Animatic

With the rig completed and fully functioning i had to wait for a week while Nathan unwrapped all the textures on the models so i could begin work on the animating whilst he then began painting up the textures. i threw together an animatic to aid in the actual animation process as a storyboard and although it was useful we were both pushed for time so i decided not to render the animatic and instead move on to the final animating with the animatic as reference. Here are a few screen shots of the animatic in progress.

University Mellor building scene

 Megazord kicking R2D2

Megazord and Agent interview scene

With the Animatic completed we then had to Get hold of some recording equipment and  a camera to film the actor and the background we would comp into the animation. To do this we had to enlist the aid of our friend Emma Grey from the Media Production course. Emma requisitioned a HD camera, tripod, and some amazingly heavy batteries from the media department and the three of us went on a filming day around stoke. After completing the outside filming we then called in a favor with another friend from the Drama performance and Theater arts Sam Turner our very own Man in black for a spot of green screen acting.

The Joys of Rigging...

After finishing R2D2 i had to then turn my attention towards the Megazord and how i was going to go about rigging it. Rather than use a Rigging script i opted to rig it manually instead. there are a large number of Bipedal rigging scripts out on the internet and although they cut down the time it takes to rig by a significant amount, i prefer to rig each joint individually to make sure there are no kinks that get buried into the rig without me knowing. The following are Screenshots of the Rig, the Mesh and the Final Fully Rigged and skinned Megazord.

 The Mesh is on the Left and the Rig on the right

 perspective view of the above image

The Megazord having a go at the moon walk, The bulky mesh makes it harder to do the precise movements which we take for granted.

With the rigging checked off the next task for me involves creating an Animatic or a kind of moving storyboard which will make up the foundation of he final Animation.

R2D2

Another modeling job i got given was to model an R2D2 for a short scene in the animation where he gets into a falling out with the Megazord (to put it mildly) Currently im having a few issues with the textured of R2D2 in which the textures dont seem to want to stay where i put them, also i seem to be having a clipping issue on the model itself. This issue appears to be linked with camera settings and i think i have found a solution which involves importing the whole mesh into another scene.

                                        a few of the panels on the chassis still need some work

Warehouse

With our new plan set in motion myself and Nathan split the revised tasks up between ourselves. Nathan got cracking with the Unwrapping of the models so they could be textured accurately. I was tasked with modeling an interior warehouse scene for the final credit roll of the animation. The hardest part of the scene was the conveyor belts with which the Megazord will be interacting. At first i wasn't sure how i would even begin to make the conveyor belts but after a bit of a search on Google i found a few very useful tutorials.

 

                                          both the conveyor belts fully rigged and ready to go

                                                                The warehouse floor

The Megazord gets a job

Our rebooted designs for the animation now center around the megazord a while after his career with the power rangers is over and it gives a humorus insight into the rough patch of the megazords life while he was out of work and rock bottom. The animation begins with the megazord transformation being played, which then szooms out into t reveal a TV. It zooms out further to show that the TV is on a desk positioned outside, right near a werehouse. The megazord is sat on the werehouse being interviewed for a job by a normal size human. the interviewer begins to ask questions regard the megazords past work experience etc. The megazord then proceeds to lie about his past to the interview and when doing so the camera cuts to memories the megazord would rather forget. E/g proping himself up against big ben whilst he urinates up against the houses of parliment while drunk, booting R2D2 into orbit after a falling out and standing in line at the job center waiting for his dole money. eventually the megazord gets the job and as the credits run you see the megazord sitting in a factors whilst he picks up cars from one conveyor belt, sticking number plates onto them, then placing them on a parallel conveyor belt moving in the opposite direction. this action continues for the entierity of the credits. the joke here being that the interviewer is making it out like the megazord will be getting a job in the millitary but instead he ends up working at a car factory. hard times for the megazord.

Disaster

After much discussion with our university tutors myself and nathan realised that by just doing an animation entierly as a piece of homage to the Megazord would be a bad idea. We then proceeded to sit down and rethink our entire project. All was not lost however as we managed to salvage three out of the four Zords and the project has now become significantly easier in the long run regardless of the disheartening setback.

T-Rex

After much discussion about the direction of the T-Rex we eventually decided to scrap the original model and go back to the drawing boards. Nathan began drawing up different designs which incorporated different methods of transformation for the T-Rex zord so we could experiment with how it would combine with the others.

                                                                  Nathans Design

           Original Toy

As you can tell from comparing the two images above, Nathans radical re-design is both more effective in terms of combat efficiency if the T-Rex Zord were real and also infinitely more stylish. He also embedded a biological feel to the Zord by adding in artificial muscle mass.

                                                              T-Rex Zord Mesh