Fantastic Voyage; Natalux first 3D Test

Although my main design objective was expressing Natural Selection neatly, another benefit to this minimalistic style is that lots of the assets should be relatively easy to model.

This is the first render of a test Natalux model I made (The backdrop is very-much a placeholder). The modelling was simple, so it was more about the texturing and the lighting. 

The line-work here is not drawn on in post; I really wanted to get that cool effect where the lines are slightly detached/hovering above the models surface. It took a bit of fiddling but I eventually managed to get it to work, and I think it looks neat! 

I'm planning to combine this with Nat's Animation stuff, and the Animated Textures work we did with Simon to animate this line-work, and have my creatures make big exaggerated expressions with their eyes as they react to their environment, which should help them feel much more alive and empathetic.

I have a simple, working rig for my Natalux; a control for angling the body and head, and a main control to move it around the scene. Again, thanks to the simple designs, this wasn't exactly a major challenge; I'm honestly really pleased I decided to go with these simple designs, I think it's going to save me a lot of stress (for now).

The UV's. This is what I'd bring into Adobe Animate to create my 2D animations on. I'm thinking about (if it's practical) creating a short loop for the box linework where I re-draw it a few times, which would create that cool 2D animated 'pencil work' shimmy effect on the linework. Hopefully I'll be able to try out these ideas when I come to do a short animation test soon.