This video includes various days of screen recordings of my work modeling and animating a NASA ScienceCast in my daily work for V! Studios. It opens up with a 13 second snippet from the final video followed by multiple days of screen captures showing the design process in Cinema 4D. It spans from modeling and texturing small icons and long tendril sweeps, to animation and tweaking render settings.
This concept was the first scene created as part of a three part series of NASA ScienceCasts centered around low Earth orbit commercialization. Here’s a link to the full series.
Modeling, Texturing, and Animating Icons (0:13-1:12)
The various icons across the globe in this animation correspond to this ISS National Lab Project Pipeline Map. The design of the icons comes directly from that map. Each of the icons sits within a null object with its axis at the center of the Earth. That way I can animate it’s movement within the null and move future copies around the map without messing up the keyframes.
Creating the “tendrils” (1:12-3:52)
I built the “tendrils” using sweeps along b-splines. The colors of each spline are consistent with the icon they are linked with on Earth. Once I had created one, it was a matter of duplication and offsetting the splines to make an interesting web of lines zooming from the Earth up to the Destiny Module on the ISS.
Camera Animation (3:52-5:45)
For camera animation I like to place my camera inside of a Null object. That way I’m keyframing all my camera moves and rotations on the null, and only keyframing the camera for zooming in and out. This helps when making wide camera rotations around a subject.
Adjusting textures, camera settings, and render settings (6:04-6:46)
Once I had the camera moves animated and most of the tendrils modeled and in place, I experimented with different textures, camera LUTs, and render settings to try and achieve the look I was going for. This is where Octane shines. The immediate feedback in the live viewer helps the design process go so much faster, allowing me to try more options and push experimentation a little further.
Rinse and Repeat (6:50-8:31)
At this point in the video I’ve got the look I want with the camera moves animated and ready to go. Now it’s just a case of MORE icons and MORE sweeps. There are so many projects and experiments taking place on the ISS, so I needed a big burst of lines as well as a full map of icons.
Sweep Animation (8:31-9:10)
Much like the icon animation, I animated all of the sweeps together and then offset their keyframes to stagger their movement. This way they would all move the same speed but start and stop at different times creating a constant flow of moving lines.
Modeling and Animating Lock Sequence (9:10-9:45)(11:30-11:51)
This is a small section of animation that was removed from the final cut.
Modeling and Animating the Earth-Orbiting Splines (9:45-11:30)
At this point we’re almost there but we need MORE SPLINES! These ones come from the ISS and orbit the Earth.
Rendering in the Cloud
Then when it came time for the final render I turned to RNDR, an absolute life saver. I can upload my complex animation up to the cloud and thanks to RNDR I can start working with my 4K rendered frames that same day. No more overnight rendering putting my own computer through unnecessary wear and tear.