Crafting the Atmospheric World of “Chrysalis” 3D artist and filmmaker Robin Lochmann discusses the making of his short “Chrysalis.”

Irish 3D Artist and Filmmaker Robin Lochmann has exercised his talents across fields like advertising, concert visuals, art installations, music videos, and television. Always curious, though, the Berlin-based creator has managed to chase down a passion project that pushes the boundaries of both his creativity and technical expertise.

“Chrysalis,” his six-minute short released earlier this year, is the culmination of three years’ worth of experimentation, refinement, and ingenuity. Using professional-grade tools like Cinema 4D and ZBrush, the work combines actual landscape footage with fantastical animated characters to depict a mesmerizing religious ritual. Robin took the time to walk us through his process, where he gets his ideas, and what problems the production had to solve.

Lochmann: It’s always hard to backtrack and find the first source of inspiration because it usually comes from many different places. One big inspiration was just being in nature in the south of France where I was staying for a few months. I started taking shots of the landscape on a Blackmagic camera and thinking about what story could unfold here. I was also inspired by tools that I use and wanted to combine the different skills I had picked up into one project. For the characters, I gathered some ideas from paintings and sculptures that spoke to me. I wanted to animate characters that I could craft in 3D and then composite together with the real footage. I wasn’t even sure if it would be a full short film; I just had some images in my head that I felt compelled to make. The rest of the film grew from there.  

Lochmann: In total, it took three years, though I wasn’t working on it consistently during that time. For almost a year in the middle of production I didn’t touch it because I had too much client work. I just worked on it when I had time off and in the evenings. It’s hard to say how many actual work hours ultimately went into it.  

Lochmann: I always keep an eye out for inspiration. I also find it helpful to look outside of the CGI bubble. It’s rare that I go to a museum and don’t leave with some new ideas. You can learn a lot from looking at the old masters, too. For instance, an African mask I saw in the Louvre inspired the film’s robotic dog. Of course, music and films often inspire me too. 

Lochmann: I started in Character Creator and iClone. This allows me to design the base on which the whole character will be built. Here I can then also animate it and edit motion capture which will end up driving the final character. I designed the heads entirely in Cinema 4D. I had some solid ideas and rough sketches going into it, but concepts always evolve during the process.

Once I was happy with those, I switched to Marvelous Designer to make the clothing. This was something I hadn’t tried before, so I kept them pretty simple. The bigger capes and robes were relatively easy to make with a dramatic and mysterious look. This is where I could use the animation from the iClone base character to simulate the clothing onto. I then reassembled everything in Cinema 4D before integrating them into scenes. I sculpted the entire insect in ZBrush, as well as parts of the robotic dog.

Lochmann: Some footage was just locked off tripod shots. That's always easier because if you have a ground plane aligned properly to catch shadows, you can often get away with eyeballing the rest, especially if it’s only one or two characters. It helps to be the one shooting the footage or at least knowing what lens it was shot on so that you can set up the same focal length in Cinema 4D and align everything correctly. For other shots involving motion, I used Cinema 4D’s built-in camera solver. You can track solid references in the footage with lots of different tracking points and then let the software calculate how those points interact in 3D space. It’s important not to have tracking points on things like trees, clouds, flags, or anything else that moves in the shot as that will mess up the calculation. In the end, you get a 3D space with a camera that copies the motion of the real camera. When done correctly, it’s super satisfying and everything locks into place. I had also shot some HDRI’s [High Dynamic Range Imaging] of the location that I could use as a lighting reference and starting point to light the scenes. 

Lochmann: The wings were done with the Pose Morph tag in Cinema 4D. As long as you keep the same geometry, you can sculpt various states of the same mesh and then animate and blend between them. This was all done manually without any simulation. For the white webbing, I used Cinema 4D’s new particle system. I had an emitter shoot out a bunch of particles and then set the colliding geometry as an attractor. The particle path was then traced to form the lines, and the tracer was rendered as hair.

Lochmann: Finding the best workflows on the front end was probably the most difficult part. Technically speaking, a lot of it was new territory for me, so I had to jump in and learn as I worked. Personal projects are a great way to do this because you don't have to worry about a client waiting. 

Lochmann: I worked with Robot Koch, the composer of the film, years ago on his music videos and I always admired his work. When watching early cuts of the film, I would audition different music for it, and many of his tracks stood out. He turned over the whole score quickly, and I had very little feedback; he just got it instantly. I always imagined the film to be very music-driven, so the sound design was mostly intended to support that and to ground the images; but, so many little details he added brought the world to life. I worked with composer Philippe Glandien and we spent a lot of time combing through the film together, adding subtle details that make the world feel real and tactile. 

Lochmann: Plan as much as you can before starting. I like making stuff and enjoy just jumping into the tools straight away when I have an idea. That eagerness is invaluable, but when it comes to a bigger film, it’s better to have a clear plan first. It can be more difficult to get motivated by a new project when you have to map it all out and plan it rather than cutting straight to the fun stuff, but it will save you so much time on the back end. I knew this before, but I didn’t listen to my own advice, though I liked how it grew and evolved along the way. That's the beauty of personal projects without a deadline. 

Lochmann: I took a bit of a break after “Chrysalis” but that never lasts long. So yeah, I’ve got some new ideas cooking! 

Key takeaways

• 3D designer and filmmaker Robin Lochmann spent three years working on his short film “Chrysalis” between professional projects.

• He used ZBrush to craft a highly detailed insect and elements of a robotic dog.

• Using Cinema 4D, Lochmann combined digital elements with actual footage taken in the French countryside.