BAEK JI YEON

The Flying Mouse

This portfolio is based on Torben Kuhlmann's book Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse.

Here’s a brief summary of the story:

A clever mouse who loved reading spent days in the library. During that time, a new type of mousetrap was invented and quickly spread throughout the city. The story follows the mouse as he builds and flies an airplane in search of his fellow mice, who fled to escape the new mousetrap.

This project went through a complete production pipeline, including hard-surface modeling, creature modeling with fur, environment modeling, texturing, lighting, and compositing in Nuke.

Modeling / Texturing

When modeling hard-surface objects, I was careful to avoid creating wrinkles or distortions in the wireframe. Additionally, incorrect object proportions could make a small mouse appear overly large, giving the scene a miniature-like impression. Therefore, it was important to model each object with accurate real-world proportions.

When texturing in Substance Painter, I aimed to achieve a realistic look that closely matched the references. To reduce file size while maintaining detail, I made extensive use of texture maps and displacement maps.

I also did some modular modeling for the background buildings and created many interior assets, as numerous objects were needed to support the story.

Initially, it took a long time to complete each model, but over time, my modeling speed gradually improved.

Lighting

I wasn't satisfied with the initial lighting concept, so I went through several revisions before finalizing a greenish tone as the main mood for the entire scene.

Originally, I intended to create a warm, fairy-tale-like atmosphere by using yellow as the dominant color. However, I later decided to aim for a more cinematic look by introducing stronger color contrasts, resulting in a more dynamic and layered visual feel.

Rendering

The scene featuring the mouse was particularly challenging due to noise issues.

Applying taper to the fur significantly increased render times, while using an opacity map to control thickness caused severe flickering in the final render. In the end, I used width scale to make the fur gradually thinner towards the tips. I also cleaned up the remaining noise through various methods in Nuke, followed by additional adjustments in After Effects.

Compositing

I also put a lot of effort into the compositing work in Nuke.

In the scene with many buildings, I added birds flying behind the clock tower and smoke coming out of each chimney to enhance the sense of life and movement.

I also included a walking figure on the road, but the characters from crowd-generation tools felt too modern for the setting. To match the intended classic atmosphere, I used a base character model, created vintage-style clothing through texturing, and applied motion capture data to animate the walking sequence.

For the final environment shot, I rendered the background and the airplane separately and composited them in Nuke. Since the scene was set just after rainfall and aimed to convey a sense of hope, I created a rainbow in Nuke and composited it into the shot. I also added chimney smoke for more realism and atmosphere. The biggest challenge was to match the lighting between the airplane and the background to ensure visual consistency. This was crucial in creating a cohesive and believable final look.

Creature modeling

I modeled the mouse, the main character of the story. I used ZBrush for modeling, and later added fur using XGen Interactive Groom in Maya.

References

These are the references I used while working on this project. All of the illustrations are from the original book, Lindbergh: The Tale of a Flying Mouse.

Thanks for checking out my work!