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.