Trailer Project

Working on a story idea…thought a fake movie trailer would be fun.

[most recent update]


Made some progress…slowly. First model was really a stand in for what I had originally envisioned. I wasn’t satisfied and so have tried again. While it lacks the scale of the first model, it captures what I had in mind a little better. Will finish it up before dropping it into the environment.

Thoughts?




Been working on textures for this thing. First time I’ve ever felt like I’m finally handling them right and making progress although I’ve got lots of room to improve.
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Finished texturing this thing. Dropped it into environment and took a couple different render angles. Which angle looks best do you think? Other C&C welcome, too, of course…




Latest update includes some landscape work as well as the addition of a sandcycle…or something like that. Moving on or I’ll never make any progress on this thing…





C&C welcome.

Mostly lighting and material work…starting some animation tests. Long way to go.




Most recent work. C&C welcome. Also, does anyone know the best way to proceed with rigging a shoulder holster type rig? Don’t know how best to approach that…will want to be able to make subtle movements of “accessories” during character movement.


Hey, Jdhover, that’s an interesting project!

Looking through your posts I have some questions. The whole trailer will be situated in an extraterrestrial desert environment? The surface and the unearthly atmosphere suggest that. And the large vehicle looks like something made for mining? It has a strong industrial appearance.

The sandcycle looks strange to me. It’s has an organic shape and obviously some chains to move forward and something like a seat. That could be interesting. But honestly neither the shape nor the materials really read as a vehicle at the moment. It does look more like a skeleton of a dead extraterrestrial animal in the desert.

Keep it up.

Thanks for the feedback, Minoribus!

Yes, the setting of the story I have in mind is on an extraterrestrial desert planet. There will be interiors of ships too, maybe some shots from space. Also, the large vehicle is a mining vehicle…I’m calling it a crawler, for lack of a better name at the moment. I used the launchpad/crawler of the space shuttle program as a reference for modeling. So, your feedback lets me know that at least I’ve got the “feel” right for the crawler.

Your comments on the sandcycle are spot on too…my wife and daughter both said the same thing…that it looked like a skeleton or creature of some kind instead of a machine. So…with your confirmation of what they said, I guess I’d better revisit the modeling of the sandcycle. It is driven by a single tread/track and I like that idea, so I’ll probably stick with that…the seat too. But the rest will have to be reworked, I think.

Thanks for the comments and feedback! It helps a lot!

Most recent update to the sandcycle model…trying to move away from the organic look/feel it had before.


Working on another scene for the trailer. A bit of variety…


C&C welcome.

A little scene work…hopefully will get a chance to do some more this wkend…


The sandcycle looks much more like a technical vehicle. The starship has a bit of a star trek touch in my eyes, which is also nice. Regarding the camp I ask myself if the inhabitants wouldn’t add some color there? Perhaps some paint job for the portable building?

Minoribus, you are correct. It needs some color. I think I’m trending that way on all the objects for this project…will have to revisit some of the textures. Part of my problem now is with all the colors being washed out by my world/lighting settings.

For example, the tall, cylindrical objects (water towers) have been given a bluish material with the white stripe around them. However, here they look…well, the same color as everything else.

Any tips from anyone on how to correct this? (I’m using BI for everything).

Attachments


The latest addition to this project…a copperhead skiff. Not completely done but it’s a start. The modeling is a little thrown together, texturing too for that matter. But I’m trying to get most of the elements I need done and then I’ll go back and tweak the details that bother me the most.


Hi, jdover, that’s a good start of the skiff. Because you said that many aspects of modelling and texturing are only placeholders at the moment it’s hard to comment on this stage.

But I have some questions. Will it be closed? Or do you plan to keep it open? Will it drive on sand, on water, through the air? Each of this elements would add some additional requirements for the shape, I think.

Hey Minoribus. I’m planning on covering the skiff with a tarp, just to block the sun for the passengers. The vehicle will hover over sand (much like the speeder from Star Wars). Something like this:


Still got to tweak the cloth sim/soft body sim to “relax” the canopy, then do some treatment of the edges. I plan on trying a series of wave modifiers or maybe shapekeys to make it “flutter” during movement for the animation…but I’m not sure the best approach to take. Any ideas/experience on how best to achieve that effect?

The cloth is a good idea!

I’ve never experimented with it, but after a quick test I’m sure you could use wind, vertex pinning for the cloth and collision for the effect during the movement. The cloth should be pinned where it is connected to the support structure. You will have to create a vertex group for this. Have a look into this little tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gARJxEDzg6k

I tried a couple quick tests with the wind and pinned vertex group. I like it. Substantially better than the wave modifiers I had in place before. Thanks for the link to the tut, too. Especially helpful was the explanation of where to place the subdiv mod in the stack (below the cloth sim). My old machine will still have to churn it’s wheels pretty hard to bake out the dynamics w/ the wind but I think the end result will be much better.

I like the big tank crawler thing… I did something like that way back in the day… you should check out my old film “Rocketmen Vs Robots 3” on youtube: