Timekeepers Game Trailer – A Look Into a Fantastic World
The Timekeepers trailer was created as a student project at Ansbach University’s department of multimedia and communication.
The Timekeepers trailer was created as a student project by Kathrin Günther, Monika Weichmann, Jonas Pilz and Martin Höhnle at Ansbach University’s department of multimedia and communication (focus: 3D graphics).
The eleven-month project, of which three months were spent on conceptual work alone, started with the idea of creating a fantasy world that is held together and driven by a huge clockwork at the earth’s core. The clockwork is guarded by the Timekeepers – fantasy creatures that are adored like gods by the worldly inhabitants. Many myths and legends surround the masked keepers and the clockwork they guard. The little girl Layla also knows of the legends and wants to use the clock to turn back time to save her family.
The story is told in the style of a computer game that is currently in development. This film serves as a trailer for the game and tells the story behind the story.
“This project posed many technically challenging aspects”, the makers explained. These ranged from rigging, which was done using CINEMA 4D’s MOCCA module, to the animation of the characters. The floating stairs, whose steps were connected via chains, were animated dynamically using MOCCA’s Soft IK. Innumberable XPresso Expressions were used to create the complex setup of the clockwork so the cogwheels could rotate reciprocally. This made it possible to control the clockwork using very few controllers.
CINEMA 4D’s excellent connectivity to After Effects lessened the students’ workload greatly when it came to the complex compositing phase of the project. Exporting 3D data using CINEMA 4D’s External Compositing tag worked “excellently”.
The work was split up between the team and each person worked quite long on their own assignments. As the first scenes complete in the final look about two months before the deadline the team had a new surge of motivation because they could finally see what it was for which they had worked so hard.
CINEMA 4D’s NET Render was indispensible for meeting the submission deadline. “If we had not been able to use the university’s 3D lab as a render farm we would not have been able to meet the deadline. 19 iMacs worked day and night for three weeks to render the project”, explained the team.
The most major mishap occurred just one week before submission. “The computer that held the files for compositing wouldn’t start. The mainboard had bit the dust. But thanks to fantastic “crisis management”, expeditiously replaced hard drives and even more overtime we were still (barely) able to meet the submission deadline with just two hours to spare.”
“CINEMA 4D was an excellent tool for our team to use because it is very easy to learn new aspects of the software and thus achieve excellent results. BodyPaint 3D’s Projection Painting feature also served us well for texturing.”
Timekeepers won the 3D animation prize at Anspach university’s Filmnacht (Film Night) competition 2009.
Website
www.timekeepers-online.de