Concept drawings and sketches were the first step in the whole production process in order to get a clear idea of what I wanted to do. Some of them were made to get a feel for the action and the world the trailer was going to play in, while others served as reference for the actual modelling of the character/vehicles and world objects.

Click the thumbnails below to view a larger version.

After all models were finished and optimized for use within UT2004, they had to get some textures, of course. All textures were handpainted in Photoshop, after laying out the UVs in Maya.


Here is a selection of textures used in the movie.

Click the thumbnails below to view a larger version.

The storyboard was the second conceptual step. It included all the relevant scenes that were going to be seen in the movie, as well as thoughts on staging and camera angles/movement. The storyboard also helped to initially split up the entire movie into numbered shots that were refered to through the whole production process. This way any confusion about who was going to work on which bit of animation or detail required would be eliminated.

Click the thumbnail below to view the storyboard.

Requires Adobe Acrobat. Get the free PlugIn here.

The text is in german, but I'm sure you'll get the story anyway.

As soon as the rough world geometry and the main characters and vehicles were modelled, the storyboard served as a reference for an animatic, a roughly animated sequence of all shots, where timing and camera angles were refined. It showed after the first pass on the animatic that not all scenes were going to work out as initially planned in the storyboard. Some shots were deleted, others had to be amended for the story to work in a filmed sequence.

Once the texture work was done, I made these turntables to show off the finished models.

All Turntables require XviD codec. Get it here.
File sizes: All Turntables: 5MB
Resolution: 720x576

Click the thumbs to download the .AVIs

Polygons:
Character: 3627
Welding Tool: 656
Hammer: 53
Total: 4327
Bones: 206 plus IK/FK Rig
Features:
IK/FK switchable arms/hands, scalable spine, bones setup for basic facial expressions, independently usable hammer.

Polygons: Total: 1852
Bones: 11
Features: rotatable engine exhausts, bendable tail

Polygons:
Total: 4062 including Twin-Minigun Turret
Bones: 42
Features:
Rotatable gun turret/engines, retractable landing gear

The Animatic gave a more or less accurate indication of how long each shot was going to be. Each shot was then animated in Maya using keyframe animation for each of the three characters and then exported to Unreal.

Click the thumnails below to view a few examples of the final animation.

WalkCycle
Duration: 30 frames
File Size: 587 KB

Shot 08_04-05: Breaking in the back door.
Duration: 110 frames
File Size: 1,86 MB

RunCycle
Duration: 20 frames
File Size: 563 KB

Shot 06_01: Sneaking out of cover.
Duration: 150 frames
File Size: 3,01 MB