Birdyulang Animations
My freelance 3D and Visual Effects Business
I created this business to take on 3D animation and visual effects work.
I'm available to create 3D animations such as explainer animations, advertisements, or anything your business or organisation would like created.
I can also record, edit and add visual effects to your film. 360 degree filming is also available.
Please contact me with your ideas and requirements and we can organise a meeting and a quote.
Email: bernard.higgins@birdyulang.com
Website: www.birdyulang.com
Phone: 0419 286 242
Bachelor of Science (Honours)
Using Co-design to create educational resources for remote Indigenous communities in Far North Queen
In March, 2020, I begun studying my Bachelor of Science (Honours). This is a weird situation because the School of Creative Industries doesn't currently offer an Honours program Professor Eleanor Gates-Stuart liaised with members of the School of Science to get special permission for me to do my honours through them. I'm grateful for the opportunity and for the CSU staff that did all the work to allow me to do honours through the Science faculty.
I'm currently working with Dr Victoria Brookes, a Senior Lecturer in Population Health and Production in the School of Animal & Veterinary Science, on a project with remote Indigenous communities in far north Queensland.
The project we are working on is using co-design to create an educational animated film with the community to assist them in managing the healthcare of their horse population, specifically in the case of a Hendra virus infection.
Co-design is the theory of creating a product or service where experts from multiple disciplines work closely with end users from the beginning to create a tangible, workable solution to issues that end users experience when using the product or service. It has commonly been used in manufacturing and health services for people, but not as much in animal health care. We aim to show that it can provide benefits in the provision of services for animal health care.
With the animation we will include information on what to look out for in their horses, how to safeguard themselves and their other animals from potentially infected horses, what can cause the infection, how Environmental Health Workers and Vets will treat the horses and the people involved in these areas to show children in these communities possible careers that are available to them.
Prior to COVID-19 affecting travel we visited Cairns and Yarrabah for a few days and I was able to get some photos and video for reference, visit Art museums in Cairns and Yarrabah, and visit the botanical gardens in Cairns to see the types of trees and flora that grow in northern Queensland.
When travel restrictions are eased and the risk of COVID-19 drops off we will travel to the remote communities to show them the current work in progress and get their feedback and input, make any adjustments and then finalise the animation.
The output of my Honours thesis will be the educational animated film that the community will own and use and a framework for using co-design to create further films with Indigenous communities.
Cairns Botanical Gardens
Wirruuwaa and the Giant Kangaroos
Wiradjuri Language and Culture in animation
This animation was created in partnership with the Charles Sturt University Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage. In my final year of my Bachelor of Creative Arts and Design (Animation and Visual Effects) degree we were tasked with creating an animation working with a client. This created some new challenges but also created exciting opportunities and gave me the chance to work with local Wiradjuri elders and community to create a cultural story told in Wiradjuri language - something that would not have been possible on my own.
I received a copy of the story from Lloyd Dolan and from this I created a script, storyboard and animatic which I then showed to Lloyd and other community members. Lloyd Dolan translated the script from English into Wiradjuri. After the clients were happy with how the story was being portrayed I begun the work of creating the 3D animation in Unreal Engine. Due to the nature of this being a class assignment we only had about 3 weeks for pre-production and 4 weeks for production and post-production.
The environment created was from a combination of assets purchased from the Unreal Marketplace, SpeedTree models and models I created in Autodesk Maya. The human models were generated using Autodesk Character generator. The Great Spirit was created in SideFX Houdini.
For the animation of the characters the majority of it was motion capture data recorded using OptiTrack Motive and attached to the models in Autodesk MotionBuilder. For this I collaborated with an Acting student, Charles Sykes, who was able to use his skills to bring to life the characters in the animation.
While I recorded the dialogue, spoken by Lloyd Dolan, a Sound Design student, Elizabeth Rehling, created the rest of the sounds in the animation.
While not perfect, I was happy with what we were able to create in such a short period of time. The clients were happy with it as well and have shown the animation to students doing the graduate certificate course at CSU as well as created a book that will accompany the animation to assist in the learning of Wiradjuri language. Hopefully, in the future I will be able to complete more Wiradjuri cultural animations told in Wiradjuri language with one currently a work in progress about Burralgang, a young girl who gets turned into a Brolga.
This animation has played in the HR Gallop Gallery in Wagga Wagga as well as the Temora Rural Museum in Temora.
Wirruuwaa and the Giant Kangaroos - Bernard Higgins (2019)
eXtended Reality Centre (XRC) Seminars
Charles Sturt University presenting information regarding the planned Extended Reality Centre.
In 2019 Professor Eleanor Gates-Stuart asked if I would like to present my work on Wirruuwaa and the Giant Kangaroos using virtual production methods within Unreal Engine 4 and how it can impact on assisting Indigenous people's efforts to preserve and promote culture and language.
This was an amazing opportunity to present my work and network with people throughout Charles Sturt University as well as industry members who attended the second presentation.
The first presentation was on October 24, 2019 and was attended by members of multiple faculties across Charles Sturt University. Further information about this event can be found here: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/publications/extended-reality-centre-xrc-seminar-xr-research-projects-at-csu
with an option to view the event found at: https://csu.ap.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=4199c395-4d31-486e-b2c5-aaf10050eea2
The second presentation was held on December 11, 2019 and was attended by members of multiple faculties across Charles Sturt University as well as industry experts. Further information about this event can be found here: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/activities/extended-reality-centre-xrc-industry-day
At both of these presentations I was able to show the animation "Wirruuwaa and the Giant Kangaroos" and speak about how during my undergraduate degree I was able to work with the CSU graduate certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage to use the skills I've learned to begin helping my community preserve and promote out language, culture and heritage.
This talk included discussing using current technology such as Unreal Engine 4, SideFX Houdini, Autodesk Maya and MotionBuilder, Motion Capture and Adobe Creative Suite to showcase Wiradjuri language, culture and heritage. How with software such as Unreal Engine 4 there is now possibilities in virtual production that didn't exist previously and that by merging technology such as game engines with motion capture the outputs possible through virtual production are limitless.
A further bonus from being able to participate in these seminars was that I was exposed to other current research being done by Charles Sturt University in the fields of extended reality, discuss some of my future plans in this area and meet industry experts who are currently exploring these areas in their businesses. Being able to participate in these seminars, especially as I was still only completing my undergraduate degree, was such an excellent experience that I was able to gain so much from and helped inspire me to do my honours project with the Science faculty in a multidisciplinary manner.
News Articles:
Evoking Memories
Creating a Proof of Concept for Virtual Reality that can assist patients with Dementia
Working with Professor Eleanor Gates-Stuart myself and other Charles Sturt University staff and students created a proof of concept video titled "Evoking Memories". The aim of our project was to explore a way to help dementia patients feel more at ease when using a Virtual Reality (VR) headset so that they could experience any potential benefits that they provide.
To accomplish this we planned to use a young child character to represent a possible grandchild figure that would talk the viewer through the experience of wearing a VR headset and guide them around selecting some environments that were designed to "evoke" past memories of the viewer and make them feel comfortable exploring the virtual environments.
For the purpose of the proof of concept demo I created a Farm environment as well as a River environment. I created these using Unreal Engine 4 with a mixture of assets sourced from the Unreal Marketplace and assets I created using Autodesk Maya and SpeedTree.
The child model was sourced online and then I recorded motion capture data working with one of the acting lecturers, Samantha Dowdeswell. Using her experience she was able to portray a young child's energy and enthusiasm that we needed for the character - we wanted the viewer to feel that using VR was exciting and fun!
After the environments were created we imported the motion captured data into Unreal Engine 4 where I rendered the scenes out and then one of the other students edited them and attached sounds to the video.
Multidisciplinary animations such as this where we can merge the creative industries and the skills we have with other faculties and their research provide such exciting opportunities and can demonstrate the power of animation as a communication tool for communicating scientific research and information! Furthermore, this project was my first time being published in a peer review journal which was an exciting experience!
The journal article can be found at http://fusion-journal.com/evoking-memories-displacing-the-fear-of-technology/
Evoking Memories - Bernard Higgins (2019)
Projects based around the leeton area
Creating projects with the Leeton and District Local Aboriginal Land Council and Wiradjuri Elders
Recently, I have had discussions with the CEO of the Leeton and District Local Aboriginal Land Council and Elders located in the Leeton area about creating some projects with the community. This will be exciting and I am looking forward to creating some projects in the community I grew up in.
Further information coming once the projects are completed so watch this space. Attached is an image from an animation I created that will be a part of a larger project based around Warangesda Mission, located near Leeton at Darlington Point.
This animation was created with assets sourced from Unreal Marketplace, Quixel and a 3D modeller through CGTrader.com while I created the environment in Unreal Engine 4, animated the butterfly and dragonfly, and edited the film together.
ARTSTATE 2020
Multi-disciplinary Co-Creation: Combining Creative Arts & Science
During Artstate 2020, being held in Wagga Wagga this year, myself, Andrew Hagan (lecturer in Animation and Visual Effects at Charles Sturt University), and Professor Eleanor Gates-Stuart (Professor of Creative Industries at Charles Sturt University) will be presenting a panel on "Multi-disciplinary Co-Creation: Combining Creative Arts & Science".
Our panel will be discussing using current technology, such as Extended Reality and Unreal Engine 4, to create projects with multi-disciplinary teams. Topics we will include will be my current work with my Bachelor of Science (Honours), my cultural projects with the local Wiradjuri community and how technology can help with social science projects, and the projects that Andrew and Eleanor have been working on as well.
More information can be found at https://artstate.com.au/
