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What I’ve found to be a real challenge is to see just how much of the story I can tell without any dialog. Obviously at some point there will need to be some exposition in order to advance the story, but the opening I’m developing is a straight-ahead action sequence depicting the iconic theft of a Jetwasp by Skarab. This has been the starting point of the story for a long time now and it’s pretty exciting to see it come to life as an animation!

For some unknown reason, all the Bugbots (the machines built by Weevils for transportation and industry) have become infected by a computer virus that has been dubbed Beetlemania. Skarab is the chief Bugbot inspector for the entire planet, but because of the danger to the population of these giant machines going berserk and killing Weevils, Biff, who operates some of the biggest corporations, has taken it upon himself to confiscate all the Bugbots, literally leaving Skarab with no machines to inspect for his investigation.

With his hands tied, Skarab has no choice but to infiltrate the Weevil Hive, the very heart of Biff’s fortified corporate headquarters. With the aid of his wife and partner, Midge Lacewing, Skarab manages to steal a Jetwasp, but before he can make his escape, both Skarab and Midge must face mortal peril.

Weevils design and build a whole range of giant bug-shaped machines to do the work of industry and for personal use. We’ll be seeing more of these in the future.

I had wanted to post progress shots of the modeling and decaling process, but I found that once I was in the zone, modeling, rigging and decaling, I didn’t want to stop to generate too many renders because it was going so smoothly.

In general, the process goes like this: first, sketches to use as templates in the modeling process; then modeling the forms that make up the character. Then rigging, easily the most complex and demanding part, and finally, decaling and texturing.

Previously, with Skarab and Midge, I decaled and then rigged, but this slowed down the latter step because the decaling includes a type of decal called a “displacement map”, which has the effect of actually deforming the mesh so that refinements of the surface don’t have to be modeled manually. This is how the surface of the arms and legs achieve the appearance of “muscle bunches” (for want of a better term).

However, moving forward from that step, viewing the model while working bogs down because the deforming of the mesh has to happen on the fly even for simple viewing while modeling. So from now on, decaling last!

However the terrific users forum over at Hash Animation:Master came up with several potential solutions, and I’m happy to say that a fix is in the works!

Animation:Master will have a booth at the San Diego Comic Con, and they’re soliciting user contributions for a demo reel that will be shown there. The short sequence I’m preparing is for the reel.

Here, Skarab walks across the flag of Arthropoda (it’s motto: “Don’t step on me!”). I try to test walk cycles against a texture or image, because one of the chronic problems of walk cycles is foot slippage: unlike the real world, in computer animation, feet don’t automatically stay rooted to the floor. It’s up to the animator to get the feet to stay put when necessary, and to move when necessary. By placing an image or texture on the floor, it’s easier to detect slippage and remedy it.

This is a test of his face rig. It’s still in need of some refinement but it’s functional enough for moving forward with building and animating other elements for the trailer. His body rig is also close to being finished.

The Jetwasp is the main form of transportation on Arthropoda, powered by a single Waspjet engine, with auxiliary power provided by the wings which generate solar power from the planet’s three suns.