Isla Blue is the title of a 3D animated mobile game trailer I created in a team of 4 people for an animation course in 2016.
The game trailer animation was an ambitious project with a large scope, containing 5 different characters and 6 environments. The trailer showcases a short opening cinematic to introduce the premise of the game, followed by glimpses of 5 different levels the player will travel though, as well as a few game mechanics.
Researching, ideating, game designing, modelling, texturing, and animating in Autodesk Maya, and video sequencing in Adobe Premiere.
Creating our game trailer animation was an ambitious project with a large scope, as we modelled and animated 5 characters and 6 different environments. We started off by first creating a fictional game's plot and gameplay in order to base our trailer on it, then ideating through the plot and mechanics several times to create an interesting game. Once we were satisfied with our concept, we set to work modelling and animating all characters, objects, and environments from scratch in Maya. We made sure to keep a firm schedule so we would not fall behind. Each person was responsible for certain scenes, and we put together the scenes at the end to create a cohesive and believeable game trailer video.
We began by brainstorming and discussing character designs of the protagonist (the chick), as well as his parents. My teammate Liah Castillo created the sketches used to visualize the characters. Another teammate, Jordan Millar did sketches of a few planned environments (pictured are the beach and the inside of an airplane - the airplane scene was scrapped due to changes in plot). These sketches were very helpful in the modelling process, as they helped us determine what we were to make and how we could go about creating different body parts. We also created a pitched storyboard to help us structure the scenes we planned to have, narrated by Salathiel Wells.
My role in modelling some of the final models was to create, texture, and rig the crab (pictured below), as well as the mother. I also textured and rigged the snake enemy while Jordan Millar did the model. My process for creating the crab model was to first research both 2D and 3D cartoon crabs, in order to determine what features common features all the models had. I also researched videos of real crabs scuttling so I could understand and mimic believeable crab leg movement.
The model itself went through a few iterations, starting from a very basic, crude polygon model. The claws and legs in particular were difficult to sculpt, due to their shape, and required several versions before resulting in the version shown above. For example, the legs and claws were originally curved with no joints - thankfully, I realized that real crabs do in fact have many joints!
An animatic was created using rough 3D models, to show basic movement. I worked on animating two gameplay scenes: the beach and the mountains (shown above). I focused in particular on creating more realistic and natural movement, such as the chick's wings flapping slightly when walking - reminiscent of a toddler's arms moving, adding human-like behavior. I also incorporated many animation techniques - for example, secondary movement (small actions on other parts of the body to complement the main action) and squash and stretch (to show volume and weight of a body).
Each person was responsible for animating one or two scenes, which would all be combined in the final video for the whole trailer. After we completed our animation, we spent many hours rendering, color correcting, and compositing our individual animation sequences to ensure they were high-quality.
