Overview
Reboot is a 3D animated short set in an overgrown post apocalyptic world, about a robot who’s primary objective is to deliver a power source that will reboot humans in a cryo-sleep. It is modeled and animated in Blender, and textured in Substance Painter. This project is an opportunity to show my understanding of the animation pipeline, and create something that showcases my abilities as a 3D artist.
Animation
Storyboards and Preliminary Sketches
The premise of the story is that this robot was powered down in a safe location, awaiting a signal from the space satellite that would boot it up and allow it to begin its journey. It then roams across the world, experiencing different environments, until it comes across this laboratory, where it deposits the glowing core that it has been carrying, and as it does so the cryo-pods in the room begin to glow. It then zooms out of the laboratory, revealing a red light on top that begins to glow, and zooms out further to show the earth where a bunch of red lights appear, implying that scenarios such as this have happened all over the globe.
Ant Model
I designed the robot to resemble an ant. I wanted a design that resembled a worker, something that exists as a small part in something large.
Space Environment
I wanted to bookend the beginning and the end of the animation with this space shot. The idea is that the satellite in space has some sort of timer, or reading, that determines the time is now for this plan to be set in motion.
Forest Environment
For the main design of the general environments, I wanted to create a forest. Primarily to work on my foliage creation, but also because I thought that it would be a good way to go for a post-human, overgrown sort of setting.
Lab Exterior
The lab exterior was designed to resemble what would be a low-key and unsuspecting building in the time of humans, but after many years has been reclaimed by nature through vines, dirt, and moss.
Lab Interior
The lab interior was designed with the same philosophy as the exterior. It is intended to be this place that was once a high tech building that the humans used to create this failsafe, and now still resembles that but is very much so in a state of overgrowth.
Montage Environments
The montage environments were created to show the robot exploring the earth and seeing various different things that he has not seen before. Each one was created with different 3D modeling aspect. The cave was created with the idea of using this dark area lit only really by the power core. The bridge scene was created with the idea of creating a nice silhouette of the robot against a bright sun emission. The field scene was created by having different planes and depths of both the foreground and 3 background elements to create a sense of depth and scale. The rain scene was created using a particle system to emit small raindrops with transparent shaders. The river scene was created by animating a shader tree for the actual stream, and creating a fluid simulation for the splash. I wanted to do all these various things with these scenes to give them each a unique feel, but to also put into practice various techniques within 3D modeling.
Texture Maps
For the texture maps, I unwrapped the robot textures using Substance Painter’s auto-unwrap feature, and I unwrapped everything else within Blender using various UV unwrap methods, but primarily the cube project, and auto-pack islands features. This allowed me to take the models into Substance Painter and apply various materials, filters, and generators to create a variety of metal, concrete, moss, and dirt effects.