Digital Commons Network^™

Artificial Games, Jake Johnson

Theses

This thesis project is an attempt to create an integration of augmented reality (AR) technology and tabletop board games, with a focus on tackling the challenge of maintaining engagement and capturing the attention of modern audiences who are often drawn to more interactive forms of entertainment like movies and video games. Specifically, the project explores the concept of augmenting older tabletop games with a combination of futuristic digital graphics and overlays with original physical game elements. The project sees and recognizes the problem, which is that the disparity between the level of engagement offered by traditional tabletop games and the …

Understanding Scoliosis: What Caregivers And Patients Need To Know, Megan Moore

Theses

Scoliosis is an abnormal curvature of the vertebral column that typically occurs in children approaching puberty. 80% of scoliosis cases are idiopathic (Scoliosis Research Society, 2022). The severity of a scoliosis curve is measured in degrees and is usually diagnosed when it is greater than 10 degrees. A severe curve exceeds 45 to 60 degrees and can require surgical treatment (Scoliosis Reduction Center, 2020). Severe scoliosis causes physical deformities, such as unaligned ribs, hips, and shoulders, but also may reduce the amount of space in the chest, affecting the function of the heart and lungs (Mayo Clinic, 2022). The purpose …

Silent Love, Yuehui Zhu

Theses

Silent Love is a 3D animated short film about a family that faced the death of one of their family members. The story talks about the daughter struggling to tell her hard-of-hearing mom that her father has passed away in the hospice room. The film starts in the hospice room. The daughter sits next to the hospice bed, and the audience can see a body covered by a white sheet. The camera zooms into a family photo on the nightstand, with a lunch box full of food. Then with a montage editing, the scene cuts back to when the daughter …

Drawing From The Past, Pengpeng Chen

Theses

Drawing From the Past is a short, 3D animated film that portrays the different thoughts about drawing between two generations and is based on my personal experience. Some art students get less encouragement from their families than other students. In Asian traditional thinking, majoring in art was not the correct career direction, which is correct in that period， because of the economy. Majoring in art means students need to pay more money than other majors. In addition, art is not necessary for some people who worry about food. In the previous period, many people worry about their lives. That means …

Sugar Freed, Sarah Gaygen

Theses

Sugar Freed is a 2D digitally animated short film about a little girl named Molly, who gets fed up with her mother, a dentist, and ends up in a candy world ruled by evil gummy bears. Sugar Freed’s message evolved over time from a simple warning against sugar, to a child gaining an understanding of why her mother’s lessons are necessary, stemming from parts of my own childhood. The purpose of this film was to see if I could find the right balance between time management and quality control to produce an animated short that was well over four-minutes long, …

Rite Of Identity, Youmee Lee

Theses

Rite of Identity, a graduate thesis film, is a 2D animated visual poem of deaf children’s experiences. The film follows the protagonist’s journey in navigating a visual realm and a black-and-white realm, which represent the deaf world and the hearing world. Childhood experiences of struggling to assimilate into mainstream society are conveyed through the protagonist in the black-and-white realm. The purpose of the film is to encourage the viewers to think about what it is like for a child to be underestimated and to struggle with a soundscape that is not perceived naturally in the realm. Deaf children have a …

Mythos, Selma Pena Arenzana

Theses

Mythos is a 2D animated series project developed by Mattea Guldy and Selma Peña. The story revolves around a fairy named Marina and her misfit friends Enki the faun, Demetri the unicorn, and The Kodama, a cute forest spirit. The project consists of a series pitch with a pilot, an episode of the series, a pitch deck, and an animated proof of concept. Our fantastical world aims to represent the diversity of human beings and make the audience question where their beliefs and conceptions come from. The story's main plot is the following: Marina, a fairy descendant from the creature …

A Novel 3d Animation About Human Visual System: From Retina To Perception, Qiuwan Liu

Theses

Introduction to vision and perception has been a fundamental topic for students from varied majors in college. Students who study Biology, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Visual Design, need to learn about the visual pathway before they dive into more specific research topics. This thesis intends to create a 3D animation to assist professors explaining the complex process of the visual pathway. The target audience for this project is undergraduate students majoring in color science. My goal of this animation is to introduce students to the complicated anatomy of the retinal structure and the molecular pathway of the photoreceptors to demonstrate …

Winner, Yizhang Liu

Theses

Winner is an animated 3D graduate thesis film. The entire film, including the credits, is 4 minutes 34 seconds long. The production phase went from August 2020 to December 2021. The story is about an old man who wants to profit from a robot he invented, but finally paid for his selfishness in the end. The man is a robot inventor. He uses a chip to control the robot and uses it to participate in the robot fighting competition. His robot won one championship after another, and he was rewarded with bags after bags of money. He became richer and …

Fruffeltin, Jared Ratzel

Theses

Fruffeltin is a short 2D animated film following the journey of a goofy children’s book character trying to win back the affection of a child after being replaced by a fighting video game. The film’s core message regarding mental health awareness is illuminated through the visualization of character-driven animation, juxtaposing environments and symbolic details. The concept stems from my own personal growth trajectory and reflection upon it within the framework of animated creatures and robots. The narrative follows Fruffeltin, a children’s book character with three leaves on his head, who lives to make a young boy laugh by performing silly …

Cross-Platform Methods In Computer Graphics That Boost Experimental Film Making, Yue Zhang

Theses

Computer graphics arts such as animations, video games, and special effects in live-action movies have become essential for people seeking entertainment and education. This study aims to explore the potential for experimental film in presenting scientific theory as well as assessing different production strategies in 3D image creation. To invite people into some abstract or complicated scientific topics more readily, non-narrative film form is a viable method to relay this type of information. It's crucial to look at how independent filmmakers employ various ways to fulfill their particular creative purposes. I’ll be demonstrating how these processes worked in making my …

Blue Light, Rachael Greenfield

Theses

During a steamy afternoon at the beach, a seagull makes its way through crowds of phone-distracted humans in its search for a meal. When it lays its eyes on a fresh box of french fries, the seagull stops at nothing to get a taste, even while increasingly strange fates are befalling the humans. While everyone is distracted, by fries or by cell phones, a vortex opens in the sky and carries everyone into the unknown. Finally, with the people vanished, the seagulls reap the benefits of an abandoned beach full of snack foods left behind. Blue Light began as an …

Princess, Hoss Wheeler

Theses

Princess takes place in a world where eyeballs stretch out of people’s heads like prehensile limbs. The film follows a father, Franklin, who is seen in his home wearing a dress. He covers himself in a long trench coat before leaving the house. As he gets into a cab, Franklin ushers the driver to move quickly, but before too long the cab gets stuck in traffic. This leaves Franklin no choice but to get out and walk. When he exits the cab, his coat gets stuck in the door and rips as he tries to pull it free. The dress …

The Lost Taste, Wei-En Chen

Theses

The Lost Taste is a film about a young chef named Ueda who is running a noodle bar that was passed down from his deceased father. Ueda is an excellent cook who always satisfies his customers with his secret family recipe. However, in recent years he has been having a hard time running his business, since fast-food chain restaurants are booming and one across the street is stealing his customers. Recently, only a few old loyal customers have come to visit. Worst of all, he has completely forgotten that this very day is the deadline to pay off his debt …

Nature And Nurture, Jessica Maffett

Theses

Nature and Nurture is an animated short film about a mother wolf raising her newborn cub through its first year of life. Humanity has started to develop near their home and we see how that affects their ecosystem and existence from the perspective of the wolves. It is fiction based on historical facts of grey wolf populations in the American Midwest from the 1960’s onward. Being a predator species, they have been viewed as the villain in the folklore of many different civilizations and have been considered a pest for the damages to livestock and farmland that they can cause …

The Public Poster: An Exploration Of Storytelling In Poster Design, Elizabeth Hiler

Theses

Research suggests that it is incredibly difficult for a person to change their mind. Confirmation bias and echo chambers are just a few of the reasons people do not give themselves the opportunity to explore new stories, ideas, beliefs. It is now our challenge to connect with people in unconventional ways and explore storytelling in new spaces to give difficult topics more accessibility to public discourse. The Public Protest Poster can be found at the start of most movements for social and political change by creating a simplified statement with a strong graphic for instant impact. Yet, protest posters rely …

Chek And Hava, Komal Ashfaq

Theses

Chek and Hava is an absurdist romantic comedy about using your boyfriend to rebel against your parents. While remaining light and easy to watch, it is additionally meant to have three intentionally designed layers:

1. The surface level story revolves around Hava bringing home her boyfriend Chek- an unemployed artist, that she knows her wealthy demigod parents will disapprove of. Her parents ultimately force Chek out of his carefree life and into a corporate career, accepting him and deflating Hava’s rebellion. She finally breaks free by exiting the system of their beliefs and trying to form her persona independently rather …

Dysphoria Ballet: A Morning Routine, Andrew Sonntag

Theses

Dysphoria Ballet is a short, stop-motion film that portrays the internal morning routine of a particular trans woman. It is based on a series of interviews with a woman early in transition, and is what I consider to be a deconstruction, compression, and expressionist interpretation of these interviews. It was made with her enthusiastic support and approval. In this way, it might be considered a kind of animated documentary, but it is deconstructed to the point of ultimately being shown as a kind of “experimental-narrative” dance film. It is motivated by an exploration and validation of using performative expression as …

All Too Well, Yingying Tang

Theses

All Too Well is a 2D animation graduate thesis film, with a length of 6 minutes and 49 seconds. The production phase went from September 2018 to January 2020.

A father who lost his son in a car accident recreates the family by bringing an artificial intelligence boy into the home to replace the lost son. Not only does their relationship fail to heal the father's broken heart, but it also often brings back painful memories of his real boy. This only makes him realize that the robot son cannot replace his real son. So, he turns the power off …

Dead On Arrival, Paul Benns

Theses

Dead on Arrival is a film about a character named Blue. The world is comprised of memories and follows our character along a path of self-discovery and redemption. Blue’s earliest memory is that of discovering an object that makes him happy. Through the course of the opening moments of the film, Blue discovers the harsh reality of not quite hitting the mark with his abilities. With the missed mark, comes the self-doubt and negative self-thinking that manifests itself through a physical change in his character. This physical manifestation leads to the rejection of his newfound friend and follows him throughout …

Design And Production Of 3d Animation Short Film “Memories Of The Post-80s”, Hui Shen

Theses

“The memories of the post-80s” is a 2minutes and 8 seconds 3D animated short film which tells a story of a young man named Kai who born in the post-80s in China, living in a modern, high-tech environment, but falling into a fantasy dream and reminiscing about his simple and happy life as a child. The most important question expressed in this short film is whether a more convenient, high-tech, fast-paced modern life is proportional to people's happiness index. The main reasons for this problem are multiple, such as working pressure, stressful life, repayment of loans, health, and so on. …

Note To Self, Chloe Renee Hayes

Theses

“note to self” is a 2D animated film completed as the thesis project for my MFA degree. This film uses experimental imagery and often abstract visual metaphor to tell a narrative story that discusses suicide, self-harm, depression, trauma, mental health, and the complicated issues surrounding these subjects.

“note to self” tells the story of a teenage girl fighting through her struggles and uncertainties in the metaphysical space of her own mind. Sienna, the protagonist, has resolved to kill herself and is working through her conflicted feelings to rationally explain why. Posed as a conversation with a part of her own …

Adopt Me: An Interactive Video Game To Encourage People To Adopt Animals From Shelters, Ying Xing

Theses

People buy pets and use their imagination in envisioning how their pet will ideally be, not the reality of raising a pet. More and more pets are abandoned by their owners for various reasons and the stray animals often cause accidents. But people keep purchasing animals from puppy mill stores. That is the main reason why the number of animals taken into shelters is increasing, along with the rate of euthanization. These factors are of interest for people who care about animals.

To address this problem, research was focused on the reasons why people abandon their pet and the factors …

Oblivion, Deema Ali

Theses

Oblivion tells a story of a plain-looking individual named Miech at a gritty, damp subway station en route to catch a movie. As he waits for a train, he faces a troubling memory of a past relationship and is confronted by a projection of his inner emotions that takes the form of a creature. In a desperate attempt to escape from this manifestation, he shifts his attention to his external surroundings only to find that his fellow commuters also have similar creatures. In Oblivion, I address a very human experience through the spectacle of an animated lens. This film is …

Did I Tell You About My Date Last Night?, Palwasha Azimi

Theses

did i tell you about my date last night? is an animated short that illustrates a transformation in two characters who are experiencing their date together in different ways.

This film gives a small taste of a larger story that all women go through, whether or not they know it’s happening.

It is a tale of toxic masculinity, gaslighting, consent and entitlement. These things have been ever-present in history but never contested and brought to light on a scale like this. Recently, these issues have risen to the forefront of social change. Now, because of the internet, the support of …

Mother’S Way, Chaofan Li

Theses

Mother’s way is my 2D graduate thesis film. The production phase of this film was between September 2018 to August 2019.

This is a film about the sincere feelings between mother and son. The protagonist of this film is an old man who has been estranged from his family for decades. He decides to visit his mother after getting the news that she is seriously ill. During his journey, his misunderstandings between them are eradicated through his mother's diary.

Mother’s way is mainly made using the 2D animation software TVPaint. At different stages of production, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, …

Another You, Yiran Qiao

Theses

Another You is an animated 2D graduate thesis film. The entire film, including the credits, is 4 minutes 45 seconds long. The production phase went from September 2018 to May 2019.

This story is about a housewife who tries to escape from her daily life. Her escape takes place at the dinner table. The housewife has been busy with cooking and serving her family, but no one really cares about her, which makes her very angry and she abruptly leaves the table and everyone is shocked. She runs upstairs and to a hallway with many doors and moves from one …

The Legend Of Whales, Bingjie Xiao

Theses

The Legend of Whales is a 2D animated graduate thesis film. The entire film, including the credits, is 7 minutes 20 seconds long. The duration of the production went from September 2018 to May 2019.

This is a story about the cycle of destiny which takes place in an ancient Viking-inspired fishing village. The main character, Bion, is born with a special connection with the enemy of the village, a species of whale. One day he meets a beluga whale and is immediately drawn to the beautiful creature. After a friendly meeting, they build up a bonded relationship, even though …

Breaking The Stigma: Major Depressive Disorder, Joanna Cox

Theses

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a mood and mental disorder affecting the brain; it is caused by the reduction of three monoamine neurotransmitters: serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine (Rot, M. A., Mathew, S. J., & Charney, D. S. 2009). MDD is one of the world’s most common mental disorders, affecting a predicted 4% of the world’s population and roughly 16.1 million adults in United States alone (Major Depression. 2019; Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. 2018). The concentrations of these neurotransmitters are reduced in the brains of people with MDD due to their increased reabsorption from synapses in the brain back into …

The Line, Angelica Alegria Agelviz Rodriguez

Theses

The Line is an animated fairy tale for adults, meant to ask the age-old question of “who am I?” through the lens of its main character, Espe, a child born with skin made of mirror.

With this thesis, I wanted to delve deeper into my understanding of the themes of individuality, freedom of thought, fragility of ego and the unreliability of ‘truth’, as seen through the eyes of a child. The idea for this story was simple enough: What would happen if somebody was born made out of mirror? And what if that mirror were to look at itself? Though …