The Red Kite Characters!!!!!!!!

Comrades,

Its been quite a long time since we have had a chance to show you what we have been up to. Luckily its been worth the wait.

Current Progress you ask? My name is Zeb and my responsibilities lye in the realm of Characters: modeling, texturing, rigging, hair and clothing dynamics, animation, and Recruitment. Our Modeling deadline was just recently so I have 5 of the main characters finished (or nearly) to show you tonight.

So, without further ado, and with promise of fully colored and furry characters around mid August.

Characters:

Maxwell Lostrum





Michael James Chapman



Laura Chapman



Thomas Chapman



Nurse Kate



These are the 5 main characters of the short. Max is a bitter old man. Michael is an 11 year old boy who is sick with cancer. Tom and Laura are his parents. Nurse Kate takes care of both Max and Michael. The story will be left a mystery for now...

Thank you for all of your support and frequent request for updates. I average about 6 hours in zbrush per character. A Rough estimate start to finish for all 5 characters would be around 30 hours per character to model bodies, clothes, and accessories, then unwrap everything, then zbrush. So I have spent roughly 150 hours on these guys so far...

Contour Shader Test on Organic Models

I am finished with the low-polygon versions of Maxwell and now the boy Michael James Chapman. In the next few weeks I will be in ZBrush creating Normal and Displacement maps for all of the above as well as some temporary textures to show off our project in April.

The contour shader I used to render the Wheelchair Turntable unfortunately it doesn't work as well for organic models because of the smooth curves. But it was worth trying. Stay posted.

Wheelchair Model

So one of the main characters in our story is a boy who is sick and confined to a wheelchair. I figured that a wheelchair model would be fairly easy, but took an approach that allowed me to replicate all the details of the fasteners, welding(s), and intricacies that actually make up a wheel chair.

The rendering style is one I have been wanting to experiment with for a while. It is a combo of Mental Ray interior lighting setup, Ambient Occlusion, and a Contour shader to add the Vector Stoke look. Pretty happy with it.





I have no idea what is up with Blogger's compression of video Mine is Quicktime H.264. Will look into it soon.

Maxwell Lostrum Low Poly Fin.

Finally an update right?! Say hello to Maxwell Lostrum. The "Old Man" in the story.

He was very easy to create from my friend Jason Smith's wonderful artwork.

I will post his art if he gives me permission.

My goal is to have Max Z-brushed by March 5th as well as the main boy character. So a lot to come up with!





Note: That his shovel and Hospital gown are also done. Having a bit of an issue with max cloth to shape the hospital gown better. Will switch to Maya for production anyway...

Story Synopsis

All,

Here is our story for the short: There is no need to try to change it for us. But this will give you an idea as to our theme and vision.

This story has been in the works for quite some time on my end, but edited by the whole group. The final scene was written by Ryan Wing. A contributor to this blog and member of our production team.

Our apologies for the length. The short we are hoping to have around 5 minutes.

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Sorry, I've had to remove the story until we're certain about festival rules.

Hello World!

Hi there. How are you doing? I am great because this semester marks a unique beginning for myself and 3 colleagues that will shape our professional careers together.

This project is a 3 semester long, CG short animation. Yes, there will be stereoscopic, yes there will be HD, yes there will be surround sound, and yes it will be legendary.

In the following weeks we will bring you updates, and welcome feedback from those of you inclined to offer thought outside of the normal rhetoric.

Stay tuned shortly for the story synopsis and Concept art. We will keep this blog primarily for production updates and spare everyone the details of the extensive research we are doing into current CG technologies!

SO hold on to your knickers, kick back grab a beer. This is going to be one hell of an experience!