The Cog Project

an independent film by Colin Litster produced using BLENDER

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This is the website of an independent 3D animated feature film called 'COG'. Over the coming months I will post images, movies, and explanations of progress on this long project.
My ageing galvanised hero will take you to the beginning of creation, the 4th dimension, and through to love and retirement. ...... and hopefully make you laugh.
The project is being produced in Blender, the OPEN SOURCE & FREE 3D creation suite, developed by Ton Roosendaal et al.

UPDATE

December 2005 To finish off 2005 I have been finalising another Cog's Quick Tutorials, on Cloud Creation in Blender. However, to give me something to start 2006 off with I have announced that in my first post of 2006. To end this year I have uploaded the blend files of the 3 fur textures that so many of you have asked for. I have found further techniques for fur and hair using the official Blender v2.4 which I will detail in my hair tutorial next year. Until then here are the files.
light-fur (hairy-cube-01.blend)
tabby-fur (hairy-cube-02.blend)
kong-fur (hairy-cube-04.blend)
Here's to 2006. Let it be as fulfilling as this year has been.
Well its been another busy few weeks with several aborted attempts to get on with Cog work. I have also been struggling with my softbody tutorial which should have been published by now. One problem is trying to rationalize tips when the option is still under development. So with that in mind I'm going to wait until Blender 2.4 is released before finishing that particular Cog's Quick Tutorial.
That doesn't mean that time has been entirely wasted. I have been developing techniques for making large objects blend into ocean or large waterscapes. I had noticed that objects in water, using my ocean concepts, have a very unrealistic sharp intersection with the water. Click the image above to see a side by side comparison (QT 1.8Mb)
I happened to be looking at the recently released 1933 "Son of Kong" DVD. I had an old 8mm version of this film when I was very young . There is a scene at the end where Skull Island is disappearing beneath the waves. I noticed that Willis O'Brien had used a simple blurred mask to achieve the effect so I thought I would try to duplicate it in Blender.
It was quite simple. Create a Black & White pass of the island (white) against the waves (black). Blur this in a photo program. Then map it back onto the island from the object 'Camera'. Use this as an Alpha and low and behold you have a travelling matte that smoothly mixes the island into the ocean.
You will have to adjust the size and orientation of the mask to correctly size and position the mask to work.
You can even take it one stage further and offset the mask in time to give reasonable wave spray for an island at long to medium distance from the camera. Click the island image (QT 1.8Mb) to see a concept utilizing this technique.
November 2005 Pre-visualization is very important when you have to create complex shots with lots of movement and camera angles. Although you can produce a quick window render by clicking the render window button, the results don't display framing or what's outside the camera view. If you also zoom the camera view out you get a widescreen like effect which will bear no resemblance to the camera field of view. Blender has no way of showing the viewing frustum from the camera window view when you render the window so I thought I would create one.
A simple plane mesh with its centre removed (added new vertices and deleted the face). And a simple shadeless material with shadow, making and receiving, turned off. This is then orientated and parented to the camera. Simple idea but it means I can now see the extent of my framing when doing pre-rendered shots. Sometimes the simplest of ideas can save time.
If you click the image a small animation will show how this technique will help pre-visualize exactly what the camera will see.
October 2005 As promised Cog's Quick Tutorial #3 'Surface Tension on Water' is now published. It's available from the tutorials section.
I Have updated these hair and fur examples with a small animation demonstrating breeze on one of the fur cubes. fur-in-breeze.mov (QT 656Kb)
And here's a bigger and better example using direct IPO animation of the texture slot 8 cloud OfsZ. wind-in-fur2.mov (QT 5.72Mb) NOTE: I have re-sorensoned this concept because I was not happy with the artifacting. However, it's now over 5Mb in size, but the quality will hopefully show the detail in the fur.

Since I need a Toupee I thought I would make one! Hair, as well as fur, can be created in the latest BlenderCVS. Apart from grooming, which can be controlled with guides or the old X,Y,Z particle controllers, hair needs to be less dense, and slightly thicker than fur. This can be solved by making the transparent end of the blend texture shorter. Here's the blend file for this example. digital-toupee.blend
Click the image to see a larger (1280x720 - 1.3Mb)render.

To the right is a diagram of the blend texture mapped as a Strand to static particles. As you can see the root colour is to the left and the tip to the right. The section over which the hair thins is the distance between any point at 100% alpha (solid) and 0% alpha (transparent). Multiple points for colour and/or alpha can be set in the colorband to produce the hair or fur of your choice.
Been playing again, this time with the new hair/fur capabilities in the upcoming Blender 2.4.
It's actually very easy to create extremely realistic results using the new Strand mapto, on static particles.
Set up a Blend texture with relevant colours and a transparent end. Make sure the alpha setting makes the correct end of the fur transparent or it will look like straw. Map this as Strand mapping with colour and alpha. Ensure that Ztransp is also set. You can add another texture colour to Orco mapping and produce patterns or markings on the fur. It's even possible to animate, but more of that later.

Click the examples for larger images. More pictures available from the Images menu.
Many of you will know that I am a big fan of Brian Taylor's RUSTBOY film. Brian is currently taking a rest from his feature to concentrate on other activities. However, he has decided it's time to close his Rustboy Forum site. As there is still a great deal of useful advice from that forum Brian has gratuitously agreed that I can carry an archive of the remaining posts for future 3D animators. I am currently extracting all post and hope to have a searchable Rustboy Forum Archive available soon.
September 2005 Rashly I have committed to a schedule for posting some new tutorials. It means that at each of my monthly updates a new tutorial will be available culminating with a brand new Ocean Tutorial for January 2006. So please check back each month for progress.
I have added a second Cogs Quick Tutorials, on transitional wipes, as used in 'Cog is revealed', following a reply I gave on the Blender CGTalk forum. I thought it would be useful to preserve it here for other users. Enjoy.
>>>>>>>>>> BLENDED STEREO CUSTARD <<<<<<<<<<
I couldn't resist that title.
I have occasionally played with producing animations in 3D stereo. That's either anaglyph (Red/Blue) or cross eye (left & right side by side). Since the blender fluid functionality is maturing nicely I thought I would produce a small example for you. To see if you can view the movie stare at the picture above relax your eyes and try to bring both images together. If you do see stereo click on the image to display a short movie of every school Childs favourite pudding, custard. If I mention custard one more time you might think it's product placement. Now there's an idea!
August 2005 I couldn't resist playing with the fluid functionality in the BlenderCVS. This is being developed by Nils Thuerey under the Google Summer of Code 2005, projects. Although in it's very early development stage it looks incredibly promising. And useful for me as I was just about to try and animate splashes in a lava field.
Click the image for a quick animation of this exciting Blender development. Fluid test (QT 165Kb)

The gathering storm concept utilizes a very simple but effective seagull. This is simple sub-divided, armatured mesh, with a quick and dirty ORC texture (no I didn't use UV) painted from pictures harvested on the web (Google Images, great resource). If you click the image a short animated sequence is shown. You will notice that its not just the wings that are animated. seagull (QT 810Kb)
After some very useful advice on the forums I have further modified my gathering storm concept. Lighting and colour differences together with an atmospheric soundtrack help bring this alive. Thank you to all those who gave such good advice.
Just click on the image to see and hear the gathering storm (QT 3.4Mb)
Well I couldn't let August go by without telling you about progress on my ocean crests concepts. I've taken the inbuilt textures almost to their limits to create this concept. Again I have employed a layered approach to have control over each element. I have also managed to reduce the render time of the complex wave crests from over an hour down to just over 1 minute per frame. I have also managed to find a technique to take the ocean to the horizon without increasing the render time. This would have been ready over 2 weeks ago but a bug in Blender stopped me generating the flapping of gull wings. Demo movie here QT 3Mb
Darker example more Atlantic than Pacific QT 5Mb
TIP:- If you use Subsurface, Dupliverted armatures in your animation ensure both the view and render subdivisions are the same, otherwise the meshes will not animate.
July 2005 While creating a text plate I found a new use for the softbody effect now in Blender v2.37a I wanted the effect of the text being ripped from its place by a fast moving object. Rather than construct complex meshes I simply created small planes with an alphered letter mapped to each to make up the words. I applied softbody and a wind effect that puffs quite hard at the point where the object passes. I also parented each plane to invisible box objects which have some simple rotation and location hand animation. This will be composited later with the background shot that has Cog moving past at speed. Click on the image to see the animation.
If you are reading this you have reached my new hosting URL. Please make sure any direct bookmarks point to www.cogfilms.com old links will soon be removed. However, all files will still be available directly from this site. Over the next few weeks I will be rationalizing the website style to make it easier to navigate and also add extra information about COG.
June 2005 Well only just in time for June with one day to go. I've been very busy with work and other entertainments this month so little real development with Cog. However, that doesn't mean I have neglected Blender development as v2.37 is out and I have been trying out its new features. I've even found a little time to experiment further with elusive water and wave crests. I have managed to get a little more detail, or complexity into the crests although render times are currently over 1 hour!
Click on the image for a larger version 2.35:1 Cinemascope
Here is a small concept animation QT 212x80 503Kb I am fast running out of space on my website so time to expand and update this space. PAUSE AS HE CHECKS HIS WALLET. July will be a quiet month. See you anew in August. Cog
May 2005 Bad weather seems to be a feature this month with more dramatic sky's. I have had some success at generating both movement and spatial depth to these clouds. Interestingly the cloud in this concept uses a simple cube with a Halo texture and no particles. If you click on the image a small animation of a storm boiled sky, with lightning, will load. (320x136 QT 1Mb)

Well I couldn't resist adding sound to this concept. File size has inevitably increased.
I've done some further development on the cloud concept creating a panorama effect of a storm building. These images are also available from the Images page accessible from the menu on the left. I think another tutorial is also brewing.
Development work on Cog is progressing with frequent concept work taking me into new areas of Blender. Sometimes it can appear impossible to achieve a graphic effect or image with the current tools. However, I won't allow little obstacles like that stop me. One such issue is with clouds, which are notoriously difficult to achieve in any graphic package. Occasionally while you work to create an image you will see other things happening that may offer solutions to tomorrow's problem. I keep a journal of all such things and refer back to it frequently. Working on clouds this morning reminded me of things I discovered while making the Nebula and dense smoke concepts. Click on the images to see a bigger first attempt at Stratus and Altostratus cloud.
Preview May 2005 To celebrate another years life, here is a preview concept animation using the new Softbody tool in the upcoming Blender v2.37. I will detail what I have learned to help tame this exciting technique. How to use simple collision detection. How to use wind and other forces while keeping the render times to a minimum. This concept, with multiple softbodies and collision detection took less than 11 sec per frame in this 400 fame 640 x 360 animation.
Just click on the image for the concept (3.6Mb QT)
April 2005 Well not such a productive month as recently. Paid work, and the need to review and invigorate progress, have directed me to ease down and play a little. However, plenty of behind the scenes development has happened, including a great deal of work on the new Softbody functionality from the upcoming Blender v2.37. I have a Viking ship with a very nice Softbody sail and flag, with articulated Vikings rowing for life in a THOR swept stormy ocean. Oh dear! I'm getting carried away again because you will have to wait for those images and animations.
In the meantime I've been investigating water surface tension. A detail that can add to the realism of water animations. It's achieved with a high resolution (1024x1024 or greater) blurred, black & white image, of the shape of the object in the water, strategically placed as an added displacement map. If you click on either image a short animation demonstrates the effect.
March 2005 I have been toying with the graphic style of Cog and recently rather liked the toon edge effect that I did with the Flag concept. As an experiment I have re-engineered the Tug movie with cartoon edges. Such a technique requires 3 layers to produce the desired arts & crafts like effect.
1. for the boat and sea with cartoon edges.
2. another for the mist with the boat and sea set to black
3. and the last for just the smoke, but with the funnel and back mast and background set as blue
I then used Adobe Premiere to composite the 3 layers.
Here's the result. (320x180 QT 3.3Mb ) (640x360 QT 5.4Mb)
The Dense smoke tutorial is now up in the tutorials section. I missed my own deadline by 45 mins I'm afraid so my apologies about that. I have dedicated this tutorial to Burns because he correctly identified my homage to 'Rustboy' by Brian Taylor. You can learn much more about Brian Taylor's superb film by visiting www.rustboy.com.
February 2005 Well FLU has delayed me finishing the dense smoke tutorial but I have updated my images with another glimpse at my film. The image is a concept for my TUG character in choppy water. It also uses the dense smoke and also the flag concept shown earlier. I have some remodelling of the tug to do but its ready enough to demonstrate the dense smoke in action and I hope to have the tutorial ready over the next week. A large (1280x720) image is available from my images gallery. P.S If you click the image above a small animation will be displayed.
A larger version is now available (QT 5.4Mb 640x360)
Coming soon Click the image to see a cyclic animation of dense smoke emanating from a Tugboat stack in a dark atmosphere. The tugboat is a character/prop from the feature 'Cog'. Learn more soon............
January 2005 A Very Happy New Year. We have become a Grandfather. A beautiful baby girl, January 12th, 7.6lbs.
Another concept applying the texture-only soft-body technique this time to a curtain. Click the image for a cool animation. cog-behind-the-curtain.mov (QT 2.4Mb)
This fast & simple technique is covered in my new Cog's Quick Tutorials

A busy month as I have come up with a nice soft-body type flag, BUT made entirely with procedural textures. It uses a blend texture as a stencil to a wood texture to displace a simple sub-divided plane. The blend stencil locks the pole end to the flag, but allows the rest of the flag to flutter. Click the image for a neat animation.
I have updated the tutorial section with a new Cogs Quick Tutorials and No.1 is Simple Flag Creation in Blender
The Nebula Tutorial is completed and available in the Tutorials section. I also have uploaded the blendfile (stars-01.blend) & the completed animation, stars-01.mov - 2.1Mb, for those who don't want the effort of going through the tutorial. Shame on you.
And here is a new nebula shot taken from my forthcoming trailer. It uses the tutorial concepts with an added interaction as a twinkling object passes through it. Enjoy.

The film is dedicated to my great friend Roger Finch who tragically died in 2003. Roger was an inspiration to many non-professional film makers encouraging them to dream, persevere, and achieve the impossible.