Music video · 3D animation segment

For The
Hell Of It

Artist Tay Dreamin Segment 1:27 – 2:03 Released July 20, 2026

The segment as released, 37 seconds, with the song.

The job

A fall through the void, landing on the Grid.

For The Hell Of It is the first single from Tay Dreamin's upcoming album Astralis, which Tay describes as a sci-fi journey through emotional turmoil. Tay directed the video and wrote its story. Partway through, it cuts from a live-action forest into one animated sequence: the character falls through a dark abyss full of tesseracts and lands on a lit grid. A floor tile drops out, light floods up, and the cut goes back to live action.

I made that sequence, credited as 3D animation. I built, animated and rendered it in Cinema 4D and delivered it for George Whitehill's VFX, colour and compositing pass. The brief was about 40 seconds, written on pages 5 to 7 of the video script.

37 sanimation in the release

4review rounds before the final

6flat colours in the final look

19Cinema 4D scene files

The brief, November 2025

Four references, one sequence.

Tay sent the song, the script and four clips that set the idea and the look.

Scavengers ReignFlat, painterly colour and a strange natural world. This became the look, and the light blue in the final palette comes from it.
InterstellarThe tesseract scene: falling through a space built from repeated geometry.
Spider-VerseThe glitching shots, for duplicates and breaks in the image.
Tron LegacyThe Grid. A lit floor where the character arrives and the next part of the video starts.

The look

From product light to six flat colours.

The first falling test in March was lit like a product render, with a white suit, soft depth of field and real reflections. At the April check-in, Tay asked for something flatter, simpler and more cartoon-like.

So I split the scene into separate transparent passes for the character, the tesseracts and the background, and flattened each into a small set of colours. That made the void easier to colour and gave the edit room to layer effects on top.

First falling test: a white-suited figure in soft focus — March 18: first falling test, lit like a product shot.

Final look: the figure dives headfirst through blue light trails with yellow highlights — May: the final look, as released.

Palette sampled from the released frames: void, deep blue, two mid blues, pale cyan, tile yellow.

Built in passes

Every angle, rendered on its own.

Each camera angle was its own render with a transparent background: top, back side, full side, the 360 dive, the kneeling landing, and the tesseracts alone. That let a camera change come late in review without a full re-render of the scene.

Six raw render passes: top, back side, full side, 360 dive, kneeling on the grid, tesseracts only — Raw passes before grading, from the render folders.

Raw pass of the tesseract columns alone — Tesseracts only, on the same 360 move.

The fall

One rotating shot instead of cuts.

Tay's April 14 notes asked for the camera to keep spinning instead of cutting between angles. After seeing that pass, Tay asked for the whole fall to be one rotating shot, with the tesseracts turning too and copies of the character appearing on the beat as he falls deeper.

The figure appears in the dark, edged in light — The figure comes out of the dark.

The figure among glowing tesseract columns — The camera circles the whole scene, tesseracts included.

Several copies of the falling figure in different poses among blue light trails — Copies of the character pop in on the beat. The on-screen text comes from the video's VFX pass.

The landing

Headfirst into the Grid.

The dive is timed to the second half of the chorus. The camera closes in on the character's head just before the Grid appears, so the move into the landing reads as one motion. Tay asked to reach the Grid sooner so it could hold the screen longer, and then approved the Grid without changes.

The figure dives headfirst — The dive, timed to the chorus.

The figure stands on a lit grid floor — On the Grid. A tile drops and the light comes up.

The figure standing on the Grid among floating lights — The Grid.

A floor tile drops away under the figure, glowing yellow — The tile drops out, light through the gap.

The frame washes out to yellow — The flash that carries the cut back to live action.

The ending came from the April 12 style call. Tay wanted the character to interact with the ground, the way light and touch mean creation on the Grid in Tron Legacy. I proposed dropping the panel in front of him so light pours through and flashes, which also sets up the next part of the video.

Timeline

Brief to premiere, eight months.

This was an in-kind project to support a friend's record. It fit around paid work, so it ran on a slower schedule than a client job. The video's other parts were finished over the same months.

Nov 19, 2025Brief: song, script pages 5 to 7, four references.
Feb 18Animation call.
Mar 18First falling tests in Cinema 4D.
Apr 12Style check-in: flatter look, six-colour pass, 360 camera, dive, panel-drop ending. Round 2 test sent.
Apr 14Notes: continuous spin, sync to the chorus, reach the Grid sooner.
Apr 25Round 3.
Apr 27Notes: one rotating shot for the whole fall, rotating tesseracts, duplicates on the beat. The Grid approved as is.
May 7Round 4 and client handoff.
May 13Final master delivered, ProRes with audio.
Jul 20The video premieres on Tay Dreamin's YouTube channel.