United3dArtists Archive

This thread is going to attempt to keep the community up to date with Firebird Studios first CGI short – Toy Wars. The story is based upon a young boy who gets the ultimate Star Wars toy for his birthday. The film has been designed from the outset to be entered into the annual Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge. As such, we will not be revealing all the elements of the plot but instead aim to show you some of the props and environments we have created for the film and perhaps inspire some of the members of the U3DA community in their own artistic endeavours.

On the technical side, 99% of the models/props/environments are going to be created using tS whilst the characters will be generated using a variety of modified Poser figures. There is quite a bit of dialogue in the film and this has all been recorded using real actors. Everything will be animated and rendered in its respective software package and then all combined together in After Effects. Or that is the plan at least. This is our first project after all and we have never attempted anything on this kind of scale before.

All C & C will be most welcome.

Sounds awesome!

can't wait to see it!

I think you said it on purpose to make us salivate.

Wonderful news Breech Block!
All the best with this.

Had to post this. If you have not see this, it is pretty darn good.

rjeff wrote: Had to post this. If you have not see this, it is pretty darn good.

Haha, good one

We knew from the very start that our Toy Wars project would sink or swim on the look of its characters. The trouble was, we were never really happy with the skin tones we were seeing in our test renders and we eventually realised that the stark truth was, that despite being in it's eigth generation, Poser just can't render good skin tones straight out of the box. Therein we had a big problem on our hands. So we spent many an hour seeking tutorials on the web and many more picking the brains of other friendly and talented artists in the many forums we frequent. Eventually, that investment started paying off and we slowly started seeing tangible results on-screen. It was very gratifying when we saw our Toy Wars characters finally reach the level of development we were always striving for.

Hi Breech Block. If you need good skin textured or other then go to Zbrush
click on downloads and ther you will find mat caps, alphas,and textures for free
They are awsome

Now that I am almost back to full health, it's time for Toy Wars to get some much needed attention. Here are some of the items that have been created to dress our bedroom set:

I am very glad to hear you are getting back to better health Breech Block.
I am also looking forward to your progress with Toy Wars.

Cheers, froo, it's really great to be able to be creative/productive again.

Your quality of work hasn't diminished.
Great to have you back Breech.

Cheers, Steinie. Much appreciated. Re: the quality is still there; Maybe, but to quote an old song, all takes me all night to do what I used to do all night.

Anyhows, here's another piccie.

Is that the old StarWars Xwing fighter game on the computer?

Ahh, MikomDude, I see your a connoisseur of the finer arts.

Yes, indeedy, you are correct. The game is relevant to the story we are telling so it was the most obvious choice really.

Heheh cool.... that's what I thought it was.

More furniture to help dress the set of our Star Wars themed animation project.

the bed looks veeeeeery good!

Thanks, man. That bedspread was quite possibly the hardest UV/texture map I have ever made - trying to get the pattern to wrap correctly around the models "hospital corners".

looks very nice!

Would be a very interesting UV map on the bed spread. heh

Here's a slight update:

Nice looking bedroom, I like the star wars theme.
You have done a great job.

great example of a relatively simple scene looking very good.

Thanks guys. Still a whole ton of detailing to add yet. And this area is only about a quarter of the set.

How about adding a couple star wars posters on the wall and either the millennium falcon or X-wing fighter hanging from the ceiling.

I'm way ahead of you on that one, Jeff. The posters are on the wall currently sitting behind the camera as they didn't stand out to well against the dark blue Star Wars wallpaper.

Ordinarily, we would have decorated the bedroom scene with a load of posters mirroring today's teenage culture; i.e a lot of Call Of Duty/Gears Of War tpye stuff. However, as the competition in which Toy Wars is being designed to enter has a strict non-advertising policy, there are no brand names/icons/logos allowed and as such we are having to create a lot of custom made texture maps. Here are a few examples.

Those posters are very believable.

Does the Star Wars stuff violate the non-advertising policy?

Finis wrote:Those posters are very believable.

Does the Star Wars stuff violate the non-advertising policy?

He is using it for education purposes by educating we uninformed who slept throught the 1970s and 1980s.

Thanks Finis, glad you likes. Using Stars Wars stuff is okay for this project as the compo is run by George Lucas.