Stirton Productions and Beyond

Stirton Productons, 'The Planet' - Design Work

Before I post these I'd like to point out that we made this movie on a tiny budget and that none of us are trained 3d animators, we are film makers. Unlike many recent movies made by groups of modellers, this film has a plot and acting. What a novel idea!

Below are some early renders of the main spacecraft used in the movie. The attack craft and views of the main transporter ship. Both the main models were made by Kerwin Robertson, an architect and cg modeller, using autocad and Cinema 4D. The design was initiated by Kerwin and modifications made during the production process by the team. I retro fitted the suicide craft with some barrels of 'explodium' and pipe bombs; the baddies in the movie are a bit on the poor side.

I did the texturing and modification to the attack ships and some of the transporter craft, the main challenge was making the cannons work the way we wanted. I devised a series of particle emitters for the lasers and muzzle flash which work well when the ship is static but have to be adjusted for velocity of the craft: The faster the ship moves the faster the rate of emission for the lasers, or they start trailing behind and flying out of the ship's arse (comical, but wrong).

After a few months of r&d the firing system was worked for the attack craft and later applied to the gun turrets on the main ship. The rate of fire was adjustable so we had a lot of fun going mental with the space battles. The director, editor, digital effects chief, Mark Stirton, put all the work together and laid on the explosions etc. The results can be seen on the trailer, or on the movie if anyone is willing to buy it (www.stirtonproductions.com).

There are other bits of design and physical props from the movie but I'll leave those till later, way too much for one blog. I'm currently working on the production artwork for the next project which features a Viking longship, so I'll put those up soon.