Abstract

3D animation has been trending for many years now. Many stories and the characters in those stories are being re-designed and represented by 3D.

Stories I grew up with in Taiwan are so different from those popular in Western culture. While I enjoyed Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Mickey Mouse, I also loved many classic Chinese stories, one of them being that of the Chinese Zodiac.

This story is about animals having a race to decide who will be the only 12 animals that represent each year. They are rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, chicken, dog and pig.1 In most Asian countries, these twelve animals represent each year in the order from rat to pig and then come back to the rat again, which makes 12 years.

In fact, the story is not just a bedtime story for kids’ it’s actually used as a calendar in real life for people in some of the Asian countries. Besides that, many people believe that human personalities are influenced by the Chinese Zodiac. For example, rats are considered smart and will get whatever they want at any cost. And in the story, the hard-working ox knows he walks very slowly so he starts walking towards the finish line early in the morning. The rat hides in the ox’s hair the entire way and jumps out to touch the finish line at the last second. At the end, the rat becomes the number one amount the Zodiac sign and the poor hard-working ox only got number two.

Since most Asians believe the Chinese Zodiac can affect people’s personalities, I thought it could be interesting to consider those personalities and re-design those characters in 3D. The goal of this project is to design and create a series of characters and show people born in certain years may look like.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Astrology, Chinese--Interactive multimedia--Design; Three-dimensional imaging; Computer graphics--Design

Publication Date

2-17-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Visual Communication Design (MFA)

Department, Program, or Center

School of Design (CIAS)

Advisor

Shaun Foster

Advisor/Committee Member

Marla Schweppe

Advisor/Committee Member

Daniel DeLuna

Comments

Physical copy available from RIT's Wallace Library at BF1714.C5 L48 2016

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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