Post sneak peaks of your teams AVA entry

[BuddyB309]

Its about that time of year again when all of the animators wind up the gears in creativity. I’m sure everyone is interested in what other teams are doing so this thread is a good place to post your teams progress.

Obviously you don’t want to post your whole idea for your animation, some people may steal it. But feel free to post; single frame renders of a particular part of the animation, concept art, and maybe some unique textures or models that your team has created.

Good luck to all of the animation teams out there!

[spinmunky]

I didn't think that our team was going to do an animation this year because it's only at nationals and we may not be able to go this year. But since we got a $15,000 donation from them we had better make and animation. We have no idea what we're going to do this year though since Autodesk hasn't released the topic.

[theanimator17]

Hmm...i might consider posting something here. I'll have to decide what first tho lol. I'll wait and see what others might have too.

[Ryo Chiba]

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1003/tetrisminiia6.png
A small cutout from yesterday's test renders. Nothing fancy.

Now it's your guys' turn, eh?
-Team 1747 Animation Team.

[spinmunky]

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1003/tetrisminiia6.png
A small cutout from yesterday's test renders. Nothing fancy.

-Team 1747 Animation Team.
TETRIS! lol thats the first thing that came to mind.:D
now i'm wondering how does tetris tie into "Thinking Green"?

[Cody Carey]

Hmmm... looks like Tetris.

[BuddyB309]

Hey everyone, I went throught the test renders and dug out some I deemed good enough to show you all. I put them all in a little montage with some music enjoy.

Sneak Peak at team's 1625 animation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvqI1Be6Ndg)

[BuddyB309]

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1003/tetrisminiia6.png
A small cutout from yesterday's test renders. Nothing fancy.

Now it's your guys' turn, eh?
-Team 1747 Animation Team.

Nice models, are they resting on a reflective floor? I would make the floor a little less reflective (maybe add some fall off to the reflection) and that would make it look better. Also I can see an error on one the 'T' shape on the left. There is a vertical line where two faces didn't match up. (or it could be my monitor) Good job though cant wait to see how it turns out.

[Ryo Chiba]

Hey everyone, I went throught the test renders and dug out some I deemed good enough to show you all. I put them all in a little montage with some music enjoy.

Sneak Peak at team's 1625 animation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvqI1Be6Ndg)

Excellent, excellent character animation. I really enjoyed it. Although, a bit too much pupil motion. I find it distracting. But then again, it might not even be in your animation! Can't wait to see it in the flesh, Pete.

So, is anyone else going to post exciting things? It's so much fun.

[BuddyB309]

Excellent, excellent character animation. I really enjoyed it. Although, a bit too much pupil motion. I find it distracting. But then again, it might not even be in your animation! Can't wait to see it in the flesh, Pete.

So, is anyone else going to post exciting things? It's so much fun.


BAM!! another exciting thing! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZTfuOyUfOM) this is another test render only completed a few hours after the previous ones enjoy.

[Nomingo]

That eyeball guy is awesome looking. How did you get the lighting so soft? Also, how did you make the eyball? Is the pupil an keyed cylinder? it looks amazing.

[BuddyB309]

That eyeball guy is awesome looking. How did you get the lighting so soft?

mental ray with final gather, I then just plopped a sky light in the scene. (if you dont know what I mean look the terms up in the users reference by hitting F1 in 3ds max)

Also, how did you make the eyball? Is the pupil an keyed cylinder? it looks amazing.

The eyeball consits of two parts. The eyeball, iris and pupil are all one shere. The part where the iris is on the sphere is concave. Because normal irises are concave in the eye.

The other part is the cornea, which is a half sphere over the iris and the pubil. its only job is to refect a specualr.

The eye must have a specualr on it at all times, so I set up a omni light on it to do just that. And I told the omni light to only effect the eyeball and to only cast specular

[Nomingo]

Wow, that was really creative. That mental ray stuff with final gather is really cool and realistic looking. I usually prefer just ink n paint because I like to avoid photorealism but that seems and easy way to make everything look realer.

[Setsanto]

How do you get the walking that realistic?

[Aldabe]

We at 383 have barely started animating, here's a preview.

http://aldabe.sites.uol.com.br/preview.jpg
HUGE image, may take a long time to open :p

We have lots of good ideas from brainstorms, but it'll take quite a lot of all nighters to finish it on time :D

[BuddyB309]

We at 383 have barely started animating, here's a preview.

http://aldabe.sites.uol.com.br/preview.jpg
HUGE image, may take a long time to open :p

We have lots of good ideas from brainstorms, but it'll take quite a lot of all nighters to finish it on time :D

Wow! nicely done with the map. It looks like you guys used a plane witht he noise modifier on it. That's a lot of polygons.

Nice model of the stop watch but I think the material could use a little help. It looks like plastic. Here is my suggestion. Add some raytrace to it for some reflections. Then set up some omni lights and set them to only cast a specular to the stop watch especialy to the glass. The glass on the stop watch should always have a specular on it. Then turn the glossiness way up on the glass and the metal.

otherwise good job. cant wait to see the rest.

[Setsanto]

We at 383 have barely started animating, here's a preview.

http://aldabe.sites.uol.com.br/preview.jpg
HUGE image, may take a long time to open :p

We have lots of good ideas from brainstorms, but it'll take quite a lot of all nighters to finish it on time :D

How do you make the map? Did you draw it all, or did u import an image somehow?
I'm in no way proficient or even familiar with 3ds, just in case you havent noticed :D

[Drew]

Wow! nicely done with the map. It looks like you guys used a plane witht he noise modifier on it. That's a lot of polygons.

Nice model of the stop watch but I think the material could use a little help. It looks like plastic. Here is my suggestion. Add some raytrace to it for some reflections. Then set up some omni lights and set them to only cast a specular to the stop watch especialy to the glass. The glass on the stop watch should always have a specular on it. Then turn the glossiness way up on the glass and the metal.

otherwise good job. cant wait to see the rest.

Either noise map or did reactor cloth and dropped it down on the table and tweaked the set scene to the perfect substep.

[3dfernando]

Maybe he used displacement maps? =)
Or maybe he just randomly dragged the vertices of the mesh and meshsmoothed everything?
Who knows? =P

Hello fellows at 383 =) nice to see you here ^^
Cool map, and nice clock model, too =P
Will you put a "glass" material over the display? Is the clock body made of gold? Hehe, just wondering... Can't wait for the animations =)


Well, about our team, we can only post the "main character" 's drawing, its a bit... erm, crappy, I'm no master at drawings =p But it's only some reference for the modelling =)
I hope I can model it propertly...

Drawing (http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/5610/char800x7001ld.jpg)

Good luck to everyone =)

[Testament-Doom]

Either noise map or did reactor cloth and dropped it down on the table and tweaked the set scene to the perfect substep.

I can tell exactly from looking at that, it's a noise map used as a displacement. Reactor cloth cannot produce those kinds of wrinkles when fallen to the ground. After the noise map tinkering, they just realigned it to the plane, and thus the good old effect :).

Very nice job with it though, love it.

[Aldabe]

Thanks for the compliments guys!!:cool:

the map was done with displacement, very simple... we found the map picture in internet :p

the materials of the clock was fixed... now has a better gold finish and a raytraced glass. it takes some time to render when camera is close to clock, around 5 minutes per frame in 720 x 480 :ahh: (intel cpu fan going crazy during render... lol :D )

[BuddyB309]

Hee hee......

I completed another prodject.

hee hee hee...

oggy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwDXM3roJR0)

[sledfang]

Hey Peter, remember me from St. Louis last year? I'm the one that captained the Star Wars themed animation (and one of the guys in clown wigs).

Are you coming to St. Louis again this year? You're stuff is looking really good, much better even than last year's. But if you're coming to St. Louis, look out for some pretty tough competition, at least from us. Anyway, I'm really impressed, and I'd like the chance to talk to you again.

I'll try to get some screen caps up as soon as possible, but a couple of our scenes are still in pretty early stages. We've also gotten the high school band to perform the music this year, so maybe I can get a clip of the music up sometime. Later!

[BuddyB309]

Hey Peter, remember me from St. Louis last year? I'm the one that captained the Star Wars themed animation (and one of the guys in clown wigs).

Are you coming to St. Louis again this year? You're stuff is looking really good this year, much better even than last year's. But if you're coming to St. Louis this year, look out for some pretty tough competition, at least from us. Anyway, I'm really impressed, and I'd like the chance to talk to you again this year.

I'll try to get some screen caps up as soon as possible, but a couple of our scenes are still in pretty early stages. We've also gotten the high school band to perform the music this year, so maybe I can get a clip of the music up sometime. Later!


Nice! I do remember you. Im not going to miss st. louis even if I have to walk there with one broken leg. I cant wait to see how you have improved your skills over the year. Just look for the me wandering around with "Llama" printed on the back of my sweatshirt.

I do think the competition (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8tyHkKBH5M) is going to be tough this year.

[sledfang]

Glad you're coming back, then. I'll keep an eye out. I can't watch that video at the moment, because the school has a site blocker and I don't have any proxies ;)

I'll edit this post after I see it.

EDIT: I actually already watched that. Are you using live action in your animation?

[wt200999]

This scene so far...

http://www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment.jpg

I'll leave it as a link because its a bit big for this window.

[sledfang]

I really like the shadows and reflections, but maybe make the lake a bit less "mirror-like." It also looks like it's really chaotic, like a wave pool or something. Unless there's a reason that it's so wavy, I'd make it a bit more placid. But overall, the scene and lighting is really nice.

[wt200999]

Yeah, I'll tone down the waves a lot. I'll render it later though, takes a little while :/

Update: http://www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment01.jpg

thanks to the flexmasters post I descovered the mr design and arch materials, what do you think of that water, little more tansparencey?

[BuddyB309]

Yeah, I'll tone down the waves a lot. I'll render it later though, takes a little while :/

Update: http://www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment01.jpg

thanks to the flexmasters post I descovered the mr design and arch materials, what do you think of that water, little more tansparencey?


What you need in the water is some tint and blur in the refelctions. Do this by going into the raytrace settings. Also add some fog to the scene by going to the main tool bar at the top, go to rendering, effects, and add fog. Mess with some of the settings and the fog will make it look like the other side of the lake is really far away. You dont want a lot of fog just a little. The waves are too large still. It looks like a large puddle and not a lake.

Glad you're coming back, then. I'll keep an eye out. I can't watch that video at the moment, because the school has a site blocker and I don't have any proxies

I'll edit this post after I see it.

EDIT: I actually already watched that. Are you using live action in your animation?

No no. Our animation entry doesn't have any compositeing in it. Doing that little prodject took me about two months and it was far more worlk than it was really worth. Camera matching and camera tracking is really really hard and i would like to stay away from it as much as I can. It takes so much planning its ridiculous.

Basicly what is keeping us occupied right now is that we are trying to get copyrights to the song that we want to use. We have a back up plan and will use a song that we have to write but it would be a shame to see it without the song we intended to use.

[wt200999]

www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment4.jpg

The material I am using doesnt have raytrace where I could see it? It the mr design and arch texture. I cant find anything on wave size but I am working on that now :)

[BuddyB309]

www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment4.jpg

The material I am using doesnt have raytrace where I could see it? It the mr design and arch texture. I cant find anything on wave size but I am working on that now :)

how are you makeing this water? this would help me better understand to tell you what to do.

[wt200999]

Its just a plane with mental ray Arch & Design with the water template. I have the transparncey at .9 but the rest of the settings are default. Before that I had a raytrace water with noise on the plane. This plane has 1 segment.

[BuddyB309]

Ok, now here is how I would make water.

a plane with lots of segments. and two wave modifiers on it with the gizmos set at a different angle. Then I would create a standard material for it and set the reflective map to raytrace. that way you have more control over the reflections. Also set the diffuse to falloff, and change some of the colors. Also a bump or a diffuse map woulding hurt either.

[wt200999]

thanks for the suggestion, Ill try that now. The only thing I dont like about having a lot of segments is the comuter I am working on. Once I get my computer at home running I will be able to work better on it. Ill try what you said now though thanks :)

[BuddyB309]

thanks for the suggestion, Ill try that now. The only thing I dont like about having a lot of segments is the comuter I am working on. Once I get my computer at home running I will be able to work better on it. Ill try what you said now though thanks :)


If your computer is lagging because of too many segments. Then hide the objects that you currently arent working on. You can also press O to make rotating your view easier and less laggy.

[wt200999]

http://www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment5.jpg
Ive been playing around a bit...

[Setsanto]

Your most recent one definately looks the best. The reflecion is a bit clearer and stronger than I think it would be in real life. See this pic (http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=154857&&MORGUEFILE=ingv8cmsf8f0qlnpngufuofji4)
It definately looks to me like you should be putting a bit more of a blur on th trees, not just the distortion from the waves

[BuddyB309]

http://www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment5.jpg
Ive been playing around a bit...

add some tint and blur to the reflections. And less waves.

[wt200999]

http://www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment6.jpg

I have it at about .75 white tint, and blur? Im looking for blur right now, cant seem to find it in my raytrace properties :?

Also its 800x600 to save time, (it will be even smaller for the final render :| )

[vadyr]

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4666851

check that out. i tried to be tricky and not give it away! good luck all!

[Setsanto]

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4666851

check that out. i tried to be tricky and not give it away! good luck all!

You definately didn't :D

[3dfernando]

http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=4666851

check that out. i tried to be tricky and not give it away! good luck all!

Bwahahahahhahaha I will steal your idea!

=p =p

[Mazin]

mental ray with final gather, I then just plopped a sky light in the scene. (if you dont know what I mean look the terms up in the users reference by hitting F1 in 3ds max)


In other news, Buddy nearly melted his render farm.

I got a shiny new dual-core laptop. I used raytraced shadows, GI, final gather, raytraced reflections/refractions, HDRI environment, motion blur, 3D grass, glow, architectural materials, area raytraced shadows, AND supersampling all while maintaining 20sec/frame render times.

[Aldabe]

http://www.fruityproductions.com/rice/environment6.jpg

I have it at about .75 white tint, and blur? Im looking for blur right now, cant seem to find it in my raytrace properties :?

Also its 800x600 to save time, (it will be even smaller for the final render :| )

KY SurfaceBlur free plugin !! :D

official website: http://lastjedioutpost.ru/Plug-ins.htm

download link on a brazilian 3ds max web site:
http://www.tresd1.com.br/plugins.php?t=12918&&start=15

:cool:

[BuddyB309]

In other news, Buddy nearly melted his render farm.

I got a shiny new dual-core laptop. I used raytraced shadows, GI, final gather, raytraced reflections/refractions, HDRI environment, motion blur, 3D grass, glow, architectural materials, area raytraced shadows, AND supersampling all while maintaining 20sec/frame render times.

Good lord! I have to see a frame of your entry. The animation better be really well done, most people who done use 3ds max dont notice all the reflections and special effects you put in. But they always notice if you have poor animation. I cant wait to see how it turns out.

[Mazin]

Good lord! I have to see a frame of your entry. The animation better be really well done, most people who done use 3ds max dont notice all the reflections and special effects you put in. But they always notice if you have poor animation. I cant wait to see how it turns out.

Haha, I'm completely lying. They're not all in the same scene.

[sledfang]

We just got a new computer donated a couple of weeks ago. Actually, the money was donated and we built the computer. We got a dual core AMD 3800+ AM2 and a geForce 7600 GS, and some other decent stuff (RAM and whatnot). Other than that, everything we have is utter junk. Old stuff that got handed down from the high school.

That tint helps the lake scene, as well as the fog, but I agree that it will be perfect if you get some blur to work. Looking good.

I might be able to get some pics up soon.

[wt200999]

Is there a way to add the blur without that plugin, just through regular raytrace? I cant download anything off of these computers and its too late when I get home. I will be bringing my computer from home into school because this one is starting to act funny, and something just happened to the 3ds I had up, its staying in the taskbar and wont maximise :mad: . Sometimes I think I would be more productive at home on my new dual core system, but I know I would get off track :p

[3dfernando]

Well, with raytrace you DON'T want to blur reflections, believe me =p It's a LOT of render time!

I know its possible, but i don't remember how because I don't do it often...

But instead of raytracing, why don't you use the reflect/refract map?
It is a "previous" version of the raytrace map (well it isn't, but its engine is a bit simpler), but it has blur options, and its a lot quicker to render... I use raytrace for sharp relfections and reflect/refract for blurry ones =)

P.S. Anyways, mental ray has many reflection shaders that allow you to blur reflections =P

[BuddyB309]

Hey a little tip I learned in art class. If you want to make the mountains in the background seen farther away than they do add some fog but make the fog slightly blue. It looks a lot better than if the fog is white.

[z2x4c6v8]

Check out the teaser. http://www.team1676.com

[Kevin Thorp]

Pretty cool teaser, z2!

Is that music copyrighted? If so you'll need to have the owner's written permission or Autodesk will disqualify your entry.

[Mazin]

Where the heck would they find somebody rapping about "chemical" anyways? I'm guessing they made it themselves.

[BuddyB309]

Check out the teaser. http://www.team1676.com

Nice work. cant wait to see what you did with it

[Testament-Doom]

Ok, My team is at a rendering dilemma, trying to render this before Friday at 8PM (since we're at eastern standard time) so we may not be able to get our animation in, but I'm gunna give a sneak peak at our animation. It's gunna be our best image thing, but it's half of it ;). The other half would give the thing away. It's an old render, and the new one has smoke coming out of the plant and better water reflections, so here's the preview.

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/8807/2007mainimagept1eg0.jpg

[Setsanto]

Just one thing about the pic. The hourglass shaped power generation thingies, whatever theyre called, seem a bit too reflective to me. Also, it looks like all the light is concentrating on one point, which is unrealistic.

EDIT: See this pic (http://morguefile.com/archive/?display=84466&&MORGUEFILE=27a8tmogtlbn2mm7224f1pjru2)

~Nick/1334