Concepts - Leg Design and Development

Here are some initial silhouettes for the legs design. Following on from the research I did I have experimented with the inverse leg joint to see how they look. I like the middle design because it has a good level of interesting detail with the cogs that will compliment the rest of my design. I also like the difference in thickness between the thigh and calf as this extreme difference will enhance the cartoony appearance of the design as a whole due to the massive body being disproportionate to the legs

Here is some subtle refinement of the leg design. I have chosen the middle because is has the most complimenting features of the three and works better as a design as a whole.

Concepts - Gun Mechanics Test

Here is a quick 2D animation of the gun mechanics from the side:

Here is a test I made in maya:

For the rigging I will be using the connection editor to connect the rotates of each cog. I will need to use multiply and divide nodes in between the connections as the speeds of the cogs will be different. The beginning cog will be the largest, at the elbow and this will be the driver for the whole sequence therefore there will be a nurbs curve controller; orient constrained to this cog so that you can cleanly control the mechanics. The node connections will finish at the gun pole and the actual gun itself will have individual controls giving the freedom to animate all the gun parts however you want.

Concepts - Gun Mechanics

Here I have used the basic arm shape that I have previously designed and used it as a template to design the gun mechanics. Using the big cog in the arm design I have incorporated that into the mechanics that will reveal the gun so that it is now the driving force for the whole system.

Side View:

Front View:

Using the rising centre pole as an additional driver, the side flaps are then able to open up by using this simple cog system.

Concepts - Gun Design and Development

Here are my robot gun designs:

I decided to choose the mini gun one as I think this will be the best suited to my old style mechanical design and also will provide enough parts to make dynamic folding out mechanics.

I have chosen the centre design because it has a nice compact appearance with nice subtle design elements.

Concepts - Arm Designs and Development

Here is the final design for the arm, I have included panels so that the gun will be able to fold out of them. It also has a cog where the elbow is to add a bit of extra interest to the design and could also rotate when the gun flaps move.

Concepts - Head Designs

I have tried out a lot of heads but I think the design I have chosen is the best suited to the body design.

Concepts - Body Development

Concepts - Initial Body Shapes

Here are some initial robot silhouette designs that I have done, I have decided to choose the big round design to develop as I feel this has an interesting shape which will go well as a contrast to the stretchy and more likely thinner other character in my animation.

Research - Materials

Research - Folding Components

To make the animation more interesting I have decided to have a folding gun mechanic involved in the design and possibly other mechanical flaps similar to the iron man suit as seen below.

Research - Mech Robot

Research - Character Exploration

Research - Comedy Shorts

Great Rigging Demo

Here is a fantastic rigging reel by Josh Carey who is a professional rigging supervisor and knows almost all there is about rigging hence the very impressive rigging demo shown below.

After watching this rigging demo I have been inspired to create my own advanced rig which will have a lot of squash and stretch attributes similar to those seen in the video.This will be a challenge however if I can get even slightly close to the level shown here I will be very happy.

Now that I have finished the pre-production for the 'Poseidon Rising' project the next steps will be for me to decide and design the characters I will be modelling, rigging and finally animating.

Storyboard

Scene Animatics

As we have now divided the scenes up between me and the other animator I have now made individual scene animatics to pad out the animation in each scene.

Scene 12: 

Scene 25 Alternative:

Scene 28: 

Scene 30:

Scene 31:

Scene 32:

Final Full Animatic

Here is the final full animatic that I have made so that we have the story and shots ready to start breaking up the specific scene animations up.

Updated Animatic 2

Here is an updated animatic again this time with music and the voice over that we will be using as well. I have also refined some of the movements and shots but still kept some of the scenes that worked from the previous animatic.

Updated Animatic

Here is an updated animatic for the sequence intro. The idea now features a 2D scene (hence the 2D scene title) that George will paint himself and be a flashback to Poseidons past and how he got in the position he is in today with no powers.

For the very first couple of scenes I took reference from the introduction to the movie 'The Shining' which I think has worked out well to set the scene and location of the animation. The final couple of shots where Poseidon steps into the temple is when he starts to get his powers back which is what the blue wisps signifies.

Initial Animatic

First vary basic animatic to get an idea of some shots we could do for the introduction of the sequence.

The intro starts off with the main character Poseidon riding in on his motor bike with some nice close ups of the bike so that we don't reveal his identity. The camera finally pans up as Poseidon takes off his helmet to reveal himself to the audience. He smiles as he looks into the distance at the temple. The final shot being the establishing shot telling the audience that we're at the temple of Poseidon.