Harnessing the Liver’s Immune System

3D Animation (2020): An animation created to educate a range of audiences about the research developments in liver immunology and the role this plays in homeostasis and parthenogenesis.

Client: Dr. Sonya MacParland Lab, University of Toronto. A master’s research project awarded the Masters Research Project Grant.

Media: Autodesk Maya, Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, Procreate

Process Work

Research & Ideation

A literature review was conducted to better understand the anatomy of the liver at each level (gross, lobule, cellular), the mechanisms during homeostasis and disease, and the recent research by the MacParland Lab. It was important to understand the relative cell sizes of each cell population, and how they would interact with each other in 3D space. At this stage, a media audit was also conducted to better understand how the liver and it’s cellular components have been previously visualized, what needed to be improved upon, and what had not yet been illustrated/animated.

Script & Storyboard

A script was then drafted and went through multiple revisions to make sure the writing is concise and scientifically accurate. A rough storyboard (key frames to match the narration) was created to better understand the color pallet, style, and lock down the main “characters” (different 2D and 3D elements) and their actions. This is one of the most important stages of the animation process since it is often referred to as the animation is created.

Animatic

The narration was then recorded, here narrated by Dr. Shelley Wall at the University of Toronto. A rough animatic (based on the storyboard) was created to test the length of the animation, and the pacing of the actions and transitions. This is a good stage to make any major changes to the script, narration, and storyboard.

3D Modeling

Using Autodesk Maya, 3D models for each main scene were created: the liver (gross anatomy), lobule sheet, cellular sinusoid level and individual cells.

Hand-Drawn 2D Elements

2D hand-drawn elements were created using Procreate’s animation assist feature utilizing rotoscoping, and frame-by-frame animation.

Compositing & Final Animation Style

The final render style used the Artineering MNPRX Maya Renderer to achieve a “watercolor” style more similar to my storyboards. This render style complimented the frame by frame hand-drawn animations. The 3D MNPRX renders and 2D hand-drawn elements were composited in Adobe AfterEffects. Other 2D elements such as arrows, glows, and particle effects were also created and composited in AfterEffects.