Introduction - Concepts of the future

In my second year at ROC Midden Nederland during the concepting course I was assigned to make a short video on what we may anticipate seeing in the future. Everyone in my class had to do the task on their own.

My role

Everyone in this class had to do the task on their own. Students were expected to conduct research on the subject, develop a concept and then proceed to make the video. During this time, I was learning Blender and challenged myself to make it in 3D, instead of utilizing a camera or produce an animation in After Effects. By using Blender, I’m hoping to become more efficient in the creation of a scene, learn new techniques to achieve the desired look as well as exploring new possibilities to increase productivity.

Approach

I began this project by researching people's future predictions. This study was very interesting because some of the predictions are either coming true or are already happening. For this assignment, I concentrated on the distant future. The three predictions I chose flying cars, holograms, and wormhole travel.

I kept the concept simple to ensure that I could do it in Blender. I wrote down how I imagined it would be. I wanted the car scene to take place in a city and make it fly. The hologram projected by a robot in the middle of a forest, lastly for the wormhole as if you were traveling through it.

After removing the default cube Blender put in the scene, I began working on the first ideas that came to mind. Throughout this process, I used Blenderkit to find and apply materials to the scene, as well as complex models that I couldn't make myself. The car and robot were both from Blenderkit, while the hologram and wormhole were created with the help of a tutorial.

When all the scenes were created I uploaded the project files to SheepIt in exchange for the points I’ve earned rendering the projects from others. This resulted in the project being rendered in just under 3 hours as opposed to 2 days on my own machine. SheepIt accomplishes this by distributing my project across multiple machines, each of which renders one or a portion of a frame. This process is repeated until all frames have been rendered.

What worked and why

The approach I took for this project, which included the use of Blenderkit and SheepIt, aided in achieving the goal I set for myself. Blenderkit provided the models I couldn't make myself, as well as the materials I used to construct the scenes. SheepIt performed admirably in terms of time reduction, but at the expense of noticeable artifacts.