MDDN 241: Slight Story Change

I have altered my story a bit so that it makes more sense. Now, rather than having a portable speaker based character that is plugged into a wall constantly, my character will wake up after being fully charged, unplug himself from the wall and go about his business.

-My character will start out very playful and energetic, and excited to play now the he has woken up.
-He will go around the desk playing with different objects he finds along the way.
-As time goes on, his battery will start to lose charge, and he will get more sluggish and slow.
-He will ignore this as he is having to much fun to worry about his battery power levels.
-The battery will get to critical charge, and he realise he needs to start charging up again ASAP
-At this point he will realise how far away from the charger he has travelled, and will begin to sprint towards it, getting slower and slower as he goes.
-He will almost reach it, but will power down just before he actually gets to it.

MDDN 241: Modelling Progress

Here are a few screenshots of the modelling work I have been doing over the last week or so.

The basic body shape of my character. He will not have the cord attached in the final render, a light indicating battery life will replace this.

The leg in it's near-completion stage. It's just missing a few of the minor details, such as the 'cap' on the bottom of the foot, and some extra nuts and bolts.

MDDN 241: Brief Story Outline

A basic outline of my story:

-Creature powers up/turns on (is plugged into wall and sitting on a desk).
-Creature notices a round-ish object (Marble?) on the desk nearby, and goes over to investigate.
-Creature plays around with object, and it rolls just out of his reach.
-Creature tries to reach it but can't.
-Creature struggles to reach it, and pulls at cord etc. 
-Creature finally manages to reach object, but pulls cord out at the same times as he gets it, so he 'dies'.

The End.

MDDN 241: Material Changes

I have switched my material for my animation from a pc computer case/tower to a "Bassburger" portable speaker.

I have switched because I think the shape and materiality of them (including the ability to condense them down) will make for a more interesting creature for my animation. The compressing action of them will also make the movement of my creature look more effective.

MDDN 241: Project 2 Character Concepts

Material: Computer case/tower

Plastic with glowing/neon lights.

Motion: Pogo/Jumping Boots

Bouncing motion.

Meaning: Playstation Controller

Playing/Playful

MDDN 241: Poster

I took inspiration from Damien Hirst for my animation, which shows through in the final form in my video as his work often shows us what we can't see, which is not always something we expect. He shows the inner workings of animals, and what makes them 'tick'.

MDDN 241:Sound Effects

Here is a list of the sound effects I used in my video. All sounds are free to use, and are from freesound.org or jameno.com.

Swoosh

Ticking

Winding

Thud

Music- The Lost Battle

Ambient sound- Sorn

Note- Some sounds have been shortened or had the pitch altered.

MDDN 241: Rockwork

This is my final video for the first project in MDDN 241.



The music track at the start: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/952488/the-lost-battle 
The ambient sound during the rock transformation: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/686233/sorn 
All other sounds were found at freesound.org, or created by me.

MDDN 241: Render Without Sound

This is my final rendered animation, minus the sound as I am still sorting that part out. I am looking for ticking and cracking sounds, as well as some ambient background sound for the first part with the bubble.

MDDN 241: 3 Point Lighting Setup Render.

This is a render of my rock and gears with a 3 point lighting setup. I quite like the way this is turning out, with the reflections of the HDRI map on the plane/ground.

MDDN 241: Slight Change of Plans

I have chosen to only put clockwork in one half of the rock as having them in both halves will drastically increase animation and render times. This way I will be able to include more detail in the half I am putting cogs in, and I will be able to make it look more detailed.

I have extruded the other half of the rock down more, so that it doesn't look like a random empty space.

MDDN 241: Bubble to Rock Transfomation

A test render of the transformation between the bubble and the rock.

MDDN 241: Spinning Cogs Playblast

This is a playblast/render of my animated cogs. I animated each cog independently so that they all spin at different times, and the connected ones spin like actual cogs do (in time with each other, but in different directions).

MDDN 241: Refining Colour

 I have been refining the colours of the cogs/gears for my final render. I have one with the the Chrome and copper Mai Material X shaders, with some tweaks to the glossiness, reflectivity and colours to make them seem as gold and silver-like as possible. 

(I was also having problems with the layout of these images on blogger, which is why they are all over the place)

MDDN 241: Setting up Rock

I have cut my rock in half to accommodate the cogs. I also extruded the edges inwards to make them thicker.

MDDN 241: Like Clockwork

I have started arranging my cogs and gears for my final animation, as well as pieces of metal to go with them.

I have also rendered them out with the Mia Material x copper and chrome shaders, which will need some fine tuning to get to the right colours.

MDDN 241: Mudbox Sculpting

I sculpted my rock out of a sphere in mudbox using The scrape, imprint, spray and sculpt tools, and the painting tools in the program to create my final rock texture.