Doing Some Environment Test Renders

 

I'm currently in the process of modelling and texturing the environment that I plan to use in the short film for my assignment. While not everything is complete yet, I felt it was important to get some test renders done to make sure everything fit together nicely and the textures I had done so far are working properly. As you can probably notice in these renders, it looks somewhat different to the concept sketches from a few weeks ago. This is because I found that some of the models I originally planned to use either didn't work, or would take too long to texture so were swapped out in the interest of time management. Perhaps the biggest change so far is the wall texture. I had originally planned on putting in stars but when I was working on the texture in Krita, I realised it would take so much time drawing and perfecting all different size stars that I made a switch to clouds and was able to complete that much faster.

Another noticeable change from the concept art is that the middle drawer on this dresser is closed, but in the concept art, it's open. This is because I couldn't find a way that it would look when modelled that I would be completely happy with so I have put that idea on hold for now but if I have time before I need to begin rendering, then I will go back and try again. If however, I do not have time, I will still be able to follow the original storyboards with the ball falling down and knocking over the blocks as this minor change will not affect the over all narrative of the piece.

As I mentioned in previous posts, my main inspiration for the environment - and story as a whole is Toy Story and right now, there are a lot of very obvious nods to that on display including posters and even the duvet on the bed all of which I found through a Google Images search. I am hoping to change at least one of the posters on the wall to a piece of concept art I drew for one of the characters so that it ties in better as well as the duvet because in my mind having a Buzz Lightyear one when his character model isn't anywhere in the scene, doesn't make any sense to me - but they will do for now for placeholder images

Something else that I'm still trying to get right is the lighting. Right now all I have in there is some skydome lights and a spotlight under the bed to illuminate the character model that currently resides there. These lighting choices are far from final but were helpful in pointing out problem areas that I can focus on when I'm working on the final lighting let up.

This is also the first time I've brought all of the character models I made into the same scene. Up until now, they had been worked on in isolation in their own Maya files so seeing them all brought into the same scene is a huge step towards getting the project completed. In saying that though, I still have some textures to work on and some models to finish so I better get going on that!

Piecing Together The Story - And The Storyboard

 

Using the unfinished concept art sketches for the films environment, I was able to put together a very rough storyboard for the film. In doing so, this is the story that I have determined that I would like to tell;

• The small robot pushes or knocks a ball off the top of the dresser
• The ball bounces off the open dresser drawer
• The ball hits the floor, rolls and knocks down the alphabet blocks
• The Poke-Bot flies out from underneath the bed
• The Poke-Bot flies in a circle around the alphabet blocks
• The Poke-Bot fixes the alphabet blocks to spell out my name
• The Poke-Bot flies around the blocks again to inspect them
• The Poke-Bot flies back under the bed
• Camera zooms from the top of the bed towards the robot that caused the blocks to fall
• The robot looks around and waves
• The film ends

With a story now firmly in mind - I will try to create an animatic of the film once I finalise what sound effects or music I'd like to use in the finished piece. I am also continuing to work on finalising the colour scheme for the environment concept art. 

K-VRC Concept Art

 Once I had finished with Cozmo-E's concept art I took a short break and then began working on the concept art for the second robot I had modelled - K-VRC from the Netflix show 'Love, Death, & Robots'.

This was a fun one to create because I felt like I had more freedom compared to the art I created for Cozmo-E because this time I felt I did not need to draw the character in a specific pose that would be depicted in the film because I would be rigging this character and at this point - I had not fully decided on what he would be doing in the film.

To me, this meant I had complete and total creative freedom to do what I wanted. In my mind I wanted the image to convey a sense of joy and happiness - that he was having fun. To do this I drew K-VRC playing in the dirt with a happy expression on his face. I also drew in the logo for the show because I could colour it in a way that would really make K-VRC stand out and draw the eye.

With this piece now done, I moved onto the concept art for the third and (so far) final character that would appear in the film - a flying orb robot.

Cozmo-E's Concept Art

It's been a long couple of weeks since I last updated my animation diary but in that time I have been busy working on the concept art for my end of term project. The first piece of concept art I completed was for Cozmo-E - the very first character that I had begun modeling a few weeks back.

In this concept art, I have depicted Cozmo-E in the exact pose that I intend to display him in once I put together the film. As for the final look tha

t I will attempt to go for is a mostly silver body with a slight blue hue with some additional blue, black and possibly white accent pieces. It is important to state though, that my intended colour scheme may change during the texturing process or when he's placed in the scene to ensure it fits in appropriately.

With this piece completed, my next task was to do the concept art for the second robot I created after realising that rigging Cozmo-E was not going to be possible. 

Love, Death and a Character Sheet

 

So last week I came across the issue of not being able to easily rig and animate my original character Cozmo-E as I had modelled him into a specific pose rather than an 'A' or 'T' pose. I determined that instead of spending potentially hours fixing it and perhaps needing to change the model, I would create a second character and use Cozmo-E in a different way than originally intended.

I then set about creating a new robot, with no new original sketches or character sheet prepared. Instead using the Netflix show 'Love, Death & Robots and the character sheet I had done for Cozmo-E as my inspiration for the new model.

I was able to build something I liked and even managed to rig and animate him but I wanted to go back and create a character sheet for him as I want everything I use in my project to have as much documentation as possible should I need to refer back to it later for clarity or serve as inspiration for something else. With that in mind I spent a couple of hours doing, and redoing the character sheet until I finally got something that I was happy with that I thought accurately represented the character I had created the week before.

Now I just need to start brainstorming ideas of how my two characters will co-exist in whatever scene I create and what else I'm going to want to create to make that happen. It's going to be a long, but fun process of trial, error and elimination until I get to where I want to be in terms of fitting everything into one, cohesive story.