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The old and the new

Looks great, Will! I may have to get all of the new wave 5 trio...

Twin Twist looks awesome!!!

itscramtastic wrote:Twin Twist looks awesome!!!

He is, the only problem is that the titan master cant sit up in the cockpit when you close it. He can only lie flat.

william-james88 wrote:

itscramtastic wrote:Twin Twist looks awesome!!!

He is, the only problem is that the titan master cant sit up in the cockpit when you close it. He can only lie flat.

Say whaaaaaaaaat?! Only lie flat? That's lame.

Can't wait to buy both of them though

Why can't he sit up?

Sigma Magnus wrote:Why can't he sit up?

Not enough space when the cockpit is closed.

That is a weird problem. Still, he looks pretty great, and you can't have one without the other.

Speaking of Topspin and Twin Twist, am I the only one who likes to think of Topspin's altmode as less of a space jet and more of a high-speed "rocket racer" hovercar, like out of F-Zero or Wipeout or Quantum Redshift? Either way, I really hope they show up at UK retail, I seriously want 'em.

As a Jumpstarter, Twin Twist is now a self-driving car for Flameout -- and dat guy likes to nap.

I was so wrong guys, he actually sits well enough. I just had to find the right posture. Its odd because thats the same part as we have on Top Spin and I never had an issue. Oh well. Here are some pics. The first to show you my dumb positioning, the second with correct positioning and the third with them in Robot mode!

(This is just a placeholder area to place the article until it is fully approuved and ready for publishing)

Seibertron.com had the pleasure of conducting an exclusive interview with Sequence Group, an animation firm in Vancouver, which has recently animated our favourite franchise, Transformers.

They were behind the cinematic trailers for the Transformers Forged to Fight mobile game and through speaking to them about animating these characters, we learnt of the challenges involved and it even helped explain the designs we find in other 3-d model interpretations, like the live action Transformers films. Below is a description of what was discussed and learnt in the interview followed by two videos showing the step by step process of creating the cinematics.

I was glad to hear how overjoyed the entire team was at the opportunity to dabble in the Transformers franchise. These are all people that grew up with the G1 cartoon and the toys, much like the Forged to Fight team, and they poured their heart and souls into the few minutes we have in the trailer. Speaking of time, this was their main constraint. They had longer scenes in mind, especially of the characters emerging from the crash landing but that had to be cut to make the trailer fit within the tight running time. For those curious about other "deleted scenes", they also wanted to have a view inside the ship as it crashes rather than see the outside of the ship for most of that sequence.

Level of Creativity in Animation and Cinematics

I was very curious as to what their leeway was in terms of creativity, especially since we are talking about an animated sequence based on a game based on pre-existing characters and designs. They were handed a script, a character roster (with design cues for the characters to match up with their looks in Forged to Fight) along with prerecorded voice clips of Peter Cullen and the rest was theirs to come up with. So, there wasn't any leeway in how Optimus looks like, for instance, but I discovered a whole other layer of creativity.

As it turns out, there is a whole layer as to how the script is presented and this is where Sequence Group could add their mark to the franchise. The amount of time spent on a reveal or a scene isn't dictated, plus there are the camera angles, lighting effects, particle effect, basically everything in the way a shot is presented.

The example given to me was Megatron's reveal. The script says that Megatron is revealed then and they know how he should look like (his Revenge of the Fallen body) but it is up to them to make this moment stand out as much as possible. So they add extra smoke effects, work with the lighting and the environment to add a sense of foreboding dread to his reveal, and the reveal of his Decepticon army. This subtlety adds to the threat level of the enemy as well as a quick but efficient way to focus on them and establish who they are, even to someone who may not know these characters.

While the trailer is very quick, a lot of thought went into making each character feel different, which is important when what is advertised is a fighting game with different classes and different characters suiting different play styles. They aimed to have each main character walk a particular way, for instance.




Lighting and Challenges with Scale

I wondered if they were given any other directions and it turns out they were told to use the lighting like a car commercial, highlighting the shapes and making the models look as good as possible. Applying these aspects, makes this trailer look like the best toy commercial, since many of these models reflect toys we already have. And that is what they were going for, which works out best for them because as I learnt, their models being simpler and smoother makes them lose a sense of scale. Light needs more to bounce off of inorder to make it look realistic to the human eye. So you have to put as much light sources as possible since there are fewer surfaces to hit with light.

This ends up working fine if your goal is an awesome toy commercial, which was the goal in this case, but it is there that I realized the big challenges Michael Bay and company may have had with bringing these characters to life. The importance of lighting and it's connection to realism was very revealing to me. I will admit, I do preffer a smoother look to my transformers over the overly busy designs in the Michael Bay films but this helps me understand the choice behind it. In animations of any kind, it is the animators who control the light source but once you mix in live action, the lightsources have to be consistent with whatever else is onscreen inother to keep the realism that both the CGI and real components of a shot are sharing the same space. So since the lightsource is limited by the environment (for example, take the shot in the 4th movie where Lockdown hunts down Ratchet), the realism of the scale within the shot has to be compensated by the light bouncing off of as many facets as possible, hence the very busy designs. And in a less technical way of seeing it, it is harder to get a sense of scale with a smooth surface so adding a lot of details, rivets and plating to any design of a robot helps you see how big it is, even in closeups where there is nothing to compare its size to.




Challenges with Posing and Positionning

Lighting and complexty of design isn't the only challenge when it comes to animating Transformers. The thing is, as I was explained by Sequence Group, Transformers don't usually have the same proportions as humans. When keeping the more blocky designs, which they do in this case, the action can be obscured by a bot's chunky features so it's all about positionning. Since they are blocky, certain poses will result in the viewer seeing nothing. Sequence pointed towards the shot of Bludgeon entering the scene where they found that the most dynamic angle to see his sword drop down move was having the camera under him and off center to see as much of him as possible. This is very different to instead have two humans fighting with swords, I was told, where several angles are available for use. This also gives me another tip over the recent choices in the Michael Bay films where the robots have gotten much closer to human proportions starting in Age of Extinction with Optimus, Lockdown, Crosshairs and Drift (followed by all those knights in The Last Knight). This would also explain why the earlier films were so hard to follow sometimes since they were using several angles that were not suited for the character models. And maybe their solution to having clearer action scenes was to make the character models more humanoid than ever before in the franchise instead of limiting their camera angles.


Difference between Trailer and Game Graphics and Trailer Breakdowns

From a technical aspect, I was curious as to how these differed from cinematics in the game itself. Like why couldn't the game's engine be used for the trailer cinematics? As it turns out, the difference between this and the game is the amount of light-sources and the quality. If it were live (rather than a filmed cinematic), you wouldn't be able to run the game.

Now here are two videos showing the breakdown of two trailers. You will see how it starts with a 2-d story board, then goes to 3-d rough models and then rendered models, followed by all the environmental effects.





Special thanks to founder Ian Kirby and producer Dan Sioui for the interview as well as Georgia Dawson for helping this interview happen and connecting us with Sequence Group.

Beautifully stocked there, Will!

bodrock wrote:Beautifully stocked there, Will!

I know, I was so excited and giddy in the store.

I just had to buy stuff.. and I DID! Took everything I had in me not to buy that Trypticon, but I think I will get that MP BB tomorrow. Its been selling out in stores so I might have to jump on it, which sucks because I really dont like that price. But I also dont want to regret not getting it when it goes for high amounts on the secondary market. Man are these movie toys in demand.

And forgive me guys for this thread becoming a dumping ground. Since photobucket is down, I had to find ways to upload pics and centralise it and this thread is where that will happen.

Imma go on the hunt tomorrow, since you all are finding such great hauls! I only had to pass on a Leader TLK Megatron the other day, but if I saw all that?!? TAKE MY MONIES NAO

That TRU (and haul by the way) is a thing of beauty

Question:
You got coupons, so what are you waiting for to pounce on Trypticon?

shajaki wrote:That TRU (and haul by the way) is a thing of beauty

Question:
You got coupons, so what are you waiting for to pounce on Trypticon?

Coupons would mean 40$ off in the end or close to that, so he's still $190. I still find that pricey. My goal to pay for him is $150. Also, I am still very very scared of that hip problem. So I am waiting for later copies and more reports that people dont have any problems with em. I really don't like modifying my toys.

Speaking of big purchases though, hopefully getting MPM Bee today.

william-james88 wrote:I am still very very scared of that hip problem. So I am waiting for later copies and more reports that people dont have any problems with em. I really don't like modifying my toys.

I was sort of hoping that what we get here in Canada IS the later produced ones

william-james88 wrote:Speaking of big purchases though, hopefully getting MPM Bee today.

Nice! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Dang.. so many figures.... I haven't gotten anything save the TLK wave 2 legends in 2 months

Did ya get him

Bumblebee21 wrote:Did ya get him

Still trying to get him to stand properly though

william-james88 wrote:Still trying to get him to stand properly though

I'm drooling Will. Besides trying to get him to stand, whatya think?

My copy (the one I opened) was a pain in the ass to make the car mode come together solidly, but his bot mode was great. I'm a huge fan.

shajaki wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Still trying to get him to stand properly though

I'm drooling Will. Besides trying to get him to stand, whatya think?

Ha! I am digging this toy. I especially love how the feet come together and how the entire car shell collapses. I always love when a figure gives a hint of what is actually happening in the film, where the bot's insides are the car and viceversa. You see where everything goes and that fascinates me. So of course no ragrets here I have yet to try bringin him back into car mode so we will see. I remember undoing the feet and legs thinking "this is going to be mighty tricky when I come back to this". Lots and lots of smart designs here.

william-james88 wrote:Ha! I am digging this toy. I especially love how the feet come together and how the entire car shell collapses. I always love when a figure gives a hint of what is actually happening in the film, where the bot's insides are the car and viceversa. You see where everything goes and that fascinates me. So of course no ragrets here I have yet to try bringin him back into car mode so we will see. I remember undoing the feet and legs thinking "this is going to be mighty tricky when I come back to this". Lots and lots of smart designs here.

Yeah, I think the feet were the most impressive parts of him. And I haven't tried to put him back into car mode yet either

shajaki wrote:And I haven't tried to put him back into car mode yet either

He's much easier than I would have guessed. Getting the feet back was very tricky without the instructions but I eventually figured it out and its been a breeze since. I actually find him simpler than other masterpieces such as Wheeljack and Sideswipe.

Ok so today was pretty nuts due to all the stuff I had to get for friends. In the end this is what I got but I am not done yet. The pic after is the stuff I got today that I just for me.





Very proud of this shot, too bad it doesnt hav great lighting