Blog Contribution

http://underlordstudios.blogspot.com/search/label/Chris%20Rogers

Plane portion of our final movie

Underlord Studios Title Animation

             

Subway Tunnel

Subway

Alley - Two seperate scenes

First Alley Scene

This is where the shadows will form up the wall showing the dumping of the waste.

Second Alley Scene

This is where the centipede will walk past.

The Top of the Empire State Building

I have modelled the top of the Empire State building separately with more detail because we will use it in a close up shot.

Street Update

SO i'm nearly finished on modelling this street, it was taking a lot long than I thought I went with a lazy idea of copy and pasting most of the building but in a different order to show varity.

I'm happy with how it looks, I'm not bothered about the uv's for the moment because most of them wont be used. The ones that will be used will be sorted out first.

To save time I will model the subway station entrance in this scene so I can used to building around it.

The next steps for me is to add accessories like lamps, mail boxes, etc... Apply the shaders, Render it all and then create matte paintings to extend the background.

Update on the street

Soooo... Many. UVs!!!..... I mean YAY UVS!!!!!

This has taken a lot longer than first anticipated, however this was the most detailed room and all the props inside the room will be used to flesh out the other sets, e.g the General's office.

Science Room update

Almost there with the modelling, just a couple of things left to flesh out the place. I'm really liking this! The room is very busy and well arranged. My only issue at the moment is, does is look like a scientist's room or an office? Maybe I will look for some objects to add to bring it back and make it look more scientific. However if this gets the greenlight then.... woop :D

Science Room - Improvements and Developments

I felt the large window wasn't working so I cut it down to two small versions either side of a wall and I think it looks a lot better. Curtains will be added in time. I have added a couple of lamps and frames to flesh out the decor.

Science Room

For the lab room I looked at the science room in "The Deadly Mantis".

So its just a Lab in a terrace like house and thats what I have kept in mind whilst doing it.

Group Work - Modeling the Environments

Just to catch up on the week, I have taken control of the environment modelling and started with the Empire State Building.

And then added style to it.

General's Office - A lot of work needed

And finally the mainframe for the Science lab.

Character Design

Theres been a small demand for designs of the centipede and here they are:

I really like this design because it looks so fierce and powerful, it is also a mutation look of the original centipede. I wanted to colour and then saturate the image to show what it would look like in the final black and white effected animation.

This design is more eye pleasing for me because of that powerful neck and extreme pincers. This has been designed closer to the actual centipede.

Resent blog uploaded to the group blog - Finding the Right Centipede or Millipede

My job for the weekend was to find specific Centipedes or Millipedes that we could use in the trailer. Alan suggested that I look for the creepiest or the strangest, so I looked around to see what I could find.

Whilst looking, I've come across an interesting bio on Centipedes. It gives a description of Centipedes as a whole and their behaviours and hunting patterns. This will come in handy when designing and animating the the creature.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/414.shtml

The site explains that the Centipedes (Although meaning "A hundred Legs") in fact only have around 30 and the legs arrange in segments. There are also legs at the front that acts like a jaw and vertical legs at the back that act like senses to help them go backwards. Their common prey involves insects, spiders and other centipedes and they're also venomous.
What I already knew was they are harmed by harsh heat so they have to keep moist and out of the sun. Although I didn't know that they were nocturnal.




Giant African Millipede

This following Millipede is gorgeous and creepy at the same time. I like the smoothed shape of the creature and the almost innocence of it. Although the Millipedes are perfect candidates for the trailer, I believe the amaount of legs could lead to very difficult problems. For example this species of Millipede can have up to 400 legs; which is 2 legs of either side of each segment.





Back to Centipedes

I found a very interesting Centipede called the "Scolopendra Gigantea"; its venomous, it looks very creepy but with beautiful colours, its legs are long and a separate colour from the body (a venomous yellow) and its extremely fast and agile.

                            

Narrative - Idea Process

The last couple of days the group have be tossing ideas to one another and hitting them back with much needed feedback to develop those ideas. Those ideas have all been up in the air and they consist of things like, what if this happened here, what if we enlarged this and made it attack this place or what is it that comes from the centre of the earth that comes up. So far they didn’t have any solid grounds because by the time we all liked something, we’d follow on from that with something that has reminded us, and we would forget all about the idea.


Originally my initial ideas were the following:

IDEA 1 – To have the planet as a living “Brain or control network” and give it the ability to control the crude oil that has been taken from it by man, which in essences is being used and destroying the planet with the waste. Crude oil is used everywhere, everything from the petrol in cars to the gas in on the stove. I thought it would be cool from the planet to control this to destroy man and return the planet to its original stat in time. If we were to set this in the Second World War period, we could use the old war planes and maybe turn the war into a man vs. machine war, (Too much like Terminator? Okay). However if the time period was in the future, then Daniel’s Plane a day project that he did over the summer would be able to play a beautiful part in the designs and development. I think B-Movie mixed with a Sci-fi genre would look really nice with this idea.

IDEA 2 – There’s a sudden earthquake in our location that causes a giant crack in the ground. The crack unlocks a chamber that holds a giant monster of some kind that has been locked away for thousands or millions of years. With that much time with yourself as company, you’re going to want to get out there and make an impression. So this creature rises to the surface and causes destruction. The creature could be Plant-based, Animal-based, Element-based or perhaps a mix of all three.

IDEA 3 – This idea came about while I was watching “War of the Worlds – the remake” and is the reason from the idea. The link with the film is that there’s something buried underground (possible in the very centre and it’s what the earth was formed around). Then alien life forms come down to retrieve it up from the ground and destroy. (Okay it’s pretty much exactly like the film, maybe I was watching it a bit too closely). But perhaps we could make it a bit more horror and B-movie like than what the film is like, although that’s more like the original. – I think it’s safe to say that this idea wasn’t going to get much attention....

IDEA 4 – This idea is like the first idea, but instead of the planet controlling the crude oil, it controls the nature. I think the idea of the trees attacking the buildings to knock them down, or the vines and other plant life, pulling a car to pieces. Then the animals can come in and once again attack man (this would be like the birds but on an extreme level!!)

IDEA 5 – This idea starts off with a group of humans searching a new cave, and via some wrong turn, or fall or something, they awaken a creature that has been down in the cave for a long time. Then that creature comes onto the surface and wreaks havoc. This idea once again would be a B-movie approach with either sci-fi or horror genre or possibly both.

Sum up of the ideas

What I noticed with the ideas that I initially started with, is that I definitely prefer the B-movie approach; I think that it could be a very interesting way to go. I also seem to favour the destruction of man and Earth having its revenge for what we have done to it in some form of way. I knew that these ideas were only my own and wanted to hear what the others had so we could determine a cross reference or a link or a new idea completely.

Kolade and Daniels ideas were really good, they were diverse some were well thought about. Kolade had a beautiful idea about an army of Golden Ants, Daniel had ideas about an evil genius’ base in the centre of the earth and it’s that character that causes destruction. We had plenty more ideas together as well, but as I said, they were all in the air waiting to be served.

However, we had a chat with Alan, and he helped us cement some things down for us in terms of where to go with these ideas. He depicted that most of the ideas sounded like they were more in the sci-fi genre, with a little horror thrown in. He also pointed out that the ideas were leaning more to the B-movie approach. He made us all realise as well that a giant beast of some kind destroying some sort of city or location, could look very interesting. Alan gave us some ideas on how to make it look like a B-movie, with his ideas of having a slight shake from the set, or make sure the creature looks like a puppet and show the strings that control it.

This meeting seemed to be all we needed to really get cracking because great ideas started to flow and were eventually set in stone. We all agreed that there should be a creature destroying a famous landmark in America because as Daniel pointed out, America is the only place B-movies are made in or set in. The two locations we came up with was the Hollywood sign and LA or New York City. We decided New York City would be the best location because of the water that surrounds it; it gives us a wider range of story positional.

So that’s all agreed on, next thing we wanted to come up with was the “What if” situation. Basically, how did the creature become the size it did? Where did it come from? Etc. The idea that kept cropping up was nuclear waste dump into the water and infection this creature in it normal stat. There was also an idea of an evil scientist dumping some chemicals to create something on purpose.

However, are titles is “Invasion from the centre of the Earth”, so we need to have something coming up. This lead to an idea of having an earthquake or general crack in the ground that infects something down there and its mutated self comes back up. Then bang we have our monster.



We set ourselves a to-do-list to do for Monday, which was all of us create some ideas of what the creature could be and come up with a some sort of plot that we could put with what we already have. This will include finalising the “What if”. As well as this I will be setting my own task of watching some more B-movie films because my knowledge of them is weaker than in could be, plus it could spark ideas.

So it begins.... Again..

So finally I’m back after a very long summer, fully refreshed and anxious to get developing. I have received my briefs for the next 10-15 weeks and it sounds like it’s going to be a hectic and commanding process. However I’m highly looking forward to that process and I’m excited about the new paths I’m going down.

The first brief I got was on Monday; the brief puts me in a group of three people, consisting of Daniel and Kolade, which I haven’t had the pleasure of working to closely with before this project. The project asks us to create a 1 minute 30 second trailer or teaser for the title we we’re given at the briefing.

The title we got was, “Invasion from the centre of the Earth”, which instantly screams out excitement and there are hundreds of different directions we could take on this. As an added bonus to the project we have to create the trailer in one of three specific approaches, and they are: “One foot in the past, One foot in the future”, “B-movie” and “The long lost film”. We also have fixed genres to pick from: Sci-fi, Horror and Film Noir. We could use one of these genres or combine two of them.

We’ve already got together and discussed a couple of ideas, which will be posted in my next blog post and on our group blog “UnderlordStudios”

In the second briefing I met an artist from Walt Disney Studios, Justin Wyatt, who has over 18 years of experience to share over a 10 week period. It was very exciting to start learning the trick of the trade that he knows. The brief asks me to create a Hero, a Villain and a Sidekick in a mash up of genres. The genres I got were “Western” and “Alien”. These characters will the three main characters of rebooted Saturday eighties cartoon. Whilst creating the characters, I will be creating a Animation Bible that will consist of development, expression sheet and the general thought process of those characters. I’m really excited about this project because I think that Character design is an area I lack skill in, so it would be awesome if I could get some amazing tips and skills to help me in the future.

In the briefing we all had to create a mash up of two different genres, this time I got “Super” and “Cheerleader”. I was really happy with my first drawing, I thought I shouted out Cheerleader in a stereotypical way (long flowing hair, large breast and beautiful). I was also proud of the proportions and quality of the drawing. However Justin pointed out that although it’s defiantly a cheerleader, It doesn’t shout out “SUPER”.

So I had another crack at it, I knew that I had the cheerleader design in front of me, all I had to do was put her in such a position that it became clear that she had some sort of super power. So I came up with this, which pleased Justin and I much more because it screams out both genres.

 For 10 minutes at the end I had the opportunity to be given two more genres, this time I got “Goblin” and “Clown”, Instantly the following drawing came to mind, so I got it down as quick as possible. However when I was drawing, I was only thinking of putting a coloured wig and big red lips on a goblin two make the mash up. I thought this was strong enough, so I gave him a bike. However thinking about it now, I should have drawn the bike much smaller to make it more clown like and funnier, But that’s the ways of development. 

So I’m going to go and have a brainstorm and draw like crazy! It’s good to be back!!