An Animation in ProgressMinor Project Submission

12/01/2016

By Adam Stone

The Project: Summary

My minor project submission is about working towards an animated short. The animated short is set in 1970s America and will feature a mischievous robot that misbehaves when it’s owner is out of the flat. We join the action just before the owner gives cleaning and cooking directions to the robot and exits the scene. While the robot is going about it’s usual business, drinking its secret stash of dry beer, an advert comes on that catches his attention, it’s a Hoover. Though this is no ordinary hoover, it’s the super sleek and sexy Deluxe Hoover Cleaner, the best hoover ever made! After a short pause the robot recognises the box shown on screen, it’s the box that’s in the corner of the room. Several attempts to woo the attention of this inanimate hoover later and the homeowner comes home to find her robot arm in arm with her brand new hoover. We cut to a new scene and see the robot and hoover together on the sofa with the hoovers box all taped up in the background as muffled cries for help come from the box.

Why the 1970s?

I chose the 1970s as a setting because it was a heavily stylised decade in which I felt would give rise to interesting pathways in terms of design around the robot. Another reason for choosing the 1970s was because technology was flourishing and having a house robot was seen as a luxury item that everyone wanted but couldn’t have at the time due to technical boundaries. My animation would explore a world where it’s possible for a robot to have an almost human sentience without the owner knowing until it’s too late. I’ll be trying to show this in a comedic manner.

So lets move on to my first storyboards…

StoryboardingThis is my first set of storyboards, completed in Photoshop, some aspects of the animation have changed since the creation of these. So the previs is different but the concept of the story is still the same.

As you can see here; the homeowner leaves, the robot activates, turns the light back on and proceeds to grab the remote control to the TV, chucking it behind him.

StoryboardingAfter the robot chucks the remote backwards, he then goes to catch it but hits the sofa and falls to the ground, he gets back up and proceeds to get bored, he soon starts spinning on his head on the sofa. Followed by building a pillow fort and finally noticing the brand new automated hoover chug past him.

StoryboardingAs he puts his arm out to turn off the TV, the pillow falls down to form a ramp and the robot re-makes the sofa in the hope to entice the hoover into giving him some action. Because the hoover is not sentient and is just set up to go round the house it keeps going past him. He grabs the hoover and drags it back into camera view, this blows the motor a little and he believes that he’s got it’s attention.

StoryboardingThe Hoover starts back up again and runs the robot over, this really upsets the robot so he ‘shuts down’ and sulks. As the hoover comes back to go over the piece of carpet the robot’s on, it bumps into him…

The robot believes that this is an attempt by the hoover to get his attention and apologise for running him over.

StoryboardingAs the hoover keeps trying to go past the robot, he thinks it’s trying to press against him in a sexual way, so he obliges to the demands of the ‘super sexy’ hoover. The screen fades to black. Here we take the POV of the owner as she comes home from work, we see the robot and the hoover getting up to something on the floor, the robot notices that he’s been found-out and then slowly picks up the hoover to then put it in a cupboard as if nothing had happened. The homeowner (us) is shocked and the animation ends.

Amendments to The Story

Reviewing the storyboards I felt that it was a bit bland and lacked a punch on the ending. After a bit of figuring out with my tutor I was able to sort something out that I was happy with, this can be seen in my 5th version of my previsualisation tests (video is available below this presentation). Although some alterations still need to be made to it, I believe that it gives me enough to work from; know that when I animate it again using my actual characters and set, I can be confident that it’ll produce an entertaining animated short.

The next step was to begin designing the robot.

Influence Maps for Robot

Here are my influence maps for my robot, I looked at serious robots that were made at the time as well as robots thatWere made later on which took inspiration from the 70s style. Bulky designs that were trying to be as sleek and modernAs possible.

The Design: Robot SketchesWhile sketching differentiterations of the robot, Iwas keeping in mind thatIt’d have to match with a 70s style, while conveying enough personality for the audience to sympathise with him and support him in his antics.

The Design: Robot SketchesDue to my sketches being a little unsuccessful in creating something that I liked, I attempted to create some shapes in maya and form them together in order to get a shape and rough design that was visually appealing.

I found the shapes i was after when i smooth-previewed the model on the far right of the image to the left. I thought it looks innocent and could even resemble a child in it’s proportions. I liked this in terms of my story because the robot is supposed to be a bit naughty. So it makes sense for him to seem a little immature.

The image in the yellow circle is the one I’d be taking forward into the next stage of design.

The Design: Colour VariationsHere I’ve added more details using a paint over and experimented with a few colour compositions with my robot, it also features one of my early titles. However I’ll be scrapping it for a new tittle, the logo of “the Rob-o-Matic”.

I chose colour comp 1 to go forward into modelling.

The Design: ModellingHere’s my robot fully modelled, textured, skinned and rigged. It took me a little while to figure out how I was going to make the wheels spin as the character moves, but with a little help from my tutor Alan, I was able to use set driven keys and a bit of math work to get it all working. His eyes will be used to convey his emotions so it was important that they’re blend shaped properly.

The Design: Hoover SketchesOnce the robot was complete I began on the design for the hoover. The drawings to the left were some of my first designs, I was trying to take influence from women's legs and curves to make it seem more appealing to the robot. However I found that this made the hoovers seem futuristic and out of the 1970s vibe I was going for.

Therefore I began looking for influences from actual hoovers that were made in the 1970s….

The Design: Hoover ModelsDue to my sketches being a bit lacklustre, I attempted to work on the shape in Maya as I found it much easier. To the left are some of my favourite models, I chose to take the one in the middle forward because I thought it really did look like a high quality hoover from the 1970s.

The Design: Hoover FinalTo the left is my hoover fully modelled, textured and rigged and skinned. The hoover spine can move back about 30 degrease and the hoovers hose can freely move around using set driven keys on 54 joints that go up the hose. It’s important that this is a feature because of the robots interactions with the hoover, which involve him holding the hose and kissing it as if it was ‘her’ hand. The colour for the hoover was originally going to be a very bland colour to match the hoovers of the time(example to the right). However I needed it to stand out and contrast with the robot effectively. So I went with a bright pink, this gave me the contrast and also let the hoover seem more feminine at the same time.

Influence Maps for The Living Room

Here I’ve looked for inspiration in terms of design by looking at heavily stylised living rooms and furniture from the1970s. I wanted to keep the relative simplicity of the set, shown in my first set of storyboards. I worked from the previsSet to create the image on the next slide which shows the set as it is at the moment.

The Living Room

I am personally very happy with the living room as it looks at the moment. I realise that it still needs a lot added into it for it to look like a ‘real’ living space, but I like the overall set up of colours and furniture that I have at the moment. It’s just a matter of cluttering it up a bit and adding in some extra bits to the textures like dirt and grime in an attempt to take it away from looking so computer generated.

I’ve also got to add in some rough kitchen accents to show that there’s actually a room there, not an empty space.

Due to the room being a bit one dimensional, I am also thinking of adding a window to the scene but I’ve yet to figure out how I’m going to do that using a matte painting.

Reflection on the Project

Personally, I think that my minor project has gone well and I hope to continue this into my major project. It’ll allow me to spend more time on getting the set just right and give me plenty of time to get the animation correct which is very important in a comedic animated short such as this. I’d also be able to get the voice acting properly done instead of my placeholders.

I look forward to continuing this project into my major if possible.

An Animation in ProgressMinor Project Submission

12/01/2016

By Adam Stone