Pumping Memory [Short MT machinery animation]

Artwork Works in Progress
#1

Dear Fellow-Blenderusers, Heya Guys,

These last few days I’ve been building a piece of machinery for a shortmovie I’m doing for a schoolproject.
I spend about 34 hours so far and have been able to model the machine, and add all the constraints so that you can controll th intire machine by rotating the big pump’s wheel.

Here is a preview of the machine showing the wireframe and animation(BI render to decrease rendertime):

https://youtu.be/KFCq6YviwuM

So to animate the machine you will only have to keyframe a rotation on one object which is a first for me XD so I’m very happy about that. so the animation is controlled all by constraints on rotation and transformation and 1 rig on the pump, which also is controlled by the rotation of this 1 wheel.
http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=44807

One problem that seems to be quite a headache is that some of the objects tend to ‘lagg’ and shake a little on the first frames of the render, I have no idea how this could be solved but I suppose it has something to do with the amount of constraints. in the final animation I’ll just cut-out the first few frames of the sequence to make it disappear.

The machine is only a small piece of the total scene, the animation is for a school project themed: 'Memory" this animation is all about ‘pumping memory’, so I’ll still have to model a brain of some sorts to make the idea behind this machine more clear.

After that I am gonna create cycle-materials, and either place it in a Motion-track or create a animation on it’s own.

All comments and critique are welcome! I always appreciate advice and different perspectives. Feel free to share your thoughts on the project and don’t be afraid to criticize where you think this is needed.

After the project is done the machine will be put on Blendswab for anyone to download and play with.

#2

I was looking for the governor…?

#3

As you mentioned, it glitched a couple of times at the start, but NICE! Looking forward to getting my hand on this model to see the constraints for the gears and stuff…

#4

[This message was edited]

#5

Heya guys, I Spend some more time on the mesh, improving some points I think didn’t look right.
After that I had some more improvements for the rig and constraignts planned,
I changed the chain of constraignts to get out some of the buggs and that worked pretty well.
I also added an empty to control the entire machine, keyframe the empty and you keyframe the entire machine.
This is how it looks now:
http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=45230

After that I started on the materials,
this is how it looks so far:

I might make some more changes to the materials, or experiment with a totally different style all togather.

I will upload the machine to blendswap probably within the next week, but atm our internetconnection is down XD (using my fathers phone to get this post up) so we’re a bit short on bandwith.

All comments and critique are welcome! do not be afraid to give your honest opinion.

Cheers.

#6

Heya guys,

Finally weekend XD that means time to contignue work on the animation.
I created a growing flower that will be used in the animation.
here a quick video:

#7

Hi Ristridyn,

Excellent work on the machinery modelling its looking great. Was it based on a real model or conceptualised yourself? Any chance of posting some of your original concept art or reference images?

Also - I like the growing flowers - what technique did you use to achieve this?

#8

Heya Blendovator,
Thanks for the comment :smiley:
I made the machine on the go, without reference or conceptart.
I just started with modeling that pump and expanded the machine from there. creating shapes and gears where I thought they looked nice. I am very pleased with the model and animation but I’m still working hard on the materials and lighting.

The flower was created using beziercurves and scaling the leaves and such along these curves using curvemodifiers. and by animating the curves as well suing shapekeys and normal keyframing I achieved that effect.

Everything is still in development though XD It might take a few more weeks to get things to look right.
When I’m done though I’ll upload some of the models to Blendswap so they can be downloaded, studied, shared,improved, and reused by others.

Cheers,

#9

Nice work! This is seriously cool :slight_smile:

#10

Heya guys,

Another few days of work, I’m gonna call the mesh, materials and animation done. time to get some scenes rendered out and
edit this short toagther.
I decided to leave out the flowers in the end couse I didn’t think they went well with the machinery.
this is what the machine looks like now:
http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=45760All Comments and critique are as always welcome :wink: Do not be affraif to share your honest oppinion.

Thanks!

#11

And after 5 days of fulltime rendering, day and night with only a few brakes to let my proccesors cool down. a brakedown of the model and animation was finally there :slight_smile:

#12

Love it… except the background…

#13

Thanks 3*D :slight_smile: I didn’t really spend time on the background… it’s just a slightly glossy material reflecting the skytexture and keeping the lighting to shine on the machine from downunder… If You’ve got a good alternative for me I could just replace it and cheat my way around it using an interactive alphamask in the BI compositor ro overlay a different background onto it… .
I always appreciate honest critique thanks :smiley:

#14

DONE!
Thanks for all the comments and critique :slight_smile:

The model is submitted to blendswap, I will share a link with you hen it has been approved :slight_smile:

#15

http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/66794 Blendswap approved it :smiley: