Shot 002 - The Nemesis on Cybertron

So, this shot was about five times more work then the previous one, due to the fact that I needed to model the Nemesis AND Cybertron's surface-- and although that may seem easy to you, seeing as what you're looking at is the final shot, it wasn't easy. First of all, be glad that you didn't end up with this:

This was my first attempt at creating a barren, desolated Cybertronian landscape, which isn't as easy as you'd think. Again, it wasn't. I spent almost all day yesterday trying out new ideas for what an abandoned part of Cybertron would look like. For the most part, Cybertron has been seen in TV shows and movies only in the city-like areas, and not the unpopulated ones. This scene is set in an area of Cybertron that's near the crater at the top, but still near the Decepticon controlled cities. So I had to keep that in mind as well as the fact that the landscape is probably damaged because it's near the crater.

So, for my first attempt, I tried a mountain-like setting, which didn't really work. It looked too organic,  and the lighting didn't match the outer space shot. So, during the day I reworked the landscape, trying out things like particle arrays to create technological pathways and things; but it just looked too much like a city. In the end, I once again relied on a displacement modifier for the ground with a mechanical-ish texture, and added some ruined columns and things around to show that the area was once a city.

I modified the sky texture too, adding stars and making it darker. Again, this is nearer to the dark side of the planet, so it's darker. I put in the hexagons because I figured that that's the way Cybertron's atmosphere looked from the ground. If it even has an atmosphere, I'm not sure, but in my series it does.

And I've basically talked this shot to death at this point, so I'll stop talking now.

I may have a post or two coming up in a couple of days, so keep checking the site if you want to stay informed, (or just catch up on all the posts I made a month later; that's always fun).

Creating Cybertron

This is Cybertron. The planet that both Decepticons and Autobots call home.

In the final short, you only see it for three seconds, but it's the opening shot, which means that I spent a great deal of time on creating it. Today, I'm going to show a behind the scenes look at how I made it.

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Now, I know I was going to talk about the transformations, but this isn't going as fast as I had previously thought it would. Unfortunately, even though Optimus is done, I don't have enough transformers models finished to do a full, in-depth look at the transformations yet. You'll just have to wait a bit longer, I'm afraid. So, Cybertron it is!

In War of Ends, Cybertron appears as a large, robotic planet, with a large crater near the top, (where the Omega War was fought).

Towards the bottom are naturally formed hexagonal ridges that serve as borders for the cities. The Autobot capital Iacon is marked with a large Autobot symbol, dug by the Constructibots, that's so gigantic it can be seen from space.

Farther south, nearer the crater at the top, are Decepticon-controlled cities, such as Kaon, where, in a deserted area near the city Kolkular, the story begins.

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I created Cybertron with a new method, one that I haven't used before but is extremely effective. Instead of creating a texture and a bumpmap, as I usually do, instead I created a texture and then a displacement texture to use as a displacement map. A displacement is a modifier, (it "modifies" a mesh), that uses a texture as a base for distorting geometry. Because of this, the crater is actually a part of the mesh. If it was just a texture on the mesh, it wouldn't curve inward. I used two lights, one is the "sun" and is the main light source, illuminating the rim of the planet. Then there is a secondary blue light that is there to pretend that the glowing circuits on the dark side of Cybertron are glowing. If I turned it off, you wouldn't see the the texture on that side and the image would look spare. The glowing circuits were one of my ideas, although I took some inspiration from several iterations of Cybertron as portrayed in various cartoons. They are a separate emissive texture that's overlaid over the normal one.

Overall I wanted a sense of grandeur to the opening shot, which was originally going to be the Nemesis. The new opening is way better, as it zooms in to the ship all the way from outer space, letting the story start slowly and start picking up the pace later.

Anyway, I'm afraid I can't promise you a post for a few days, but that doesn't necessarily mean there won't be one. I'll keep updating you as this short moves steadily through production.

Character Feature - Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime is the first character I've modeled for this series. His look borrows heavily from the game Fall of Cybertron, but I've stuck on my take on the live action movie head, and the legs and feet transformation is entirely my own. But he didn't always look like this, as you'll soon find out, as we take a look at Optimus and his evolution into the model he is today.

When I first finished him, Optimus looked like this:

Because I was making his Character Featurette, I started to render out his robotic turntable, having already finished rendering his truck mode turntable.

But then I ran into a problem. I didn't like his arms. Unfortunately, because I'd already rendered his vehicle mode turntable, I had to render out the vehicle turntable again, and then a new version of Optimus's robotic mode turntable.

But then disaster struck again! I realized a little later that I'd messed up his legs, and his knees were backwards!

So it was time for yet another turntable render. Now, I'm happy to say, the turntable is finished and so is Optimus!

So, why go to all that trouble? What are the turntables for? Well, Optimus's Character Featurette is part of a series of short online featurettes about each of the characters that I'll be releasing towards the end of the production of this short. In the featurettes, I show turntables-- basically, the 3D model rotating on a plain background, so you can see all the detail. Then I peel away the textures and show the wireframe, revealing the mesh for those interested. I show both the robot form and the vehicle form, and then I have a section on the development of the transformation-- showing all the bits and pieces that go into making these guys transform. Someday I'll do an in-depth blog post series about the transformations of these guys, but I think I'll put that off until I have all four main Autobots complete.

Anyway, back to Optimus. For the short, as you may know, (you don't), the musical score is being composed entirely by me as well. Before, I used tracks from the movies or other pieces of music, but this time I'm doing it the right way-- by myself. Optimus has his own musical theme, like all the other characters in the short. Whenever he has a special moment I try to bring in his theme, and it adds a sense of continuity to the music. It's a nice piece, and I can't wait for you to hear it when the short is released.

Optimus's textures are mostly modified textures from CGTextures.com, (a great resource, and membership is free, so sign up today!), with the exception of one. Optimus's cab. It's my first time UV unwrapping a model and then using blended textures to paint on it, and it's very exciting! Okay what did I just say? I'll explain. In order to create a hand painted texture, you have to put your model through a process known as UV unwrapping. This flattens the model into an image, (see picture below), that you can import into a painting program and work on.

I used many different textures to create the final texture, by using filters and tools to draw on dirt and grime. However, the torso is the only  part of Optimus that was textured in this way, but every other one was specifically fine tuned using UV Mapping, which is different from UV unwrapping. I won't get into it much, but basically the idea is to tile the texture in a way that makes sense.

Stay tuned for more, and speaking of more, check back in a few days for a post about the transformations!

The Plot of Transformers War of Ends - Part 1

Hello again, it's me. It's time to talk about the plot of Transformers War of Ends, Part 1.

Let me be clear, I've gotten most of it worked out, but I'm iffy on the details and it may change slightly at any time during production. I'll try to update it when I change something.

Ultra Magnus and his team of Autobots, Optimus Prime, Ratchet and Bumblebee, have taken control of the Nemesis, a large Decepticon warship, during a rescue mission. Who are they rescuing? The Constructibots, a repair crew whose main purpose is protecting and repairing the Wall, a large structure that surrounds a space bridge that the Decepticons are desperate to get ahold of. In order to access the wall, Megatron had Shockwave abduct the Constructibots. Without them, control over the space bridge may fall into Decepticon hands! What at first appears to be a simple assignment turns into a nightmare for the team, and as events quickly escalate, Optimus faces a difficult choice that will change who he is forever.

So there you have it. The plot has been through many iterations, and trust me, this is the best one I've come up with so far. The short is planned to be around five minutes, but there might be an extended version in the future. When I first started working out the plot, Straxus was going to be in it, as well as all six Constructibots, but that soon proved infeasible. Don't worry though, Devastator and the Constructibots will be appearing in later parts, as well as Straxus, and quite a few more. I'm going to try and keep this series going, adding or updating characters along the way, and I want to see a LOT of Transformers, so expect there to be many parts. I've only figured out about as far as Part 2, but I'd also like to see even more combiners, which I feel like too many shows are lacking. Devastator's clearly my favorite, but expect to see Menasor and Bruticus in the future, (I've been dying to see them in some other form then G1). Anyway, the future's looking pretty awesome, (and extremely difficult, but still awesome). Speaking of the future, tomorrow there'll be a fresh new post about the 'bot that's been popping up all over this blog-- OPTIMUS PRIME!

An Introduction

 Hello and welcome to the blog! I'm the creator of this series, and I'm planning on single-handedly bringing to life a small team of Autobots. It's going to be an immense challenge, and my ultimate goal will be bringing this short, (and it's sequels), to Botcon, where it will reach a wider audience. I'm giving you the opportunity to follow along as I create this first short, with extensive behind the scenes featurettes and posts, images, wallpapers and more.

Let me start off by giving you a little background. This is not my first foray into computer graphics, nor is it my first foray into transformers. It's not even my first time making a computer generated short about transformers! For the past five years I've been obsessed with modeling, (in the computer), Optimus Prime, from the live action transformers films and other movies and shows as well. It's hard to say how many times I've manipulated polygons into his likeness, but I'd say it's been around seven. Over the years, as my skill with the software has progressed, I have modeled at least one Optimus Prime model per year! It's an incredible indicator of progression.

Though I don't really like the live action films, the version of Optimus Prime I have modeled most is from them. The movies might be bad, but the robots are awesome, and really fun to model and pose! Let me get into why I'm making this short. I made my first Transformers-based short in 2009. It was part of a series of Transformers shorts I was going to make with a friend, and it was entitled "Transformers: Legacy of Unicron".

 Like many of my earlier films, it didn't make much sense. I followed up with the sequel, "Wrath of Megatron", in 2010.

One scene from this, my poorly modeled Devastator's transformation sequence, has reached over 400,000 views on YouTube. I'm still not sure why.


These two shorts were originally going to be accompanied by two more, "Origin of Megatron" and "Revenge of the Combiners", the latter of which informed me of combiners, which are now my favorite kind of transformers, and that's why Devastator will be appearing in this series. Anyway, shortly after I released Wrath of Megatron, (and decided not to complete the others), I released another transformers-based short, called "Transformers Ultimate Battle: The Music Video" in 2011.

For that short, the transformers looked like, (as close as I could get at the time), their live-action movie versions. I learned a lot from making this short, and that's part of why I have enough confidence in my ability to make this one. After that came Transformers: Atomic in 2011, which was going to be yet another series, but I cut it short because I lost interest.

So there you have it. That's the chronicles of my CGI transformers obsession in a nutshell. So, what about this new short? What will the plot be? Find out tomorrow, when I take a look at the plot in my next post! See you then.