Finally completed !. You can download the Quicktime or check out the images below.

download 5MB quicktime with audio

Update 26/8/2001 - It's been a while but I'm finally on the home straight. To be honest I think I ran out of steam, so this got left on the backburner for a while to give me chance to get a little distance and see what would stay and what would go. Plus the breathing space gave me chance to redesign the site and come up with some new concepts for my next project.

Apart from a few final renders it's pretty much all there. The audio is by Aphex Twin, however I cut up the track a little as I wanted a sound effect rather than musical feel.

Update 24/7/2001 - More sitting around inspecting my belly button, and just a little more work on texturing. I've started on the run now and hope to have something workable by the end of the week. The texturing is pretty awful, but it's only designed to hold up once it's been shot off screen so it was pointless spending forever texturing detail that would never show up !.

(click the image to see a high resolution version)

Update 4/7/2001 - After a period of inactivity I'm back on it again. I've started detailing the models, adding props and finalising camera angles and will probably start texturing this week.

As you can see from below I've refined the look, adding text and shoot with a much better video camera. Sometimes I think I'm crazy to go to so much effort adding tiny details to the models that you'll probably never see!

(click the image to see a high resolution version)

Update 27/6/2001 - Not much has changed but I've modelled a fair bit more detail and used the webcam to treat these images.

Update 26/6/2001 - Heres a quick test with the webcam, it gives the effect I'm hoping to see when I video the sequence off the monitor.

As you can see all that hard work in modelling was for nothing !. Actually that's not true - the more bevels and details I add, the more realistic the effect. I'm also going to have to ensure I get a good look for the concrete walls, as with most textures in this film it'll be the shine and bump maps that matter much more than the colour information.

Update 25/6/2001 - Things are beginning to come together on the modelling front. I've been careful to take my time deciding on a concept and layout for the set as it's going to be important in getting the shots I want. I've started to add some small detailed objects such as lights and sliding metal gates to act as foreground detail.

I'll be interested to see how the cable umbilical chord will work when the robot is pounding away on the treadmill, it's all boned up to bend and react to his movements.

I'm pleased with the overall look although there's still a lot of work to be done to get the detail into the set that it needs.

I now need to continue adding in props, detail the room further, then light and texture the whole scene !.

Concept - This short will be the third of my looping animations featuring robots, and quite possibly the last. It seems of late I've become obsessed by robots which is possibly the biggest CG cliché of them all, but there you go.

I'm constructing a large, cumbersome robot which will be pounding away on a treadmill, surrounded by test equipment. Unlike the other shorts, this one will probably be constructed from multiple shots. I'll be treating the entire short by shooting it off screen with a video camera to give a crusty video feel. I'm hoping the pixels will bleed into each other and soften the whole image off.

You can see below a Photoshop mock-up of the effect I'm looking for.