And here they are! In all their glory! Sadly; I could not upload the ones with sound/music. They went over 100Mg; which meant that I couldn't upload them here. Luckily, the ones without sound are only around 30 Mg; so those can be uploaded easily enough.
Anyways; without further ado ladies and gents, allow me to present:
- Ident 1 : Mysterious Button -
- Ident 2 : The Lever -
- Ident 3 : Lightswitch -
It's been fun! Hope you enjoyed them and many thanks for reading!
The start of the ident involved another wonderful bit of recycling. The initial walk is once again the basic walk from the first Ident. Hey, it's my animaiton? Why not re-use it? Only this time; I had DiscoverBot spotting the light switch and walking over to it. This actually created a few difficulties. It wasn't so much that I had to re-create a new walk cycle... but more that I had to do it at an unusual angle. All of the previous walks went straight across one direction. Thus; moving the feet was simply a case of lifting them up and pushing them in one direction. However, at this angle; I had to adjust the feet in both the x and y dimension; which made the process take a little bit longer than I hoped.
Nonetheless; a short while later and I had DiscoverBot standing next to the light switch.
Again, small details were vital when he tapped the switch. Tilts of the head, hand gestures and leaning helped make the movement look a lot more realistic. And yes, more acting was required!
The 'stun' was one of the trickier stances to model. After flicking the switch on; DiscoverBot had to flinch and freeze; waiting for something to happen. It took a few goes but this one seems to do the trick nicely.
This is my favourite bit! I loved how well the shrug came out! I didn't even have to act it several times and adjust it. A few movements and it was there! Don't think I could imrpove the shrug in any way. Really chuffed with that!
After walking off; DiscoverBot then starts to float off the ground and hover in the air. This actually took quite a bit of work; getting the floating motion to be consistent and naturalistic. Instead of just having to walk and move; DiscoverBot now had to move, swim and float as if he was in water! A lot more of a challenge than it seemed! To make matters worse... I couldn't even act it out! But a few guesses and a ton of tweaks soon created a decent animation.
The fish now make their appearance! And after the work spent making them (They did actually take quite a long time!), they swim on for a grant total of... well... not even a second. Nonetheless; I added bones to them and built in a nice swimming motion. Some think they need to be on the stage longer... but personally I feel thay do the job perfectly. Any longer and it might detract from the focus of the video (DiscoverBot!)
The end simply had DiscoverBot gently floating/drifting in the water (Really simple to do. Just set a movement over something like 50 frames and the motion will drift ever so slowly and take care of it for you!) Add to this a Discovery Channel sign gently floating down onto the stage and we're finished. As a nice little touch; I had the panel bouncing off of DiscoverBot's head. Why not?
We join our hero standing by a lever! What will happen? Stay tuned to find out!
Once again, working on the small details of DiscoverBot tilting his head as he rubs his hands in preparation. Looks a lot nicer than just standing still and going to pull a lever...
It was then a case of leaning him forward and taking hold of the handle. Don't forget to add in a little step to bring him closer and allow him to 'ready himself'.
A quick tug... to no avail. This bit took a few attempts. I had to have DiscoverBot trying to pull backwards; only to have his body 'snap' forward like a stretched piece of elastic. His head also had to act independently of this and snap forward like a flail. It took a few tweaks but was looking nice in no time at all.
You want to play rough, tough guy? DiscoverBot readies himself by cracking his knuckles. It was either that or 'spitting' on them and rubbing them again. Crakcing knuckles looked a lot more 'tougher' though and helped to portray the "That's it; you're in for it now!" attitude.
Much like before; DiscoverBot had to pull on the lever and snap back like a piece of elastic. Only this time; it was with 2 hands and had a lot more force going into it. It wasn't too bad; as I used roughly the same moves as the last one; only emphasised them a lot more this time around.
This was actually the trickiest bit. Instead of falling backwards; it seemed like more fun to have DiscoverBot fall flat on his face. To do this; I had to flip his body around. No easy task. I had to flip the hands around, swap feet and spin the body... all naturally! It took a lot of acting (Anyone looking through my window must have thought I was a nutter by now)... but eventually I cracked it!
And off he goes! DiscoverBot was sent flying... Looks fancy but was very easy to keyframe in.
... only to ground to a halt on the floor. Aww... don't worry; he's ok. All I had to do now was go back and flip the lever as he flies off. Job done!
Now to let you in on another little secret... DiscoverBot has a stunt double! Yes, after he falls; he gets up and walks back onto the stage. However... this next bit is all done by his stunt double! Why put that in? Well, the IK's had an annoying little bug on occasions. They'd reverse! In other words; they'd flip inside out! Naturally this was a pain in the backside and I couldn't seem to find a good way to fix this. However; I noticed that this only seemed to happen when the body was rotated in some way (Thus; the IK links got twisted)... and spinning the body around would definitely do this! So when I came to start making DiscoverBot walk back onto the stage... his legs kept flipping inside out. In the end; this became such a hassle... I recycled my old animation! I chopped the initial walk cycle from the first Ident; and stuck that into this one! And thus; the entire walk had been taken care of; without any inverted legs whatsoever. All I had to do was to hide DiscoverBot2 in the rafters; and bring him down when the first version fell off of the screen.
All I had to do form here was to edit the hands and motion of the walk cycle; thus creating a 'dazed' look about DiscoverBot as he staggered back onto the stage. You wouldn't have guessed this was the exact same walk cycle from the first ident, would you?
And in comes the boulder! Wipe out! Sadly; I had to animate the boulder myself. It would have been nice to use a more realistic 'roll' with the help of the reactor tool... but that proved useless. No matter how big or steep I made the ramp (It spanned 10000 pixels or something in the end), it just never built up the velocity I needed. It would pretty much trundle on and hit DiscoverBot. So in the end; I just picked it up and swung it across. Thinking about it now; it might have been better to have DB hit by a wrecking ball; and it then swings back onto the stage; with "Discovery Channel" written on it...
To plug Discover Channel; I rolled in a smaller ball with the logo on it after DiscoverBot was hit, and subsequently collapsed onto the floor. Not the most logical plug; but one of the better ideas of putting the Discovery Channel logo into the end of the Ident. Nonetheless; a sweet video! 2 down!
This is where it started! A shiny button in place; with DiscoverBot several feet from it. The first challenge might appear to be the hardest... to make DiscoverBot walk! In actuality, it wasn't. It took a few attempts, but I soon perfected a nifty walking system. In the first few attempts; I pretty much went into it blindly and hoped for the best. Naturally; things didn't really work out. We had DiscoverBot slowing some steps, leaping on others and generally dancing his way up to the button... only this is the sort of dancing you see 40 year olds doing at weddings. Yeah, you know the one I'm on about. In the end; I figured that walking is a very repetitive motion. Therefore; animating the walk in a very structured way would fix the problem... here's how I did it... 
The first step was to move DiscoverBot forwards. Get the feet moving and have him moving towards the button. Arms and others small movements like head or torso can wait. I broke the walk cycle into 2 stages; which would occur at set frame intervals. Working from the basic standing pose; I pushed the front leg forwards, and pushed DiscoverBot's torso forwards aswell. Luckily; the IK solvers cut a lot of time out of this. Moving the torso would bend the legs and knees to fit, which really helped make the movement natural! After pushing the torso forward; the back leg was also pulled slightly. The stance was basically where the legs are furthest apart; the front leg is just about to touch the ground; and the back foot is just starting to come off of it. The body is in the centre; balanced between the 2 legs. This was set after 10 frames. (See below)
The next stage was what I called the "Flamingo" stance. It's when you've placed the front foot down; and as you put weight on it; you move your torso forward to put weight over it, and bring your back foot forwards. I catch the moment where the ankles are roughly along the same vertical line (And it looks as if they're standing on one leg like a flamingo; only leaning forward a little bit more). This was set at the next 10 frame interval. (See below)
And that was all there was to it! Every 10 frames I'd set DiscoverBot into the next of these 2 stances... and the rest would sort itself. And sure enough; I soon had DiscoverBot standing next to the button. It was then a case of going back and making the walk a lot more realistic. The next step was to add the 'bobbing' of the torso. This was nice and easy; as the 2 stages solved the problem for me already. At stance 1; where the legs were furthest from eachother, the torso would drop slightly, and that's exactly what I did! Pushed it down just a little bit. At the second stance; where the leg is 'propping' up the body; I then pulled the torso up slightly. Repeat for each 10 frame segment and smile. Just to really make it stylish; I also pushed the torso left and right slightly; depending on where DiscoverBot was placing his weight. Suddenly; I had a natural-looking walk going! Result! All that was left to do was swing the hands. Again; with the 10-frame system set-up, this was also a cake-walk. Stance 1 would have the hands at the furthest distance apart from eahcother; whilst Stance 2 would have them at the same level (Both roughly just above the "knees" if DiscoverBot had them). Once again; repeat for each of the 10 frames and it worked beautifully. So that was the walk taken care of.
Next step was tapping the button for the first time. This was an easy bit; as it was mostly manipulating the hand and fingers (Which, in practice; were just 5 spheres altogether!) However, there were a lot more smaller pieces of animation to this. As I started this bit; I realised that it was the small details that made the big impressions. Anyone shown how to animate in 3DS Max could push a button. But the thing I found was that just lifting the hand and pressing the button had a very amateurish look about it. It looked like a very stale animation made by someone who just couldn't care less. Something was missing. So I stood up and acted it out. How did I move? How would I push an unusual button? The thing noticed was that most movements, even small ones, pretty much involve the entire body. When pushing a button; the head tilted slightly and the body dropped. So I worked that into it. Suddenly; the animation had a lore more life. It looked a look more realistic. This then became the crux of most of the animations for the idents. Detail, detail, subtle detail. Always act out what I would do and impose the small, subtle movements onto the animation as well. 
And so DiscoverBot's hand flies off (Look in the distance of the right panel, you can see it!). This bit was fun. Adding the shock and the sense of "!?" in DiscoverBot was very enjoyable. Once more; a few actings of it and subtle movements helped create a very natural-looking and humorous shock. That was an additional difficulty in the creation; I wanted it to be funny! And as DiscoverBot cannot speak; the humour was purely in the subtle movements and animaitons... no pressure eh!
This was perhaps the weakest bit of the ident, in my opinion... making DiscoverBot fly off. It took a few attempts, but nothing quite worked. This one's sufficient but not what I would have wanted it to be (I really wanted to have DB get tugged; try and sprint away from the magnet and then get pulled and flipped over)
And here he is; stick to the magnet. Instead of trying to wriggle free; it seemed better for him to 'check everything was there', so he wiggled his fingers and toes, looking at each one... only to suddenly look shocked... what on earth is tha-!?
*SMACK!* Cue a metal sheet with Discovery Channel flying onto the magnet. "But what about the Space Station!?" I hear you cry. In the end; it became too much effort for something so minor. To make matters worse; it wasn't even instantly obvious that the electromagnet caused the station to crash! This became even more annoying when I started to add sounds to it; as finding a noise of something falling from the sky... only to crash AND have the metal debris sounds for several seconds after... was insanely difficult. In the end; it was better to scrap the station and have the metal sign stick onto the electromagnet (This was a lot more obvious). Turned out to be funnier too! Finish with DiscoverBot wriggling the get free... and we have a finished ident! One down!
Easter Egg time! As a little gift; here's some clips from the old animaiton where the Space Station would come crashing down. It seemed a waste to go through all the effort and not at least present what would previously happen! Simply put; the Space Station was given the reactor tool; and allowed to fall and crash off its own accord (This would look a lot more realistic than trying to crash it myself). As I built this animaiton into the scene; I then started to send DiscoverBot and the electromagnet off flying (Due to the shock of the impact)
The dust settles and everything starts to fall into little heaps and settle.
The ident originally finished off with a charred Discovery Channel sign falling to the floor; with DiscoverBot poking his head up at the end. This was scarpped in the end.
Start with the image and a cuboid.
Shape the vertices around the image, blast it with turbo-smooth and add several splines to create the fins.
Add some texture... you know the drill by now.
The fins are actually reused from the previous fish. All I did this time was alter their colour in photoshop. Why go out and make new fins when you can recycle? It's eco friendly after all.
And there it is! The bigger fish! This one worked better with a more prominent skin; to emphasise its scales.
This was a neat little tactic I learnt from a few people in class (Harwood brothers... I love you!). I found a nice image of the sort of fish I wanted to model; and set that as a texture on a plane. With that on stage; I was then able to model a cuboid (Yes, a cuboid) around the picture, meaning that the contours could be followed, thus creating a realistic fish shape. As a result: cue a long 20-30 minutes matching vertices's against the original shape.
The fins were all created from splines (Also drawn against the original image). Removing the backing image reveals a pretty decent fish shape!
The next step was working on the angles of the fish to create a realistic shape all over (Not just from a side shot). Another blast of turbo-smooth took care of any uneven edges.
The final step was simply to add an eye and carve a mouth out of the vertices. Looks a bit ugly at the moment... let's add a bit of texture to it!
The first step was to add a fish eye and body texture. It took several attempts to get the skin right. I tried using textures of fish scales... but nothing worked properly. In the end; I created a blue texture with a decent specular level; and added the scales texture with a low opcaity (So the scales were less prominant and less dominating on the fish)
The fins, fortunately, were less hassle. I was able to use a segment of some fish fins for these, and dusting them with a light coating of bump map, high specular level and low opacity created a shiny, textured fin. Nice!
The dorsal fin was originally created from a separate fin-image (Seen as it's so much more prominent than the other fins)... however, it was found that it looked better when it shared the same texture and style as the others, and was subsequently changed to match them.
And there it is! The small fish ready for a quick swim!
A cuboid, 2 small spheres and a smaller cuboid later... and we have ourselves a light switch. That's all there is to it!
Add a quick bit of texture to create the screws and up the specular level of the plastic... and it's done. Thomas Edison would be proud (Whom, I actually share my birthday with!)