A fellow musician saw the videos that I had created for myself and wanted something similar so he commissioned me to create this animation and video for him. Created with After Effects, Blender, ZBrush, Element 3d, Photoshop, and edited in Premiere.
Desktop Backgrounds
In addition to the video, I also created three desktop wallpapers, based on elements from the video. I supplied versions with and without the client's logo.
Concept Sketches
An image that popped into my head immediately was that of a ship opening up like a flower, unfolding giant solar panels. The ship was designed to look like parts of it are organic, perhaps bioengineered and grown, instead of built.
3D Modelling
The flower ship was modelled in Blender and detailed and textured in ZBrush.
The asteroids were modelled and detailed in ZBrush but I double-checked the UVs and texturing in Blender.
The lava planet, rendered in Element 3d.
In progress screenshots, before color correction and processing. Because of limitations on the number of baked animation frames that Element 3d (an OpenGL 3d rendering plugin for After Effects) could import, I had to render the ship in Blender. To keep the look somewhat consistent, and the speed up rendering, I used the Blender GLSL renderer.
Test Animations
Test to see how the ship will open.
Star surface and flare test.
Animatic
Rough animation created from stills to work out the timing.
