Arnis Vitols, a 3D technical artist based in Riga, Latvia, asks the question “Does perfection in form exist?” with a new personal film called FINIERIS (“Veneer” in Latvian) with a soundscape designed by Human Robot Soul.

Arnis Vitols: “Every task of the craftsman begins with raw material – the material’s stage at the moment between its natural or initial state and its treated or end state.

“The perfect material in the hands of the craftsman is defined by the right texture, pattern, color, and finally, by its ability to take the shape of the envisioned form. This film follows the manufacturing process of plywood – the conversion of wood into a building material.

“Houdini was the main tool to bring the project and plywood to life. By using a procedural workflow it was possible to create assets that had animatable properties. This approach allowed fine artistic control over every element and to achieve elegant forms of geometry.

“To also have details on the macro level, all the textures were generated in Substance Designer followed by close-up reference photography. The final look of the textures was tweaked with Redshift’s shading properties during rendering.

“To fit the mood of the film, the soundtrack by Human Robot Soul was kept simple by using natural-sounding elements: Grand chorus voices for the overall mood, finely detailed sound effects for realism, and deep grinding bass to make the sound physical.”
 

 
Director/animator: Arnis Vitols

Sound design: Human Robot Soul