Water Worm 7.5 sec movie - 160x120 - worm.avi - [534K]
- This was an exercize in refraction and bones in Lightwave. I created the
fish by exporting a graphic of a fish from Corel Draw 5.0
clip-art and modeling a shape in Modeler to match the
graphic. The face of the water worm is borrowed from the
Beethoven bust object included with Lightwave. I cut the
face off the bust, extruded it, and voila! A very Abyss-like
effect. The .AVI file shows the interaction as these two
creatures meet.
- The Abyss, while being possible the nastiest sexist movie of the
post sexual revolution era, did score some major points with its special effects.
The one thing that stunned audiences more than anything was the pseudopod,
a tube of water which invaded the underwater base, and explored. At its finest
moment it took on the facial features of the person it was studying, and did
so very well.
- I needed to reproduce this idea in order to prove to
myself that I was a real computer animator, and not some
guy just pushing objects around.
- Being a guy who likes to use what's at hand, I cut the
face off the Beethoven object supplied with Lightwave
3.0. I then extruded the edge of that
face with lots of segments. I gave it a clear, shiny
surface with a high refractive index, and a wavy bump
map.
- Bones placed in five locations along the length of the object allowed me
to move the pod realistically. If you wish to see it in motion, download
the .AVI file. I could have used more bones and made it a smoother snake-like
effect, but this was done as a quick test.
- The fish was relatively easy to do. I took a bimap from a CorelDRAW clipart
image of a fish. I traced around it in Modeler using two splines. Then I took
an oval, placed it near the mouth, where the two splines originated, and did
a rail extrude. Then I added the fins, and the eyes. The fish image
is used as a colour map and a specularity map.
- This little animation on my demo reel scored me an interview as a Technical
Director at Industrial Light and Magic. Of all my demo reel, this was
the piece that impressed them the most. They asked a lot of questions about
it. Which suprised me a little since it was very easy to do. (I didn't get
the job, but that's cool.)
All content of these pages ©
Sean Huxter.
 
Visitors |