NHS Endocrine Treatment Awareness – Collaborative Project
Final Animation –
Project Concept & Goal
This animation, inspired by real patient testimonies, follows a woman jogging – a metaphor for her journey through endocrine treatment.
Our goal is to raise awareness, provide comfort, and highlight both the struggles and resilience of those on this path.
My role
I was mainly responsible for the VFX parts, focusing on particle effects, environment optimisation, lighting, rendering, compositing and video editing.
I collaborated closely with both the animation and VFX teams, ensuring smooth integration of assets and animations while maintaining visual consistency.
My role required both technical problem-solving and creative decision-making to bring our vision to life while staying true to the patient testimonies that inspired this film.
Ideation & Research
01 Listening to Patient Testimonies
Tom and I listened to patient testimonies to extract key information and audio clips.
Patients’ real-life experiences provide the emotional foundation and story material for the project.
Recorded and noted by Tom
Recorded and Extracted keywords by Shannon
02 Storyline Development
I set up the FigJam Board for the team to collaborate – meetings, journals, notes and progress timetable.
Each member proposed a version; we combined everyone’s key ideas into a final storyline. By combining each member’s valuable ideas, we finalized our script.
03 Storyboarding & References
Three of us (Yolanda, Tom and I) drafted initial storyboards. We refined all the storyboards and discussed the final version. (drawn by Tom).
My version:
To support our production, we all gathered visual references.
Production
At the start of production, I collaborated with Tom to test particle effects in Unreal and Houdini to symbolize side effects, ultimately choosing Unreal for its efficiency and visuals.
I created four types of particles to symbolise the side effects of the Niagara system in Unreal. It was a first attempt, not a final visual. So several effects were tested to simulate rendering efficiency and visual effects.
To ensure an efficient workflow for the team, I set up the Unreal project and provided documents for members to reference, specifying project asset positions, levels (scenes), sequences, animations, frame rate, render settings (console variables), post process volume and plugins.
To make up for the crew’s delay, I took on the texturing of the exterior environment.
After receiving the Maya and FBX files for the exterior models, I used Blender to check and modify the wrong model meshes, including points, edges and faces. I also reset all the pivot points, which were all wrong before, and refined all the redundant faces.
During the texturing process, I also discovered errors in the orientation of the faces. So I checked all the face orientations to ensure the texturing qualities. All this was to ensure the following texturing work and import into Unreal with the correct meshes.
Added details to models for better textures and adjusted Materials to improve effects
Final texturing in Blender
I used USD instead of FBX to import exterior assets into Unreal.
To enrich the scenes, I created trees and other elements and provided motion with foliage, and side characters.
Recreated models and added rigging and motion based on team member’s conceptual art.
I set up the cameras, lens focus and lighting in Unreal. One of my team members, Aayu***, suggested new camera angles four days before the deadline. I incorporated her ideas but illustrated my perspectives to reduce angles from the character’s back, and adjusted angles to avoid jerky animation. After communicating with her quickly, I had to quickly reset the focus, timelines and lighting as the cameras she provided were not configured with focus and other settings at all and the timeline was coming.
Each time Tom imported new animations from other team members, he had to modify the animations again to avoid the jerky animations appearing in the Cameras. I then adjusted the cameras and environment settings to work with him to make the whole animation work.
I came across flickering problems in the interiors. After testing several solutions, I refined them by adjusting the lumen settings.
In the final stage, I used Nuke for compositing and colour grading, aligning the footage with audio and client materials.
I edited the final animation and making-of video combined with clients’ materials.
This project was a rewarding challenge – it gave us a meaningful way to connect with the experiences of cancer patients and use our ideas to provide support.
Throughout this project, Tom and I remained focused on collaboration and ensuring the best possible outcome, prioritising the completion of this meaningful work over individual recognition. While we did our best to support the team and keep things moving forward, there were times when different approaches to teamwork led to challenges and delays. It was a reminder that while creative projects thrive on collaboration, perspectives on professionalism and cooperation can sometimes differ. Nevertheless, we remained committed to seeing the project through and contributing to something truly impactful.
I respect that different cultures and backgrounds may have different perspectives on what is considered impolite. I believe that fostering a respectful and constructive working environment is essential, as it reflects the healthy values that drive the progress of human civilisation.
Making-of Video