Our Video Podcast Intro Graphics
Speaking of our video podcast, we really have to continue to give mad props to C. Robin Osborn for creating the intro graphics for them. Robin was even kind enough to send us a brief walkthrough article detailing how he managed to pull off the feat.
Thanks, Robin! I've taken what he emailed me and pasted it in full after the jump. Check it out...
The following was contributed by C. Robin Osborn:
THE SOFTWARE I USED:
Luxology Modo 103:
Luxology has made what I believe to be the best modeling application out there. It is both powerful, and intuitive, two things that don't always go together. As it is right now, Modo is only a modeler. Later this year Luxology is due to release Modo 201, which will include an amazing renderer for still images. Later, their roadmap will have them releasing Modo 301, which will include animation abilities. You can run Modo on Windows or Mac.
NewTek Lightwave 3D 8.5:
I have been a fan of NewTek for years. Both their Video Toaster and LightWave were always on my list from years ago when I was on an Amiga computer. Well, the Amiga has since died off, but NewTek was able to adapt their software and hardware to both PC's and Macs. Lightwave is a very affordable, and powerful complete package. Lightwave is actually two programs, Modeler and Layout. Modeler is for creating your 3D objects. Although I prefer Modo, Modeler is very powerful also. Layout handles the animation and rendering side of things. Lightwave Layout shines as a rendering package. Used in several sci-fi series on Television (Battlestar Galactica) and Movies (Serenity). Lightwave is also not prohibitively expensive. It has a whole lot of bang for the buck. Lightwave comes on a DVD for both Windows or Mac.
NewTek ScreamerNet II:
This is also included in the Lightwave package. This allows you to have an unlimited number of render nodes, and use all those nodes together as a render farm to help render out scenes much faster. There is no extra charge for this, unlike some other software out there that charges you a license per render node. Another plus for Lightwave.
THE PROCESS I USED:
Modeling:
Using Luxology's Modo, I created the outline of each letter in the TUAW logo. I then filled each outline with polygons, and basically made a 2D version of the logo. Once the 2D version was done, I was able to extrude the letters backwards, to give them depth. Now I had the front side of the letters complete. I mirrored the front to become the back. And there you have it, three dimensional letters. To make the letters look better, I bevelled the outer edges to round things off. I also created one large rectangular polygon to be the "floor" of the scene. Once I was done with the modeling, I assigned a material to the each letter and the floor to give them their correct colors. I changed the reflective qualities, also, and the modeling was done.
Animating:
I brought all this into NewTek's Lightwave 3D. I set the letters up together, putting each letter in the position it will appear in, in the logo. Now, I made a keyframe of all the letters locations at a point towards the end of the animation. Working backwards from this point, I moved each letter and created the necessary keyframes to give the impression that the letters were sliding in from different directions. Since I timed each letter to come in at a fast speed, I needed there to be some reaction when the letters abruptly stopped. This was done by shaking the camera for a few frames at each point that a letter "slammed" into place. Lighting the scene was done using the lighting values found in a high dynamic range image. With the animation now done, it was time to render it out.
Rendering:
The first render took around 5 hours to complete all the frames. This was quite some time, so I am now working on changing that. Lightwave allows you to use computers on your network to all work together and render the same scene. It does this using NewTek's ScreamerNet II software. They made it rather complex to set up, but thanks to a little program by Bruce Rayne called RenderFarm Commander, I was able to finally get all of my Macs (A Dual 2.5 Ghz G5, a 12-inch G4 PowerBook, and a Mac mini.) and all of my Windows computers (Two desktops and a laptop, all Pentium 4s.) to all work together and render the newer scenes much faster.