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!

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!