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.

Robiety Stuff

I've been long past due for a progress update. This past week I've been designing and modeling the city of where the story takes place. It's not totally complete, but for most of the shots it will suffice.

Welcome to Sector51.

Still playing with render settings, so nothing is set in stone yet, but it will be toon shaded to fit with the movie.

This is the first shot in which we meet our protagonist, SIMB. We learn of his role in the factory workplace, see how he is treated amongst other robots, and much more in this single shot.

Laying the Foundation

The past few weeks has been background layouts and animation keys. The movie is taking form and shaping up nicely. I've been working on a nushift.net redesign which will lend itself to robiety.com. While that's going on, I plan to do some color tests this weekend to see what style is best suited for the film.

Robiety Animation: Keys

I was bored in class yesterday and decided to start doing keys of some simple animations. I can only do so many layouts during a period of time until it gets stale. Starting a new production element is always a daunting task for me. As afraid I was to start animating, I jumped right in not worrying about failing because I can always fix it. I'll post when I'm satisfied with the assets.

Robiety.com Coming Soon

Last week I set up robiety.com as the official site for the film. I hope to have it complete sometime early next year. I don't plan on devoting a whole lot of time to it right now as I am still developing content for the movie. The animatic is done for now; I'll go back another time and tweak some shots most likely, but my main focus at the moment is cranking out background layouts and designs. The final movie will be in 1080p HD, but for now these images are scaled down.

More to come within the next few weeks.

Robiety Pre-Production: Meet SIMB

Finished the storyboard last week and slapped an animatic together. Currently I'm reworking the animatic's timing and adding and redoing a few shots to make the pacing flow better. For the most part it's looking pretty good.

Here we have the protagonist, SIMB (Standard Issue Maintenance Bot). He's a small bot in comparison to the others at the corporate factory and is a mindless worker drone until he takes matters into his own hands to change the way society works and thinks.

The film relies heavily on real life pre-existing symbols and themes to create a comprehensive story about the inner workings of society.