This project began during my university specialism in Groom, with the goal of producing a polished, single-frame render. The bear served as a subject for testing grooming techniques and workflows, acting as a platform to apply what I was learning in a controlled and visually focused setup. Throughout development, I created multiple iterations of the bear as I refined the approach — from hair generation and clumping to shading and rendering. Some early versions were less successful, but the process provided a practical space to iterate and push the quality of the groom.
The project expanded beyond its original static goal. Daniel joined to animate the bear, which shifted the focus toward motion and interaction. This unplanned addition added depth to the project, transforming it from a still frame into a short animated piece. While the scope grew beyond the original concept, it remained a compact, focused project that showcased grooming, compositing, and animation in a cohesive pipeline.
By the end of the specialism, the groom was functional but still felt like a test piece rather than a final image. After the course, I revisited the project with the intention of improving the overall presentation. I collaborated with a friend, who supplied a high-resolution still photograph that became the background plate for compositing. Integrating the CG bear into that environment helped ground the asset and provided a more cinematic context, allowing the bear to function convincingly within a real-world lighting scenario.
To the left is a breakdown of the integration of the bear to the plate.
