While working at Twisted Mountain Animation, I had the opportunity to work on Disney's The Big City Greens: Virtually Christmas special with the DMED team at Disney. I was one of three modelers on the show and was responsible for modeling on a number of the characters, including visual development on Nancy, modeling props and environments, and set dressing many shots in Outpost Infinity and the entirety of the intro sequence.
This production was rendered entirely in Unreal Engine 3, and I got to take an active role in the ingest of assets, creation of blueprints, and set dressing within the UE3 project itself.
Software used: Unreal Engine 3, Maya, Zbrush
See below a clip from the finished episode released by the Disney Channel
Nancy
Modeled from rough 2D reference
I had the amazing opportunity to model Nancy's Outpost Infinity version. Modeling characters for this special was an interesting challenge.
The special was all going to be rendered in Unreal Engine, so there would be no subdivision on render, plus they were animated with a lot of 2D inspired squash and stretch. All this meant that the end model needed to be incredibly dense to hold up in close-up shots with no visible faceting, as well as for extreme deformations.
- Limbs also needed to be flexible and able to support extreme poses. This meant that everything needed to be unconnected so animation wouldn't be blocked by sewn in topo.
- Extra sets of teeth and lines around the mouth and eyes needed to be constructed to be used by animation to create different expressions.
- The eyes and corresponding lids/lid lines also needed to be modeled as full spheres. They would then be squashed down into M&M shapes using the rig. This allowed for clean blinks.
- I also needed to create special topo around her mouth, which is completely flat, but that would have a lip painted onto it. This special topo is lemon-shaped and modeled to fit around the lip surfacing, and was meant to help keep her lips in check when animated.
- With these technical challenges, artistically the character still needed to retain the charm and spirit of her 2D counterpart while being fully 3D.
OUTPOST INFINITY
Modeled set elements from 2D references
I was responsible for the modeling of many of the set elements for Outpost Infinity. This includes almost all of the vegetation and rock forms.
I was also responsible for creating a number of blueprints in Unreal Engine that were used for set dressing.
See below for some of the pieces I modeled for the set
Ice Shelf sculpt
Green's house interior
Modeled set elements from 2D reference
I worked together with another artist to model this set. I was largely responsible for the detailing of the block-out model, as well as set dressing smaller elements, and creating most of the holiday décor.
Chicken prop
Model interpreted from the 2D animated series
Out of all the hero props I got to model for the special, my favourite was the chicken. This little fella can be seen gracing the Green's mantle, as well as roosting around Outpost Infinity.
Satellites
Modeled after my own design
Here are a few of the satellite props I modeled. They can be seen floating around in the sky, and parts of them were used to set dress Outpost Infinity.
