Silver Computer Graphics, 3D Modeling, Texturing, and Rendering Design · 2025
Terra Short Film Architecture
- A' Design Award 2025 Silver Winner in Computer Graphics, 3D Modeling, Texturing, and Rendering Design
- Awarded April 15, 2025
- CLIENT: Okdraw
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 3,733
- Verification code 45061B863D · Verify this award
About Terra Short Film Architecture
Terra is an animated short film in which dust, gravity and man-made ruins are the main subjects. The film runs for about five minutes, uses an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is set to the music track E2 by the band Muay. Terra is presented as a tribute to architecture, technology, science fiction cinema and music. The work was created with 3ds Max and Corona Renderer, with editing and color correction in Adobe software. Animation, camera work and lighting were made by hand, while collisions, explosions and cracks were simulated with plugins. Brutalist forms guided the visual direction.
Cosmonaut lda's Terra Short Film Architecture presents a compelling meditation on geological time and spatial isolation through the vehicle of a solitary stone monolith rising from an otherwise barren terrain. This work participates in a rich tradition of sublime landscape representation that traces lineage from Romantic era painters through contemporary digital visualization, yet the piece establishes its own distinctive vocabulary through the precision of its three-dimensional modeling and the contemplative restraint of its chromatic choices. The technical achievement evident in the rendering of surface textures suggests a deep engagement with material phenomenology, where digital processes simulate the accumulated effects of erosion, fracture, and weathering with remarkable fidelity. The compositional strategy employs classical principles of focal hierarchy while simultaneously subverting expectations through the deliberate emptiness that surrounds the central subject, creating a productive tension between presence and absence that invites extended contemplation. The lighting design demonstrates sophisticated understanding of how illumination constructs both form and meaning, with the raking angle emphasizing every striation and facet while the elongated shadow establishes temporal specificity suggesting either early morning or late afternoon solar positioning. The work's thematic resonance extends beyond mere landscape documentation toward more universal considerations of permanence and transience, as the stone's evident age stands in implicit dialogue with the vast emptiness that contextualizes it. Viewers may find themselves contemplating questions of scale, time, and the relationship between solitary objects and their environments, questions that resonate across cultural traditions from standing stones to contemporary land art. What might this isolated form tell us about endurance, about the slow accumulations of geological history, about our own relationship to landscapes that exceed human temporal comprehension?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Terra is a short animation film, based on a what if kind of story, where, dust, gravity, and man made ruins are the protagonists.
Terra was written for the music E 2 of the band Muay - a music written inicialy for the live Soundtrack for the movie Earth (Terra), of Aleksandr Dovzhenko.
Terra attempts to be an honest homage to architecture, technology, sci-fi movies, and music. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Length: 5.20 min
Type of film: CG Animation
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Music: E2 by Muay - Tags
- music, video, short film, brutalism
- Production Technology
- We wanted to implement as much of our daily work flow as possible, so our setup did not deviate much from the industry standard. We used 3ds Max with Corona Renderer, and
Adobe After Effects and Premiere for editing and color correction.
Our approach was straightforward, with us solving problems as we encountered them and
embracing limitations as part of the creative process. We were more concerned with the results than with realistic physics – if it looked good, me would move on. All the animation, camera work, and lighting were done by hand. The only exceptions were the rock collisions, explosions, and cracks, for which we used the Phoenix FD plugin and tyFlow to simulate various effects. - Design Challenge
- Curiously enough, the most difficult part was probably working free from the constraints of a client: with endless possibilities, it is hard to establish boundaries. Between the music, story, and visuals, it was not easy to strike the right balance. Occasionally, we went too far while experimenting and had to dial it down a notch.
- Project Duration
- This project started in August 2022 and was finished in February 2023. Was writen, directed and produce on our studio, with the help of Rebus Farm.
- Operation Flow
- Watch it and listen to it.
- Research
- Terra finds its primary inspiration in a fusion of Sci-Fi movies, utopian ideals and stories, music, ancient machines, the solidity of rocks, and the aesthetic of brutalism.As we were not used to work with this aesthetic, we submerged ourselves in movies like 'The
Tragedy of Macbeth, Lighthouse, and Sin City. We also consulted the photography of Saul Leiter
and Sebasião Salgado. All of these references helped us to understand how, in the absence of
color, we can use contrast as a shaping, and eye-guiding tool. Consequently, lighting direction,
camera movement, and post-production went hand in hand at all times. - Inspiration
- Terra finds its primary inspiration in a fusion of Sci-Fi movies, utopian ideals and stories, music, ancient machines, the solidity of rocks, and the aesthetic of brutalism. Examples:
- Image Credits
- Written, Directed and Produced by: Okdraw
Music by: Muay - Patents
- Copyrights belong to Okdraw, 2025.