The latest CG short film from Athens-based director and 3D artist Dimitrios Sakkas visualizes the struggles of life as a series of obsessively detailed natural vignettes in a very personal project titled Reborn.

Dimitrios Sakkas: “As I worked through some difficult situations over the past four years, I was trying to pick myself back up – to be reborn. Then a thought passed through my mind; many of us are having dark moments to get through. So I tried to capture this feeling with a video.

“So why nature? Nature always thrives even when a storm hits, or the flowers wither. After some time new leaves and flowers start to grow. And they keep growing and thriving. And then they die again. It is the perfect loop to visualize our own everyday struggles.

“The main technical difficulty of this video was nature itself and how I could picture it. I used the flowers and their blooming process to visualize the thriving part. After that, some leaves, twigs along with some small branches were used to visualize the struggling part of the story.
 

“So why nature? Nature always thrives even when a storm hits, or the flowers wither. After some time new leaves and flowers start to grow. It is the perfect loop to visualize our own everyday struggles.

 
“That was also a challenging simulation to execute and animate. I tried so many different ways to create them exactly as I wanted them and eventually it all came together. Particles helped me visualize the part where we start to gather our energy, the part we start to be reborn. Finally, the broken pieces come back together where they belong, creating a whole, new stone.

“More on the technical stuff: Flowers were done with Insydium’s TAIAO, and some ready-made models are from Graswald and Quixel. Simulations were done with Cinema 4D and Blender with cloth and soft body dynamics. Particles were done with X-particles and Blender’s native particle system. Rendered with Octane, Redshift, and Cycles. Post and final composition were done with After effects.

“Creating this project took three full months. Alex and Tuomas at Helsinki Sound Factory created music beyond my expectations. so many thanks to them.”
 
 

 
Production: Tomakti Studio
Director/animator: Dimitrios Sakkas

Music/sound design: Helsinki Sound Factory