In the Fall of 2017, my friend Leo McElroy and I worked together on a project for the Middlebury Animation Studio, building computer tools to assist animators with several sequences that would become part of the short film Estrellita. The two of us were primarily focused on one shot of a mountain collapsing, where animators had run into unexpected difficulties using existing tools to animate fractured meshes.

Blender, the open-source 3D modeling and animation software used by the Middlebury Animaiton Studio, boasts an active community of modders. Several add-ons offered tools that could 'shatter' a mesh, but the resutling shards would not inherit animation data, resulting in an apparent loss of inertia.

After some tinkering within Blenders standard user interface, we wrote a script that would copy over animation data from the original mesh to its fractured descendants. A fuller description of the intricacies of that process can be found here.

The Middlebury Animation Studio is a small community, and is only able to produce the films it does through a strong collaborative ethic. In my time there, I was constantly learning new roles, sharing desk space and critical feedback with a variety of digital artists. It was a truly interdisciplinary team, and a community as well. I loved being a part of it. You can see our fracture modifier in action about four minutes into the video, but you should really watch the whole thing.

A big thanks to Daniel Houghton, the Animation Studio Producer.