Planetary Encounters

Normally, Andy Lefton works in the field of advertising but with Two Worlds' he ventures into new territory - with the help of Cinema 4D.

Flash is required! --

Andy's online portfolio includes a wide range of extremely high-end fantasy works, which put Andy in the top league of professional 3D artists. As such, he doesn't need to create advertising for himself. Nevertheless, he's been working on a short film for the past ten years that's slowly beginning to take shape. He's completed a trailer for the short film that offers a first glimpse into the project.

A pile of junk, which obviously used to be a space ship, lying in the desert. Elements added after the crash such as simple mobiles, a canopy and an antennae built from spare parts indicate that someone lives here. The stranded person can only be seen in the reflection on his communication computer monitor, which constantly displays the message that no connection can be established. But suddenly the communication systems receive a signal from an aircraft that is landing on the planet

With this trailer, Andy creates a dramaturgical effect making the viewer want to see more. And the quality of rendering for this trailer is so realistic that you have to look twice to see that it was created using computer graphics. You could say that just about every Cinema 4D function was used for this project. In particular dynamics, hair and cloth made it possible for me to create exactly the look I wanted. I was able to concentrate completely on the film and didn't have to worry about how I was going to realize specific parts. For me, Cinema 4D is the most important tool for all aspects of 3D, VFX and motion design! says Andy.

Andy did a lot of research for his Two World' project and created numerous production sketches. Drawing is not my greatest strength but, together with the images I researched, it helped a lot in creating the various elements, characters and scenes as I envisioned them. After the first sketches had been made I created a complete storyboard, which was used to define the speed of the camera movement and the action. Andy then began creating all elements and scenes in Cinema 4D. Cinema 4D's and BodyPaint 3D's seamless connectivity to Photoshop was invaluable for the creation phase, exclaims Andy.

The character was not very complex, which made it possible for Andy to animate it using several keyframes, Morph tags and Expressions for facial expressions. Animation will become more relevant for the project at a later point when completely rigged characters will be active in the film - of course all done in Cinema 4D. In the meantime, the Two Worlds' teaser will continue to wet everyone's appetite for the final film. Andy is planning on completing the film by the end of 2014. We can't wait to see it!

Andy Leftons website and "Two Worlds" blog:

www.andylefton.com/blog/

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