Student Accomplice is a thrilling 5-minute animated short about a nervous teen who gets caught in a high-stakes robbery while taking her driving test.
This 3D-animated film, created with Pixar’s Renderman for Houdini, won Film of the Year and People’s Choice at the Rookie Awards 2024, and was a finalist for Rookie of the Year. With an impressive team of 30 talented students from Brigham Young University’s Center for Animation, this capstone project showcases cutting-edge animation, compelling storytelling, and stunning visuals.
Most commercial computer animation these days is done using Autodesk Maya, with some minor percentage of it being done in Blender. Houdini is a fully capable CGI system as well, but it’s usually relegated to what it does best: visual effects. In this case, Houdini was used as the centerpoint of the production pipeline, proving that the software has
BYU is noted as being one of the best places in the world for learning the art and craft of computer animation, and this film showcases exactly what they can do if they put their minds to it.
This film was crafted using iterative design, procedural modeling, and collaboration across a variety of animation disciplines. It’s the result of months of hard work, creative exploration, and technical innovation. Don’t miss out on seeing the future of animation through the eyes of these talented students.
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The same thing happened to me when I took my first driver’s test. I mean the parallel parking part.
It’s weird thinking that students nowadays can produce animation that the greatest animators decades ago couldn’t have come even close to doing. The technology simply wasn’t there.