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INFILTRATEEXPLOITSPREAD

MARK STAMPBA(hons) Computer Animation Arts

Table of Contents

Introduction..........................................................................................................................................1Inspirations...........................................................................................................................................2Initial Thumbnails................................................................................................................................3Storyboards...........................................................................................................................................8Concept And Production Art...........................................................................................................12Orthographs........................................................................................................................................18Wireframes..........................................................................................................................................19Shaded Models....................................................................................................................................38UV maps..............................................................................................................................................54Texture Maps.......................................................................................................................................23Bump And Normal Maps..................................................................................................................66Specular Maps.....................................................................................................................................71Rendering Tests...................................................................................................................................75

Contents

introductionCreated between mid-March and the beginning of May, Infiltrate Exploit Spread is a first-year Computer Animation Arts project that was given by Dr. Peter Klappa of the University of Kent. He requested a series of 3D animations designed to engage various audiences of our choosing in one of four microbiological life cycles: Malaria, slime mould, influenza and hookworms. We were given free-reign as to which life cycle we would make an animation for as well as the target audience the animation would be deisgned for.

I chose malaria as the subject of my animation because of the varied stages of it, and saw the complexity as a challange as well as a canvas for a var-ied story. The name of the project itself came about as a summary of the three things that Malaria does in its life cyvle as over the course of its time in a human or animal host it It Infiltrates the host body, Exploits the local resources to make more of itself and spreads the offspring and Spreads these offspring to new host cells to repeat the cycle until it is ready to move on.

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InspirationsMy for the project I had decided on a target audience of teenagers and young adults with a particular interest in video games, particularly Halo and Call of Duty. The reproductive cycle of malaria re-minded me strongly of the scientific concept of grey goo, where self-replicating nanobots would use surrounding molecules as a means to make more and more of themselves in an endless cycle that

would often lead to devouring entire landscapes and reducing them into a silvery sea.

This idea was developed further with the concept of organic machines, a theory that the human body is not that much different from a robot in that it is made up of numerous mechanical com-ponents that work together to operate the whole, subcellular mitochondria being little different in function and purpose to a power station. The conceptual fusion of organic and mechanical drew me to H.R. Giger, an artist known for his surreal biomechanical designs and being one of the leading concept artists on Ridley Scotts Alien. As I was developing the idea it was suggested to me that I could look into the artwork of Syd Mead, who worked on the industrial designs for the equipment of

the United States Colonial Marines seen in subsequent Alien films.

The final inspiration was the work of Maxim Zhestkov, an independant filmmaker who has created several short films that involve simple black and white environemnts (below) that use subtle sounds

and basic shapes to tell a story.

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Initial ThumbnailsSince the beginning of the project I had wanted to keep a biomechanical feel to the entire thing so I stuck with mechanical concepts.

Originally considering more direct connection to H.R. Giger, I pared it down after feedback that the Apple-esque look gave the blood cells and the malaria parasites an aesthetic efficiency which I decided to keep through the project.

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The developement of the hepatocyte (or liver cell) came somewhat late into the concept development. Looking into them I discovered their nature as super cells, containing large amounts of everything including having more than one nucleus, which explained a lot as to why the sporozoites targeted this particular kind of cell. The design choice afterwards was to make the cell appear to be quite industrial, solid and, perhaps tough. However too industrial may have put it in an alien

position when compared to the other body cells that surrounded it.

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Storyboard1/1 1/2 1/3 2/1

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2/6 2/7 3/1 3/2

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Mosquito approaches host body, camera pans to follow it.

Mosquito lands on host body. Mosquito extends its proboscis and impales the skin, camera follows it down into the interior.

Est. shot of the blood vessel. Sporozoite flies past towards the far end of the tunnel.

Sporozoite approaches a hepatocyte and burrows its way inside.

Hepatocyte darkens as Sporozoite corrupts it.

Once almost black, the surface buleges twice, preparing to burst.

Hepatocyte bursts, releasing many mero-zoites from the open wound on its surface.

Establishing shot of merozoites. Merozoite approaches a red blood cell, camera zooms forward as the merozoite gets closer.

Merozoite attaches itself to red blood cell and the apeture opens up to let it in.

3/3 3/4 4/1 4/2

4/7 4/8 4/9 4/10

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6/1 6/2 7/1 7/2

Red light shines from inside as apeture clos-es up over merozoite

Apeture fuilly closes, fade to white Overview of red blood cell as semi-visible merozoites multiply inside the cell body

Multiplication continued from previous frame.

Pan out to see red blood cell turning black, begins to shake.

Shake is followed by swelling before mero-zoites force their way out of the apeture.

Merozoites pass though red blood cell and cause a repeat of 4/7-4/8 on it.

Red blood cell shakes and bursts, other RBCs come in and do the same, fade to black as merozoites swarm screen.

Shake revealed ot be caused by the proboscis of another mosquito as it feeds on host.

Mosquito retracts proboscis and takes off, zoom to abdomen.

Establishing shot of abdomen interior, cam-era pans slowly to establish the setting.

Camera focuses on two distinct red blood cells that ope ntheir apetures.

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5/1 5/2 5/3 5/4

7/3 7/4 7/5 7/6

4/3 4/4 4/5 4/6

Multiplication continued from previous frame.

Multiplication continued from previous frame. Pulsing noise begins ot intensify

Merozoites multiply further, pusling increas-es.

Pulsign reaches maximum as merozoites take up entire interior of red blood cell.

Establishing shot to reveal blood vessel blackened and damaged by merozoite cata-clysm.

Panning shot reveals numerous dead blood cells.

Pan continues as one distinct RBC comes into view.

Pan stops at one RBC and zooms in. Mo-mentary wait as a thump from outside causes chamber to shake.

Gamete cells emerge from RBCs and ap-proach each other.

Gamete cells attach t oeach other in a man-ner of a ball and socket.

Gametes surround themselves in a hard shell.

Shell grows as camera moves away to reveal its size increase.

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Door to inside opens and sporozoites swim out.

Sporozoites swim towards iris at the back of the interior

Animation sequence ends as sporozoites arrive at passage to salivial gland

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Concept And Production ArtWith a solid idea of what I wanted my world to look like, I moved on to more refined

concept art images.

The sprozoite (left) was the first thing to be considered. As it is arguably the first stage of the parasites life-cycle, where it infects the liver to produce merozoites, I took the Alien angle and used it to imply that thie sporozites form acted was a template for the

later stages of the life cycle.

The Sporozites form was therefore crucial to get right as it would dictate what the mero-zoite, zygote, ookynate and and gamete phases would look like within the animation.

I considered giving the Mosquito a similar treatment to the sprozoite, giving it hints that it has a clear involvement in the life cycle, possibly some form of cooperation.

Rather than Alien, I looked into stealth jets for design inspiration. Originally looking into a very black appearence, further research revealed that a lot of setalth jets and bombers vary between

charcoal and slate grey, while did make the details a little easier to see.

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The initial feedback for the mosquito included two primary suggestions: Make it more bug-like, and swap out the wheels for something else. Originally I had planned for the gamete cells to be two different spheroids, however this had the unfortunate consequence of making the sporozite appear too different to

the other stages to look like it was part of the life cycle.

The first designs of the mosquito used a birdlike head, which later evolved to become more streamlined but eventually after looking at photographs of

mosquitoes under microscopes, went for bubble cockpit aesthetics.

The original form utilised a set of wheels in order to land, but this de-tracted from the insectoid aesthetic. When looking at possibilities for legs I examined the varied possiblilities of feet from flat pads to hooks

to spikes (the last one I eventually went for).

As earlier thumbnails demonstrate, one possiblity was that the spikes on the end of hte feet could open out into a proper foot to provide a more stable landing platform. As development of the mosquito went on how-ever, this became added complexity that could theoretically be left out.

Basic ideas for the blood cells and the zygote were used as these seemed like relatively simple objects to construct. In the case of the blood cells, the simple design allowed for efficient use in large numbers during the rendering phases. The merozoite was always intended to be simple, as a swarmer style machine its job was to infect blood cells and simply make more of itself to infect more and more at an exponential rate. It did not need much to function effectively, so the idea of an easy-to-mass-pro-duce design fit quite well with its operational purpose of infecting as many hosts as possible, reproduce as much as possible, then move on

to the next target.

The Sporozoites design was not so basic as it can be considered the scout and first-phase infiltrator compared to the merozoites purpose as an exponential swarmer. In reality sporozoites are indeed a lot longer but I wanted to give the impression this machine had a more enduring role as it had to survive crossing between the mosquito and the host

body in order to infect the targets liver.

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Malarias life cycle is fairly varied, going from amosquitos salivial gland into a persons liver and the nspreading across the bloodstream before entering another mosquitos stom-

ach. This required a few environments to explain what was going on within the scene.

The below enviornmental concept also shows an element that was invluded in the story-telling: That anything the malaria parasites infected would be corrupted and turn black,

both to represent the damage and indicate that the host is, in a way, submitting

The Mosquitos innards was another environment intended to look distinct. It would act as a stark comparison to the clean and orderly nature of the host body and bears plenty of Giger-esque inspiration such as the exposed pipes and the mroe pronounced

ribbing.

Because my story would also include seeing a mosquito, that re-quired an environment for the mosquito to exist in. While the concept piece is of a human arm, I was inclined to make the ap-pearance less completely recogniseable as a human body (but still

recogniseable to an extent).

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Being the most complex model on the reoster, the mosquito required definite attention to detail, and is presently the only model that I felt really wanted an orthograph when it came to its construction. Designing the orthograph also made it possible to get a final design

down for construction within Maya.

Orthographics

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WireframesSporozoites - Low and High-resolution models

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Blood Vessel - overview

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Blood Vessel - Interior

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Red Blood Cell - Low Resolution model

Sporozoite High-resolution model

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The Mosquitos Approach

Mosquito Landing Site

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Mosquito Interior - Overview

Mosquito Interior - Interior View

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Mosquito - Overview

Mosquito - Top Down

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Mosquito - Main Compartment

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Mosquito - Under Construction

The mosquito itself was onstructed by building one half and then stitching a mirrored half to it once all the gerometry and UV mapping was in place

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Merozoite - Low Resolution Model

Merozoite - High Resolution Model

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Red Blood Cell- High Resolution Model

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Zygote With Gametes

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Zygote With Gametes

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Hepatocyte Tunnel

Shaded Models

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Merozoite - High Resolution Model

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Merozoite - Low Resolution Model

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Sporozoites - High And Low Resolution Models

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Sporozoites - High Resolution Model

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Sporozoites - High And Low Resolution Textured Models

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Mosquito Interior - Overview

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Mosquito Interior - Gametes

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Mosquito Landing Site

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Blood Vessel

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Mosquito - Shaded

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Mosquito - Shaded

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Mosquito - Shaded

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Zygote and Gametes - Shaded

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Zygote - Shaded

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Hepatocyte Tunnel - Shaded

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Red Blood Cell

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UV MapsWhile Not all of these UV maps ended up being used to their full purpose for the final animation due to the use of shaders for several objects, textures were nonetheless planned out in advance as I

had originally planned to texture map quite a number of objects.

In the end however, the sporozoite, tunnel ribs and the mosquito had their texture maps utilised for rexture, bump and specular maps.

Blood Vessel Wall Hepatocyte

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Merozoite - High Resolution Red Blood Cell

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Mosquito Interior Hepatocyte

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Sporozoite - High resolution Sporozoite - Low Resolution

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Mosquito - Legs and Proboscis Mosquito - Body

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Red Blood Cell - Low Resolution Merozoite - Low Resolution

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Gamaete (left - female, right - male) Mosquito Wings

Texture Maps

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Mosquito Interior - Iris Blood Vessel

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Gametes Mosquito - Wings

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Mosquito - Body Mosquito - Legs and proboscis

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Red Blood cell Red blood cell - apeture

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Mosquito Interior - Piping Sporozoite

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BUmp And Normal Maps

Mosquito Interior - Apeture Blood Vessel

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Gametes Mosquito - Body

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Mosquito - Legs and proboscis Mosquito - Body

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Mosquito - Wings Red Blood Cell

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Mosquito Interior - Piping Mosquito Interior - Piping

Specular Maps

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Gametes Blood essel Wall

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Blood essel Wall Mosquito Interior - Piping Mosquito - Wings

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Mosquito - Legs and proboscis Mosquito - Body

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Red Blood Cell - Apeture Mosquito Interior - Apeture

Rendering Tests

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