Melonry, Melonry!!!

An award winning video about melons.

Melonry, Melonry!!! is an award winning short that was featured internationally on ShortsHD alongside Oscar nominated animated short films.

Case Study

Melonry, Melonry!!! was an ambitious project.

For starters, it was my first 3D project (I had only started learning Cinema 4D).

But, also, it was a true passion project about a subject that I was very very very very very very very very very passionate about.

I set out to do everything myself: write, storyboard, voiceover, and music (for the classical stuff, I used a piece of software that transcribed sheet music to midi – which i then cleaned up and sort of re-arranged, but, I can’t claim that).

All in all, it took about 6 months to complete, most of which was spent in R&D.

Technical R&D

Establishing a Scientific Base to Work Off Of

Before diving into any 3D application, it’s wise to research the real-world topic at hand. Otherwise, you’re just winging it. Whether it’s lighting, shading, animating, or, as in this case, simulating, the scene **must** be grounded in reality.

So, I naturally consulted the foundational text in the field of melon research:

Building on Max Planck’s research into Micro-scale, Pyramid Shaped Hooters, Bohr and Born birthed an entirely new discipline: Smooth Infinitesimal Analysis of Teeny Tiny Tatas.

Initially, the two scientists just wanted to get a quick feel for their subject, but it became an obsession—a quest to explain the physical interaction between the multi-digit appendage located at the end of the forearm and what they theorized at the time to be galactic melons.

In their own words:

Unfortunately, my hypothesis on recursively structured bazingas turned out to be… flawed.

I was at a loss.

Stuck and disheartened, I turned to an old favorite for guidance.

Wait. Actually. It might have been:

Regardless, finally—a breakthrough!

A passage clarified everything:

Bohr (or Born’s) Theoretical Framework of Quasi Fondled Melonry
Under compressive force F, the melon undergoes finite deformation, transitioning from a spherical (isotropic) to an oblate spheroidal (anisotropic) geometry. The Cauchy stress tensor σ within the membrane is given by:

σ = −pI + 2(∂W/∂I₁)B − 2(∂W/∂I₂)B⁻¹

where p is Lagrange pressure, B is the left Cauchy-Green tensor, and W is the strain energy function. For larger sets of party pillows, we adopt a two-term Ogden model:

W = Σ (μₙ/αₙ)(λ₁^αₙ + λ₂^αₙ + λ₃^αₙ − 3)

where λᵢ are principal stretches. The enclosed fluid exerts a hydrostatic backpressure ΔP, approximated by the Young-Laplace equation at small strains but requiring numerical correction at higher deformations due to shell thinning.

Admittedly, the combination of Langrange pressure and an obliquely generated energy function had been a bit over my head.

But, thankfully, Born (maybe it was Bohr, I honestly can’t remember now) was way ahead of me so long ago.

I took a closer look at his handwritten notes on the experiments:

Experimental Observations of Squeezed, Poked, Prodded, Pinched, and Motorboated Melonry

Under slow compression (quasi-static regime, dε/dt < 0.1 s⁻¹), the system exhibits a linear force-displacement relationship until a critical strain ε_c ≈ 0.3, beyond which geometric nonlinearities dominate. Notably, the pressure-volume response bifurcates depending on grip kinematics:

Unconstrained radial compression leads to axisymmetric “pillowing” with predictable strain localization.

Pinch-grip loading induces nonsymmetric buckling modes, culminating in premature rupture due to stress concentration at the pinch apex (see Fig. 4b).

This is just a surface-level summary, of course, and while I’d highly recommend delving deeper into the published, unabridged text (if you can find it), you could probably save some time by just going to a bar and buying some random woman a couple strong drinks and asking politely for the temporary use of her calcium cannons in the name of science.

Or, as Bohr used to put it, ‘just go outside and touch some grass’.

(could’ve been Born who said it, but this sounds like a very Bohr thing to say)

Sufficed to say, whoever said what, eventually they both came to the same conclusion

The Physical Toll of Melon Research

Their hands-on experiments came at a cost.

At one point, Bohr (99% sure it was Bohr) lost all feeling in his right cheek after having been slapped so many times (he wouldn’t regain complete sensation for almost a decade, at which point he lost it again after having been slapped by his wife after explaining why he’d lost it in the first place).

Born, being far more charming (and thus better at securing verbal consent), still suffered consequences: crippling carpal tunnel in his primary gazonga groper (left hand). Thankfully, his primary meat hammer (right hand) remained unaffected.

The physical toll of the experiments, combined with the arrival of World War II, led to both scientists to abandon the project in pursuit of more ‘rational’ aims. Their colleagues kept banging on about the war all day, so they found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on melonry.

Reluctantly, they hung up their gam gloves and got to work on the boring bomb stuff.

Their final conclusion? Underwhelming, given years of squeezing, cupping, and twiddling

But, sadly, as we all know, there was no more ‘further research’ on the subject.

The Great Schism of Melon Science

The pair of scientists had a falling out over how similar their names were, with Born saying they were “extremely similar names “to the point of being a bit confusing “nearly identical, to the point of absurdity”, and Bohr insisting that they “weren’t really all that similar at all” given “the ubiquity of having an ‘r’ before an ‘n’ and, conversely, the unique nature of putting an ‘h’ before an ‘r’.”

The rift deepened over whether to refer to the left and right melons from the squeezer’s perspective or the the squeezed perspective…

Inevitably, there was no option but for the pair to split up.

The answer seems entirely obvious now, but given that Einstein had only recently developed his Theory of Relatively, consensus between such hardened scientists was impossible.

Bohr and Born never did reconcile.

Neither did Born and Bohr.

One can only fantasize about all the melon-ic mysteries the pair might have unraveled had they not veered apart and off course.

It seems as though both Born and Bohr carried that same regret to the grave.

They died within a day of each other, oceans apart, unaware of each other’s fate.

Yet, as the legend goes, both are have said to have spoken the same last words from their death beds, each reaching towards the heavens, as if for one final honk, and gasping one final gasp:

But, I digress. Back to 3D!

Process

The melon itself was easy to model:

A single primitive sphere with a low polycount, made editable and a bit squishy.

The rosebud was a bit more difficult, but no really.

So, it was just a matter of applying a Dynamics Body Tag and hitting play.

That’s pretty much it!

Thanks for checking out my project!

UPDATE: 10 Year Anniversary!!!

I completed Melonry, Melonry!!! all the way back in 2011 and uploaded it to The Internet, which is viewed by over 5 billion people each day. That’s Eighteen trillion two hundred fifty billion visitors over 10 years.

There was no way I could have anticipated that level of success, but here we are!

The prestige of having the such a massively successful organization, The Internet, host the video is amazing and I’m truly honored, but the process of making it was such a joy, I would have done it anyways without all the acclaim.

If you’ve ever attentively and thoroughly jam jostled a melon with the palm of your hand and then immediately transitioned to delicately rolling the perky little fairy pebble between your thumb and index finger, you’ll know what I mean.

If you haven’t, well, in the words of Bohr, “go outside and touch some grass”.

R&D

Here’ some more R&D Tests and Production Stills to fill up space and make the project look way more complicated than it actually was: