3D Animation - Bender and the Devil Robot: April 2014

The lighting source for the scenes is called - Sky lights, I chose this because it gives equal shade of light over the set.

Storyboard 1 – panel 1:

In this scene it shows an introduction of the video with a simple static shot of bender casually walking down the public path minding his own business, he enters the camera shot from the distance and then walks off the set to the left.

Bender for this scene uses the motion animation build in walk because trying to manually create a walk would not work, the leg rig piece did not respond to the rotate tool, so i went back to the build in walk, which gives bender a nice casual strut.

Compared to storyboard, everything has stayed the same.

Storyboard 1 – panel 2:

This scene then shows a camera pan as it follows bender as he walks along the path, whist still keeping the same camera angle.

Compared to the storyboard, originally the camera was meant to be much closer to benders head and body, but I decided to with draw the camera back to allow more of the scenery to be seen and doing this allows the camera to have more movement going around as shown in the screen shot a canopy of a building, leading the camera to create more perceptive of benders walk, i.e. the camera slowly goes up and over the canopy and comes back down to see bender.

Storyboard 1 – panel 3:

In this scene, bender is surprised to hear a noise, where he quickly tries to find out where it came from.

In the storyboard, originally the camera shot was meant to be of a front view of bender, but this was changed to an angle view because in my perceptive, an angle view worked better to show off benders movements.

Storyboard 1 – panel 4:

A dramatic camera pan into bender, as bender's eyes zoom in to find the cause of the unusual noise.

Compared to the storyboard, the shot was originally meant to be side on to emphasize his eyes coming out, but i changing this to an angle view and it still allows the audience to see his eyes come out, but it also allows me to add the dramatic pan, which came to mind after placing the new camera angle, for a better affect, and i feel this works well.

Storyboard 1 – panel 5:

In this scene the devil robot is introduced and shows the devil robot laughing, then towards the end he spots bender and deviously waves at him.

Compared to the storyboard originally this is the scene where the devil robot would start to throw bombs but i changing the scene to him just laughing and waving at bender to cover for the fact that he was throwing bombs before and bender has heard him and it makes more sense because it explains the noise bender heard earlier was a bomb going off and this scene shows the devil robot having fun then noticing benders there.

Storyboard 1 – panel 6:

His scene like benders previous scene offers a pan towards bender, before he looks worried.

Compared to the storyboard - this scene would not have a pan, it was added for more visual effect, also at the end of this scene bender is meant to run off set, but this was changed because i changed the next scene which in my opinion worked better, changing this scene to work with the next scene is better as well and worked out fine.

Storyboard 2 – panel 1:

Noticing the devil robot's mischief, bender sneaks towards his building and tries to reach the devil robot by surprising him in a window cleaners lift.

Compared to the storyboard, this scene changed a lot, from its camera angle to bender's actions, originally it was noted that bender wasted no time running to the lift, but with the position of the camera angle as shown in the screen shot above and the one in the storyboard which is like an over his shoulder shot, bender running did not work so well showing it off with the camera, so changing bender's run cycle to a sneak walk from the motion editor, the camera is set up perfectly to capture bender's actions.

Also changing bender's actions from a run to a sneak works better because its showing that if the devil robot can't hear him or see him coming he can have the element of surprise and as the last shots shows that if the devil robot can see him he does not want him to run, he has other ideas and his actions show this.

Storyboard 2 – panel 2:

After sneaking, bender then takes control over the operation of the lift and presses the control button.

Compared to the storyboard, he originally was just meant to disappear out of shot of the camera, this scene where he presses the control button was meant to be in the last scene, but i thought if this scene was him who presses the controls it has its own scene.

This scene also does not show bender leaving the scene like in the storyboard trying to move the rig when its in animation mode up or in any straight direction, does not work, the rig will have none of it, I do not know why, but its either you have the character in animation mode and move his rig pieces as such or don't then key frame his rig base to make him move together up or in a straight direction etc.
the camera angle was changed to an angle view because I found the angled camera views gives off more of the characters actions than a straight on view.

Storyboard 2 – panel 3:

Not noticing benders actions the devil robot reaches behind him and grabs another bomb and throws it at the camera to transition to the next scene - the idea of the bomb being thrown at the camera to transition to the next scene was a sudden idea that came to me when animating his arm movements.

originally this scene was going to have a camera shot like the previous devil robot scene, but coming up with the idea of the devil robot throwing the bomb at the camera i scrapped that idea and went with the idea of the camera being a distance away from him to allow the bomb to travel towards the camera it would be to far, still keeping the rig angle shot like last time, it still high lights the devil robots actions and that he is on a tall building.

Originally in the storyboard he never reached behind him to grab a bomb because in the storyboard scene the scene would open up with it already in his hand and then he throws it, before hearing the lift coming up, but i changed it because i wanted to show where he is getting them from.

Storyboard 2 – panel 5:

A scene showing bender waiting impatiently as the lift slowly crawls up the building.

This scene did not changed much, the only change is that originally bender would have his arms against his body looking up ready to give some justice, but this was changed because knowing benders personality, he would be growing impatient waiting and would probably have his arms crossed waiting and turning his head, trying to pass the time.

Storyboard 2 – panel 6:

Nearing the top bender still turning his head, maybe thinking of how he can stop the devil robot because knowing bender he does not think things through with a plan.

Apart from a slight change of the camera angle the biggest change is that there is no devil robot hand and arm coming in to grab bender, this is because of the devil robots rig piece not responding how I would have liked, so I removed it and the next scene will explain how he gets from here into the devil robots clutches.

Storyboard 3 – panel 1:

Knowing all along that bender would try and stop him, the devil robot is there waiting at the top ready to grab bender off the lift.

Like the other scene not much has changed apart from an appearance from bender because of key frame annoyances and arm length limitations without distorting, bender could not be shown because the scene would not look as i envisioned it in the storyboard.

Storyboard 3 – panel 2 – adds in panel 5:

But with the absents of bender in the last scene this makes up for it and shows what failed in the last scene, bender being lifted up by the devil robot, but with camera placement issues, the devil robot got in the way of the camera, so he was removed and i kept only his arm.

Also from his point on, the storyboard and what i have created slowly change completely to show a different ending.

This scene shows bender now caught panicking, looking left and right, then he suddenly looks cross as he has fought of a way to beat the devil robot.

Originally in the storyboard, the actions of bender panicking and looking cross were two separate scenes but i decided to put them together because it worked really well and removed some unnecessary scene.

Storyboard 3 – panel 4 – 6:

As bender is thinking of a plan, the devil robot is silently deciding what to do with him.

Like the pelvis scene this scene was created as one segment to have the devil robots at once removing and flicking back between short scenes of bender and the devil robot, with a new camera angle instead of the storyboards camera angle view, the devil robot is now close up and menacing towards the viewer.

Storyboard 3 – panel 6:

With a slight camera perspective change from behind the devil robot to the front, one of benders legs falls off, but unknown to the devil robot, bender has a nasty surprise for him.

Storyboard 4 – panel 1:

Exactly like the storyboard, benders leg moves behind the devil robot and kicks him from behind.

Storyboard 4 – panel 2:

A close up on the devil robots face, I had some fun, with creating the shocked devil robot expressions, opening up the grouped head in the group drop down menu, you can animate the eyes etc, so without creating eye constraints for my characters I have been making the eyes move for bender and the devil robot with this grouped method, open up a grouped object, get inside, select the objects you want to key frame, close the grouped object and the eyes etc, will move.

Creating a also cartoon like eye popping expression, it adds to the humor of the situation and video.

Storyboard 4 – panel 3:

As stated above, the ending was changed completely, due to how the storyboard ending not being doable or doing it and not liking it, i created this different ending where being hit by benders foot sends the devil robot flying over bender who know has fallen over on his back, bender foot sets back down on the floor as the devil robot disappears off set and bender sees the whole scene unfold.

Storyboard 4 – panel 5:

With the last scene, as the devil robot is flying, the last scene was decided to end on a first person perceptive of the devil robot falling off the building to his doom, originally there was going to be a small ending scene where the devil robot survived by holding onto a construction beam half away down the building, but i removed this as it was not needed for this ending.

But as horrific as the ending is, the video will feature at the end, a stated saying:

NO ROBOTS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS VIDEO:

After the results of the mesh and rig being combined last time, where I separately connected benders mesh pieces to their corresponding rig pieces and the other method where benders pieces were selected together.

But the solution to the problem was that benders pieces had to be grouped as one, then the rig would respond to the mesh, even though linking the pieces is like the process of grouping, you would think linking the pieces would work as well, but it did not.

So grouping benders body pieces together as shown in the screen shots above and below came out really well with the rig mostly sticking to the mesh without creating too many disorientation.

Note: as i have gone with choosing robot characters and like benders design, skinning does not help with their design basis, i.e. benders body must not move or twist extra, but luckily with the rig envelopes, i have manipulated the envelopes so bender and the devil robot non movable part don't wrap too much.

Benders head however was not grouped with his body, because of benders design where he has no neck like the devil robot, his head was linked to the rig head piece to allow him to free rotate his head 360 degrees.

Performing benders stress test with the IK settings, to allow his legs to bend up, but unfortunately due to his design, his legs can't be rotated up because of how his pelvis is stuck in his body, without distorting him, bending the legs up to the extreme is not needed.

Another stress test to how far bender can bend, again because of his design, he does not get much movement, if anything his head rotating and arms are the most he can move, apart from the walk cycle, then his legs can run, walk etc.

As discussed above, i modified the envelopes in benders non movable body, so when he walks his body does not wrap or twist.

Screen shots showing the devil robot and bender's finger stress test to see if they can grip and bend there fingers.

Like Bender, the devil robot's body was grouped and unlike bender as the devil robot is designed to move more like a human he received little envelope modifications because he is better designed for skinning.

The only envelope modification i did was to his body because its the only piece that obviously wrapped when it should not.

But like bender not all of the devil mesh pieces were grouped as one, the devil robot caused some problems with his head and mouth being connected to his rig, so like bender his head was separated from his body grouped because of his horns etc and linked separately to the rig head, this worked well allowing his head to move freely on his neck and not distorting it, as would happen if it was grouped as one.

Three screen shots showing each one of the devil robot and bender's different expression heads being linked and added to the hub body and then saved as different file names under what expression they had.

With my scenes this is a special scene for bender to have a moving leg and have one leg only, so certain rig pieces were removed.

Whist doing a test scene with my rig and buildings i discovered that

the rig can not be scaled without distorting everything attached to it, so if your creating a scene, the scene has to be made bigger to counteract the rigged characters.

One other thing I discovered when animating either bender or the devil robot it is impossible for the rig pieces to rotate the character without distorting i.e. the screen is showing that i want bender to turn a press the lift button because as soon as i animate rotate him his body becomes disjointed from his arms as shown below, so to solve this, this scene has bender facing the switch and he just bends over and presses the button, but for some reason the rig does not like to be rotated whist in animation mode.