Well, the world in which these character exist, at least…

This project offered to us an opportunity to deliver a great message and work on a fun project. The 2 minute spot, later truncated to fit the standard 30-second tv spot, features Benny and Franklin, the birds. Benny is an eager, yet clumsy, little squirt that acts as the comic relief. Children don’t like being lectured to, so Benny is our vehicle to help send the message home. Franklin, the wise narrator acts as the authority figure. As Benny and Franklin talk, Benny realizes the threat to the children in his neighborhood. He rushes from one house to another warning them to STAY AWAY FROM THE TRUCK!!!

As the modeler, texturer, lighter and a render manager of this project, I had my work cut out for me. Fortunately, I had excellent concept work created by Rickey Boyd who designed the sets and the birds. Andrew Atteberry assisted in designing the children. As with most every other project, I start out by modeling the characters because this is what our story is about – the characters. We needed to get the client approval on the main characters (Benny and Franklin), so I knocked those out first. Once approved, I moved onto the children as we awaited approval. By the time all of the humanoids were modeled and approved, I started the environment and props. The rest of the process was bouncing back and forth between assets and departments.

Franklin - Safety first, from high atop his perch. Franklin is the trademark of USPS - the eagle. He is considerably larger than Benny. His face is a bit more human as to be taken more seriously. His body language also carries a lot of maturity. We decided to model in the main feathers to produce a strong outline in poses. On top of that, we laid down a subtle feather texture to hint a texture makeup of thousands and thousands of feathers.

Benny - the goofy, hyper-active counterpart of Franklin. Contrary to Franklin's face, Benny has more cartoonish features. If you are going to be goofy, might as well look the part. He is much more skinny and nimble. What can be any more goofy than a pot-belly bird with a crane neck and pencil-thin appendages?

The neighborhood. This environment asset proved more difficult than I had originally thought it would be. I started out with a quarter-circle that made up the road. From that, I propagated several referenced houses around. I had about 4-5 different houses that I randomly placed around and changed color schemes. I detailed out the properties with 'accessory assets' such as mailboxes, stepping stones, driveways, bushes, grass chunks, trees, etc. We wanted the environment to have a bit of a 2D feel to it, so we relied heavily on basic geometric shapes with cartoony/stylistic textures - avoiding bump and displacement as much as possible. The trees are simple-form meshes with a tiled pattern of 2D leaves. The trees on the horizon are painted in Photoshop and placed on 3D cards. The clouds were produced the same way - 2D painting on a 3D card.

As you can see, the horizon is made up of 2D trees on a 3D card. The house is comprised of simple geometric shapes that really pop once we apply the ambient occlusion. The grass is simple geometry instanced via XSI hair. The windows are a simple fill with painted drapes. The proportions of the house do not match the child or the dog - but then again, they don't need to. A style like this can be a challenge, but forgiving in other aspects. The bush is a simple mesh with a fractal displacement, just to help in conveying the makeup of a bush.

The little girl of asian decent was my favorite character to create, but unfortunately she has the smallest role of all ( She is the child that ducks to pick up a flower as Benny flies by overhead). Sometimes, no matter how many hours and how much effort you put into a particular model, it can end up being on the frame for about 1 second or less. Que sera sera.

For the truck, I needed good reference. What better reference than an actual USPS truck? I went to the local Post Office to take pictures of one of their trucks. From the plethora of images I snapped, I was able to construct the truck. In the end, I put in more detail than would fit in the world we created. I dumbed down some of the textures and deformed it a bit to look more cartoony. I found that to be a challenge in itself – constantly reminding myself (after the fact) of the director’s desired style and having to refrain from adding too much detail and thus detracting from the cartoon style.

Coming soon, a post on the conceptual stage, from brain to paper…

- Chris @ Magnetic Dreams dot Com