Robiety.com is Live!

Yes, it's true. After sitting on the domain for a year, I finally got an idea on what to do with the site and just rolled with it. I'm really happy with the way it came out and it will house the movie upon completion.

For now, I plan to export a new work reel containing new assets created after graduation.

www.robiety.com

Final Stretch

Robiety is in about as good of a shape as it can be at this point. With a couple weeks before graduation, there's still a lot of animation to finalize in the next week. The movie won't be done by any means. Over summer I want to spend time doing some nice backgrounds as I had done over Christmas break; I was really happy with the way those turned out and I can take my time on them with no rushing around.

I do want to put in sound effects before senior reviews on May 2nd, just so the movie engages more than one sense and keeps people interested. Music may be added at a later date but that hasn't been a main concern of mine. Animation and colors is top priority.

Updated Work Reel

Robiety Work Reel 4-11-11 from Jeff Yandura on Vimeo.

Those daring to dream ideals must dare to share them as realizations, lest they remain so.

Robiety is the story of evolved social systems like our own, and of the ordinary individual encompassed by them. The daily grind takes both literal and figurative meanings for Sector 51's S.I.M.B. (Standard Issue Maintenance Bot) as he struggles to differentiate himself in a unified, rigid society steeped in efficiency and perfection. Working to perpetuate a civilization believing to have achieved its technological apex, he, like his fellow citizens, strives to obtain scant upgrades that enhance his status in the Robiety. With the lofty goal of attaining that one screw or bolt that elevates him to the upper echelons of Sector 51, S.I.M.B. carries out his redundant existence until a freak work accident changes the perception of his reality forever. An errant malfunction leads to dangerous, yet wonderful concepts in stark contrast to those shared as ideals throughout his world. The imperfection in his programming, S.I.M.B decides, may not be such an imperfection after all. An attempt to share this dream with his colleagues and loved ones also held captive by the monotonous existence of Sector 51 proves both daunting and inspiring. Robiety is the tale of an individual's realization, discovery, and struggle, detailing the pertinence of a utopian societal conflict when juxtaposed with our own.

Keeping On Keeping On

I managed to fix one of two monitors by replacing the capacitors so I'm happy about that. It's been quite a few years since I've worked on a single monitor, so I have to change up my workflow to accommodate between school and home.

Over the weekend I managed to get roughs in for the waterfall shot and began tie-downs and cleanup on the villain's cloak. It took me about a week to get the cloak right, having a bunch of different fully drawn attempts before I scrapped them and began anew. It looks really good now, so I'm just finishing cleanup before I send it off to my assistant, Jake, for coloring.

Speaking of Jake, I got back the work I sent him last week which entailed color and rough inbetweens for a couple shots. At first I thought he didn't do anything because it played and looked fine. Then I remembered I only did keys on these shots! It looked as if I had animated it myself. It blends in so well and I'm really pleased with his work.

My Week in Review

First up, I'd like to welcome my new assistant, Jake Walter, to the Robiety project. He was one of the lone souls who knows Flash and to that I am very appreciative for his help. Jake has been helping with coloring, which I am very happy with, and he is now jumping head first into animating a couple shots. I'm anxious to see what he comes up with as I'm sure it will be awesome.

I also have my good friend Andrew Jakubowski working on some basic toon shading for the 3D cityscape which will be used for quite a few backgrounds, so I told him to make it look nice.

I've just been animating everyday doing what I can. Only a few more shots need inbetweens/cleanup/colors and then everything should be good as far as main character animation. I still have some backgrounds to paint and the implementation of sound, but I got dissss.

[Begin Rant]

So, last week was a very hellish week for me. Usually I go through my weekly routine with no bothers and have been doing so for the entire semester. I've been having issues with one of my LCD monitors since last fall where it would begin to flicker upon a cold boot.

In the beginning it would only last a few minutes, so it was bearable. Over the weeks and months it got progressively worse. The constant flickering would take an hour or more to cease and recently took 15 straight hours before it decided to stop being a shithead.

At that point I figured to leave it on 24/7, disabling sleep mode, and turn on the screensaver. That worked for a week until I cleaned my room and turned off the PC and monitors for 10 whole minutes. After that, all hell broke loose.

After 72 hours of being on, the flickering wouldn't stop and I deemed the monitor unusable as of early last week. I went back to a single monitor set up from the days of old only to have my other monitor crap out in the exact same way, only it took all of 10 seconds to kill itself. I turned it on, it flickered for a few seconds, and went dim to the point where it looked like it was off.

They're both 3 and 4 year old Samsungs and were quite expensive when they first came out, so I can't afford to go out and buy new ones. I did some research and it's a common problem after the 3 year mark, right after the warranty expires.

I cracked open both monitors to find that the capacitors on both boards have been blown out. A normal cap has a flat top whereas the bad ones have a raised top with some inner goo leaking out.

I had to desolder the bad caps to remove them and of course Radio Shack didn't have the correct capacitance I needed so I had to special order them and am waiting on those to arrive before I can hope to attempt to fix my screens. So for the time being, I've been using an 11 year old 17" HP CRT that takes up 90% of my desk and has a max resolution of 1024x768 at a refresh rate that almost doesn't kill my eyes.

tl;dr
fml

Roh-bi-eh-tee

The official Robiety logo and title card.

Edgey.

Pretty nighttime shot.



Still working on inbetweens, cleanup, and colors and hope to have that done soon because I'm tired of worrying about them. More and more shots are finding their way to completion with just a few outstanding shots. Maybe it's just me but sometimes there are shots that I just avoid like the plague until I grow a pair and tackle it. I've got a few of those scattered around that are always on my mind. Hope you guys like what I'm doing and if you don't, too bad.

The End of Spring Break

Spring break is now over and I didn't step foot outside once. I don't have a problem with that because the weather is still crap. There's nothing that says "Spring Break" like waking up to a snow-covered city. Aside from that, I've been finishing up keys with some inbetweens scattered around. Redid some animation from different angles and am playing around with improved ideas.

Enter SIMB

This is a near-final composite of SIMB's introduction shot. I spent most of this week cleaning up and coloring this shot. It took a long time but I'm very pleased with how it came out. Down the line, I may tweak pixels but for now, I'm happy with it and moving onto finish up some other stuff.

Here's a view of the timeline and all the glorious keyframes I had to draw and manage:

And here's the pretty movie version:

What Have I Been Doing?

I usually save clean up for school because the Cintiqs are easier and more accurate for nice line quality as opposed to the Intuous. Rethinking a few shots that would be more interesting but haven't gotten any roughs I liked. Probably will shoot some reference or look in the mirror to get the angle I want. I need to start finishing up some quick backgrounds just so the movie looks more complete.

I started reviewing sounds as well but it's not something I can passively do as I previously thought. Narrowing down the batch of files might be brainless, but figuring out where to place sounds and when is what will take an attentive mind.

Hope to post some stuff up later this week with some "new" finished shots.

In the Works

I took a lot of reference videos earlier this week with help from my sister and over this weekend finished up a couple shots tonight and inbetweened a few others. Trying to complete the first 20 animated shots pretty soon, compositing and adding effects along the way. Hoping to finish the inbetweens this week and color the remaining shots of the first quarter by week's end.

NuShift Redesign Coming Soon

Slowly I have been working on a redesign of NuShift.net which will be transformed into a better portfolio site than I had before. I've been trying to integrate this blog feed with the site design and have become successful, but the formatting is lost. I'll continue to work on it in my spare time.

As for Robiety, I'm prepping shots for presenting. Minor cleanup and coloring a few extra shots to completion. Looking good so far.

New and Not So New Stuff

I haven't posted anything lately because there is nothing worthwhile to post...at least that's in a presentable state. I tend to bounce around a lot in my workflow, not spending too much time on any one thing at a given moment. That could be viewed as bad or ADD and I wouldn't argue it, but if something isn't working after a few attempts, I'll move onto another shot. If I'm doing a shot and it's coming together just fine, I'll move to another shot because I get bored.

The hardest time I have is starting something new, be it a shot or a background. If I get all of the starting points knocked out real fast, I can simply build upon the foundations little by little.

Here is a background painting of the junkyard which plays a pivotal role in the movie.

And here are a couple finalized shots that will give a good indication of how the character animation will look. The green are for keyouts in post; they're not the actual final color.

I Lost Count

Here's some stuff I've been working on the past few nights.

Oh yeah, and happy new year.

This is the city wall which surrounds the entire sector.

This is the back of an elevator.

Inside rails of the factory.

Propaganda.

Wastelands outside the city.

More to come soon!

Day 7 of New Work

Here is a background shot of the cliff in the waterfall scene.

I started painting a set of curtains for an office shot. It's too muddy and needs more contrast, but it's a start.

Day 6, The Day That Skipped 5

I did not do any work yesterday. Sad, I know. I did however finish the waterfall background tonight.

Christmas is upon us so no work will be done for 2 days. Hoping to crank out more backgrounds and finalize more designs come next week.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Day 4 Continued Work

Not much to show but I spent the entire evening on working and reworking these rocks, at one point deleting about 45 mins worth of work because I didn't like the result.

Day 3 More WIP Backgrounds

I took the weekend off to chill but got right back into production this evening.

This is the start of a closeup of the grass and water.

This is a shot of what will be an animated waterfall.

Hope to work on them both more tomorrow.

Day 2 of Work

I worked on the grassy field background a bit more, adding in more details and got it to a place where it looks pretty good. I'm happy with the result.

Another shot of the grassy field, but will be used for a closeup.

Ideally one background a day would be good, but I'm not setting any goals other than to consistently put work into the project, alleviating the workload come next year. No doubt there will be some exploratory color designs in the coming days which will slow down production, but it must be done to achieve the look I am striving for.

25 Days of Robiety

Not quite, but sort of. Over Christmas vacation, I plan on getting some major things done for Robiety. In an effort to maintain motivation and keep production going, I will be posting what I have worked on during the day and show any progress that I've made.

I have tried painting a few different backgrounds in different styles, trying to decide upon which fits the movie best. This is what I came up with for today:

It's not complete but it's a step in the right direction. I'm happy with how it's looking right now and if I don't hate it tomorrow, then it's probably a keeper.

The Big Post of Layouts

These are some of the background layouts I've been working with, used to determine position and spacing for characters. Some are good, some are bad. Most of these are preliminary and will have detail painted in when I get around to that phase of production. As for now, they work for what I need them for and I hope to show more animation tests in the coming weeks.