Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Well its about that time again. Off season prodjects that your working on. We had a thread going last year and i got pretty big.

Post any prodjects your working on over the summer here. It doesnt have to be anything spectacular, a simple model will do. Well comment on it and point out a couple of things you could improve on. I like posting off season prodjects here instead of those CG forums cause people arent so harsh here. That way people wont get discouraged and we wont talk in that "CG lingo" as much. Its always a good thing to continue doing animation over the summer. It'll make you a much better animator when the next season comes around.

Re: Off-season Prodjects
 

I'll kick off this summer long thread by posting my current prodject im working on right now. Its for a contest.


and here is a close up of one of the characters



and his cute little butt! :D



Here are all three of the characters. that are in my prodject.
Picture

Re: Off-season Prodjects
 

that looks like the guy from this game in playstation called q-bert!

Re: Off-season Prodjects
 

I really love how soft and smooth you got your charictor, how did you get the eyes so realistic though I can't seem to do it.

Re: Off-season Prodjects
 

Game in playstation called Q-Bert? I remember Q-Bert in 1982. Crikey, I'm old. 27 is the new 87.

Re: Off-season Prodjects
 

here is a time lapse video of me animateting. Its recorded with a free program called hypercam.

Animateting bert

Re: Off-season Prodjects
 

This is my current project. After I finish modeling Gir i want to start teaching my self about bones and custom rigs. Anyone know any good tutorials for character animation?

Re: Off-season Prodjects
 

There arnt very many tutorials online for character animation but there are books. The best book that i ever got for character animation is "The Animators Survival kit" by Richard Willams. I highly recomend this to any animator out there. I use this book as a reference all the time.

Pink eye anyone?



Ouch! someone get these thorns out of my eye!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

any of you that are wondering how i did the eye textures im makeing time lapses videos of my progress (partially cause i just discovered the wonders of Hypercam). Any way scince im free from the contraist of autodesk competition im free to use what ever program i want. Here is the movie.

Irritated eyes, fruit, and leaves


EDIT:
Wow, making these little videos is fun. I think everyone should record what they do and play it back. (I record it at one frame per second and then play it back at 24 frams per second). It really teaches you how you use your time, and how to improve so you are more efficiant. (plus i think i makes animateting seem really cool when its played back like that, especialy with music) Here is another video of me putting fruit and oggys eyeballs into the scene.


putting Eyes and fruit into the scene

EDIT:

Big thanks to David (testament-doom) He is making the scenery. I never would have come up with something like that. Were still working on it together and still going strong. (although both of our sanity apears to be missing.....hmmmmmm)

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Care to mention that I'm helping you with this too? :).

EDIT:

And now.. Time lapses, Testament-Doom version of the project

Spreading the grass and flowers onto the scene (ends with a crash, but I recover)
Modeling the spikey pear (If you get an error message, wait like 30 minutes or an hour or so)

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

oh how i wish i could use Max the way you two do... i'm not too great at it. I can't model at all either.:(

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Your character models are very creative and well done!
I know it's still probably a WIP so all the textures and stuff aren't done ... but some grass and realistic textures would make those scenes awesome.

Character animation is one of those things I never really mastered properly -- i might look into that book you suggested! I saw your time lapse videos and it just shows ya how hard it is to get a really fluid realistic/professional looking animations.
Your animation wasn't bad though!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Heh, the pictures you're seeing is using an old version of the scenery. Right now I am currently making the scene have grass where grass is needed, and am making a complete flower bed where the clump of grass and flowers are. The idea is that this is a park, the plane you see is supposed to be mowed grass. I needed to redo the grass placement again and flower placement to make it a tad better so I can edit it and place it manually after. Once I get that part done, I'll see if anything else needs to be added on along with BuddyB309, and then from there, finish it up :).

We're close to done btw, modeling and animating and all, and then we have to render it, which we got plenty of time to do, and it won't take more than a few days at most (my guess, but who knows if the render settings will change).

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

LOL! I was saying the same thing you are at this time last year. If you dont belive me just check out the "off season competition/animtion" thread of last year. Abroerman posted a beautiful model of a mech and i asked "how do you get that good?!!" (I've yet to get to the level he is at in modeling, Put as far as character animation goes, I have not seen any work of his that has a smooth flow that im capable of.)

Just keep woking at it. Learn as much as you can, 3dtotal.com has great tutorials. Also learn comitment. Dont jump from project to project just because you got bord of it and want something new. finish what you start. after you finish your first big idea. Finishing the next one is a WHOLE lot easier and forces you to work with mistakes rather than abondoning them and forgetting them.

Learn to be fast: One of the best things i could do is speed modeling challenge or speed (insert aspect of 3D here) challenge. The Faster you are the more you can dish out. Dont sit and wait for a test render. Open up another program (if you computer can handel it) and work on something else. I found that once your in the "zone" you'll get a lot done. Test renders, checking email, going on chiefdelphi, or any other thing other than your project breaks your "zone." For me, its hard to get back in this animation zone, but once i do, im on a roll. (translation: I have no life. Just kidding)

If you really like animation, learn as much as you can now and NEVER stop challengeing yourself. I know it sounds clich`e but it works. I wanted to try camera matching and tracking. Read up about it did a test aniamtion and then when i knew what i was doing, did my War of the Worlds project It was tough, but i learned a LOT.

Dont worry, if all you think about is animation then your on the right track. It will snap one day (long after your mind snaps;) ) and it will just hit you. Then you will be cranking out stuff that i do. You will always have a feeling though that you dont know enough. Im very surprised people say im good, I never see that in my eyes and attempt to learn more.

good luck i hope this gives you an insight.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

abroerman is just too good
Winnovation's animation was awesome this year, I thought it was an HP commercial at first
This looks very nice too
See you guys at STL next year, loved your robot



still trying to make boxes in 3ds- completely different animal than inventor

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Hey dudes, ive been working hard (I havent seen the outdoors in two weeks, even though i hear there is gorgeous weather out side) here is an update of me and david's project.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Well since we are all posting our stuff...
lemme post my character... I think I wanna do a really good professional quality animation this summer.

Here is the robot character... I use him in my sig, and for my website (hence the block letter names)



What do you guys think?

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

you owe me a new keyboard. I went to your website and looked at your gallery and instantly began drooling all over.

You're modeling supreme. Now lets se your characters live.;) Make em dance!

Flowers YAY!
Makeing and putting in flowers into the scene

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the stuff.
I have wanted to make an animation for the LONGEST time... FIRST animations just don't cut it because I'm very involved with other parts of the team -- so I never have time to do a decent animation, in addition to the fact that there are only 30 seconds to animate with. Animation is one of those things you really need to read a book on -- it's very technical -- and I just don't have time during the season.

But hopefully I'll be able to post a short clip up this summer!

If you guys want inspiration check out cgtalk.com
(you'll probably need to get ANOTHER keyboard after seeing this lol)
but seeing some of the works on there just humbles and inspires any artist

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Well... animation, modeling... anything wise for me, all I ever got my creativity and techniques forom was a couple of tutorials on specific topics, and my mind. That's it. I don't use books or anything like that. Shocking, no? lol. Any idea I come up with in my head that I want to do in 3ds max comes with the idea I have in mind, and with work, if I run into somethnig, I try to research on the web, and I find a solution to a problem. That's how I learn everything, and with each proect, big or small, I learn new things. :)

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

It's true you can do a lot using online tutorials and such...(in fact that's where I've learned everything so far). I'd say it's mind blowing how revolutionary the internet has been in making info available ... Pepole can learn how to do almost anything online (I learned how to code in PHP just this week through tutorials and such). However the stuff I learned online is more of a mish-mash of techniques and ideas instead of a real education!

the fact is to create studio quality animation you need to invest significant amounts of time and effort into learning new techniques. Just look at stuff at CGTalk... that is the quality i'm trying to attain, in order to do that it takes alot more than a few tutorials. it takes years of experience, education and books lol

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Ah, techniques and tricks of doings to doing things, i found that is one thing that tutorials wont teach you. For example, how to get lights and materials to syncronise into harmony so you get that really good look. Or how to make your project move more efficiantly and smoothly. Many Tutorials wil teach you how to skin a character and get him ready for animation and then leave it at that.

Speaking of which.

how did you get your robot to look really really good? where are you lights posistioned? and what material and renderer are you useing?

The prodject ive been working on so hard is now in the rendering phase. Since being free from the contraints of autodesk im rendering my project out in layers and putting it together in after effect for some fine tweaking.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I still don't understand how you got the pupil on your guy's eye... I tried on my aliens (that were facing away from you) but to no success. In adition (to Testament-Doom) how did you relacate all of the flowers in the right places???

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

The flowers I actually didn't do (the new ones), BuddyB309 did them and he did them manually. He has a link on youtube that shows exactly how he does it. The grass that's on there however (yes, there are some things you haven't seen yet ;)) which is along the path of the flowers I did, and I used a certain technique to do it, which was I took the whole line of the edge of the sidewalk, made a spline, and used the spacing tool, then with a script, I randomly rotate the grass.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

*32 being such a small team, I did not have time to make a contest entry. I do have other projects that I have worked on, however. To see them go to my deviant art site:
http://frenotx.deviantart.com/
Any comments and suggestions (especially on the tank on the front page) will be gladly appreciated.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

cool design. Can i see the original concept drawings? Now all you have to do is texture it and make a short animation with it. Maybe some shots fired, throw in some particles for some smoke, heck, why not throw in some fracture reactor and some models with ragdoll contraints;) . Then you can make a building collaspe and have water spewing out of the broken pipes pipes;) (just kidding)

I would really like to see it textured though I think it could look really cool.


Ah the good old fashion eye with the dialateing publi! I cant tell you the number of hours I spent figureing this one out! Lets start with the very basic

Sphere + eye texuture and a look at contraint to a point.

simple enough for most things that are in AVA entries now lets say you want a cartoonish eye with a black pubil and white conea, no iris.

same as above but insted of an eye texture you need a gradint ramp with solid change from white to black. Then set up a silder and wire parameter the slider to control the flag on the gradient ramp.

K, that is good for some things. but what if you want really really good eyes. you have to know how a eye functions. The irirs is actually concave and the pubil is a hole. So make a shere with a section on it that is concave like an eye. You dont need to cut a hole in the sphere, just make sure that the material that is for the pubil doesnt reflect any light. Then there is this clear thing that goes over your iris and pubil. I dont know what its funcion is or whats is called, but the main thing it does in max is create a specular. You always want a specular on the eye otherwise it doesnt look good. So set up the specualar.

Now scince this this has different parts to it take full advantage of the Multi sub material. And to make the pubil dialate set up a morph mod and set your refference with a smaller pubil (am i explaning this right?).

Pm me if you have any questions.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Hey firebelly your modelling is very clean and detailed! I am impressed.

Props

-Salik

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

WEEEEE HEE HEEE!!!!! almost done!!!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Thanks! That is a great complement to hear. And BuddyB309, I can't wait to see the finished version!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I'm really no good at charictor animation and I only know what I tought myself, but how did you get your charictor's bipeds? plus the apparent eyebrow motion in the last pic.?

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I stay well away from bipeds, They are not as comtumizable as creating your own rigs from bones, (I know Gasp!). To me its not that hard because I have riged so many characters. It is similar to the biped but scince it is with bone i can slap on some IK parameters and that makes animation a whole lot easier. (You just have to make sure that the movement flows in archs instead of strait lines, newbies tend to not pay attention to that and then the characters movements look very unatural.) Then i Link just about everything to dummies and shapes so i can easily select them. The little red guy there (AKA bert) was a little awkward to rig, his legs are really short and his feet are really big. I had a couple of problems but solved it with Joint angle deformer and bulge deformer gizmo in the skin mod. But since the little guy has no knees, i had to develop a way for him to walk. He kinda wadles.

Anyway, on to your question about the Eyebrows animation. That is done with the morph modifier. I wouldn't recomend doing Eye brows with bones. It could lead into trouble and morpher mod is much easier. I do all my facial animation with the morph mod (except eyelids, those are half spheres) The only problem with the morph is that if you make a change in the characters verticies after you set up the facial rig, you would have to redo the whole facial rig. (but thats only happens as a result of poor planing right?;) )

Then i set up a kind of control board for all the facial movements and then animate from there. Here are some pictures of what the character rigg looks like.



As you can tell it is very complex, the rabbit character (AKA Narf) has about about 60 point to animate to get him to move. It seems a little excessive but this character rig can dish out any type of action you can think of.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Wow, that is pretty complicated. Seems effective, though. I personally don't have much experience with animation, especially ones involving characters. Heck, I hardly make anything organic anyways. This does seem like a good way to approach it. I really like the idea of a control board. I will have to keep this in mind for future endeavors... :)

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I usually just make charictors... my animation skills are so so... is it against the rules to make the charictors and scene for the animation in the summer? I just won't have time to do it during next season, as I animate slowly and everyone is becoming a "builder".

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Go for it man, I have this really cool idea of a danceing ted Bordman for the end credits in the animation next year. The only problem you might run into is that the character might not fit the theme next year. But there is always ways to incorporate a character into a story.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

All right! I have our project done and uploaded into the contest! check it out here Make sure to vote for May 1st - July!!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Sweeeeeet! You did an awesome job on that. How long did it tak you to make it? And just out of curiosity, how easy is it to use 3D Max? I'm hoping to learn it over this summer.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

if you used a 3d program before then it should be pretty easy. If this is the first time working with 3D animation, get ready for some headaches. Its very intimidating at first but then i gets really fun. Try to get someone on your team to teach you and get you through the basics. Then its all fun and games from there.

That little segment took me four months to complete. The character animation took at least a month and i worked my but off durring that period.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Don't worry, I'm used to intimidating stuff. How else would I get caught up with school after being gone for a semester?

Yes, I will be expecting it to be intimidating, but hey, that makes it all the more fun. Thanks for the info.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

It's been great working with you on the scenery Peter. The animation turned out really well. Once I get myself off of garry's mod, and back onto full track 3ds max (yeah, I started playing recently, lol), Imma make really nice sceneries for everyone to use like eye candy ;)

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

nice animation and very funny. Not what I thought it wasgoing to be but really good. how did you match up the mouths and the sound?

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Hey,

Wow, this still just plainly amazes me every time I watch it to the extent that my eyes are like this :eek:
Just...wow...
I can't wait to see any of your future projects. I also watched all of your rig tests etc. on youtube. You are my hero...even though I use blender :D

Also, here is my character rig test!

Please let me know where I can improve :D

-Chris Folea(pronounced Fowliuh)
"If you're not living on the EDGE, then you're taking up too much space..."

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

8 am to midnight everyday durring spring break and a couple of weekends after that. Its just a tedious process and you just match the mouth to the sound.


I see a number of things.

In the upper part of the arm there is a little of pinching. You might want to fix that with a morph deformer or gizmo if there is one in blender. Otherwise your going to have to mess with the wieghts of each verticie.

Another thing. The character is obviously picking up something very very heavy. So the character has to get his wieght a close to the object as possible before attemping to lift. If i lifted something like that, it would likely throw out my back.

Also the movmets are very very robotic like. Your forgetting your character has weight to shift around. Try having some side movment of the hips so when he picks up the foot. Some of the steps he takes are a little to fast. And when someone has a very heavy load on them thier steps become quick and cover a very short distance. Yours are quick, be cover a large distance. It makes it look unatural.

(looks through footage)

He goes down on his knee way way to fast. IF that was cement hes kneeing on, he would seriously hurt his knee caps. Hes also not shifting his wieght before he goes to his knee. I acted out going to my knees from standing position and noticed that i take a short step forward, then drop to my knee with the opposite leg. Also having him focus on the object while he drops to his knees would make more sense. I dont know why he looks towards the sky. Perhaps you didnt key the head?

(looks at footage)

I dont see any wrist movment. Are there separate joints for them? Writs on the arm tend to lag behind the movement of the arm. Such as the end of a rope does went you swing it.

(looks at footage)

The feet slide as he picks up the box to his knee. Is this on purpose? If my feet slid while i was picking up something heavy it would probably throw me off balance. Normally people make sure they have solid footing before they pick up anything heavy. Thats why you tend to shift your wieght alot when your going to lift something you know is very heavy.

(looks at footage)

I see that you reversed the arch in his back just before the lift. Good going but i would like to see it a little more exagerated. Maybe it doesnt look at good cause the character isnt as close to the box as he should be.

(looks)

Have him put an arm under the box. I think something that heavy and smooth would slip out of the hands. Also that whip when he finally gets his wieght under the boxs looks painful. I think anyone lifting anything would serioulsy hurt themselves if they tried that. I know what your going for but the back needs to reverse its arch before that happens. That way it looks like the muscles kick in and then the back starts to move. Hip also has to go down a little bit when he gets the box in its full lifted position. That kind of lift people are throwing the object and then catching it, hence the hip moving down so the person can get there wieght under the object.

(yay grading is over)

Sorry to pick apart your animation like this. But it really helps people learn. I think you can see some of your mistakes and hopfully make it look more fluid. If you could show me a screen shot of the character rig i would be able to help you out more.

On another note, i still dont know how you did that fork thing. That was just weird. I still have that fork, it poked me in my pocket the rest of the day.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!!! You have no clue how much I appreciate this :D

I'm working on re-animating it right now...

-Chris Folea(pronounce Fowliuh)
"Don't make fun of someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes...that way you're a mile ahead of them AND you have their shoes!"

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Buddy good work on your animation. If I were to rank it I would give it a 7 out of 10. The animation was very well done but there was something off about it. Maybe if the script was changed up a bit It could have made it amazing. But over all very good. I did watch a few other animations and and I think you definitely placed top 3 in your category. Another thing is i did not see to many animations above 2 minuets im wondering if some poor animation is going to get some prize money.
P.S. I gave you 5 star.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Dark and scary alien space craft! OH NO!




I dont have the thing textured yet but this is what its going to look when all the lights are working. The tractor beam in the front isnt on this picture. Its pretty scary huh?

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Nice work. The model looks quite clean and the lights are awesome.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Morgan, tom, and I did a speed modeling challenge. The theme was an alarm clock. The rules are that you have one hour to model, texture, light, and render your object. Here are my results.



I highly advise anybody who wants to become good at modeling to take part in these. These little challenges help you become a fast at what you do. And being fast at what you do means getting more done in a shorter amount of time. And getting more done in a shorter amount of time means a better looking AVA entry and more trophies! :D

Anybody who is still interested in how i did this I also have a time lasp of the me modeing up on youtube. You can learn how I do things and maybe will see some techniques you never thought of doing. time lapes

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Dang.:eek: That was fast!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

That was the best time lapse video that i have seen you make. Very cool. In a few months I will try and make some time lapse videos too. Good work tho

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

If only I figured out what was wrong with my on screen recorder before I got to far into the challenge. Oh well. These were my results.

Not happy, I got distracted during the time again.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Some footage of the space ship moving is up on youtube. Check it out here

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

This is just a quick project i did the other day.

[url="http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/54157505/"]

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

oooo wow, very nice. Very realistic.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Pete remeber most dont know my name. (My name is Tom if you didnt guess people)

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

This is looking great. The lighting effects are super nice.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

My friend sent me a simple model of a starship and I turned it into a voyager more or less (not perfect by anymeans)... but I still don't know how to add textures to parts of objects. Could somebody help me out with that?
PS nice animations

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Hmm.. First off you might want to clean up your model a bit. The mesh smooth you put on is causeing some problems with it. To add textures (lets say from a picture file) hit "M" to bring up the material modifier panal. Then go where it says diffuse and click the grey square next to the color chooser. It will bring up a new window and choose bitmap from that. Then you pick the texture file you want and then you can apply it to you object by draging the materal over to your object.
Now if 3ds max cant figure out how the UVW cordinates line up and need you to tell it how the textures line up. There are two ways you can align the textures up in your model.
UVW Map modifer
-this allows you to choose how program "projects" the texture onto the model. Apply this to your object and you can choose many ways in which the material lines up. This is quick and easy.

Unwrap UVW
This is more advanced. I do not suggest taking this route unless you fully understand materials and want cleaner and better results. (it takes more time also but produces the best results if done right) (Also works good with organic models) What this does is takes pieces of your model and you can flatten them out so you get a picture with just a wire frame that you can draw on. This is normally used with photoshop or another program similar to photoshop to do most of the texture work.

If you are still confused on what any of these are there is always the User Refference that you can refur to. Bring it up in max by pressing "F1" If you dont have a copy of the User Refference on your computer you can always go to the autodesk website and download a copy of the user refference for free.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

This is the most recent project I started. I plan to animate the two most perfect alliances going at it. So far this is all I have done. Please tell me what you think.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=auoz9Mj3sIA

Here is a close up of the drive base.
http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5313479

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

The drivetrain looks very good. I would suggest going back and chamfering the edges of the chassis. You would be surprised at how much of a difference it can make: Chamfer those edges!
Also, I was wondering why you chose not to use any chains. Does your robot really run off of gears? If you need advice on how to do chains, just let me know. Either way, the model looks good and clean.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I definatly agree with firebelly, You need to chamfer those edges.

Now about that animation clip you have of the robot picking up the innertube on youtube. Your forgetting that the inner tube has wieght to it. The part of the tube that is not directly in contact with the robot (the the side that is sticking out) is not going to want to go up as fast as the rest of the tube. Have a slight lag in it as it goes up. (some bend modifier). Thats pretty fast for a lifting mechanism in a robot. Going up that fast is likely to shake the front weels off the ground. The animation doesnt look convinceing cause your not paying attention to the wieght that is being thrown around.
************************************************** **

I have another update for my spaceship posted up on youtube. (dont look at the movement of the craft i was more worried about the light animation)

space ship update 2

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Thanks for all of the advice. I will be sure to fix all of that as soon as I get the chance.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

The lights on that space ship are looking great! I have never had much skill in the lighting department.
Btw, what is that music? It is pretty cool.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

The music is from oceans eleven soundtrack

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Here is a link to my newest project [WIP]: Rock Harvester
Still have a lot to do, but this thing is fun to watch never the less. An interesting note is that all of the mechanisms are realistic. That is, they could be built in real life. Hooray for not breaking the laws of physics!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

That looks really great! I am still not at that level of modeling.

Here is a small project I did when i got home from school. i wanted to work on textues.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Dang, that is a sweet Earth! :)

By the way, I love the music in the background of you 3d youtube video. Very spiffy.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

It a good start but there are a few things I want to point out. The atmosphere is not convincing.

You need to think of the eart in layers, there is the surface layer (ground and water) cloud layer (this is so clouds can cast a shadow on the ground) and then the atmosphere layer.

The atmosphere layer is pretty tricky. Picture a space scene in your mind. The glow that you get from the atmosphere is always on the edges of the earth right? So for the outermost sphere you need some falloff so i only appears there. But if you picture it the atmosphere some more you realise that the only way the atmosphere is glowing is because the sun is shinning through it. (this is why you see the glow of the atmosphere before you see the sun in a solar sunrise.) So you need the make the falloff light and shadow. dont use the glow effect in max, you dont have enough control over the glow of the atmophere and you cant acheive the solar sunrise effect.

One tutorial that i found that explained it to me is right here. Photorealistic earth

I tried it out and here is what i came up with. (dont look at the stars i know they're ugly)

whoa, cool. Im not really good at coming up with mechanical designs, i love the motions. What is it suppose to be doing. The only thing i have against it is the two big tires. They seem weak compared to everyting else. Good job though, cant wait to see when it is finished.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

hey dudes im finally done with the space ship project i was working on. The last thing i had to do was compositeting into some footage that was taken. I had to turn a day scene into a night scene and then make the lights from the space ship affect the ground some how. I figured it out and i think it turn out pretty good. Check it out here space ship update

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Loved it I especially liked how it meshed with the background. Thought that the end part witht he two guys was a little random though.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Well now that i have my space ship project done, I started my new one. (Yes im always working on something) Its another oggy short. I'll keep you all posted.

Oggy clip

Click the link above to see a short preview

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Awesome animation...
parts I liked:
The end where he makes the disappointed head bound

crits:
I think the motion on the "girl" eye is a bit to exaggerated, and also it looks like the same key frames... it's not varied enough... I would slow down the pace as well.
Secondly when the blue eye jumps it is at a very high speed and from very far... yet his legs don't take very much shock, try to show the lends bending and re-balancing when he gets back.
The girl when she closes her eye, I think the head turn should be slower to give off more of the feel that "i'm rejecting you" kind of a pompous slow "hmmmph" kind of head turn.

All in all good though!!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Yeah i cleaned it up a lot after i posted that clip online. That was a rough just to see how the pace of the scene would go. The project is comming along nicely, i have only 4 more camera angles to animate then im done, unless i decide to but in some scenery.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Say that again BuddyB, scenery? ;) ;)

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Here is our animation team's recruiting video that we made in two days. Its a little over the top but its design is to get kids overly excited about joining the animation team. recruiting vid

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?

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

What are you talking about?! this thread is life! Animation is life, or at least the only thing i think about. (yes friends have stoped asking me what i want to do cause i always say "animation".)

Anyway, Im back home again and i have dial up. I normally go to my friends house to mooch off there internet but my schedual has picked up a lot recently, but i still do a lot of animation, I just havent had time to break away from it. (that and gas prices scares me away from the six mile drive i have to take to get to high speed internet,yes im really cheep )

Anyhoo, I have done a lot of project recently. Tom from the catfish team met up in IRI and durring the finals he wanted his team logo. So i made, textured and riged a catfish for him. Its pretty good. I'll hopfully load it up later.

While going down to IRI i made this short animation in the car. Little ball and heart animation. Its not much but i wanted to see if I could do a Flash style animation with 3ds max. It is quicker to animate than a 3d human character and you can easily achieve a level of cuteness than you could with 3d characters. These characters are a seris of splines that are extruded ever so slightly.

I'm currently makeing a independence day space ship for my friend and compositing that into some earth renders i did. It was really fun making things for tom and my other friend. I found that i have gotten really good at unwrap textures. (well kinda good). But hey, my specialty is organic models, rigging, and animation, not mechanical space craft (im trying to hide the errors that im getting with this thing through compositing). If you need anything lets say for a safety video, or a promotional video that your doing. I can help ya out. Just PM me.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I makeing some graphics for someone, Here is a frame of the idea that i have for the guy.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Is this thread dead again? Whats everyone working on? There hasn't been an update in a while...

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Well, I'm far to busy with school to get anything done right now. I'll go head long when the first season starts though. Hey when does the season start for animation I don't remember from last year.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

I here ya man. Between school and my job, I have little time for animation. The safety animation competition is just around the corner. They will officialy announce it in late October but its always good to get your characters started early cause of time crunch. The inronic thing about the safety animation is that the winning safety animation will get more exposer than the World champion AVA winner. Who knows who will see it? Heck, you could possibly get a job off the safety animation if it is phenominal.

Once again im mentoring the animation team. We meet once a week so there is not much we can get done. I keep forgetting how unfocused these little freshmen are. Its driving me crazy!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

If it helps I have to train anyone who's going to help me on the animation. All our seniors I tought last year are leaving and all the softmores that are now juniors are taking over building for the robot. So we'll see how this comes out, I think I'm going to have to work on the simple side of things. Probably only one charictor max, and I'll probably steal the basic charictor from the one I did last year to skip all the pain of rebuilding them. anybody have any ideas on how to make chairctors or animate faster? I could use them, I had 3 people last year and it took me for flipping ever last year (my first year), and now I might end up with just the two of us for the saftey this year. Lol, I think I'm the only one in all of hawaii actually who's planning on making an animation, this'll be funny.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Heh, do I! Organic Modeling and Character animation is my thing man. Modeling for animation is a lot different and there are some key things you need to watch out for:

Joints I can tell you how many times i see characters that people skin and the joints pinch in where they bend. This is solved by two things. Slicing where the joint is so you have more polys to work with in that area. And useing the joint angle deform in the skin modifier or the skin morph deform modifier.

hands Hands are by far the wost thing that ive seen animated in a AVA entry (besides bad lip synching). People have a lot of fine control over hands. They make suddle movements. They are also the most complex thing on our body. If your going to make a person have hands, prepare to spend a lot of time on them. The alternative of hands with fingers is to do hands that looke like mittens. But you still have that opposible thumb to deal with.

Lip synch Please for the, love of god, and all things holy, spend time on lip synching! I have lost track in how many AVA animations ive seen with bad lip synch. Here are some key concepts that you MUST follow when lip synching.

1. Always make the visual que appear a frame or two before the sound. It is better to animate a frame or two before the sound. NEVER LATE!
2. The mouth should always close on the "M" "B" and "P" sounds. Again always hit this mark 1 or 2 frames before the sound.
3. Use curve editor. Get a dual screen so you can have curve editor on one monitor and your work on another
4. Think of how many movements your mouth can make. My average rig for a mouth has 12 morph targets. I have three for the upper lip, 3 for the lower lip, two for the jaw, 1 to make the mouth kiss (O shape), 2 for teeth, and one for the tonge.
5. Add style to the way your character talks. No bodys mouth moves the same way as someone elses when they speak. Thats why your have accents and such.
6. When speaking, the mouth normally just slurs through the words. As long as you hit your "M" "B" "P" "T" and "O" it looks fine.
7. watch it. It it doesnt look right. It ain't right.

Character Rigs As I say to my students DO NOT USE THE BIPED! Its an absolutly horible rig and you cant get any character out of it. Think about it, who in davy jones walks or runs the way a biped does? No one! Tweaking the biped is a disaster too. Make your own rig with bones. You'll learn more and it is far more customizable for different characters. If you need help, you have chiefdelphi.

Camera movement Im sorry but this is my other biggest pet peeve of all AVA entries. Why do people insist of haveing essessive camera movement? Think of a camera as a window to your world. It can be any window, a window from a house, or a window of a car. You see things by either walking past them (panning) or walking up to them (trucking). When in gods name do you walk up to something and walk a 360 around it just to examine it? Can you think of any movie that has a 360 camera movement like that? (besides matrix or any movie making fun of the matrix). Its so ridiculosly absurd that so many movies made fun of the matrix for doing that. Sure it may look cool if your doging bullets, but for showing an object, it just doent fit.

Camera movement is suppose to show the action, not become the action. Your camera should not have more than one direction it is traveling. Otherwise cut to a different camera.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Well, I'm definitely glad to see that the thread's not completely dead! I, too, am anxious about the safety video and have modeled our character already for it(sorry a secret, can't show you...)

Of course before that, I've been working hard on models and effects and scripting for a movie my friend and I are making(probably about 15 minutes long). You can check on some of the pictures etc. from here(http://blenderartists.org/forum/show...28#post955028), but here are my best ones...I'm going for photorealism, but will obviously not reach it. Although...after effects is my hero. I used Blender and Yafray combined for these:

My hover police car:



My hero's car...one of the only ones that still runs on gas(like in I-Robot)


And a building I'm working on for the background(Johns Lobster Barn).



And here are a couple quick fire tests on our bluescreen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQPOI6xUKso

And here's the hover car in motion without blue on the first one and with blue on the second one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpXGLlDu-Rw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv1V9ZrV4uQ

Any comments and crits would be GREATFULLY accepted on any of these ...let me know what you think, and I'm looking forward to seeing all of your safety videos!

We are filming this weekend by the way! Hopefully it will turn out okay!!

-Chris Folea(pronounced Fowliuh)
"Dreams are like rainbows...only idiots chase after them."
P.S. I can post wires too if anyone wants to see them!

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Well its nice to see that someone else has attempted compositing. What did you use for camera tracking? Boujou, shake, voodoo camera tracker, or montae?

The blue screen is fine, your not getting any color bleeding or that Blue outline that you sometimes get. That means you light your blue screen correctly good job. BUT, mess with the levels a little more in After effects. I can definatly tell that you were not in that scene and its been blue screened. Another thing i always see overlooked is lighting when fire is composited. Fire casts light, and therefor you should have a glow on you when you shoot your fireball.

Allright now for the compositing with the car:

Nice to see that you have attempted it but you absolutly have to pay attention to the lighting when you do compositing. Take mesurements on site. Know the time of the day, the angle of the sun, and the weather so you can make your objects casts shadows correctly. (the biggest give away of CGI, just watch any bad modern sci fi movie) Then know the hieght of the camera, the distance from the camera to various objects in the scene, and the relative measurements of the objects in the scene. ESPECIALLY measure the objects that you know your CGI character is going to cast shadows or lights on! This is so you can rebuild the scene in the 3d program set them to proxy object so they can act like shadow catchers. (I dont know blender but if used used 3ds max i could tell you). WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN AND THE SHOT THAT THE MEASUREMENTS ARE FROM!! It will save you a TON of headaches in the long run.

Couple things wrong with the composite. (yes i know its a test but treat your test like the real thing, because what you normally do in the test, you do in the actual project). The physics of the car is off. I know it hovers, but have it "skid" when it takes that sharp turn. That sudden momentum change is likely going to severly hurt the driver's neck.

You need to "dirty up" the CGI. In After effects, add a slight gausian blur (0.3 - 1.0) and some film grain (1.0 - 3.0) to the CG and it'll look that much better. Trust me, the point is that CG comes out crisp and clear. That is not the way the camera sees the world. That isn't how we see the world either. I always "dirty up" my animations now and it looks really professional.

Distance blur on the car would be nice. Other wises it looks like its growing and not moving. Also you need motion blur on it. The car should not look clear in the frame when you pause it. And since you are recording with a house hold camera (I assume you are) fake interlace in the CG. I know this sounds completely crazy, me telling you to destroy the quailty and clearness of the CG but smudging it will make it sink in to the footage.

Nice rotoscopeing on the mail box. Although you may want to decrease the mask by a pixel.

All around your doing great. Compositing is a very hard thing to accomplish. I see your one of the very few people in FIRST who keeps doing projects of their own over the summer. Keep it up and you'll produce something that will blow the pants off of everyone.

Re: Off-season Projects in 3D Animation
 

Thank you for your insight! I tried to dirty up the car a bit, but I failed at taht obviously:o
I'll go ahead and play aruond with it more this weekend. Shall be fun.

Also, I used not tracking software. I created an angle from edges to match up to the brick wall and rotoscoped the camera so it matched correctly every frame. It was a time consuming task, but doing stuff by hand sometimes gets better results than any software.

Also, thanks for the lighting suggestions. Those will be greatly used(the fire I really just wanted to see how well it would key though. Next I'll definitely add an orange glow :D )

Also, where can I find distance blur in after effects? Is that the same as motion blur in photoshop?

Also, with Yafray...I mostly used GI with the movie as the background. I guess it would be a better idea to use that at a minimum and set up my own lighting data?

Anyway, thank you VERY much for the suggestions. They will be taken in and used very well :D .

Thanks again!

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