— Gabrielle Marcheterre

What is Fréquences?

Fréquences is a musical journey of a fictional musical instrument that was made by 8 students from the NAD and a sound designer. The project has been built to be played like a short movie, but in real-time and rendered through Unreal 4. Everything you see is straight out of the engine, animated by combinations of blueprints and matinee elements.

“Fréquences is a project that wants an immersive experience through a surreal world uniting sound and image to live an emotional experience.”

— Andréanne Drolet

My share of the work:

My tasks were to both rig and animate all of the contraptions that had been designed.

Fréquences was my first formal experience with purely mechanical designs. While I came in thinking this would be a cakewalk, I'm happy to report that I have had to learn quite a bit about instruments behaviors, how to achieve convincing results even though this was an imaginative piece, and come up with solutions for some unforeseen situations.

All in all, I have enjoyed the puzzles and the creativity I've had to use to produce my part of the project alongside very talented individuals!

Featured

The Bows

The bows were pretty straightforward, it simply needed to move freely where it was designed to move and he restrained in movements where it would collide with itself.

The only special touch that has been added was to have the bow conform to the strings and it's pressure on it. When the bow was animated, it was then possible to put some resistance in the wooden parts of it.

The Piano Hammers

The piano hammers were most likely the easiest part to rig and animate, for there is only one way to make them work.

I was tempted to automate them, but in the end simply animating them by hand came to be more cost effective in this timed production.

The Piano Bed

This was the tricky one!

I came in the project later when some of the modeling had been made. Unfortunately for me, the modeler had not kept an earlier version of it to make the rig conform to the shape of the bed, so I had to improvise!

I've made a universal "key rig", where you would basically duplicate it , then align (snap) 3 control points on the square ends of the keys or pedals. That would automatically be position the bone and controler in the right angle, ready to skin and sych to the melody!

The Music Box

This music box was driven entirely by expressions to get the final speed to sync with our soundtrack. Once I had a good timing on the metal carrillon, I simply duplicated that bone and timed it to the song with minor adjustments.

The Xylophone

The xylophone needed to be automated and the proper notes played in the right order. It also required a visual feedback of the notes being pressed and the balls being squished. Added a visual feedback on the tie in front of the camera where it would react to the keys being pressed.

Honors:

Fréquences Nominations.

Wolrd Cultures - Professionals

1st Place: Best Film North America
2nd Place: Best Film

Award of Recognition

Experimental Student

The Team:

ART DIRECTION & LIGHTING
Andréanne Drolet

MODELING
Andréanne Drolet
Laurie Durand
Anne-Sophie Labelle
Audrey Poulin
Rui Sequeira

TEXTURING
Andréanne Drolet
Laurie Durand
Audrey Poulin

RIG & ANIMATION
Gabrielle Marcheterre

FX ARTISTS
William Belley
Francis Bouthillier

MUSIC
Éric Cadieux

RESPONSIBLE PROFESSOR
Dave Hawey

Portfolio

What is Fréquences?

My share of the work:

Honors:

The Team: