Modeling a Firefox
March 13th, 2006 by Jason
So as a side project, we’re creating a 30-second commercial for the Firefox Flicks Ad Contest. Part of the idea we decided upon requires a animated a 3D model of the Firefox logo (seen to the left). This follows the basic process of modeling, lighting, and texturing this model. All work for this was done in Blender.
Modeling went relatively quickly. A high resolution image of the Firefox logo was loaded into the background of Blender’s 3D view window. Then, starting with a single cube with a subdivision modifier, the firefox was roughed in by simple extrusion. With the body roughed out, various faces were extruded to create the flaming fur, ears, and the arms. The tail was the most fun part of all. The hair on the back of the neck was a bit tricky, but using the knife tool and “creative loopcuts” helped make it not such a huge problem. And since the single-lamp test renders weren’t giving enough detail, I started using ambient occlusion to make sure the fur was laying properly.
With the details hammered out, a simple UV sphere was added for the globe. This created a couple more interesting issues, since the finished firefox model didn’t actually wrap the globe smoothly. Another round of tweaking and revising was necessary to get the firefox wrapping nicely with out nasty intersections. Once that got worked out, the model actually looked a lot better. The next step was texturing. Since the coloring in the original logo is relatively simple, the coloration on the firefox was done with just vertex colors and vertex painting. A few more vertex loops needed to be added to get things to work right (like the white part on the bottom of the snout), but not enough to make the model unbearable to work with. The globe was textured with the original logo’s globe, projected flat onto the sphere.
A couple lighting adjustments (two hemi’s, a shadow-only spot, and a red-toned negative hemi from the bottom) and the logo was complete:
In the next post on this project, I’ll go into rigging the firefox for animation and trying to optimize the lighting setup for shorter render times.
March 21st, 2006 at 2:35 am
[…] Animating a Firefox - And a Gift March 21st, 2006 by Groo Following the modeling post for the Firefox logo, the next obvious step is the process of rigging, animating, and rendering the Firefox character. With the basic simplicity of the model, rigging was relatively straight-forward. The only really tricky part was the fact that the fox wasn’t modeled in a standard neutral pose. However, since the animation in mind for this character only involves it moving around the globe, it’s not a horribly large problem. As with before, this entire process was done with the most recent development build of Blender. Using the final pose as the assumed resting pose (since that’s the place where the fox has to look the most “correct”), the rig was built around that. A couple key features to note about this rig: the head and neck form one IK chain while the tail forms another that grows from the base of neck bone. Another pair of IK chains control the arms. […]
April 9th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
[…] The idea was to get a good strong feeling of the fox moving around the globe. Since that requires a bit more depth than the actual logo gives us, we took a step down the z-axis and built a full 3D model of the Firefox logo. Once the model was done and painted to match the official Firefox logo, it was rigged, keyframed, and animated; swooshing by the camera as it circled the globe. A couple post-production tweaks, some sound (thanks, in no small part, to Roberto), and this part of our project was done. […]
April 9th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
I’m probably one of the biggest fans of Firefox art. This project is awesome.
You’ve breathed life and dimension into the Fx logo and it looks fantastic!
I’ve also seen the QuickTime clip and that’s just amazing work.
You’ll be world famous soon enough, and I nominate your Fx logo to be the new one for the release of Fx 2.0.
April 10th, 2006 at 5:48 am
Ah, it’s wonderful!
Can’t wait to see the ad!
April 12th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Call me nuts, but with a little reworking, that could make an awesome screensaver.
Great job!
April 13th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
[…] Firefox: Some Things Just Make Sense April 13th, 2006 by Groo We’ve completed our Firefox Flicks Ad Contest submission! For those of you following the work-in-progress posts, Modeling a Firefox and Animating a Firefox, you can finally see the finished product. If you read our Guest Post in the Firefox Flicks Backstage Blog, then you’ve got a little background about the concept for this spot. Basically, we’re running with the tagline, “Some things just make sense” and using a mix of our strengths: illustration, animation, and our unique (maybe bizarre would be a better word?) sense of humor. […]
April 14th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
[…] On their website you’ll find articles in which they explain the creative process behind modeling and animating the fox. […]
April 15th, 2006 at 8:36 am
[…] I found the Blog of Sheep. (aka sheep.handturkeystudios.com), that has a new Firefox Flicks ad that hasn’t (until now) been released to the public. This one is my new favorite, and pay attention to the end of it. Also be sure to checkout how they brought life to Firefox . The majority of the ad was created using Open Source software (way to go ). If you have trouble viewing online, try downloading it. […]
April 27th, 2006 at 1:01 am
[…] Modeling a Firefox “Handturkeystudios shares how they created a 3D model of Firefox using Blender, for their submission to Firefox Flicks Ad Contest” Categories: News […]