Being at a small startup, it always helps if you can wear multiple hats!

My dabbling in Blender and Visual Effects came in handy when we needed to produce renders of Ella for our website and social media. Here’s what I did:

• Prep 3D model of Ella in Blender
  • Gather all geometry
  • Add all missing parts (fasteners, wheels, emissive LEDs, etc)
  • Texture all parts
    • Procedural Carbon Fiber weave
    • PBR materials for all plastic components (scratches, fingerprints, etc)
  • Set up lighting and environments
  • Produce static renders

Next, we wanted animations of Ella showing key features! For this, I:

• Learned how to animate in Blender
• Learned how to rig and animate human characters using adobe Mixamo
• Set up and rendered animations of interaction with Ella, including
  • “smart stop” feature
  • rocking feature
  • representation of “view” with ultrasonic sensors and cameras
  • Uphill and downhill renders