DOH•BOT - THE CASE STUDIES OF ROGER 9
Inside details
Some time ago I had started playing around in Adobe After Effects creating 3D environments that I could pass through with a virtual camera. These very simple environments were primarily four walls and a floor which I was able to enhance with various textures I would create in Photoshop. This technique I then applied to a series of motion menus for a personal DVD project I was working on. The motion menus turned out pretty cool and got me thinking more about expanding the technique into something bigger.
About this time the film Wall-e had come out on DVD and I found myself watching it quite frequently, marveling at the details of that CGI created world. This film inspired me quite a bit and is what got me started on developing my own Wall-e like robot character.
What came about was “Roger 9” the world’s dumbest robot… a omage to one of my favorite cartoon characters from childhood – Wile E. Coyote. With this character I wanted to make an animated short and if it worked, maybe a short web series…but first I had to make a robot.
The basic technique for this project stemmed from a simular idea I had to make a 3D environment in Adobe After Effects that I could fly a virtual camera through. This first attempt I used to design the motion menus for a DVD I was making that featured all my music videos. The resulting effect was pretty cool – I was able to create an entire world within this software.
The idea was fairly simple; I would create flat objects in photoshop and animate them inside a 3D environment using Adobe After Effects. I haven’t really touched on full 3D building yet so I was going to try this simple 2D & 3D combination to familularize myself with the basic concepts. My first Doh•bot project was to create a teaser trailer of some kind to test my ideas. In this trailer we see the camera pass underground and into a dark creepy hallway which would lead us through an air vent and into a secret lab where Roger-9 and his “handler” would be conducting tests, very simular to the DVD project I did earlier.
First thing I needed to do was create my robot – or Roger-9 as he is called. I scowered the net for all kinds of images that showed car parts, airplane parts, bike parts, scraps of metal, tools and anything that had an interesting industrial look to it, these would be the parts I used to make the robot.
With these photographic elements I then started building my robot from the wheels up, adding in bits and pieces where I thought it needed it. In the process I created several parts as separate elements, such as the arms, the head and other things I knew I needed to animate. The arms for example I made in 3 parts – the upper arm, the lower arm, and the wrist/hand. By doing this I could then rotate the joints in After Effects to get a decent movement, at least a basic 2D robot animation.
I aged and rusted all the parts in Photoshop so that my robot looked old and very used. The idea was that his inventor – (Bob Royds) was a shoddy inventor who cut corners and never built anything that really worked.
The front view of Roger-9 went fairly well but the closer it got to completion the closer it started to resemble Wall-e. I don’t know if that was a subconcious design or just a cooicidence when piecing together spare parts. Either way it made no difference to me since I was originally inspired by Wall-e in the first place. I added in a really bad Prince Valiant style wig to convey that Roger-9 wanted to do whatever he could to be human, or at least fit in.
Once I had the front view I needed to at least create a side and rear view of what I created with the front. It was hard to match mechanicl parts realistically so some of his parts may not be realistically proper. I was able to create three views that I was happy with and I thought would work for what I wanted to do.
Once I had Roger-9 ready I needed to start making the wall textures I would use in my 3D environment. I figured I could make a whole underground lab with hallways and doors based on my simple 2D elements made in Photoshop and then built together much like a simple card house – four walls, a floor and a ceiling. I did exactly that, very basic 3D with 2D elements.
• here are some of the walls I made in Photoshop, very simple process of distressing a concrete texture and adding in various doors and paint schemes for variation. The floors were simply an image of a very old, dirty, tile texture.
Once I made all my Photoshop elements finished I brought those into Adobe After Effects and started building my rooms with the walls and floor tiles. It was pretty simple considering everything was at a 90 degree angle and very basic 3D layout.
I scripted and storyboarded out the teaser trailer so I knew what shots and angles I needed to make. I decided I would feel more comfortable making each shot in After Effects and then editing all of these separate clips into a final trailer using Final Cut Pro where I would have more editorial control not to mention adding in the audio and sound effects.
The Teaser trailer turned our fairly well and got me inspired to really try something a little bigger in scale with a 2-3 minute short or episode featuring Roger-9.
Making the short...or coming up short - depending who you ask.
Welcome to CYBERNOB. Your robot specialists…or so they say.
Once I had finished the teaser trailer I knew I could step it up a bit and try to animate my Roger-9 character more. My idea for the first episode was to explore a little more into who exactly built “the worlds dumbest robot” and what Roger-9 did there. Why not show just one of many tests they do on Roger-9 to graph his learning or lack therof. This episode idea was something I could do within my secret lab concept that I breifly experimented with in the teaser.
I was still dealing with a 2D character in a 3D environment but I had a few ideas on how I might be able to make this robot come to life.
I thought it would be funny to maybe focus on Roger-9 and his “handler” being of a somewhat lower intellegence. Since I made Roger-9’s world a secret underground lab, I decided to take that a bit further and focus on one of his testing rooms – particularly “the button room”. I designed the room as a huge warehouse like space with nothing in it except for “the button” and the control room where Bob Royds (Roger-9’s handler) conducts the tests.
The button room was constructed with my usual simple walls created in Photoshop and brought into After Effects for placement. One of these walls would feature Dr. Royds observation control room.
• a final render showing the control room
The control room was created using a few different simple methods. The first was building a wall with a cutout window in Photoshop. The second element was creating the interior of the control room by using an old photograph of a cool computer consul from the 60’s. Third I needed the character “Bob Royd” behind a couple computer monitors appearing to be conducting the actual test, this I ended up doing myself infront of a green screen.
• A simple visual as to how each 2D element is placed in the After Effects 3D workspace.
This cheap method gives a pretty cool 3D effect when you move the camera around, but this basic method does have it’s limits. One limit is your virtual camera view has a limited range when changing angles and can only go so far before your 2D Photoshop elements really start looking like a flat piece of paper. If you keep your camera moves simple and remember to keep your 2D objects in front of your camera as close to 90 degrees as possible it should work fairly well.
One of the major elements I needed to build was the big destructo gun that would “interact” so to speak with our lovable robot Roger-9. I wanted this to be some massive gun type contraption that looked robotic in itself and very menacing. As with the other elements I made the big gun in Photoshop by using more images of motors, old machine parts, CO2 tank, gun parts and anything that I could find really.
I just kept adding onto it until it became this really mean looking industrial weapon. To keep in tone with the fact that everything Cybernob creates is half junk I distressed the metal with more rust texturing. To add in some coolness I slapped some of that standard sci-fi black & yellow caution stripes and of course the always dangerous looking radioactive symbol, a great final touch.
Adding the rusted and worn textures are cool, but once they are in After effects that is where they really start to look great. Adobe After Effects allows you to place various virtual lights in your scenes which makes these guns really come to life and look even more scary for poor ol’ Roger-9. The software literally allows you to light the room as if you were actually on the set arranging your practical lights. It’s a lot of fun trying out different lighting arrangements and makes you realize just what an art being a great cinematographer is.
• a couple final renders of the guns with different lighting.
I used all 3 angles of Roger-9 that I made in Photoshop to help animate this flat 2D character the best I could. I dded in some POV shots that helped me illustrate movements I couldn’t do with a flat 2D character.
