ROBOT RESCUE

The Robot Rescue Animatic

2012-04-29T04:40:00.000-07:00

Hello All

Check out the RR Animatic. It's about 7 minutes long and has hundreds of drawings pieced together to tell the story of Robot Rescue in a short film format.

Compressing the file was not kind to the audio, so i'll let your imagination fill in the soundtrack.

It moves at a snappy pace so keep your bionic eyes focused.

All feedback is welcome. And a BIG 16 bit shout out to Donny Pattenden, who joined up to be a Member.

Robot Rescue Comic Roughs

2012-04-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

Hello followers, robots and countrymen.

Here is a few pages of rough comic page designs.

Each finished image is a sandwich of about 5 layers, all rendered to build up the atmosphere of the environment. I particularly like the smog/fog look that Brendan Carmody designed. The whole idea of several layers was for each image was Brendan's, so kudos to him.

These images are just working roughs and not the finished product. For example the first image of the city has no traffic or pedestrians in the city. It's just a way of quickly putting some page layouts down to see if they are each working on their own and as a narrative.

All comments welcome on what you think of the look, the layouts and their readability.Due to the vertical placement of the images in blogger, the pages boundaries may be a bit indistinct, but i'm sure you'll work out that there are 4 pages [:] )

And feel free to hit the subscribe link at the top right of the page to get regular robo updates.

Sparky Tool Demo Video

2012-04-13T01:53:00.000-07:00

Robotic Hellos to all.

Here's a quick little video of Sparky showing off his tools.

Let me know if the blog layout and background is working on your computer as i have upgraded to a new blogger layout.

Animation by me and modelling by Brendan Carmody.

Enjoy

Robot Rescue Teaser Video

2012-04-11T04:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick teaser for Robot Rescue. It hasn't been rendered to the finished product standard, but it's nice to see the characters moving.

This little video was rendered before the facial features of the characters had been animated, and here's why,

As an animation tip, if an animator can convey to the audience what the characters are feeling and thinking through the use of body language, before animating the eyes and mouth, then that is building a solid foundation on which to layer the depth of the character's emotion by then animating the eyes and mouth (dialogue).

Put simply, a character can say the words "I'm happy". But if their body language does not convey their happiness, the audience will intuitively not believe that the character is happy.

Thanks to Brendan Carmody for all his technical and modelling work on the 3d assets of Robot Rescue.
This video was animated by the combined efforts of Nam Doan and myself.
The first half of the music comes from, I think, the original Robotech Sound track and the last half is the work of Danny Elfman.

Stay tuned for more videos, progress and tips to come soon.

The Importance of Strong Posing

2010-06-17T05:40:00.000-07:00

A Robotic hello to all readers. [] ) -robo cyclops smile

thought i'd talk a little about the challenges of posing and following the 2d drawing as close as possible with a 3d model.

In the example shown, the camera angle has changed from the 2d to 3d(less of a down shot). But the importance of Sparky's point at his detachable hand was what mattered (the arrow in the dawing below). It took a long time to get that line from elbow to finger tip as straight as possible. It's important for that finger to really be driving straight at his detachable hand. It shows who's boss and who's being told. Plus a straight line of action has more force. It's aim has gotta drill straight into his hand's chest.

but 3d models have their limitations and in the end, one just can't get it as straight as the drawing. That's the beauty of drawings vs 3d. You can push a dawn pose further.

Also, look at the two 3d pictures, the one on the left is the render cameras view. That's waht the audience will see. If we look on the right though, we can see that Sparky is'nt even pointing at the detachable hand. Or looking at the hand for that matter. Plus his left foot has got collision issues in the right side image. But the point is, who cares. From the audiences' view on the left, it all looks correct. When I pointed his finger and gaze directly at the hand it just did'nt look right from the audience perspective. So a cheat was what was needed. Always use a cheat if it's a question of correct looking vs good looking design.

sparky design

2010-05-23T03:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a design sketch for our hero, Sparky.

This is a final design that the 3d model was based on.

There are detailed drawings for the modeller to understand some of Sparky's features.

2010-05-17T03:25:00.000-07:00

As we hurtle through time and space towards the completion of the ROBOT RESCUE 3d comic..... I thought I'd share some of today's efforts, direct from the RR basement.

Here we have a couple of scenes where Sparky comes face to face with Krusha's minions, the Killer-Bots.

The video sketches give an idea of the FX that will later be added in post production, after the 3d render. I could do the FX in 3d, however, i'll enjoy life more without my head stuck in maya tutorials for the rest of said life. So your just seeing the raw 3d for now.

Besides, this is a comic and i wanted to bring in some traditional comic art elements (eg speed lines) to give it the right feel. Stay tuned for the final product. Tests so far have been mouthwatering.

enjoy :{

Sparky's bumbling reaction to a Killer-Bot attak unwittingly gets him out of trouble as he smacks the crane's controls.

These space going demons of death are too smart for their own good as two of them become victims of their own aerial manoeuvres.

2010-05-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

A busy day for the 3d comic ROBOT RESCUE today.
Spent about 6 hrs working on scenes 68-73.
These scenes are important to the story as they show Sparky's desperate situation, stuck on the crane being magnetically towed behind Krusher.

And we see this part of the story from Bella's perspective, in Krusha's clutches.
It's important that we don't just focus on action but try to convey the emotions of the characters.

note* yesterdays pictures were in reverse order. (still getting used to blogging)

make sure you sign up to be a follower of ROBOT RESCUE to stay up to date with all future developemnts coming soon.

so enjoy the sketches and maya work scenes, complete with character control clutter.

incidental colours

2010-05-09T03:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick overview of the colouring of our incidental characters.
These characters will be in the distant background of the finished images, and thus can be lightly detailed.

Firstly, Brendan modelled them up using some concept sketches as a basis, plus his own imagination.
Then we UV mapped the characters.

Then after taking a UV snapshot out of Maya into Photoshop, i placed colours where we want them for the characters.

Then i applied the one Photoshop .tif file with all the different characters colours to one surface shader in maya. Which was then applied to all the characters.

The beauty of this is that by having all the characters colours on one shader, we save memory, and thus time.
Stay tuned for more robots soon.
And become a Robotic follower so you will be updated on future posts.

ROBOT RESCUE 3d comic

2010-05-04T03:42:00.000-07:00

Welcome to ROBOT RESCUE.

A comic taken from sketch to 3d modelling and rendering, with Photoshop used in post production.

We'll take you through our process with regular updates, and stay tuned for the finished product.

Let's start with the villain of the story. Krusher!

we've included a design drawing for the modeller, Brendan Carmody, to work off and some demo animation, done by our friends Nam-roc and Brendan.

So enjoy for now and stay tuned for more robotic awsomeness.