Slightly Updated Axe

Now the axe has one, long, handle for easier fighting, and the end is weighted.

Just a small update, I will post further updates if I change the axe again.

Cybertronian Font

Remember how last post I was talking about how I was writing stuff in Cybertronian? Well, I was using a style sheet from the internet to painstakingly copy and paste letters into place. But now I created this handy font which you can purchase for just $2 at Gumroad.com! The font lets you write in Autobot by using only uppercase, and in Decepticon if you use only lowercase. My advice: Write out the text you want to translate in a different font first, so you'll know what you're saying. Then, change the font to Cybertronian Regular and ta-da! Whatever you said will be in Cybertronian. Unfortunately, I couldn't create punctuation marks or symbols, because the style sheet didn't include them. Hope you purchase the font to support the making of this short, and have fun writing in Cybertronian!

Cybertronian Font

Click the button above to purchase the font!

This font will also be available in the downloads section of this website.

The Nemesis Corridor - Shot 004

This WAS the Nemesis Corridor in the second scene of the short, or the fourth shot. Notice the cybertronian markings on the walls. They actually say something, because I found a nice sheet of cybertronian symbols online, (not sure whether they are accurate), that will let me write in Autobot cybertronian and Decepticon cybertronian for ultimate authenticity, by copying and pasting the letters into my textures, (however for future writings I have a font that I created myself, see post above for details!) The keypad near the door and the screen depicting the Nemesis's stats also have cybertronian letters.

Like I said, this WAS the corridor. I actually scrapped this model because it looked too blocky, and I didn't like the door or the lighting. That's why I remodeled it, and now it looks like this:

May this post serve as a reminder of the lengths I go to to make each shot of this short awesome.

As a warning bell sounds and the lights go out, the Vehicons stand ready to defend.

I gave the scene a worm's eye viewpoint because I'm trying to impress people with a sense of awe at the giant robots towering over them. That's a trick I learned from my earlier short, Wrath of Megatron.

Another trick I learned is: the best HDRI lighting to use is not always the one that "fits", but it's always the one that looks right. At first I was using an indoor HDRI lighting setup because, well, its INSIDE the ship! But when I experimented with an outdoor HDRI, the whole scene was instantly improved as the lighting looks bluer and therefore more like the lights along the rim of the corridor. Hopefully, in the action-packed shots ahead, the file sizes won't become too large. Thankfully, the next few shots focus on just the Vehicons, and there's one shot that I can probably pull off without importing Optimus, (though this scene is pretty bad, it's around 13k polygons thanks to the two Vehicons). After that, it may take some clever computer swapping to pull this off. 

Ultra Magnus so far...

Also, don't worry, I'm modeling Ultra Magnus as well, right now the hardest part is trying to figure out his transformation. I'll take some time to try and figure it out, and don't forget, most of the short features all four Autobots, so I need Ratchet and Bumblebee to be completed too!

Until then, keep your eyes peeled for the full Vehicon featurette, and more information on the shots.

The Weapon of Optimus Prime

So. Optimus Prime's awesome axe.

In the beginning I was going with a two sided blade, which worked but wasn't really a nod to anything. However, I searched for a few image results to work off of and I got this:

As you can see, I based the axe blade's shape almost entirely on the old G1 axe, and kept the glowing orange, although now it doesn't cover the whole axe.

My axe is designed to fold up, and the handle can extend or retract for two handed or one handed grip, and can reach up to six feet away from Optimus.

When Optimus gets really angry, he can warm the edge of the axe blade up, to help him cut through metal easier.

Be aware that this is not by any means the final design for the axe, which I expect will go through a few more changes before debuting in Scene 3.

First Character Poster Added!

There's a new poster in the Downloads section of this blog... this time it's the first of my "Character Feature" series of posters and depicts Optimus Prime standing in a corridor of the Nemesis. THE corridor, in fact, that shot 004 takes places in. The reason I'm hyping this up is A. you probably wouldn't notice the addition of a poster or a video unless I tell you about it being added, since I add them discreetly on the "Downloads" or "Videos" or "Images" pages, (which you should by the way, check out because there may be a few things you didn't notice were added), and B. this poster actually took an entire day to create. Optimus Prime is 5.4 megabytes, and my poor OSX 10.5.8 system can't handle it. In order to make the image I had to reboot my computer five or six times to get it to reset it's memory. Anyway, about the image itself:

I composited an image of Optimus onto an image of the Nemesis's corridor that I had rendered previously, to save memory. I added various smoke effects and blur, plus some glows to the headlights. A bit of adjusting the brightness and contrast later, and using "Surface Lighting" to create some stronger light colors, (they were in the image originally but were too faint), and I was done!

Here's some trivia for you: I accidentally spelled "than" "then" when I first uploaded the poster. I decided to fix it to "than" right away rather than, (ha ha), wait until tomorrow.

Well, that's my big update of the day. Expect something considerably more exciting in the next few days, because I now have both the Vehicon AND the Nemesis Corridor modeled, and you know what that means...

Hint: Shot 004 can be animated and rendered!

Vehicon Modeled

Yesterday I spent most of the evening finishing up the modeling of a Vehicon. The Vehicons are Decepticon lackeys who all look the same, so it was important for the model to look right, otherwise all the Vehicons would look wrong. Luckily everything seems to be okay with this model, except some limited elbow movement. The car mode is better then the robot mode, as usual.

Nice and compact, just the way I like it. This'll be nice to see on the roads, fighting the Autobots and taking them out with a well-placed missile. Oh yeah, I didn't mention the missiles, did I?

Two missile launchers fold up from the back of the truck mode, pointing behind the car, so that they can be fired and take out enemies sneaking up from behind. You'll also notice two mini-zander cannons can also unfold, which can fire steady bursts of energy at pursuers. I'll have to come up with a cool weapon for these guys to use in robot mode... maybe a spear or something? At any rate, the Vehicons are finished, which means that I can finally finish shot 004, which is the first shot to feature robots in the short, and they are... you guessed it! Vehicons!

During the modeling process I had to remind myself where parts where going sometimes, just in case I forgot. I ended up not needing these notes, but I thought I'd post 'em up here just to show a bit of the work that goes into these things.

Finally, I have this lovely movie to show... it's a Proof of Concept shot of the untransformation, to give myself an idea about what the final battle's cinematic shots will look like. Remember, this shot is a work in progress, and probably won't show up in the final film, so don't use this as a basis upon which to judge all the final animation.

It may be hard to see, but Steve, (that's the Vehicon's unofficial name), fires two missiles near the beginning of the video.

I'm working on a few ideas for the battle sequences as well, but I need to finish modeling all four Autobots, plus getting the first scene done, before I can move on to THAT.

Also, be sure to stop by the Videos page if you haven't already to see Optimus Prime's featurette, or watch the new Vehicon test movie again! (You did watch it, right?)

Videos Page Now Open!

The videos page is now officially open with it's first video— Optimus Prime's featurette!

You can check it out by clicking the image above!