My Contributions
- Leighanne Fernandes
- May 14, 2020
- 4 min read
Here is a detailed list of contributions I have done for the project SPIN OFF which includes my major and minor inputs.
Major Contributions
For my major contributions, I had worked on the modeling and texturing of two important assets - the Wheeled Robot and Turret Spinner.
Wheeled Robot
Since I am specializing in the field of modeling, I did my best this trimester to add a lot of detail to my work especially because hard surface modeling is a little new to me. I have mainly worked on organic sculpts in the past trimesters involving human anatomy but doing something like this was completely new.
I emphasized a lot on the texturing process this trimester as well, and didn't rely on any external software such as Substance Painter for texturing. It took me roughly 3 to 4 weeks to achieve the right textures since I was new to Triplanar texture in VRAY and played a lot with VRAY Blend material. To read more about my texturing process and reflections, head to my blog about texturing progress.
Turntable
Turret Spinner
Even though a spinner model was fairly simple, it was challenging to work on this model as it involved a lot of different objects, therefore requiring different materials to segregate from one another. I even experimented with triplanar textures here but it took me a while to get to this result. Read more about my self-directed learning into texturing here.
Close up renders of the detail I put into the texturing of my assets. I personally feel that these details went unnoticed since it wasn't clearly visible in the angles of the shots for the film. Even though there was a slow motion closeup of the spinner mechanisms, I feel it didn't do justice to the time and effort I put into texturing this.
Turntable
Minor Contributions
I had a lot of minor contributions this trimester towards my project. Since modeling and texturing was my main contribution, all other tasks that I did to enhance the project are listed below with examples.
Concept art
In comparison to the quantity of last trimester's concept art, I only designed the robot models for the current trimester. However, I feel that the conceptualization phase of this trimester was much more intricate and stronger than last due to multiple aspects of the model that needed re-visualization and thought. See below the concept art for the robots.
Storyboarding and Story Concepts
I had to re-storyboard the shots for the film after we came up with a new and improved idea due to the covid-19 situation. Below are my new storyboards from which the current film was based off of.
Rigging
I worked on the rig for my robot and spinner. The robot rig was pretty challenging as I needed to use a mix of a normal IK chain rig and a Mechanical rig for the bottom half of the robot. I even added extra controllers to bring about a sense of personality for my robot. To read more about my robot rig process, head to my blog about Rigging & Animations.
Animating
Animations, even though it is considered a minor contribution, was a large part of our production. I spent over 3 to 4 weeks on the animating, about the same time it took for modeling and texturing (each). I followed the industry standard protocol of blocking the animations first and then smoothing it once it was approved. Due to that, my workflow in animating became more streamlined and I was able to follow the changes through multiple rounds of feedback. Below are a set of animated previews of the shots I did for the film, featuring the robot and spinner.
This shot was composited by my teammate but was done by me in 3Ds max.
Compositing and VFX
Being a trimester that involves the learning of VFX, all my shots were composited by me. I did the lighting, compositing and vfx of a couple of shots. Here are some of the breakdowns and a whole shot (bullet time) done in after effects with green screen and displacement map.
Editing
All the editing material from the making video to the trailers to the actual film were done by me. I took on the initiative to do so and compile all the shots from my team mate and myself as soon as they were being approved so as to finish the work on time.
The Film
Watch the final film here. Changes were made to this after it had been published but has only been submitted (not re-published).
Teaser #1 - Something quick and sketchy.
Teaser #2
Making video
Intro Credits and Motion graphics title sequence
From what we learnt in our very first few classes, I have implemented that learning into creating some dynamic motion graphics for our intro and title sequence. I didn't use any template but was inspired from YouTube Originals to create our intro, while the title sequence was inspired from SHAZAM (2019). All the graphics used in these were done by our collaborator Naya Hachwa from Design.
Intro Sequence done in After Effects
Title sequence done in After effects
Marketing material
Other marketing material was done by me for our YouTube channel. The channel is also handled by me.
YouTube Banner Design
Therefore, these were the contributions from my side towards the project SPIN OFF. I did quite a bit and would have done more if changes were required at such a late stage in production. Overall, I'm satisfied with the effort I put into this project and hope it pays off!
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