Vyacheslav has been an enthusiastic supporter for Lunatics! since our modeling project last Summer. He contributed to the Soyuz interior set model and created the initial model for the Lunar Transportation System lander that we used in our animatic. He’s also been instrumental in providing Russian proof-reading and translations for us. Most of the labels on the Soyuz console were checked by him, and he has helped us with creating Russian subtitles for our teaser/demo, our Kickstarter pitch video, and the entire pilot episode.
Since the plan is for Lunatics! to be a series, rather than a one-off film, we have somewhat more ambitious requirements for making our models reusable for the long term. If we can invest a little more in a better rig or design something to use physics simulation rather than manually animating it, this is a good idea, because there will be a payback every time we reuse that model in a later episode.
We’ve sent out some press releases for the Kickstarter. I’ve also posted an update about the non-photorealisti visual style and how we hope to render our characters in the final production (or at least what some of our options are).
There are several factors we have to balance in coming up with a style of animation and rendering for “Lunatics!” You might think that 3D animators should always try for maximum realism (“photorealism”) when making animation, but this is not necessarily a good idea. First of all, the human eye is extremely good at spotting errors in photorealistic renderings and especially in animation. This is the basis of the problem known as the “uncanny valley effect”: if you have extremely photo-accurate models and renderings of characters, then even the slightest error in movement creates a disturbing “creepy” effect. Such animations are often described as “zombie-like” or “doll-like”. This is because we are very sensitive to tiny differences in the way real people move.
I’m pleased to welcome our new character modeling expert, Bela Szabo (a.k.a. “contmike” in some circles). This puts us back on track for a crowd-funding campaign launching late in this month, if everything goes as I expect.
Sadly, Andrew Pray, who created the character model for “Georgiana Lerner” that we’ve been using in our animations up until now, is no longer with the project. He’s an art student, and is no longer able to commit to the amount of work that the character modeling for “Lunatics!” represents. This is a bit of a blow for me as a producer and for the project. It means we’re going to have to take some time for re-grouping. Certainly we’re going to have to fin someone new to do the character modeling for the project.
Although we’re officially on a short hiatus, I am still doing a little work on weekends, and we have also recently been joined by Chris Kuhn, a very talented mechanical modeling artist who is currently working on the Soyuz launch system which features prominently in our pilot episode. I’ve also had a chance to do some more tests with character models, shading, lighting, and rendering — pictures, links, and video after the fold…
There are a lot of exterior space shot in the 2nd half of the pilot episode, and I decided it would actually be easier to do rough animatics of these in Blender than to sketch them all — and it will certainly look better. So this week I’m doing a lot of quick renderings in Blender. So far it’s going pretty well, although am still a little behind where I hoped I’d be. There’s still a good chance I can get the animatic finished this weekend if “real life” doesn’t get in the way too much!
Three more renderings of components for the “Soyuz-SF” interior set. We are creating this set for our “Teaser Trailer”, which is also an animation test and an opportunity for our modeling team to practice working together on the project. This is the periscope (Soyuz uses a periscope for piloting because the Orbital Module is in front of the Descent Module — from which the pilot flies the spacecraft). ( Flickr Image) Completed main controls for the orbiter (These models are by Cosmin Planchon with display graphics by Timothee Giet). ( Filckr Image )
We have extremely busy working on the Teaser Trailer for “No Children in Space” for the last couple of days and the collaboration seems to be working out. I think we’re all learning a lot and getting the team together. And I want to show you this cool model…
We are pleased to announce our core team of seven very talented artists for modeling, rigging, and animation: Andrew Pray, Cosmin Planchon, Guillaume Côté, Sathish Kumar, Vyacheslav Yastrebcev, Timothée Giet, and Gorka Mendieta. They will be working on the “teaser trailer” for “No Children in Space” and some animation tests, all of which will be released during our Kickstarter campaign (which launches THIS FRIDAY – JULY 20TH – “MOON DAY”).
We’re currently doing five things simultaneously: casting voice actors, reviewing applications for 3D artist internships, finishing our pre-production Kickstart work and rewards, training on the software, and planning for our next Kickstarte which will pay for the production of the pilot episode, “No Children i Space”. Everything is complicated and interlocked, and I am very busy camper. But this is pretty fun, I have to admit!
