Final Video

The final video is available to watch on Youtube at the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMZa2x3FF6A

Playblasts

These are a couple of playblasts demonstrating the use of CV curves to animate motion. I used CV curves with many of much of my animation and also with a few camera shots.

Animating and Camera Techniques

One of the most important aspects of my animation was the use and control of cameras and camera angles. Because I was dealing with the constrictions of a grid environment I had to find ways of making simple shots into interesting shots. I used a lot of motion paths and angles to show the size of the environment compared to Hector. He was always supposed to be a tiny robot in a large city and I think these stills show that nicely.

I had to use back lighting for this shot to illuminate Hector's back so it was visible. 

A nice shot showing Hector's head lights spilling light over the opposing building. The bump map on the gravel looks really nice when under the head lights.

Bump mapping on gravel shows a nice lighting effect. 

Chase scene of the lights of the Seeker interacting with the lamp lights. The lights on the Seeker are actually just simple polygonal spheres that have intense glow special effects whilst hiding the object itself only the glow will be visible. However I had to parent a low level ambient light to the Seeker in order to illuminate it enough to be detailed. The Seeker is supposed to be a sleek glossy white and it was difficult showing this colour in a night time setting, a lot of tweaking had to be done to the lighting in these scenes.

Building the Environment

The environment is essentially a few blocks of streets within what can be assumed a much larger city. My biggest challenge was making believable light. The way I found a solution to this was to line the streets with glowing lamp bulbs and have them cast large amounts of light on the street below. This had a great effect with my characters lights when combined. 

 This is a wire frame of the skyscrapers. Each was made individually and are all completely unique in size, windows, stores and unique corner edges. 

 This is mock render of what a single light bulb can illuminate. The entire lighting effect of the animation was achieved with the use of mental rays real sun and sky lighting. By rotating the angle of the sun towards the sky it engages a night time lighting. I had to change the settings in order to achieve a light enough colour so that other lights and detail could be achieved. I used this technique to alter the detail visible in each scene.

 My character within a scene

 Simply constructed final scene. The final scene is were our friend Hector gets thrown into this vat machine like thing and instantly gets converted into a power cell. 

 This is the scene where Hector is caught in some sort of tractor beam by the Seeker and gets sucked into its holding cell.

This is an edited shot of Hector in his power cell form. A sad boring power cell. We can see him frown as he is rolled away in the final shot.

Character Modelling, Rigging and Texturing

This is the basic mesh for my character. Rigging was a reasonably simple job, with his arms and neck being the only things to have any amount of movement worth rigging and binding to skin. His eyes and chest were always going to have a high glow material on them to act as computer screens and such. They also proved a very useful source of lighting in many of the scenes. Lighting was key in my animation as it was set at night so the luminescence of my scene and character had to be the same in every shot and also believable.

 Mesh

 Arm IK

 Skeleton

 Blend shapes were used for all his facial movements including eyes, brows and jaw.

 Example of the intensity of the light source from his chest and eyes. Texturing also visible here.

 Seeker model

Example of Seeker light source and intensity

A final render of texturing and lighting of character in a scene

Story Concept - Storyboard

Story / Character / Environment Description

Hector is a robot living in an industrial waste land, a city in which time has forgotten. Rust and scrap metal litter the streets and old computer terminals flicker in the night with small amounts of electricity still pulsing through their wires. Hector is the last of his kind, a small autonomous robot, built to send and receive data and hold on to it until it is needed. His hands, when held straight, are used as usb plugins. His body, dented and rusted everywhere, paint is chipped and flaking. He enjoys roaming the streets of this derelict place, picking up energy from old usb ports.

But all is not well, for a long time now a powerful technology has been sending Seekers out to raid his home in search of redundant robot technology. They captured them and take them off to decomposition chambers to be recycled into new products and computer equipment. But Hector won’t give up. He will run from these evil scouts and survive anyway he can. He is not the fastest or the bravest robot out there, but when danger is presented he does whatever he can to escape.

Time has affected Hector. His body is dented and beaten, his century old paint job has been chipped away and rust from relentless storms has weakened his joints and limbs, he prefers to power down and hid in his cube until things ease. Loneliness is Hectors weakness. He cannot be content with hiding in the depths of the industrial network and instead spends his time rolling around the streets in search of energy and surviving robots.

But this new technology will not slow down. With every night and day comes the fear he will turn a corner and have to face the Seeker again, and once it utters the words “target acquired” Hector will know his time is up.

Script

Script

Fade in shot of robot slumped in dark alley. Light start blinking red. Off and on. It finally stays on an camera zooms out slowly from scene.

System boot sounds and arms pop out from enclosed section. Head rises slowly out of hidden section. Eyes blink and jaw flexes. Rolls out of shot slowly.

Side shot of Hector passing streets – left, right, round corner, down street, face close up.

Rumbling sound echoes. Hector perks up and freezes in place eyes search and eye brows frown, looking up.

(Seekers view) red screen p.o.v – “searching for redundant tech”

Hector peers around corner, sees seeker light approaching fast. Hides round corner frozen and shaking – terrified

.

Seeker scans over Hector “target acquired”

Hector’s face drops quickly before he bursts off screaming, flailing his arms and he speeds off.

Chase occurs as Seeker tries to get close to Hector. Back and forth through city streets

Robot screaming trails off as Hector sees that Seeker is no longer behind him. He peers around a nearby corner and sees the all clear. He turns around abruptly as if to roll in the other direction. Instead, he is face to face with the Seekers giant red eye.

Hector’s jaw drops and his entire body begins to shake. He turns quickly as if to run but ends up smashing into the closest wall, dislodging his arm. He continues to dart around the corner and the Seeker stays motionless watching as Hectors free arm pats the ground from around the corner as he tries to reclaim his arm. Once Hector’s arm has been pulled from the corner the Seeker begins to turn around the corner, only to realize that Hector has been bolting full speed down the street.

The chase continues towards a seemingly dead end. But Hector notices a small gap in the buildings. As he approaches he tucks his arms and lowers his head into their respective compartments and continues fill speed ahead. After making it through alive he sighs with happiness and checks his body parts to make sure he hasn’t lost anything.

Meanwhile the Seeker has had to pull up harshly to avoid crashing into the wall and the shot fades out.

Fade in and Hector is back to his normal routine, he notices a nearby usb terminal and approaches it. Trying to fit his usb hand into the input he has to try a few times to put it in the right way. But out of nowhere a bright red aura surrounds Hector. He is being sucked up by the Seekers beam and before long Hector disappears within the depths of the Seekers body. Fade out.

Fade in and the Seeker opens his body locker. Hector falls out and into the decomposition machine. Sounds of bent metal, dents and damage can be heard as Hector’s body is reshaped. The camera pans down the machine to end up at the end of it. Suddenly a shiny Ipad lands in the middle of the conveyer belt below. As the screen turns on Hectors eyes can be seen sad and he lets out a final sigh before admitting defeat and sliding out of the scene.

Storyboards

Character Development

Initial Sketches of Robotic Characters

Possible Faces

Orthographic Views: Front & Side / Emotions 

                                                

                                                

                                                

                                                

Swatches for Possible Texture Mapping

Concept Environments

The environment for my animation is a key component in driving the story of the animation. The initial environment gives us an understanding of the mood, time and place of the story and can often let the audience fill in the blanks without the prompt of dialog or text.

With influence from Lebbeus Woods collection of city scape recreations I will take elements of these art works and create an environment steaming from his style. Much of the materiality of the environment will be used as representations of his artworks. His influence will also be seen in my character design.

Below are some images of concept art, photographs and art works used to help in the design of the environment.

Lebbeus Woods

Lebbeus Woods

Lebbeus Woods

Lebbeus Woods

Wall-e Concet Art

3DRT City Scape

Beirut in Ruins Media Photograph

Concept Art

I have done some quick sketches of the concept environment to get a feel for scale of the environment compared to the character. Detail of the material of the walls, ground, windows and sidewalk will be achieved in final render. I will include concepts swatches to give an idea of the final render environment.