Every year, on the robotics team, there is a safety animation competition that we compete in. We are supposed to use 3ds Max…but I just couldn’t…I’m sure I could have if the time permitted, but I was more used to Blender at the time…Oh…and don’t get me wrong here…Blender is DEFINITELY my choice software
Regardless, here is the submission that we came up with! Sorry, but the file is gigantic, so I only uploaded it to youtube 0_o…
We made this in Blender and Adobe After Effects 6.5 Pro. There were three people on our animation team at the time, now we have five. I am the team captain, and it is my job to teach the others how to use the software. Of course, we ran out of time, so I ended up working on a lot of this project 0_o…However my two other team mates deserve credit for helping me model some objects.
Just as a bit of background, the 3d guy is my cartoon modeled version of Dean Kamen(the inventor of the segway and the founder of the F.I.R.S.T Robotics Competition, where we entered this)…we got the basic idea of having a virtual Dean Kamen from the old show Max Headroom…hence…Dean Headroom.
Oh…by the way, the kickoff was in January, and we didn’t win the competition(probably something to do with not following the rules)…but at least we gave it a good shot!
I waited so long to post this because of the rules of the competition…
Nice work. The “demonstrations” in the background were great. As for “Headroom”, there is nothing like mixing cutting edge technology with 1980’s Pepsi commercial references. I am proud to say I survived the Cola wars with only minor PTSD.LOL
Falcron: If its the one I’m thinking of, I think I’ve seen some awesome videos of the Robo One competition! However, our robotics competition involves these game pieces this year haha…
Oh…and the face was done completely with shape keys. The eyes were tracked to two individual empties parented to one main empty(this way I could do individual or dual eye movement if the scenario came up). And the tongue and teeth were a separate object also controlled by shape keys.
DichotomyMatt: Haha…after seeing some old episodes of Max Headroom that my dad had, I almost wish I was alive for that era…unfortunately I’m still only in high school lol…Oh…and thanks about the background animations…I’m glad you liked them! And…we were going to do the whole twitching and stuttering thing from the original Max Headroom, but it ended up looking like he was having a seizure :o.
Ohh, I’m jealous. I’ve been trying to get my team (341) to take the time to learn 3dsm and/or blender for the past few years but nobody other than me seems interested.
Anyway, great anim, definitely one of the better ones I’ve seen in my 4 years with FIRST. I doubt we’d meet at competition, but if you get to the championship, you’ll have my vote when I visit the autodesk booth.
