Blue Monster

This is the final version of the short animation, inspired by Hugh MacLeod's Blue Monster. http://www.gapingvoid.com/

Visit Vectorform for more! http://www.vectorform.com/blue_monster/

Instead of the "cute" monster test done previously ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=fOMJ4kii2bc ), I redesigned the character to more closely match the "classic" illustration by Hugh MacLeod ( www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/cat_microsoft_blue_monster_series.html ). Rigging was even simpler, though the mouth gave me no end of grief; either the teeth showed through when he bent around with the mouth closed, or they were distorted when he bent around and the mouth was open. The final video is a combination of models, mixing both "naturally closed" and "naturally opened" character designs.

The sketchy lines are an effect done entirely inside the Lightwave renderer, using animated displacements, edge effects, and tuned anti-aliasing.

The animation of the apple and leaf being spit out were originally handled via physics simulations... in the end, the core was keyframed by hand on top of the simulation to give more control over the feel and the poses, and the leaf was animated free form since in the simulation it was difficult to control the amount of spitting vs. floating.

The final Lightwave renders were composited in After Effects, adding subtle grays to the backdrop, mixing in shadows, paper textures and distortions, and the title animations (lettering taken directly from the Hugh MacLeod artwork). Audio was recorded and mixed in GarageBand. And yeah, the monster's voice is me... :D

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• hugh
• macleod
• microsoft
• blue
• monster
• lightwave
• animation
• 3d
• short
• film

[Potellio]

Haha what software do you use?

[iaian7]

@Potellio This is all mentioned in the video description above... Lightwave for all modeling, shading, lighting, rigging, animation, and rendering. After Effects for compositing and editing (I typically use Final Cut Pro for editing, but this was storyboarded animation, which is easy enough to edit in AE). Sound effects and music were recorded and edited in Garageband (audio is usually done in Soundtrack Pro, but Garageband was handy at the time).

[Potellio]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Apple better :( But good animation.

[iaian7]

Thanks! Glad you like it. Animation was done entirely on macs, so yeah... :D

[liquidplastic62]

So, microsoft eats AppleMac eh? Ha Ha Ha!

[iaian7]

Which is especially ironic, seeing as this was created entirely on Macs. :D

[aint8nosunshine]

Very nice animation dude! I was looking for a way to create that slight distortion effect that you see especially on the text, by using after effects. can you tell me which effect you used?

[BlueMonzter]

that was random, searching for my name was a bad choice

[toiletdak]

lol. its like getting shot with their own merchandise.

[PeterSatera]

I really like the diversity of your character. His movement is nice!

:)