Addition of Bryce

After a couple months off the project to get my head around how I was going to generate landscapes and water effects, I discovered a programme named Bryce. It specificaly aims itself as a terrain generator. Some of the effects you can achieve are amazing. Above I did a quck render of some flying robots, water and a mountain range.

Expect more updates soon as I learn to animate objects (water, sky etc).

the new direction

I have decided as part of the new direction to only have robots for the bad guys. The good guys would now be human. I was never sure about having 2 sets of robots as to distinguish between them could be hard work. Adding the human element also opens up new challenges. I developed a technique of producing hair.

Basically its a cyclinder with a bit chopped out. A quarter to be precise, then a spike deformer has been added to produce whacky hair effects not so disimilar from my own. The humans to are simple shapes to fit in with the styling I currently have.

The next few weeks I will be further developing the humans and working out a heirachy of leadership down to troop.

Back On Track

After a short break away from the project and a lot of development work and jotting down of ideas. I am now back with more robots and a firm direction of where I want to push the project. Stay tuned for more information. Below and above is a couple of things I was working on before the break, the first was another helmet design that looks like teeth, and the second was animating the knight robot I designed previously.

helmet designs

I want some really distinctive helmets for the robots which will feature heavily in the 3d animated film. I decided that one idea would be to look back at helmet designs throughout history. Pictured above is a helmet inspired by a knight helmet back in the day of jousting.

Arise.

I have also learnt how to map images onto objects. Pictured above is an arrow shape mapped onto the helmet.

finalising the troops

After devising the helmets for the troop. Its has opened up a load of posibilities for helmet designs. Now each troop could be uniquely designed with custom paint jobs, much like formula 1 drivers do. Above is a series of new images.

robot evolution3

Finally I think I'm getting somewhere with the design of the robots. I wasn't really happy with how the old ones where looking. I have decided on the same robot design for both goodies and baddies, but im going to distinquish them with colour and the design of the helmets (another new feature).

I'm also experimenting at the moment with physics in Carrara and how to influence objects. This good save a great deal of time in the animation process.

New troop Robots

After developing the first set of robots which where originally the good guys. The next stage was to build the bad guys. They had to be the opposite to the good guys really. In order for this to happen the bad robots had to be round, which contradicts the bad guy stereotypes. Hard, rough etc.

I decided to flip the robot designs around, what was the good robots are now bad and vice versa.

The above image shows a few good guy robot designs.

unknown tanks

After developing tank evolution 2 which is the good guy tank. I needed to create a bad guy tank. I wanted to make it similar in look but at the same time different. This has been achieved by changing colours, various design elements, position of the guns and the tread on the wheels.

The next stage will be to develop the look of the bad guy robots and how I can make them different from the good robots.

tank driver

After developing phase 2 of the tank. I wanted to develop a tank driver that would pilot it. I wanted the pilot to be heavy and bulkier than a standard troop. Tanks are usually heavy and well armoured and I wanted to reflect this in the design of the pilot.

phase 2 tanks

After developing the quick rough renders of the phase 1 tank. The next stage in the project was to develop the tank further. I have added extensive detail both on the interior and exterior. You may notice the smoked glass window which raps itself around the cockpit area. Here you can just make out the robots that sit inside. I will be working on the look of the driver and co-driver over the next week or so.

There is plenty of room for other robots to sit within the wheels. I have also designed the tank so it is easily customisable. More about this will follow later in the project.

flying machine bot

camera tracking

robots and effects

After first developing the tank for the 3d movie. I now need some characters for the story line. The 2 character bots featured below are first rough renders on how the final bots might look. The bot on the left would be a sort of leader/ hero, while the bot on the right a basic troop.

I have done some basic animations and played around with sound and special effects. The first movie is purely sound and animation while the second is animation, sound and effects.





The movie above show how the troop bot mite appear via teleporting.

tank and scene render

To kick start the project, I wanted to experiment with something really simple. I decided on a tank which was built by using really simple 3d shapes. This would be the basis of a series of tests while I get used to Carrara - the 3d programme I am using to build and render the project. The movie below was a test to see how I could use particle effects. The smoke which comes out of the revolving guns was achieved by blurring the particles as they are generated. This gives a reallistic smoke effect but cuts back on rendering times.



The next step for me will be to start developing graphics to put on the tank as this will be one of the vehicles in the final project.

coming soon

check back soon for updates.