culture.
HUGE SHOUTOUT TO MEGAN FOR RIGGING THE WHEELCHAIR AND FROGGIE! SHE SLAYED!
Ceiba Y Sus Raíces Taínas: My Role + Responsibilities
Story Writer, Storyboards, Script, Layout, Character Retopo, Modeling, Set Dressing, Exterior Look Development, Exterior Foliage Simulation, Shading, Lighting, Render Wrangling, Compositing, Color Grading
I am responsible for all the Lighting you see above! 50+ shots in 2 months. Comped all those shots over the course of 1 month all on my own as well.
Warm Interior:
Candle Lit Pockets of Light
Warm Exterior:
New day with rays directing focus
Cool Exterior:
Neutral spotlights on characters
Early Interior Lighting
For a time, I had lit using 2000K-3000K lights, thinking that it would be best to capture how real light works in dark spaces. It didn't suit the look and tone of the film at all! It established a stereotypical look.
Instead, I changed all the lights to be white, neutral lights, and softly graded them in Nuke! Doing this allowed for me to have a stronger control on the focus and look of the film. Ceiba looks more cozy in her home, and everything feels much softer than before!
First drawing ever of Ceiba: 2019
The birth of an idea, drawn in 2019 as a doodle in my sketchbook. Coqui used to be a magical sidekick, and Guabancex used to be a ginormous being that took over the sky.
Early Ceiba Concept Art 2021
Here, I developed Ceoba's look a bit more. i dappled into the idea of having a more preschool/child like audience style. However, we bumped up the age of Ceiba to be a young adult. Around this time is when I decided to also have Ceiba's home be nested in a Ceiba tree, the oldest tree alive on the island of Puerto Rico.
Early Storyboard Animatic Snippets
Before my teammates joined me, I did all the storyboards on my own. I'd love to one day storyboard another short film/ project. Being a Lighter and Comp Artist really helps me understand cameras and how they work. Can't wait to put that knowledge to use!
Environment Modeling and Set Dressing
Some wireframes of our set and the context of them in the scenes! Jacquie did alot of the texture work you see, and I would take them into Maya and make them shaders myself in Arnold! By being in charge of the shaders, I was able to fine tune the appearance of all the props to best fit for most of the scenes. I ALSO USED SPEEDTREE! For the trees! The big OL' Ceiba Tree that Ceiba Zooms down on? YEAH! SPEEDTREE BABEY!
Signature Props
These are props that I specifically modeled and textured(except for the Plantain tree)! I was inspired by museum artifacts and Puerto Rican Artisan crafts. The mickey button was inspired by my older sister with disabilities, who has one just like it!
Making the Hurricane
Shoutout to SpeedTree!!!!!! Me and my homies LOVE SpeedTree.Basically, I modeled all the types of trees I wanted in speedTree. What you're seeing here are some suuuuper early tests, that are different than what the film final versions are, but they were a part of the journey! I also used Maya's PaintFX for the grass wind simulation.
This black and white animation you see here? I used speedtree, Maya, and did a matte/alpha render of the simulated trees from a "person looking up" angle. I USED THIS FOR LIGHTING AS A GOBO!!!! IT WAS SO COOOOOOL. IT brought ALL of our exterior environments to life, because now the shadows were moving with the Hurricane winds, all over our scenes! Look at how you can see it work down below!
Making my own Procedural Textures
I went to Puerto Rico winter 2021/2022 and took hundreds of Pictures of trees for fun! I'm not the greatest photographer, but I pieced many trees together to make a series of tile-able tree textures seen in the film. I used Photoshop!
The gigantic tree Ceiba's home sits under is a Ceiba tree, made with the tileable textures I created of real trees, which brings the story alot closer to home for me.
Everything was controllable, so I was able to decrease/ increase the scale and displacement of everything, depending on the distance the camera had to the objects in the scene.
Autodesk Maya:
- Environment Models + Hero Props
- All UVs
- Coquí Character Model
- All Character Re-topology (Sculpts and clothes by Jacqueline Ferreira)
- Procedural textures
- Shader Node Network Setup
Arnold Rendering:
- All Lighting
- Light Rigs
- Render Wrangling
Responsible for:
Substance Painter:
- Some Texturing for props/ masks for characters
NukeX:
- All Compositing
SpeedTree:
- Procedural Tree Models
- Wind FX. for Tree Movement
After Effects:
- Some FX
- Moving Light Gobo Mask Creation
