New Walk Cycles

Swing, pass, swing, pass. That's what walking's always been about. But for some reason I neglected this important animation skill for a long time, settling for just swinging legs and arms back and forth without any thought into placement. Finally, I'm making some effort to improve, but the process will be slow. I started by making walk cycles for Ratchet and Ultra Magnus. It was fairly easy, since both their personalities work well with animation. Ultra's regal and majestic, so he walks upright and moves kind of stiffly. Ratchet's younger in this series than he's usually portrayed, but he's still pretty old, so while he moves faster then Ultra, he also walks with a hunch. I also animated his backpack to bump up and down a bit while walking.

My sudden interest in making actual walk cycle animations came to be when I was looking at one of the new clips, and noticing how stiff and awful the walking was.

I also found a way to reduce loading speed for characters: Smart Folders. Basically, in Cheetah3D, you can import a character from an external file inside another one. And though that sounds just like importing, for some reason it takes less time.

More posts coming soon!

Thought This Was Dead? Think Again!

Optimus stands in the corridor at last - thanks to my new computer's 2.9 GHz Intel Core i5!

Remember how I was always complaining about not having the disk space or memory to have multiple Transformers in the same scene? Well, now it's a whole new story. I'm pleased to announce that I finally have a new computer, and it renders at twice the speed of the old one.

I've been working for the two days on re-rendering all the old clips and animating new ones. As you can see from the image, the new renders are at 2000x1125 instead of 1280x720. This means I'll be able to share this to Vimeo at full quality. Also, with the new iMovie, titles and things don't get horribly decompressed and the sound is always in sync, so I'll finally be able to edit this thing like I want to.

Obviously, after some time spent away from the project, I've come to realize that I've been prepping far too much, and I should really just make it already. Unfortunately, that means cutting out Bumblebee, who never got his body. Don't worry, though, his head'll have a cameo somehow.

I'll also be rewriting the script I wrote, since I need to write the Bee out of it and also make some of the exposition less lengthy. Plus, the dialogue wasn't working for me.

You'll notice in the final short some weird glitchy shadows, at least in the early parts. That's a bug with Cheetah3D that has a fix, but it isn't an easy one, and would make the renders take up to three times as long.

But yeah, it's been a while. More than half a year, in fact.

Hopefully I'll stay on track this time.

More updates coming your way soon, so follow by email so you know what's going on when it's going on.

The Rookie

Bumblebee's head was started yesterday and finished today. As you can probably guess, I'm on a roll as far as getting these guys done. Part of me just kind of wants to finish the short before Botcon 2013, but I know it's not happening. Oh well, it's not like I can get to San Deigo, seeing as it's so far away from where I am. I'm crossing my fingers for next year, though!

Anyway, this here's Bumblebee's head, all textured and ready, in a hero view, (a three quarter angle).

I was using mostly two influences while modeling him. The first was the movie and the second was Prime. I like to think that this Bumblebee is almost a perfect mix of the two. I borrowed Bumblebee's eyes and eyebrows from Prime, as well as the chin, and I borrowed the movie Bumblebee's cat-like ear pieces off the back of the head and the Autobot logo on the front of the head.

The rest is all me. Basically I just added more black accents to go with the striped black and yellow vibe, then I strengthened his profile by jutting out his chin.

I gave him chin pistons to move his chin up and down when he's talking.

I also gave him comlink-type things on the sides of his head like ears.

I've decided that recurring themes in my Bumblebee model will be alternating colors and holes, like he was made more aerodynamic.

Well, if things go like they have been in the past couple of days, you'll see Bumblebee's full model within a week!

Also, I almost forgot to mention that Ratchet's featurette is finished and in the Videos section of the website, accessible in the blog sidebar.

Stay tuned for more.

Ratchet is Done

The team medic/technician is here! Ratchet's one of my favorite characters in the Transformers: Prime series, (Arcee and Bulkhead are up there as well), so it was exciting for me to re-imagine Ratchet in my own style. I borrowed most of his vehicle mode from Transformers Animated Ratchet's cybertronian car mode, but I changed it a little so that he could have wheels as well as treads in the front.

He also retains his backpack from Animated and also Prime.

Inside Ratchet's backpack

For his vehicle form I only ran into one problem that I hadn't anticipated which was that his legs weren't thick enough to form the back of his car mode. Hence the "shell" that slides up onto the backpack.

One interesting thing I did was the rotating platform that his head rests on, which also controls his waist. In my Animated toy, Ratchet's head just pops down into his chest, but I didn't want to go that route, having had prior experience with squeezing these guys heads in to fit inside their car modes.

Not really worth it, especially considering how I usually need to use some 3D trickery, (specifically: scaling the head in size), to make it look right.

Ratchet's featurette is on it's way, it'll be done as soon as I can get his transformation rendered, (now I'm showing transformations in slow motion as well as normal speed, which takes more time to render out).

However, you can go to the downloads section to check out the newly added poster of Ratchet, which you should since I worked all day long on it to make it especially good.

So yeah, all-in-all, he's definitely my favorite Autobot modeled for this short so far, (sorry Ultra, you're in last place). And guess what else. I've modeled Cliffjumper's head and Megatron's eyes! Which means I only have one more robot for this short left to model, Bumblebee, who happens to be my favorite Prime Autobot, so awesome. Stay tuned for his head model!

After Bumblebee, all I'll need to model are the environments. Okay, so I really need a new computer to render out the scenes, (I'll also have After Effects, so I can spruce up shots in post), and in the gap between finishing all the models and getting a computer I'll still be busy! I'm thinking of modeling Rodimus and crew, just so i have them when the time comes for Team Charr. And don't forget, Devastator's in the next short and I'll need to model robots that turn into vehicles that turn into assorted appendages, so maybe I'll model those guys too.

And there's even more news! Shockwave's new featurette has been updated and now features the new Shockwave, along with a slow version of his transformation so you know how it works, so check that out in the videos section, or down below.



And I think we're done here, so be sure to stay tuned for the next update!

The New Shockwave

When I started modeling Shockwave only two days ago, I had no idea that he would be finished so quickly. Shockwave breaks all the records as the fastest to completion Transformer in this series to date.

Maybe it was my references. Maybe it was the simple transformation. But whatever it was, Shockwave is done! Here's his tank mode:

His transformation is based entirely on the Animated version, and though his gun retains the shape of Animated Shockwave's gun, the barrel is modeled off of Dark of the Moon Shockwave's cannon.

The barrel is modeled off the movie Shockwave's gun.

I can't tell you how glad I am not to have to use that old model in the short. It probably would've ruined everything. It's too bad I didn't model Ratchet instead, but every model that I can make gets me one step closer to completion. I only have four character models to go. If I can get Cliffjumper's head done, (I'll be saving that as a surprise when the short's released), and drive myself to finish Megatron's hand and eyes, I'll be down to two models. That's it! Really!

That and a few environment models, like the tactical chamber and cargo bay of the Nemesis, and the barren wasteland outside Shockwave's prison, which, by the way, is modeled now. You can see a bit of it if you check out Shockwave's awesome new poster in the downloads section. My only real concern is, once again, my computer's processing power. Will it hold up?

We'll just have to find out. Also be sure to keep checking the blog, as I'm working on Shockwave's updated featurette. And if you want to find out what's going on, check the Updates Timeline, since I catalogue every change I make there.

What's next? Well, I need to start planning out my scenes. Since my script is basically done, all I need to do is draw out a bunch of animatic shots and stick them in a project to music, and then start replacing the placeholders with actual clips. It's what I started to do with one of the scenes, but I'm probably going to change up that scene a lot.

Stay tuned for more.

Shockwave's Redux

Well, the time has come for me to start modeling Shockwave again. I've been putting it off simply because it's going to be one more robot for me to model. But modeling them is the fun part, so what do I have to lose? My old Shockwave model is... well...

Let's face it: it doesn't fit in with the other, higher polygon, detailed 'bots that I've been making for this short. It might've worked for the short that it was meant for, but I need a new Shockwave and I can't put off modeling him until later. Why? Because I'm planning too dramatic a change! Plus his tank treads don't spin well and having a giant gun on his arm limits his mobility. And he also doesn't have knee joints,which may "pose" a slight problem, (forgive the pun)!

Anyway, yeah. So what'll the NEW Shockwave look like? I've modeled his head, but I have yet to really figure out his transformation. I have figured out Ratchet's transformation, though. Speaking of Ratchet, I modeled his weapons, wheels that double as saws.

Anyway, that's about all I've done recently. Shockwave and Ratchet's heads. Oh, and I also modeled a weapon for the Vehicon's robot mode, but since I don't want to give EVERYTHING away before the short's released, I'm restraining myself from showing a picture.

Keep watching for updates, or just sign up for email alerts whenever the blog's updated by typing your email address into the "Follow By Email" tab in the sidebar.

The Doctor is In

With goggle attachment raised

I modeled Ratchet's head yesterday, and now I have approved it as the final.

He will be wearing his goggles for the most part of the short, but I also needed the goggles to lift off of his face.

For his head, I borrowed both from the Transformers Animated Ratchet's head, for the shape of the back of the head, and Transformers Prime Ratchet for the heavy eyebrows, eyes, some of the shapes of the face, and the "sideburns".

The goggles I added were partially inspired by Animated Ratchet, because in one episode he has a monocle device that helps him zoom into injuries and analyze them. In my story, Ratchet needed to be more a technician then he is normally depicted, so I gave the goggles a sci-fi twist.

I decided his color scheme should be dark red, white, grey and cyan, just because I haven't been using white and dark red much and it would help differentiate between him and the others. 

Also, let me point out a new addition to the sidebar of this blog: the "Updates Timeline". 

In this timeline, I list important events in the making of this short chronologically, so check that out if you have the time.

Look for another Ratchet update in the coming weeks!