3D Workshop -
Walkthrough - Unsolved Mystery Short
These, and other similar considerations, help to guide the Design, Modeling, and Animation process. The other important activity prior to actual Design and Modeling is research. Even if one knows what something looks like, it usually pays off to have research because the mind plays tricks and tends to miss out on details that later on can become important to achieving an intended result. For Jules The Blue-Eyed Robot who appears in “The Unsolved Mystery”, I procured pictures of many kinds of robots and their representations such as factory robots, movie robots, or toy robots. Armed with the story and the research, I took my pencil and started designing the robot I had in mind with an eye towards how I could create the robot in Blender. After making about three or four very varied designs, I settled on a diminutive toy-like figure with a humanoid shape, stubby legs, and hands inspired by old 1950’s robot toys made up completely out of cylinders and ball jointed limbs. I had drawings of the character in various positions that can be expected given the script and the storyboards.
Production Design & Pre-Production Testing For modeling Jules, I only really needed two skills: KNIFE and EXTRUDE. The basic principle is to distill each part of the robot into one of Blender’s basic shapes and then knife or extrude until the right shape is attained. Sometimes it is helpful to have
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a preliminary mesh-like sketch of what is to be expected already in Blender’s environment based on the approved production design. Each cylinder, ball joint, or polygon is a separate mesh. The figure (Fig. 1) below shows each phase of the modeling progress. In every situation, the principle described above is used. The only exception is the mesh for the head which is the only part of Jules to use a SubSurf modifier with Set Smooth to achieve a rounded look.
43 A minor note must be made here about the EMPTY that is located at the hip area. This is simply used as a handle so that I can drag Jules anywhere and flip him about by simply selecting the Empty. Their relationships are: Each Mesh’s parent is the closest Bone by simple parenting. The Armature’s parent is the Empty. One thing I learned prior to making “The Unsolved Mystery” was that a mesh’s final look relied as much on surrounding objects and light as well as its own structure and materials. Below are some of the conditions created for the test render to create the final look of Jules the Blue-Eyed Robot: Copper Material (Head, Hands, Upper Torso, Lower Torso, and Lower Legs): Gun Metal Material (All ball joints, Upper
Fig. 1: Modeling Progress
The figure (Fig. 2) below illustrates the arrangement of the armatures. For mechanical objects, I found it best to parent the individual meshes in Pose Mode with each bone in the Armature. Parenting to the bones this way allows for “simple parenting”. Simple parenting of meshes to bones results in no organic deformations.
Arm, Fingers, Upper Legs, Hip Joints, Shoulder Joints, Waist, and Neck): Set Design: (Sky Dome) Note: Material is
simply White with maximum values of Reflection and Specularity. The Extra Plane (“Reflective Panel”) shown in Pink has the same material and is us used to allow the “horizon” of the Sky Dome to vanish when viewed by the Camera as set. See Fig. 5 next.
Issue 11 | Jul 2007- Mechanical