Project 1 — Deconstruction

30 points · Weeks 2–6 · Sep 1 – Sep 29

The assignment

Choose an existing piece of professional work in your track — a title sequence, a special effects shot, a game mechanic, a character design, a level, a rig. Figure out how it was made. Then recreate it.

You may recreate it faithfully, or you may recreate it in your own style — same structure and same technical approach, your visual voice. Both are valid; decide with the instructor in Week 1.

The creative direction is not yours, and that is the entire point. Someone else already decided what this thing should be. That frees you to concentrate on the only question that matters here: how do you actually get from nothing to a finished, professional-looking result? Most students can identify good work. Far fewer have traced the path to it step by step. This project makes you walk that path with the destination already marked.

Why this comes first

Three reasons it opens the semester rather than closing it.

It removes the hardest variable. Original work fails most often at the concept stage, not the execution stage — students stall for two weeks deciding what to make. Here that decision is already made, so you start producing on day one.

It generates the raw material for Project 2. You will learn several techniques getting through this. Project 2 asks you to take one of them and teach it. So the deeper you dig here, the more you have to work with later.

It matches how studio onboarding actually works. Your first month at a studio is deconstruction: a style guide you did not write, a rig you did not build, a shot that has to match work made by someone else. Reverse-engineering a finished result into the decisions behind it is a daily professional skill.

Choosing your source

The rule is reachable, not impressive. You have five weeks. A modest source rebuilt to a high standard beats an ambitious one abandoned at 60%.

Good source characteristics

• Short and self-contained — one sequence, one shot, one mechanic, one asset, one system
• Made by professionals at or slightly above your current level
• Legible enough that you can analyze the decisions from the outside
• Contains at least two techniques you do not currently have

Warning signs

• Hero assets that took a team a year
• Work whose difficulty is invisible until Week 3
• Anything chosen because it looks impressive rather than because it teaches you something

Bring two or three candidates to Week 1. We settle it in consultation.

Curated source lists by track

Motion Graphics · Title Design · VFX Sequences

Art of the Title is the primary source for this track. It hosts high-quality video of title sequences alongside interviews with the designers who made them — meaning you can often read the creators explaining their own process, which is rare and extremely useful. Browse their Top 10 Title Sequences of [year] features to survey the field.

Sequences that reward deconstruction and are scoped realistically:

Pick a sequence, not a film. A 60–90 second title sequence is a semester-appropriate scope; a music video is not.

3D Animation

Deconstruct one shot, 5–10 seconds, not a scene.

• A performance beat from an animated feature (Pixar, Disney, DreamWorks, Sony, Illumination) — pick a moment with a clear emotional turn
• A game cinematic shot — Arcane, Overwatch, League of Legends, Cyberpunk 2077, Blizzard's cinematic library
• A creature or quadruped locomotion beat from any of the above
• Blender Studio Open Movies — Sprite Fright, Charge, Coffee Run, Spring. These publish the actual production files, so you can check your reconstruction against how it was really built. Unmatched as a learning source.

Character Rigging

Rebuild the system, not the mesh.

• Agora Community rigs — free, professional, widely recognized
• Truong CG Artist rigs — strong deformation to study
• Mery (meryproject.com) — film-standard face rig
• Malcolm / AnimSchool — a long-running portfolio standard
• Blender Studio rigs — Rain, Snow, Vincent; open and readable
• Unreal MetaHuman — analyze its control logic and rebuild the approach

Analyze the control scheme and deformation strategy, document the design decisions, then rebuild that system on your own or a supplied mesh.

Character Design · Concept Art · Storyboard

This track is where "in your own style" is most productive.

• A published character design from a production art book, ArtStation portfolio, or studio visual development release
• A boarded sequence from a film or series with published storyboards
• A production design or environment key from a released art book

Reconstruct the underlying thinking — the design logic, the shape language, the staging — then rebuild the piece. Rendering it through your own stylistic filter while preserving the structural decisions is often the more instructive choice.

Technical Art

Rebuild a specific shader, VFX, or procedural system from a shipped game, working from observation.

• Toon and cel shading — Genshin Impact, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Guilty Gear Strive
• Environmental systems — Ghost of Tsushima wind and foliage, Journey sand, Sea of Thieves water
• Stylized VFX — Ori, Hades, League of Legends ability effects
• Destruction and physics — Control, Teardown
• Real Time VFX hosts community breakdowns that make excellent starting hypotheses

Document what you think it is doing before you build. The write-up of where you were wrong is the valuable part.

Game Design

Take one level, encounter, or system.

• Half-Life 2 — Ravenholm's pacing and player guidance
• Dark Souls — Undead Burg's loop structure and shortcut design
• Doom (2016) — a single arena encounter
• Celeste — one screen, or one chapter's mechanic introduction
• Portal — the test chamber teaching progression
• Hollow Knight — one area's layout and gating
• Super Mario 3D World — one level's mechanic introduction curve

Diagram its pacing, sightlines, beats, and teaching sequence. Then rebuild it as a playable greybox.

Game Programming

Reimplement a named mechanic from observed behavior, not from source code or a tutorial of that exact system.

• Celeste — the dash, plus coyote time, input buffering, and corner correction
• Titanfall — wall-running and momentum
• Zelda: Breath of the Wild — the stamina and paraglider systems
• Hades — the ability and boon system
• Hollow Knight — combat feel: pogo, knockback, hit-stop
• Dead Cells — procedural room assembly
• Super Mario Bros. — the movement model, which is far subtler than it looks

State your hypothesis about the implementation, build it, then test the hypothesis.

Virtual Production

• A published in-camera VFX shot — The Mandalorian, House of the Dragon, 1899, The Batman
• Epic's In-Camera VFX Production Test sample project as a reference build

Rebuild the environment as a real-time set and match the shot with camera tracking. Scope to the equipment you can actually reach.

Milestones

Research — 10 points · due Week 2, Tuesday, September 1

A documented teardown. Not a summary — an analysis.

1. Source identification — the piece, its makers, where it was published, with a link
2. Why this piece — one paragraph on what you intend to learn from it, and how it connects to the gap you identified in your portfolio review
3. Technical breakdown — your reconstruction of how it was made: software, pipeline order, techniques you can identify. Name what you are guessing at. Guessing is fine; pretending to know is not.
4. Aesthetic breakdown — the decisions that make it read: timing, silhouette, color, composition, camera, pacing, game feel. Discipline-appropriate.
5. Reference collection — supporting breakdowns, designer interviews, making-of material. Art of the Title interviews, GDC talks, and studio blog posts are gold here. Cite everything.
6. Technique list — every distinct technique this rebuild will require, marked have it / partial / do not have it. This list is your Project 2 menu. Take it seriously.
7. Faithful or restyled — state which approach you are taking and why
8. Production plan — week by week through Week 6, with named deliverables

Format: PDF or Canvas page, 4–8 pages including images.

First Draft — 10 points · due Week 4, Tuesday, September 15

The whole thing present at rough standard. Complete beats polished — every part exists roughly rather than one part existing beautifully.

Also submit: a side-by-side against the source, and a written note on the three largest gaps you can already see.

Final Render — 10 points · due Week 6, Tuesday, September 29

1. The finished recreation, rendered and exported to the submission standards
2. Side-by-side comparison with the source — split screen or paired render
3. Process documentation — 6–10 images or clips showing the progression
4. Written postmortem, 500–750 words:
   • What matched and what did not
   • Where the source turned out to be doing something you did not initially see
   • What you can now do that you could not do in Week 2
   • Which technique from this project you are taking into Project 2, and why

Presented in Week 6.

Grading

Attribution

The source is credited clearly in every deliverable, and anywhere this piece appears afterward. When it goes in your portfolio it is labeled as a study or recreation, with the original creator named.

This is not a formality — studios have rescinded offers over unattributed recreations in portfolios. Labeled correctly, it demonstrates exactly the professional judgment they are screening for. A recruiter who sees "Study — original title sequence by Imaginary Forces" reads that as maturity, not as weakness.