Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Truthfully, I would love to learn from you in person. Has been that way, and with that movie, it only buts the icing on the cake, A BIG CAKE!:D

Awesome, tell me how many people you get from that movie itself when you show it.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

oh shucks.... you make me blush.

Funny story. The mechanical team was presenting to some classes to make kids join the mechanical team. They showed the video to the class because one of the students that was presenting was also on the animation team. Upon seeing the video some kids imediately signed up for the animation team. Its really funny because the mechanical team student leader and i have had a constent feud bettween us. Well, not really a feud but we are the type of friends who disagree with eachother about anything and everything and we think what eachother has to say is unimportant. But never the less we enjoy makeing each other frusterated. I could only smile to think what his reaction was when people started signing up for animation on his presentation.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

whats this? have all the animators crawled back into there caves to animate? or have they taken a break from animation? *gasp!* there is no break from animation! there is no break from FIRST! It owns you..... and you cant help yourself but to like it.

on a more serious note. I would like to see more off season stuff. Im working on a project right now and its.....um......well.....not for chiefdelphi. In its story board phase it doesnt look to great. But it will be cute when its finished. (at least if it ever gets finished, It keeps getting pushed back and then it takes a lot to keep motivation up for it.)

other than my personal project the animation team is doing a hand washing animation for the local elementary schools. I think it will turn out nice. Its due in october. And of course im still teaching animation to the new incoming freshmen.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I just finished the concept sketch for my next big 3D project, but I really don't want to start working on it until I get my new computer running. Get this: I have 4 hard drives in this new rig in a raid 0+1 array. One of the four drives crashes violently and causes a power surge. The surge corrupts some windows files (on the whole array), frys my floppy drive, and screws up the floppy port on the motherboard. Now whenever I try to read a floppy with my (new) floppy drive, the little light comes on, and the drive acts like it's reading, but I can never actually pull any data off it. I know it's a good drive because I tested it in my other machine. No floppy=no raid drivers=no windows. $@#$@#$@#$@# you seagate!:mad:

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I'm ALMOST done with my animation...I've been working on it for quite some time now. It doesn't quite match up to oggy and friends, but I'm proud of it...I'm also working on some stuff for a movie my friends and I are making...mostly on a blue screen...with lots of effects and stuff(will occupy me for at LEAST half of the year)...

BUT...

You can be expecting to see some stuff from me soon!

I agree though...ANIMATION MUST NEVER STOP!!!

OH...and I just bought after effects...a LEGAL copy!!! I'm happy about that :D...it shall be much better than the crappy home software I've been using...Of course any tips on using it would be appreciated(lighting etc)...I have no Idea how to match lighting with the lighting of the real scene...

-Chris Folea(pronounced Fowliuh)
"Dreams are like rainbows...only idiots chase after them!"

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

K i can help you out there. since you have after effects. you must and i repeat YOU MUST RENDER OUT YOUR STUFF IN MAX IN LAYERS!! Then you import it into after effects (or combustion) and then there you can tweak it and get your results instantly without waiting 12 mins for a frame. You need a beauty pass, diffuse pass, all you lights as separate files, z detph (thats for distance blur), reflections, and everything else in separate layers.

I know its a hard concept to understand but its how you achieve "the look". you know what "look" im talking about. The one that makes animation look really really good. "The Look" of something coming out of any animation studio. the "Pixar" look. The look that you cant achieve with max, no matter how hard you try. "The look" is done by rendering it out in layers then compositing it all in AE or combustion. Thats how i did oggy and friends. Plus you can get really nice effects without eating up rendering time.

For example. If i want distance blur. I could let 3ds max render each frame twelve times (yuk) or i can just have max render out a Z-depth pass. (found in the "render out elements" in the render menu) then i take the Z-depth and use it as a mask for the blur in After effects and poof! you have distance blur! Distance blur that you can tweak if you want the background more blurry! or you could use Z-depth to change the color of the background, or add some fog, or add in another character, or composit live action video, or use particles to tear up just the background, or whatever you can think of. Instead of tweaking and waiting for you results, layers acutally cut down on render time.

Also you will need to "Dirty up" the special effects. Add a small amount of blur and flim grain, Maybe make the colors flicker a little. somehow it makes it more realistic.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

You gotta teach me all of this stuff and After effects one of theses days. :D

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Awesome! Thank you for the tips! I just wish I could use 3ds Max as opposed to blender(only for lighting...I still like blender best...)

Also...you can be expecting my cartoon sometime this week...it depends on when the water finishes rendering(way too high poly...almost not worth the wait...). If anything it should be somewhat entertaining...once again...nothing that matches Oggy and Friends!

But after this project comes my next serious project which will be a ten to fifteen minute movie...including a guy with a gun for an arm!!! Can't reveal too much about the story though...its(hopefully) gonna be good...
http://www.badluckbob.com/zombie%20curse.htm
That was my second real attempt at using cg in movies...no motion tracking or anything though...but it still won state tech fair :yikes:

Well...

Thanks again for the tips!!! I'll see if I can get anything working and update you all on my progress!

-Chris Folea(pronounced Fowliuh)
"There is no finish line in the race for quality...so technically its more like a death march!"

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Well
I finally finished my cartoon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4Wx8mlPrHw

Its a bit low quality on youtube though...
I'm uploading a higher quality quicktime one to my website(100 mb YIKES) as we speak!

This one took me several months(somewhat off and on)...and It might not be the most impressive piece of work...but I'm proud of it as my first finished cartoon!

Well...

Enjoy!

And let me know what you think!

-Chris Folea(pronounced Fowliuh)

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Not bad. somethings in it bothered me like the smoke and flames going through him but still pretty good. i like the part with the detonator looks neat.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

A little off topic, but is there any way to import the constraints from Inventor into 3ds Max when you import the file?

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Gah its killing me! I cant see your video! stupid dial up *kicks imaginary dial up deamon* as soon as i get to a friends house i will look at it.

I dont know about the constraints in Inventor. I really dont mess with inventor (i dont like the whole "have to be exact thing")

Well I'll take a wild stab at it. I've imported stuff from inventor and it always comes through as a mesh. Which is fine. I've heard people who use inventor talk about the constraints on inventor and if they dont match up, the peice wont fit together in the program.

Is this true? Do constraints basically make sure that your not putting the triangle piece in the square hole?

Well anyway just for this arguments sake lets say constraints do that (shows how much i know inventor ;) ). Which lead me to my point. In 3ds max you only have to make it look like stuff is working properly. If the camera is not showing a detail that you made then get rid of the detail. It will save computing power come rendering time.

Or maybe constraints are physics? Then you would have to mess with the reactor tool (the horror!)

seriously....I have no idea what constraints are in inventor. I'm trying my best to help.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Thanks for the help, constraints are more of where you want a part to be, what part this sits up against, what axis does this rotate about, what moves when this moves, they "constrain" things to act in certain ways. Thanks for the help, I won't waste my time trying to make it work exact.
Thanks
Malhon

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Nope, constraints in Inventor won't be imported. If you really want to, you can mess around with parametric wiring. That will allow for some mathematical relationships to be established between objects.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Has this thread died? Where did everyone go?