Imaginarium Foundation

We made our first YouTube posting and embedded the video on our public site this week. We will be using YouTube to post video clips from the animatic as we make progress.

The video was of the draft 3D animatic for Scene 9, which is the main scene in the film that gives the audience a peak at the Universe and backstory Dominic’s soap opera is set in. Doing the animatic for this scene involved a wide variety of skills that we will use and perfect this year on the creation of the animatic.

The process started with basic modeling of the sets and props. Next we created the layout of the sets from the angles we expected to shoot, using the storyboards. Then the models were given what blender calls materials but is referred to more widely in the 3D community as texturing. All the materials in this scene were basic and procedural, which means we didn’t map 2D photos on the models to create more detailed textures. Next shots were created by blocking the elements and characters and animating either stuff or the camera as necessary. The scene was broken into 14 shots most of which were animations, a few were jpeg stills. Using the procedure we learned from the Blender Foundation Open Movie Projects, we created a separate Blender file for each shot.

Therefore each shot was rendered as a separate Raw AVI and/or Jpeg. The shots were combined with superimposed text, music and dialog in Blender’s Sequence Editor to test timing a create a draft animatic for the full scene. For this scene we experimented with Halo effects, creating smoke and partical hair.

We hope to post some of the action sequences of 2D animatic previously completed to YouTube in the near future as well.

We have taken a fairly crude approach to developing the elements of our scenes. We model everything. Eric, who seeks a future in game graphics is paving the way for mixing in some image texturing as a less resource intensive way of giving the visual feel of an object without actually modeling it.

For example we modeled three planes and positioned them at various depths to create a Mediavision. Instead of modeling a view screen and drapery around the screen as designed by Christy Sotta, we simply used your original drawings as a texture to fake the modeling for the scene.

Eric is also looking at the UV mapping function in Blender which allows us to unwrap a 3D model into 2D space so we can then draw or paste an image onto it. Its specifically useful for creating some of our puppets where we only plan on one wardrobe and don’t need variation in facial expressions.

At some point soon we will be able show everyone a modeled character versus a “half” modeled character with UV mapping to see the difference.

Check out the new short from the Blender Foundation.

http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/

A couple of weeks ago Jill was working on the first scene located in the Brothus Nightclub. We had a few characters in the scene with partical hair that went crazy when we upgraded to the latest version of Blender. Version 2.46 just came out as a post “Big Buck Bunny,” version of Blender and it has some great advanced features that we are struggling to keep up with and incorporate into the project as appropriate. A complete re-write of the partical system with hair specific features was one of the upgrades, so our character files didn’t know what to do and when we opened them. The entire characters had become giant fuzz balls!

So we promptly made our characters bald to continue with blocking/animating the scene until we have time to get up to speed with the new hair features in Blender.

Jill also had been aching to explore an idea she has been developing for a while for an “signature” opening sequence for Imaginarium Foundation, similar to the “Boy fishing off the moon,” seen in SKG films. So setting the fuzz balls aside, Jill proceeded to sketch out a storyboard for the entire sequence so we could discuss the shots we projected would be needed to realize her vision. The next step Jill completed was creating models for the basic elements in the first few shots. Now she is entrenched in the process of setting up the animation for the first couple of shots. We’ll give you a preview of the sequence once we have shots nailed down.

When Tony was learning to sketch storyboards, he had a particular drawing style for Tigras’s hair that we fondly referred to as the “Helmet.”

So when Wally began creating the 3D puppet model for Tigras last week and asked, “How do I create his hair?” The answer seemed obvious. Make a helmet!

In the spirit of Tony’s stylized character portrayal, Wally modeled blond helmet hair, using a helmet shaped mesh with an image texture of blond hair strands.

As a comparison, here is sample of what we have done when we wanted to get a little more serious about hair.

These are just for fun of course. Since we plan on shooting live action and are only modeling basic characters as place holders, it doesn’t really matter whether we use Helmet Hair or more complex partical system hair strands, for the purposes of our 3D previs animatic.

  Dining table by Tony B.
VG is the acronym the characters in our story use for a popular drug called the Venus Gas.

Tony has been modeling set elements for Michael’s VG lair. Its a large set with various unique props and set dressing. Tony started with created Michael’s rocket propelled hovering Mediavision unit. Last week we created the dining table and chairs. Coming soon is Michael’s VG Tub!

“Coffee pot” racks by Wally and Tony

Most of team is currently modeling the set components for the Special Pregnancy Center where Nolan is created in an incubator we refer to as the “Coffee pot.”  Wally, Tony, Charlie and now Eric each worked on different parts to the set this last week.  Wally was using Blender curve modeling function to create a rack for incubators.  We discovered that the OpenGL graphics used for the realtime editing views will simply quit showing everything if it runs out of system resources.

Half of Wally’s model simply disappeared which sent us into a panic of not understanding why we couldn’t see the whole model, but soon realized that it was there after doing a render which showed the entire object.  A couple of things we took away from this excercise was that curve modeling seems to take more resources then mesh modeling, and that Blender won’t throw up any kind of warning when it’s not getting enough resources.

Tony created a health monitor station and our newest member Eric tackled a digipad.  Stay tuned for an very unique design for a lab microscope by Charlie.

Lab chair by Charlie Yates

Once the models for Brothus’s nightclub were completed the team moved onto modeling the exterior and interior set for a lab.  Our starting point for the models are the production designs done by Ted Gocek, Dave Jenkins and myself.  A new artist on the team Charlie had prior modeling experience and got to work on set pieces.  He soon was asking how to lathe in Blender and the rest of us scratched our heads.  We hadn’t thought of lathing as a modeling technique before although in reading, it’s a fairly common practice.  So Charlie inspired a quest to figure out how to lathe or do something equivalent in Blender.

Up until that point we had been strictly using mesh objects as a modeling primatives, but Charlie’s request demanding figuring out Blender’s curve system.  So we did it!  It turns out that you can create curves and then bevel those curves with another curved shape of your choice. 

The new technique spread through our modest studio like wild fire. Jill was using curves to model a lab bed, Wally was curving and beveling his Embryo chamber rack, oh and Charlie?  Well he lathed himself a 70’s style lab chair.

Of course lathing is only one technique in building 3D models.  Wally also completed the exterior model and Tony made some view screens for the lab.  Like Brothus’s club, we will eventually finish the models and someone will take on the task of assigning materials to apply the color scheme.

Stay tuned for more progress on the Pregnancy Center.