Fun little WIP, please critique

[Mazin]

I got bored, so I decided to try my long-time idea of animating a (completely fictitious) assembly line.

I have parts 1 and 2 mostly done. Pt 3 is the longest, and it's partway there. I want a couple people to look and see if there are any obvious mistakes, as well as how it could look better. I know the tan box thingy looks horrible, and I'm gonna add a couple particle things in it. I don't know about sound - I'll either have to add in in Video Post or Premiere or equivalent video compositor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_YQ6yxVpiM

(I woulda google videoed it, but google uploading didn't work for me)

I tried to keep the render time low, given that I have 1 comp that's not particularly fast, and that the whole thing will be around 1800 when I'm done. Render time shown is about 16-17 sec. No raytracing.

Part 2 is also there. It's mostly done, compared with the rest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG0azJiM1fI

[BuddyB309]

put more lighting into it. Give it some sort of mood by the color of light. other wise good.

[Mazin]

I'm kinda scared to put more lighting. I put in kind of a mood in Pt 1, but other than that it's more a generic factory mood thing.

[Morgan Gillespie]

I feel for the most part the modeling is good. Yet if you were going for the feeling of a real Assembly line you missed it. This seems more as a story of 6 or 7 toys. Also like buddy said give it some lighting. By the right lighting you can illuminated mostly the line and cut out the need for most background items. (If that is what your looking for)
Two final things
Injection molds have a cone shaped hole in the top
at least all the ones I have seen do
You can add sound in video post? We had to add ours in curve editor, then again we didn't look beyond the basics of video post..

[Capt.ArD]

I think it is pretty moodless. don't mean to sound harsh, but i wasn't struck with a "factory" feeling when i saw it. Modelling was nice. some of the edges were really sharp, and could use some champhering, but otherwise pretty good. textures on the machines are also pretty grey. needs shineys.

for lighting i would lower the ambient brightness of the whole thing (factories are dark and scary) and put spotlights on points of interest. Also, use a yellowy "dirty" tint for the light to make it look like a factory that has been there a while. Or red. rd would be good for heat lamps or something to dry the paint/harden the plastic/ whatever.

or you could do whatever. but definitely try to do something more with it, it is a solid work that has a lot of potential.

[KenWittlief]

I cant wait for episode two: "Over the edge"

[Morgan Gillespie]

I am very interested to know or not if he plans to do a packing stage.

[Mazin]

I had the worst time with instancing the toys...

Max is no fun when it comes to that - there's too many things that have to be manually fixed to be feasible to make, say, hundreds. Let's say it was a small batch, eh?

I feel for the most part the modeling is good. Yet if you were going for the feeling of a real Assembly line you missed it. This seems more as a story of 6 or 7 toys. Also like buddy said give it some lighting. By the right lighting you can illuminated mostly the line and cut out the need for most background items. (If that is what your looking for)

I'm not really sure what kind of lighting to go for - does anybody have a reference pic or something? That would be great for me, even if it means I have to re-render almost 2,000 frames. Wait, I could just batch photoshop them and play with levels, hue, etc. Please, somebody find me a picture of what they're thinking of.

Injection molds have a cone shaped hole in the top
at least all the ones I have seen do

I put a cylindrical hole in it, but it's tiny and doesn't even show up sometimes. I'll see about a cone-shaped one.

You can add sound in video post? We had to add ours in curve editor, then again we didn't look beyond the basics of video post..

I don't know. I can't use curve editor, because for some odd reason PNG images don't support sound... I blame Microsoft.

some of the edges were really sharp, and could use some champhering, but otherwise pretty good. textures on the machines are also pretty grey. needs shineys.

I'll look into better texs and some reflection maps. NO raytracing for me. I don't wanna melt my processor

I cant wait for episode two: "Over the edge"

I made it, but there was a little weirdness for the transition between animation and reactor simulation. I'll try to smooth it out a little.

I am very interested to know or not if he plans to do a packing stage.

Not in the plans as of now. I do have a scene with boxes and boxes of them on a shelf:



but there's not even lights yet.

Part 1 has been YouTubed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgwheYM34aE
I think i'll change the mixing mechanism...
Edit: Part 1 v2 with new mixing mechanism (might need more tweaking)
version 2

[DonRotolo]

Extraordinary. Some day I have to teach myself how to do that.

The painting step has too much in that step - you're taking off the top sprue (the dingus where the material was injected - nice touch BTW) plus painting it in at least three colors. Maybe break it into two actions, like a little arm coming down and cutting the sprue off with a rotating blade?

In a real factory, you'd make the body out of the major color (Black in this case) and paint on the white & yellow. Also, there would be some paint overspray, the inside of the cabinet wouldn't be so clean, nor would be the conveyor belt. How 'bout a little metal manufacturer's logo badge on the spray booth, like "Paintz-All" - kind of like those on the back of a car.

Need more pipes or electrical conduit on the walls.

Don

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by Mazin

I had the worst time with instancing the toys...


I'm not really sure what kind of lighting to go for - does anybody have a reference pic or something? That would be great for me, even if it means I have to re-render almost 2,000 frames. Wait, I could just batch photoshop them and play with levels, hue, etc. Please, somebody find me a picture of what they're thinking of.

All right I can help you out.

Add a little bit of Red light to shine up from the bottom to cast an evil glow on everything. This gives it an evil dreaded look. And the rest I would use shades of orange and yellow to give it that hot hellish factory type of feel. (for reference check out star wars Episode II when anikin is in the robot making factory)

Also since its a factory you don't need to re-key everything. Since It repeats you can make the objects jump back to there starting place in a single frame but it will look like they are moving in a continuous motion. (this wont work with motion blur turned on though) Then you can just repeat the movements of everything by copying the keys.

[Dylan]

Haha, that's cool.

[Mazin]

Originally Posted by BuddyB309

All right I can help you out.

Add a little bit of Red light to shine up from the bottom to cast an evil glow on everything. This gives it an evil dreaded look. And the rest I would use shades of orange and yellow to give it that hot hellish factory type of feel. (for reference check out star wars Episode II when anikin is in the robot making factory)

I wasn't going for hellish... after all, it is Tux we're talking about. Maybe if it was some Windows factory...

Also since its a factory you don't need to re-key everything. Since It repeats you can make the objects jump back to there starting place in a single frame but it will look like they are moving in a continuous motion. (this wont work with motion blur turned on though) Then you can just repeat the movements of everything by copying the keys.

Wait, make it jump back to the beginning in a single frame? That implies that there's only one thing visible at a time. Making it move in a continuous stream is a little trickier than just copying the keys. For one thing, the link constraint thingy needs manual adjustment, the other machines also do, some physics need to be resimulated, etc.

BTW, I actually saw a real plastic mixer machine, so I redid my Pt 1 anim. Unfortunately, compression or something killed it on YouTube.

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by Mazin

Wait, make it jump back to the beginning in a single frame? That implies that there's only one thing visible at a time. Making it move in a continuous stream is a little trickier than just copying the keys. For one thing, the link constraint thingy needs manual adjustment, the other machines also do, some physics need to be resimulated, etc.

hhmmmmmm..... It seems that you're not understanding what I'm trying to say (I have a hard time explaining things)

Think of it more like a spinning cog. Tooth A starts at the top (12:00) tooth B is somewhere pointing to the side (11:00). If you want to render a cog spinning you only need to render to the point when tooth B reaches the point where Tooth A was at the beginning. So tooth B is now at 12:00 and tooth A is now at 1:00. Then when you repeat the segment of video tooth B now jumped back to its original position even though it looks like it didn't move. And the Cog will continue to rotate.

Now take this and add it to your line of boxes.

Do you understand? If anybody knows what I'm talking about please help me try to explain it. It saves a lot of Keying time for me.

[Capt.ArD]

basically what he is trying to say is that a conveyor belt is a repeating motion, and you only need to render the motion for ONE tux to got from point A to point B, and repeat it. This will create the illusion that they are different tuxes, all moving along together. A little easier said than done, and only really feasible for a shot with a moving camera. try looking into path constraints, which would make keyframing the tuxes easier.

about lighting, i would not use radiosity. if i recall correctly, you have to calculate the lights for every frame. use lighttracer or mental ray, they don't look as good, but are faster and easier. go for a line of soft-edged spotlights with a yellow-almost-white color, with the light volumetric. this way the background is in shadows, but the conveyor belt is lit up. it'll add feeling and atmosphere, but not be hellish. add a few ambient lights. For the paint machine have a blue light or a white shining out of the holes to make it look like something cool is bout to happen or something. just spice up what you got.

just tips. it looks good.

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by Capt.ArD

basically what he is trying to say is that a conveyor belt is a repeating motion, and you only need to render the motion for ONE tux to got from point A to point B, and repeat it. This will create the illusion that they are different tuxes, all moving along together. A little easier said than done, and only really feasible for a shot with a moving camera. try looking into path constraints, which would make keyframing the tuxes easier.

No one seems to be understanding. Here I have a video that explains it.

Jumping boxes keying thingy