pod racing - extract from Wookieepedia

Podracing was a popular sport in the less-developed regions of the galaxy. It has been called "the ultimate test of skill and daring onTatooine," and was certainly one of the most dangerous sports ever invented, killing many racers.

Podracers were small, one-man repulsorcraft, composed of an anti-gravitypod propelled by one or more pairs of large turbine engines. The engines were not physically connected to each other, being linked instead by power couplings consisting of plasma discharges. The engines were connected to the pods themselves by means of long, Steelton cables.

Contents  [show]

CharacterisiticsEdit

Anakin Skywalker's Podracer.

Besides housing the racer's pilot, each pod contained a repulsorlift engine that kept the craft at a specific, low-level altitude. The turbine engines were incredibly powerful, and were connected by an energy binder that kept them from flying apart. Podracing was popularized in the Outer Rim Territories during the last decades of the Galactic Republic. Its underground nature, great excitement, and almost gladiatorial propensity for carnage held immense appeal to all manner of folk living on the fringes of society.

Because of the reflexes needed to control the pod as it raced around the course at breakneck speeds, as well as the dexterity needed to control the pod racer, all pod racers (apart from Anakin Skywalker) were nonhumans. Inhuman physical attributes, as well as extra pairs of hands, came in handy when trying to control the pod at its top speed of around 900 km/h.

HistoryEdit

"Podracers. You have to wonder whether they have half a brain left because they used to race, or they used to race because they had half a brain."

―Ulda, 8 ABY^[src]

Podracing traced its roots back to the days of animal-drawn carts, from which evolved races with hanno speeders. Ultimately, this sport's development kept pace with that of galactic technology to evolve into Podracing. The concept of modern day podracing was started on Malastare by alien racer Gustab Wenbus. Wenbus had entered himself in a race with a super-fast prototype pod designed by a mechanic named Phoebos.

One of the most famous Podraces was the Boonta Eve Classic, held on Tatooine in 32 BBY. The spectacular race was especially notable for being won by a Human, nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker. This marked the first time a Human had ever won a Podrace. Other popular races at the time included the Vinta Harvest Classic on Malastare, the Ando Overland on Ando Prime^[1][2] and the Aleen Classic.

Although technically illegal (often controlled by the Hutts)^[1][2] Podracing flourished during the rule of the Galactic Republic, particularly among planets in the Outer Rim and on worlds such as Malastare and Ando Prime. The sport was also watched by citizens from the Core Worlds; large viewscreens in seedy establishments such as theOutlander Club on Coruscant relayed Podraces from all over the Rim territories. Podracing's popularity reached an all-time high following Skywalker's win, but as the political situation in the Republic deteriorated, so did the appeal of Podracing.

Many of the sport's generally-accepted criminal activities were exposed, and some of the most famous racers were arrested for a variety of crimes. Podracing was soon outlawed in the Core. Shortly before the outbreak of theClone Wars, it was reported that attendance had dropped more than fifty percent from the era of the Battle of Naboo, although betting transactions remained at an all-time high.^[2] Podracing soon gave way to swoop racingand other forms of extreme sports.

With the Declaration of the New Order and the rise of the Galactic Empire, Podracing became outlawed, and under the Empire's far more stringent standards of law enforcement, the sport fell out of popularity altogether, though by30 ABY, it was noted that the sport had been making a comeback in some systems.

A podrace was shown in the holoscreen in the cantina where Starkiller found Rahm Kota.

In 137 ABY, a podrace was shown on a holoscreen in a drinking establishment on Coruscant, suggesting that the sport continued to regain popularity.

Proof that im drawing...

Creatures...

 Pod Racers...

influences/inspiration for style of my animation

I haven't fully explained my story, but i will share some ideas of how i want my animation to look and feel. Because (and im aware this hasnt been told) my animation will be within a game sequence and then end with the camera zooming out of the tv and someone is playing the game, i want it to still be visually good, but with a slight game essence (not the best quality, bit blocky maybe) so when it zooms out of the tv and shows the player playing the game, that scene will be better quality and seem more life like.

So the main animation will be slightly pop arty with that rockstar games, GTA feel to it, i dont want the bold colours that pop art uses, but the simplicity mixed with the shadows, like in most rockstar games, texturing isn't of the highest quality, but it works, for example...

So this kind of, partially realistic effect, where i believe more focus is on lights and shadows and the animation itself. This look could be achieved with the ink n paint texture, but with a lot of tweaking and getting it accurate to the look i want to achieve. But as mentioned this style will be for the in game part of the animation, the short scene at the end will be more realistic so define the difference between game and player.

I still haven't decided on exactly how i wish to style this scene, wait for another post...

original scene - pod race

ok so the scene im doing is the star wars pod race, i thought i would upload the full scene (excluding the start which for me is important, of the pod racers warming up their engines) so here it is, keep in mind mine will be shorter, and much different.

William Basso

i was looking at monsters and creatures, and came across William Basso, an artist who does this... 

2nd term project - re - interpretation of script

I may have taken on a bit more than i can handle, but i like to set myself challenges and not do anything 'easy', so if i fail this project, at least i tried.
My idea is to re-interpret the script of the star wars pod race scene from 'Star Wars EP1 - The Phantom Menace' and make it more in the style of the fast and the furious.
As i have already created one pod racer, it wont be as difficult to get around 5 of them, but they will look more 'street' with neon's under them, stickers, chrome, and general oversized parts to look cool.
It will be set in a city on roads rather than the desert arena used in star wars, so it looks more like a street race but with pod racers. I think it will give it a twist and portray a more visually modern context... if that makes sense?

The problem with this is that the script and pod race scene is around 10 minutes long from the minute the 2 headed announcer says 'start your engines' till the end of the race when it is announced that Anakin wins.

My solution is simply to cut a big chunk of the middle out, i wont need the parts where the guns are being shot at the pod racers for example, so as long as i have the warming up of the engines at the start, a bit of racing in the middle, and a finish line scene, then i believe i should get it around 3-4 minutes long.

Since it is going to be more like the fast and the furious, its obviously set at night in a city, so there will be a lot of street lights on and city signs with lights etc. But i do want it to have a more sinister feel to it, so the creatures driving could possibly be scarier, more danger in the driving (if possible).

I want 5 pod racers in the race, unlike the actual race which includes around 20 or something. I think less pods would make sense in a street race, there is less space to drive (fly) on. Also the pods would be more street compatible so not as big as the ones in star wars, after all, its not star wars entirely, its in a city.

I will need to create a lot of the city, as they will be driving through many roads, and they go through gaps and tunnel type areas in star wars, so if i was to use the score from the actual film, then it would make sense to include a couple of tunnels in the city, to match the sounds heard, and also to add a bit more depth in the scene, it would be a bit boring if it was all on the same looking road until the end.

Right now i'm working out what parts of the scene to cut down to get it down to a reasonable size to work with, im looking at the 4 minute mark, i know we have been told 3 minutes, but i dont feel that will be sufficient to get what i want into the scene, unless they drive from the start line straight to the finish line.

So yes, as you can tell, possibly taken on a bit much, but lets see how i get on... enjoy any updates on this.

back to neverland - animated by Frans Vischer - pencil test

sooooo good - bulletstorm parody of halo trailer

pod racer

I made a pod racer over the holidays, i was going to animate it, but now i have started second term, so il delay that idea... unless i decide to use it in my new project.
Don't pay attention to the ground or the environment, it was just to get accurate lighting to show my racer easily.

other things ive been up to

i also made a pod racer (star wars) and began a formula 1 track, but stopped that once i realised that making a pod racer was more exciting, i will upload images sooooon, once texturing and its environment and lighting are sorted, its just a clay looking pod racer at the moment. PEACE

i guess i should show something from this holiday...

This is just something i was practicing today, its not all ive done this holiday, but i was learning about camera mapping etc, so i basically put the head i made in z brush, plus a glass, and 2 balls, and composited them into this picture within 3DS max using a variety of shaders and mapping. so basically the head and balls and glass are 3D the rest was an image.

next term ideas

ok, as i always like to be different, im choosing my own 3 minute clip to animate for next terms project.
The project is to interpret 3 minutes of a scene from an existing film, animation style.
they have given us 3 scenes but we have the option to choose our own if its suitable, and i have a few ideas...

1 - The peeing in the bush scene from harold and kumar, but this is a problem as its only a minute long, although i can work around it including scenes before and after it, but it could be more of a side project as its short.

2 - the one shot fight scene from old boy in the corridor, i've watched this so many times and from the moment hes asking about blood type, till he's killed the people in the elevator as hes leaving, its roughly 3 minutes long, so it works as far as time, and i think animating wise it will be a test as there is a lot of fighting movement, and modeling is also going to be quite difficult, depending on what i choose is fighting, if its animals or humans, or something else, there is a lot of interaction, but apart from that its just a dreary corridor.

3 - the start of donnie darko when hes riding home, i just really like this scene, there is a lot going on.

4 - not sure what scene, but in memory of leslie nielsen, something from naked gun.

4 high res images from the animation, they are PNG so no visible background

Onus gets new shoes

here is my finished piece, judge for yourself, i already have.

My animation is finished

i have completed my final Robot animation, and im both happy and angry/upset

Im happy because its over, and i dont have to see that badly rigged robot and completely unrigged cotton man again, they were a pain to animate and im glad its finished to say the least, but im upset and angry and the outcome because i think its one of the worst animated shorts iv'e ever seen. The story is lazy and rubbish, the animating is weak.

That is all, i will post it on here, but not because i want to, but because thats what the blog is for, development, and im hoping i can get better than this because i really do hate it.

i was told to post this by harvey

Leslie Nielsen RIP

I never had to post this, but i wanted to, because this man was a legend and the king of comedy in my eyes, and an inspirational figure for me. I take a lot of what i do from this man, he has given the world many gifts with his comedic genius through his films for many years, and i don't think we should be upset by his death, we should celebrate his life and everything he has done for us, and the comedy world.
I know I'm not the best writer, so this whole thing probably sounds amateur, but he really was an inspiration to me, growing up watching his films over and over, laughing just as much every time. Me and my friend Sina used to literally pee our pants at everything the man would say or do, just the thought of him made us laugh, and i hope that feeling will never go away. Even though the man has passed on, his life in film is still here with us, and as long as I'm alive, i hope to keep it with me to show my children for them to be inspired and laugh as much as I did.

Rest in Peace, to the man, the King, the genius, the Legend, Frank Drebin (Naked Gun), Dick Steel aka Agent WD-40 (Spy Hard), Dr.Rumack (Airplane)

Leslie William Nielsen (1926-2010)

some images from my animation

Depth Of Field

I have recently taught myself a lot about the depth of field features within 3DS max, the mental ray depth of field on the camera settings, the not so favourable perspective view depth of field option, and the bokeh lens option.

Rendering times takes a lot longer with the depth of field but i still want to include a scene in my short film using depth of field, so there will be a short scene with the mental ray depth of field option, it will take a while to render, but as im doing it now, i have plently of time to spare for rendering, so lets see how it goes.

I feel i should be my own critic first

il be the first to say it, im not the best animator, after this project, i feel the part of my work that probably needs most work on would be the animating, im not saying im good in the other areas, but compared to modelling and texturing and lighting, my animating is poor, and you will probably see this when iv'e finished this robot project.

space pictures

these are some pretty incredible photos taken from space by NASA
http://triggerpit.com/2010/11/22/incredible-pics-nasa-astronaut-wheelock/

Onus Matrix

Another animation test, just rigged the legs and body, the right arm is still not rigged hence the lack of movement.
the legs took me a while to rig as they weren't built like the demonstration ones but i got around the issue.
enjoy.

Bossman and Onus together

This is Onus, almost completed with him, just need to play around with the little bits to make him less symmetrical and perfectly shaped, more of a used body.

This is also a first look at his very small oddly shaped boss, 'Bossman' who is the other main character in my animation, he isn't a robot, hes a puppet type character with eyes made of buttons and a body made of cotton.

A blog about networking

I found this off the animation mentor blog, its about networking and i found it very relevant and useful being a student. It explains how the actual quality of the work i produce is much more valuable than the contacts i know.
So again, i didn't write this, nor am i taking any credit, i just wanted to share the words of Aaron Gilman.

How Important is Networking in the Animation Industry?

The industry is small. Super small! There are tons of animators out there, but not that many studios. So it is inevitable that throughout the course of your career you are going to bump into people you've worked or studied with in the past, or know people that worked or studied with your colleagues. You know that game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? I am fairly sure the rules of that game would apply equally well to the animation industry. Almost every other day I find myself having a conversation with someone only to discover we both have mutual friends or colleagues we worked with years earlier. So having a good reputation is of paramount importance. Being professional, enthusiastic, hardworking and organized will get you very far. I once worked with an animator who believed talent should always override personality when looking for new hires. I firmly disagree with this. I would sooner take a less talented animator that is easy to work with and takes direction well, than an animator who animates excellently but doesn't gel well with the team or is difficult to deal with.

Networking implies, to some degree, that you make an effort to maintain contact with co-workers, or that you actively seek out individuals that are in some way connected to you and who can help propel your career forward. So for the sake of this discussion, when I refer to networking I am not talking about cold-calling, sending mass emails to the HR department of studios, or any other form of “telephone book networking”. To me, networking refers specifically to tapping your contacts, or people connected to your contacts.

The amount of effort you put into networking does not correlate with the amount of success you will have. If that were true then getting a job would be easy. But the reality is that you could tap a single contact for work and hit the jackpot. You've messaged the right person at the right time. The studio they work for needs people just like you, and all your positive traits become known to them very quickly. The next thing you know you have a job offer, all after just shooting off an email and a demo reel to the right person who knows you or knows of you. On the flip side, you could be an avid networker, keeping in touch regularly with friends who work in major studios, or HR personnel that have contacted you in the past. But if your timing is bad, or the right information about you doesn't travel to the right people, or anything about your reputation or the quality of your work doesn't impress the people hiring, then you could find yourself spending months to even a year looking for work.

So what does all this mean? If you don't have control over how smoothly and efficiently your networking efforts will be, then what do you have control of? Well, the answer is simple. You have control over yourself. Your behavior in the industry, your work ethic, skill level, and how well you get along with your co-workers and bosses, is what you can control. And truthfully, that is enough! You can survive without networking, and if you are really good at your job you can thrive without networking. Networking is simply a means to an end. It helps keep you active in the industry, but it is in no way the most important device at your disposal for finding work.

When I think back on all the animation jobs I've had, every one of them was through some sort of contact or referral from a connection I had. I wasn't consciously trying to network myself. I just happened to have a friend or a friend of a friend in the studio I was interested in. More often than not, this is enough. And this is often the case for most artists as they shift around from one studio to another. Most studios will tend to favor hires that have some sort of internal referral from people who have worked with the candidate. This is why your character is so important. Being a very small industry, word travels quickly about you and your work. But that isn't to say you need to always be trying to please everyone you work with. You should always try to be the professional version of yourself. You simply cannot control how people will react to you, and despite how professional you are, sometimes you'll rub people the wrong way and there is very little you can do about it.

Now for all the animation students reading this, you may need to rely more heavily on the quality of your demo reel rather than the contacts you have in the industry. Being new to the industry, you are automatically more limited in how far your networking can take you. But as I've explained, none of that really matters if you're a solid animator that's passionate about finding work.

Guest Blogger Aaron Gilman

Onus saying hello

my robot 'Onus' says hello in this video, and some other facial expressions and arm movements, its only short, but i think its showing my development.

enjoy.

Onus - my robot

this is a video of my robot, Onus

he isnt finished yet, iv'e rigged the arm though, so i made him wave to his lovely audience :)

just so you know, his name 'Onus', is latin for 'Load', simply because he is a fat robot, it made sense, hope you like my creation, and you will be seeing more of him over the next month.

It is in HD if you go on youtube.

Mercury Filmworks - canada

http://www.mercuryfilmworks.com/
A place i like the look of, a bit out of the way, being in ottawa, but i have family in ottawa so that could be a solution if i were to get a placement out there. I think going to Canada could be massively useful also for the contact with other major studio's and i believe i can gain a decent network of contacts being out there.

Mercury Filmworks have worked with cartoon network, mtv, disney, warner bros, bbc and loads more massive companies. They are an award winning family entertainment studio is currently ramping up on several exciting new high profile animation projects.

I will try and get in contact with them about internship type things they could do, It does say on their website they are after talented people to join their team so who knows. i could be talented...

crysis 2

http://www.crytek.com/games/crysis2/overview

robot preview

I think i have a problem, i dont plan out what im doing in detail, i know everything i want to do in my head, so i just do it from that.

anyway, here is a sneak preview of my robot. its no where near finished so don't judge yet.

Nexus Productions

www.nexusproductions.com
I really like a lot of what this company has produced, iv'e been through a lot of their stuff and its very impressive, doing work for high end companies, creating commercials and movie shorts.
Unfortunately they are based in London, i came across them in the latest 3D world magazine for a Panasonic ad they created, which is very good.

Golden gate bridge

Ok so my main idea is for a fat robot to be walking a tightrope across the golden gate bridge, as the golden gate bridge will be hard to make, i've started now, so this is a first image of development of this. as i develop it more i will update my blog with images.
You can tell its still in development because it just cuts off at the end of the bridge :)

research images

AMAZING

I was looking through the statistics of my blog, checking out how many people have been on it, where geographically its popular, and most importantly (in relation to this post) how people are finding it in the first place.

One of the main links was due to the Thundertank i created, the Tag of 'Thundertank' linked people through google and google images to my blog to view what i had created early on.
(If you want to see the Thundertank its under March on the side bar)

So i thought i would have a look on google images under the search of Thundertank to see what came up, I saw my image and figured it linked to my blog, but instead it linked to this Sci-fi Anime website. Just go on the website, you'll see what i mean, but this made me very happy, especially the first line of what was written.

http://scifanime.com/toons/thunder-thunder-thunder-tank-hooo

Rockstar Games

http://www.rockstargames.com/
If i was to set my expectations high, Rockstar Games would be a company i would LOVE to work for, they have 4 studio's in the UK; Edinburgh, London, Leeds and Lincoln, but then they also have studio's in Canada and America, so location wise they have diversity, and If i was to get a placement I wouldn't mind the move.

Rockstar Games are the creators of one of my favorite PS3 games 'Grand Theft Auto', They also develop games such as Midnight Club, Max Payne and Red Dead Redemption, its fair to say the games they create cause a bit of controversy but are some of the greatest console games around, in my opinion.

To work for a company of such stature would be incredible. A large company such as this works in all areas of games design and animation so finding something im suitable in within the company shouldn't be hard. Even now posted on their website is a job vacancy for a character animator, so if that was something i could eventually pursue i know there is my line of work at Rockstar Games.

Editz

http://www.editz.co.uk/

This company do more post production animation, a lot with compositing, but they still interested me, they do a lot of visual FX and editing, still with animation but a lot more realistic compositing and post production. What they do really stood out to me and made me realise that a lot of what i see on the TV isn't actually real.

Sub. Object

another studio in manchester, i'll try and research them more but i'm not to keen on them by the look of their website and work, they seem very boring unfortunately, but i'll still keep them in mind.
http://www.subobject.co.uk/

Studio Liddell

http://www.studioliddell.com
Another animation studio in Manchester, but they also have a place in London.
They not only do animation but graphic design, illustration and interactive applications, this excites me because i not only have the animation interest but i also have a background in graphic design, so they are a diverse company which i could easily fit into, i hope.

Regarding Animation, they have done work for a wide range of well known companies, ranging from Vauxhall to  silent night, and many more, they don't have the companies listed but the show reel they have on the website shows most of them.

Animation studio in manchester - The Box

http://www.the-box.co.uk/

Box Productions, based in manchester, which would be local for me, specialise in 3D animation, motion graphics, editing and visual FX. They do TV commercials, title sequences, pop promo's, feature films, architectural fly thru's and filming and screening for live events.
They've done work for the BBC, Channel 4, Sony music, MTV2, Intel, Sky TV, Nike and Adidas.

So they look like a pretty decent studio, supplying work for major companies at high standards, so the next step would be for me to get in contact with them and find out more about them.

first brief initial ideas

ok so iv'e begun to think of a few ideas for the brief, i have been told that it should probably include a banana but im going to try my hardest to work around that as i believe i can think of better scenes related to slap stick.

I have a few ideas at the moment but ive been doing a mock up on 3DS max of one of the ideas so i thought id post a picture of a mock up environment.

the idea is for the robot character to be very carefully walking on a tight rope very high in the air, struggling all the way, and then the part i havent decided is what is going to happen to him, but for now, iv'e created the environment of it, so take a look, only playing around.

IM BACK - new brief

hello bloggers, I'm back, its been a while

I haven't blogged in, well, 4 months, as i've been on holiday and got lazy, but now I'm getting back to my usual self sitting in front of the computer attempting even harder 3D work.
Second year has begun and so here goes brief for this term...

The task is to Design, build and animate a model of a complex Bipedal Robot that can walk trip, slip and fall. It has to be at least 1 minute long.
Basically a Laurel and Hardy or Charlie Chaplin type sketch but fully animated, the example given was a man slipping on a banana peel, but we can create anything we like as long as its relative.

This was written on the brief about how we should go about it, from Charlie Chaplin's POV.


"Silent Comedy… Charlie Chaplin once explained that there are two ways to film the old guy-slips-on-a-banana-peel joke. The first, unfunny, way goes like this: Cut to the guy walking, oblivious. Cut to the banana peel, lying in wait. Then cut to a wide shot of the guy approaching the banana peel. Cut to a close-up of the banana peel, just as the guy's foot hits it. Cut back to the wide shot, as the guy slips on the peel and lands on his rear end, which, as everyone knows from cartoons, is the funniest part of the human body and one that registers no real pain.

The second, funnier way to film that same sequence is as follows: Cut to the guy, walking. Cut to the banana peel, lying in wait. Then cut to a wide shot of the guy approaching the banana peel. Cut to a close-up of the banana peel, just as the guy's foot almost hits it. Cut back to the wide shot, as the guy deftly steps over the banana peel, smiling smugly . . . and falls into an open manhole…
Get the difference?"

So from this, I realise that the obvious is way too boring and predictable, and over the next few weeks i will be coming up with, hopefully, some decent ideas for an exciting and unpredictable slap stick animated scene, good times.

FIRST BLOG AS SECOND YEAR OVER.