Yaho! (2025)

The two main characters are alone in a forest. They reach out each other in their own way. Upon hearing a shout from the opposite mountain, the other answers with a paper plane.

The two protagonists living their lives alone find each other’s existence in an indirect way, which is echoing, and an direct medium, which is a paper plane. We identify each other in direct and indirect way and live together.

Character Design

Our goal was to create a stop-motion style using 3D software. We focused on three main aspects: achieving a stop-motion feel through stoppy animation, proper lighting, and realistic textures. Our texture artist crafted a beautiful clay-like texture using Substance 3D Sampler. To simulate stop-motion animation, we baked our animations into 12 frames and rendered them at 24 frames per second.

Room Design

Still Cuts

After preparing all the props, we used Unreal Engine to create the forest. UE's fast rendering, realistic textures, and simulations enhanced the overall look of our film. We also created custom tree textures to resemble handcrafted stop-motion props.

For the room, we used Maya with Redshift for rendering. We worked hard to match the rendered look across different software to ensure consistency.

We rigged and animated our characters in Maya, using a low-poly landscape exported from UE as a set reference. To transfer the animated character data into UE, we used two methods: Livelink and USD. Depending on the complexity of each shot, we chose the most efficient method. This approach allowed us to complete the film quickly and effectively.

Credits

Director | Nakyoung Yoo

Layout | Nakyoung Yoo

Editing | Nakyoung Yoo

Modeling, Texturing | Shimon Oberst

Set Design | Nakyoung Yoo

Animation | Nakyoung Yoo, Leo Taheri, Kaiser Chou

Rigging | Kaiser Chou

Lighting | Nakyoung Yoo

Sound Design | Matthew L. Thomas, Todd LeBlanc

Voice | Leo Taheri