thefreshestever

edit: ich geh jetzt gleich auf´n flohmarkt im schanzenviertel... wenn du zufällig auch dort unterwegs bist, kannst ja mal durchrufen: 0160-90204363

privat. hab´n paar freunde in hamburg, die ich mehr oder weniger regelmässig besuche. ja klar, können uns gerne bei meinem nächsten hamburg-trip mal treffen, dann kennt man wenigstens einen hier aus´m forum auch mal persönlich kann dir ja einfach hier über´s forum schreiben wenn der nächste termin feststeht.

ok, i´ve read the first book on my screen because i was too curious the story seems really cute, i´m looking forward to read more. i like the way you tell the story visually, one can tell you´ve put a lot of thought to it. crit: it´s a bit exhausting to read, everything gets fuzzy after a while. a bit more room for the speech bubbles here and there wouldn´t be a bad idea i think... but i guess you´ve heard that one before and decided that it´s just part of your style... can´t wait so see it in 3D, your models are awesome... i´d go for the toon-render version if you ask me. but you will need some help animating even one of the books i guess. i looked up the price for your books on amazon, and i really would have bought one or even all of them if they´re catchy enough (i think they are, have to read some more first), but i think they´re too expensive. 16,90 € is way too much for a comic book that is read in about 20 minutes. i think you would make a lot more money with it if you´d decide to sell it at a much lower price. i mean 24 x 16,90? that´s more than 400 bucks to read the whole story.

ne, nur bis sonntag... aber ich bin öfter hier... kommst du aus hh? das mit dem kaufen überleg ich mir dann nach der leseprobe

that looks very promising, jake... really looking forward to the movie. since i´m german i thnk i´ll be able to let you know what i think after i´ve read the books.. allerdings druck ich mir sie vorher lieber aus und lese sie in ruhe, was ich im moment nicht machen kann, da ich unterwegs in hamburg bin.

hookah?

cool robot.. funny and scary at the same time!

sweet that´s really awesome, i will definately use it! thanks for the hint!

yes, i hate those things... there´s one at the head too, but you can only see it at the end when you scrub through the movie... ist there a trick to avoid these? or do i just have to get rid of these hooks? i mean i will have to use some hooks, at least at the hands... I haven't done any experiments lately, but I thought that the problem was fixed in v15...I could be wrong though. If you're rendering in v15, then I am. If it hasn't been fixed, I would avoid AO renders and fake the look if it was what I really wanted...which I haven't tried, but I think there were some experiments posted somewhere on the forum. i rendered it in v16beta because it´s faster, but in my test-renders in v15 i got the same... both on a mac though...

never heard of it before! what is it?

i´ll give the thing with the transition a shot, always better to use something unique, you´re right. i want the viewer to find out when the doll does, i think it´s more dramatic that way. i´m gonna try to transport this with music, some close-up shots of details in the photographs and the expression on his face and by throwing away the pictures and running away. i think that´s going to work, if not, i´ll have to add some more shots. i´m not completely sure yet where he´s going to hide exactly, i will just have to try out a few different shots, let´s see what looks best. that "finding out and hiding"-part of the movie is definately going to be the hardest part regarding the shots and animation, at the moment i think less is more, i could be wrong though. maybe a fast switching of different cameras from different angles of the attic while he´s running away could amplify his fear of being watched at this moment. thanks for the links, i´ll read into that later, i´m curious about the "the shot tells the story" article, since wall-e is one of my favorite cg-movies of all times thanks for your effort, much appreciated!

thanks everyone, i´m happy you all still like fart jokes @nancy: i didn´t notice yet

yes, i hate those things... there´s one at the head too, but you can only see it at the end when you scrub through the movie... ist there a trick to avoid these? or do i just have to get rid of these hooks? i mean i will have to use some hooks, at least at the hands...

puh.. tough one. you really see everything , i totally missed that detail. but yeah, now that i know it bothers me, so it will be fixed... not completely sure yet how...

surely not everyones kind of humor... thefreshstop.mov

just finished the animation for scene01 with the spider stitching the head back on and leaving the scene. it´s really a pain in the ... to animate a creature with 8 legs! still nedds a little tweaking here and there, but i´m pretty much there. the yarn will be composited in after effects later. scene01_spider_leaving_low.mov

haha... that´s going to be a good one. i love the characters! but what´s up with the reeper´s right hand? parkinson?

thanks... @paul: in fact i was inspired by the sackboy-character from the playstation-game "little big planet". it was just a few weeks after i finished modelling the character when i first saw the trailer of "9"... i thought it was really creepy how similar the characters looked. after that i added the stitches at the joints because it looked so damn cool on the 9-characters. and no, so it´s not nescessary to watch 9 to get the story, it has nothing to do with it. sounds like your interpretation of the story is pretty much what i´m trying to tell, it´s a metaphor to what happened to me over the last few years. but don´t worry, MY nightmare is over now btw: you should watch 9, the look of this movie is more than brilliant... the story could have been a little more quiet, too much action for my taste.

thanks for the feedback everyone. @ dblhelix: to 1: yes, the camera in this one particular scene is meant to be the view of the spider, but only in this scene. i thought it would help to transport the idea that the spider is lurking without showing it. the dollying at the beginning is supposed to draw the viewers attention to the shoebox, mostly i´m going to have fixed cameras in the scenes without any movement. great idea with the moving tree btw to 2: yes, it´s a transition, it´s an effect called "film burn" in after effects. to 3: what exactly do you have in mind? to 4: great idea, i will definately do that! i´m glad i was able to make your day, i hope it was not just the fever talkin get well soon!

i started this project almost two years ago and didn´t do anything with it the last year, i´ve just had too much work. but i decided to pick up on it again and to actually finish it! i think posting this here on the forums as a wip might help getting it done, and with your crits and suggestions i´m sure i will get better results. first of all, here´s the story: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- scene01 (ca 90 sek) daylight shot. camera moves through the attic, slowly zooming in on the shoebox. the doll lies in the shoebox, surrounded by other toys and stuff. it´s head is half ripped off, cotton batting is coming out of his neck. a spider crawls by and starts to stitch the head back on. afterwards the spider leaves. scene02 (ca 120 sek) camera shows a wide view of the attic. it´s night.it rains. moonlight is shining through the window. cameraswitch to the doll in the box. as a thunderbolt strikes the doll abruptly sits up. it looks around puzzled, breathing heavily. the doll stands up, trying to stabilize itself in the shoebox full of stuff. as it climbs over the edge of the box it slips and falls down on the woodflooring. it stands up again, rubbing its head, looking around. scene03 (ca 10 sek) the doll sneaks through the attic, moves past the window, from the darkness into the moonlight and out again. scene04 (ca 240 sek) the doll notices the silhouette of an old desklamp in a corner, gropes the switch and tries to turn the lamp on, but nothing happens. it finds the plug and plugs it in. the light hits it right in the face, it holds one hand before its eyes and swivels the head of the lamp into another direction, tries to get a picture of the nearer surrounding. the lightcone freezes at a pile of polaroid-pictures. the doll walks to the pile and takes a look at it. every single picture shows the doll, hanging in the attic with a thin white rope around his neck, it´s head halfway ripped off. frightened it throws away the pictures, runs to another corner of the attic, crouches down. scene05 (ca 90 sek) the camera view now from the top, somewhere in the woodwork, looking down at the doll, still sitting frightened in the corner. the doll tries to stay awake, but falls asleep soon. scene05 (ca 90 sek) dawn. birds are singing, light is rising though the window. the doll lies in the shoebox again, the head half ripped off. scene06 (ca 90 sek) cameramovement through the attic, focussing on a polaroid-camera that is lying in a corner near the pictures. the spider is crawling from behind on top of the camera. THE END ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the story is kinda open, so please tell me what your interpretation of the story is, what you think i´m trying to say with it. almost everything is modeled and textured by now and i´m starting to animate. i´m trying to get a "timburton-like" stopmotion feel to it, so i´m rendering at 12 fps. it took a long long time to figure out the right lighting setup, but i´m very satisfied with the result by now. i´m rendering in 1280x720 and using AO, so it takes some time to render. the attached 5 sec sneakscene for instance was rendering about 5 days or so. i hope now with v16 and a faster computer render times will speed up a lot. the soundtrack will be completely made with my iphone, i thought it would be a fun thing to do. the music in the sneakscene was made with a cute little app called "bebot" a very intuitive to play synthesizer and i´m going to use it for most of the scenes i guess. so here are some models and tests i made so far, the titlescreen and the sneakscene (wich are pretty much final, just got to get rid of the jumping of the waterdrops on the window) i hope you will like it. titlescreen_low.mov sneaktest_720x405_lower.mov 01_01_camstest_low.mov

thanks guys...now i get it!

aaaahhh.... thanks, david...this explains everything.... no i´m feeling stupid... again @mark: i don´t move the pivot by only moving the hips as you can see on my screenshots! why i would wanna do that? when animating in a chor i usually move the hip controller to move a character, not the model bone, so the feet would stay in place at first. or is that the wrong way to accomplish that?

No. aha... so there´s A) no chance to adjust the pivot in the x and z-axis and B ) no pose for just squetching the torso like in tsm2? hmmm, sounds like wish-list items to me

thanks mark... that helped a bit... but i still don´t get one thing: as i mentioned before, when i move my character a bit to the right with the hip-controller so that the body-bone isn´t exactly in place with the character anymore the character moves to the right when squashed and to the left when stretched. with the body-stretch-pivot slider i can only adjust the y-axis. how can i adjust the x- and z-axis? and what´s the difference between "whole body squetch" and "body squetch"? for me they both do the same. isn´t body squetch supposed to just squetch the torso?

great character! love the giant forehead.