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.

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.