Aiman Samat, a Malaysian VFX artist based in Los Angeles, has recently made waves in the digital art community. His groundbreaking work, 'Mother,' secured him the top spot in Pwnisher's "Kinetic Rush" challenge, which is sponsored by Fox Renderfarm, a leading cloud rendering services provider and render farm in the industry. This powerful narrative of a mother's unwavering love and protection showcases Aiman's exceptional skills in 3D animation and visual storytelling.
Join us as we dive into Aiman's creative world, discovering the inspiration behind his breathtaking work and the challenges he overcame to bring this powerful story to life.
Fox Renderfarm: Hi, Aiman Samat! Thank you so much for accepting our interview! Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Aiman Samat: Hello! I am Aiman Samat, I am from Malaysia and currently working as a VFX artist in Ingenuity Studios in L.A.
Fox Renderfarm: It's incredible that your work won Kinetic Rush. Could you describe the piece that took home the top prize?
Aiman Samat: Thank you! I still can't believe that I won, it is such an honor. My render essentially revolves around this 'mother' character chasing after her daughter who's being taken away by the military, which is why I titled it 'Mother'.
Fox Renderfarm: How did you narrow down the broad theme of 'Kinetic Rush' to create the specific concept of 'Mother'? What was the initial spark that inspired this piece?
Aiman Samat: When I first saw the template I was really thinking about what motivation the character could be running from point A to point B and I can't think of a better motivation then a mom trying to protect her daughter so everything stems from there.
Fox Renderfarm: How did your creative process for 'Mother' differ from your other works? Do you have a standard working pipeline?
Aiman Samat: I think I did 'Mother' differently than my other renders because of the time constraints that I had during the challenge month.
© Aiman Samat
Usually, I would spend some time gathering references, animating a previs until I get all the movements and environment blocking right, spending some time modeling and structuring an environment, and collaborating with my partner who is an amazing animator to work on the animation together, additionally collaborate with my roommate for simulation in Houdini as well.
© Aiman Samat
I will then render out 15 or more passes (AOVs, light trees, Depth map) in Multilayer EXR out of Blender, make proxies out of the passes, and composite in After Effects.
© Aiman Samat
For 'Mother', however, I barely spent any time gathering references and blocking as the vision in my head was pretty clear for what I wanted to do, and because we are not allowed to collaborate with other artists for this competition I had to leave a lot of time for animating. That means I had to scour environmental assets that were close to what I had in mind. I also tried nailing the look in Blender as much as I could so I only had to render out 2 or 3 passes in PNG so I don't need to spend much time compositing.
Fox Renderfarm: The hospital setting with armed guards is quite striking. How did you go about creating this environment, and what were the key elements you wanted to highlight?
© Aiman Samat
Aiman Samat: The majority of the environment is a game asset from Unreal which I rearranged to fit the scene that I wanted. The main thing was that the environment was split into three different 'rooms'. One that is the biggest and in Z depth, one that is the medium-sized room with stairs that play with the Y axis, and the final tight corridor at the end when the climax happens (the reveal of the daughter)
Fox Renderfarm: What were the most challenging aspects of animating the mother's sprint and the interaction with the soldiers? How did you ensure the movements were realistic?
Aiman Samat: I think the most challenging aspect is trying to respect the rules of the competition while creating chaos as much as possible. The rule was that the starting and ending points of the main character had to begin and end at the same spot so I had to work around that.
I wish I had the time to shoot a reference but for this, I just showed a bunch of people that I trusted to point out parts of the animation that did not feel realistic to them throughout the whole process.
I think because the character is sort of portrayed as super-powered and “crazy”, I had the liberty to exaggerate her movements a little bit.
Fox Renderfarm: What was your approach to the color palette in 'Mother'? How did the colors contribute to the overall tone and emotion of the piece?
Arrival © Paramount Pictures
Aiman Samat: I was really inspired by the cinematography of “Arrival”, where everything is enveloped by darkness, but it's also lit clinically at times with an added cool tone on top. I purposely have the scene start cool and then gradually get warmer to orange as we see her child convey literal “warmth”.
Fox Renderfarm: Have you had any experience with Fox Renderfarm's cloud rendering services in the past? If you have, what is your opinion of our cloud rendering offerings?
Aiman Samat: The first time I used Fox Renderfarm was for this render, and I promise I am not paid by Fox Renderfarm to say this, but they literally saved this project.
I had only 2 days left to render before the due date and I did not have time to optimize the scene fully so it would take my PC an hour to render a frame (I am using RTX 3070) which obviously would not be enough time to submit. Luckily, Fox Renderfarm is one of the sponsors of the competition so I tried it out with the given coupon.
It was frictionless to work with and customer service was really quick to respond whenever I needed to boost my render speed.
Fox Renderfarm: Are there any other projects that you are currently working on that you would like to share with us?
Aiman Samat: Currently professionally I am working on an exciting project that I can't talk about yet, but it has to do with comic/superhero IP. Personally, I have shot a live-action Hoka spec commercial that integrates real footage with 3D animation. Looking forward to releasing that soon!
Fox Renderfarm: Lastly, what advice or tips would you give to aspiring 3D artists who are looking to participate in similar challenges?
Aiman Samat: When I joined the render challenge for the first time, I had minimal 3D experience and never made a full scene by myself prior so I learned a bunch of new things for the first time. Rigging, material, smoke and fire simulation, cloth simulation, and so I stretched myself so thin that the work that I submitted was not polished enough.
Second render challenge I was more prepared but I learned even more stuff that I never did and did not use my time wisely so I think my second render also became a rush job by the end.
This is my third attempt at a render challenge and I only focused on my strength this time and came up with an idea that I like and I am proud of. Even if I didn't win or get in the top 100, I am still happy with the final result and that is what matters most.
I guess in short, learn what you are good at, take advantage of your best skills and execute your vision as best as you can, the most important part is that you are proud of your accomplishment by the end.
Thanks again to Aiman Samat for accepting our interview! Wishing new heights in you and your team's professional career!
Aiman Samat’s social media:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiman_samat/
- YouTube: www.youtube.com/filmjkk
