Dearmad

Thanks for taking it so well. On my way to d/l now... Edit: Yep, dat be a marshmallow arm moving. So what's the first "Safety" film subject?

Not to be too nitpicky... but I really hate embedded video that I can't simply download when I am ready to spare the bandwidth and/or CPU time. I clicked on your site and, of course QT has to load as well as the page- paused me out for awhile... consider that SOME of us are QUICK RENDERING in the background while we cruise the net. Will check out the test in about 10 minutes when my test scene is done rendering.

Wow... you're putting up pieces of the story!? I'm always a little scared of sharing too much until I'm done... or at least well along. Pretty opening page. <reading> This is gonna be a massive project. If that's 1/9th of it, it reads like about oh... 2 or 3 of my little films put together! Prepare to buckle down and ride for a long time in the AM animating chair, sir! You can do it, though!

I'm really curious, was there a place where you laid out what this project is about- the scale, plot, etc.? It's looking reaslly interesting.

Dang, I'm liking that avatar cfree! Tasty little sample of the dude animated! Looking cool!

God, his costume is evolving nicely! Pretty soon he'll be a hero of biblical proportions!

The *long* version of how I did what I've done to this point can be found at: http://www.applesnake.net/ravel.htm Check out the prod notes stretching back over years... The "short" answer is this (with some overlap between the stages): Research: This step went on heavily up through modelling, and continues a little bit to this day. Checked out french interior design books, styles circa 1916-1930, architecture of Paris buildings, and buildings in Verdun and villages surrounding. Lots of web research but also real library research. Costume research, military, women, etc... Concept/Script: Took a few months. Many many drafts. Art/Design: Character sketches, color scheme, "the art of" part. Designed each building on paper first. Exterior buildings were sketched out, the neighborhood and relative positions of buildings planned, etc, so each piece fit with the other and looked like it belonged. Interiors were designed by sketching out overhead views of furniture layouts along with planned camera positions that would look nice and character positions/movements were planned (this overlapped with storyboarding)- so this way there's no fight to position my actors and I can frame them the way I want to within my camera. Storyboarding: Breaking down the script into the actual shots- so I know what was going to be on camera, what objects/buildings would never be seen or need to be scene. I did this part very carefully, ensuring it told the story the way I wanted it told, and in some cases designing shots that would require only a building face, or two sides, etc... conserving a *little* bit of my effort in modelling. Lighting was described for the storyboards so that I could remember the intention of how shadows were to fall, how the mood was to be portrayed, etc... Modelling: I went through the storyboards, and wrote a comprehensive list of EVERY prop divided by set locations (1916 Verdun Bivouac, 1916 Town exterior, 1916 house interior, 1920 house interior 1, house intrerior 2, 1920 exterior street, etc..., etc..). There are 10 locations in the film, split about evenly between interiors and exteriors. Then, I simply started modelling. I made all the characters first. Some props got simple rigs (like buildings with shutters, weather vanes that moved), many did not. Scaled all my props to accurate sizes relative to each other, so that no scaling would need to take place in chors, as that causes problems sometimes. There came to be about 300 unique objects modelled in the film to this point. So, even at 1 a day, that's a year's time about. Some are variations of each other, but not a lot... While I rigged my characters here- I soon discovered that the holy grail of rigs is a fruitless quest that only distracts from the real purpose of rigging: animating. It becomes ridiculous and overly specialized. So I now just adapt my rigs as I go and make them do what I want them to do when I need them to do it. This means some characters (Ravel for example) now have 6 iterations of different rigs that I use up into Scene 4 of 12 for the film. There may be more needed as I go, but its no big deal. This way I don't get caught up in stalling and fretting and twiddling my thumbs rigging all the time in preparation for real animating- I just animate. Texturing: I waited with about 90% of my models to texture them when I was all done modelling them. I did this in order to ensure the color scheme and look was highly coordinated. Enough said. Set filling: I created my "sets" which consist of Choreographies. Dropped in whatever was required and positioned things (buildings, lampposts, trees, beds, sofas, pianos). Each set was already designed on paper (see above), so this became a challenge of matching what was possible with what I thought was possible when I planned it. Often during this stage more props would become needed as places looked empty or rushed over. So I made those. Animating: I'm here now. I check the story board, grab a set, begin lighting it for the scene as planned (this is, evidently the reverse of how the pros do it, but've come to like this order of things very much- I adjust lighting a little bit after things are animated, but not so much). I drop in my actors and hand props, position them roughly, get the camera moves roughed out (so I've framed things), check the big timings, test it out with dialogue timings (in Premiere- so I have a rough animatic), then refine the actor marks and blocking, animate them in multiple passes (a sort of straight ahead with some pose to pose approach), then finalize the camera moves to ensure proper framing. Sorta like that. So, the direct answer to your question is: Yes I modelled my scenes first, but I modelled ALL of them. I am currently mostly animating in order, because, frankly, I'm no pro at animating and so they're all equally hard scenes to me, and this way I get a more forward sense of the acting and can carry the performances forward from one scene to the next. I did it the Henry Ford way- so I can be engulfed myself in one skill set at a time- I find it speeds things up, and allows me to become facile. It makes it that much easier to feel confident as I move ahead. Though, as I wrote above, I often need to re-rig, remodel, retexture, rethink... Oh, left out that I did voice recordings with people for the roles throughout the above, once the script was was storyboarded. Also have worked a little on important foley effects that are key to the story, and been editing the music. shew! Long post! -gasp-

Good lord that's impressive/creative problem solving going on with this bag of goop.

LOL. Thanks! I was hoping something would get you back to work on the Superhero stuff and other projects you got going on! They looked fantastic! I've got about 9 minutes and 16 seconds animated (about 30% done)... although I have a feeling when I'm all done I'll go back and try to improve some of it a bit... Learning sooo much as I go on with this film.

Thanks. Just a quick note: I updated the animation in the above post with a *slightly* better quick render- more polygons, less artifacting and flashing going on.

Ok, I'll try Sorenson 3 at medium. To be honest it's wierd how I just don't "get" QT. I've tried working with it a lot and just can't get it to cooperate. I tried DiVX and it's worked well for me. But I know others have faced problems with using it even to view things... Anyway, I've set aside today entirely to animate (other than some birthday dinner I have to go to) so back at it!

Not regarding the content of your clip, but advise on demo reels. READ THIS THREAD: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=115...interview+pixar Then get back to work and keep your nose to the grindst- -er- monitor.

Here's a still from the above animation, rendered out (but shrunken, in half).

Attached is a clip (937 MB) of the rough render for the latest scene. Between this scene and the last one I showed there's quite a bit of stuff, but they're long scenes which reveal a little too much about the story... Yes, it is a purposeful joke that: Ravel's feet don't reach the breaks, and there are no breaks anyway. One of the things is that Ravel in real life crashed his truck a lot in the war. And in real life he was also very short... so, I put 2 and 2 together to figure out why it happened... He crashes in the film too. At least he doesn't kill anyone. Another little joke in the film is that the women are all taller than the men... it just looked right. The file is about 900kb- DiVX codec v5.x. web_pre0404.avi

That looks damn fine! Now... how does it animate!?!?

LOL- far as *I* can see, those are still promises unfulfilled... Heh- I always thought Ninjai would be completed quickly since the first episodes came so rapidly after each other.

Well, quick, make like Rustboy and sell the Art of Big Bang book, t-shirts, mugs, and glassess! Hey, sell hats with rings on them! Then one day get around to releasing an animation. Sorry, couldn't help it- the marketing to Rustboy has bugged me since... oh... about week 4 of its inception. Funny things, I might actually buy some Big Bang stuff... so I guess I'm a nincompoop.

that's not a bow and arrow BOY!? yikes... hard to tell now that I look at it.. I like it anyway!

I like these- you have a nice style. Were these stills from an animation or just stills you set up? You should post the animations somewhere.

And, just to hear a contrasting opinion- she looks rather feminine to me. Curvy and slinky. And yes, while the legs look strong, I really think a tapered leg look to her would make her look all that much more typical- less character to her. Besides, I think the legs fit well with the shape of her feet , hips, and upper torso.

Well, she is undead. Simplest solution I know: Make four pose sliders that directly control the left-right/up down position of each eye bone seperately. You can even hide these pose sliders (that's possible in the latest version, right?) Then don't mess with them and control your eyes as you are. When you NEED to- as in the above 5 frames, simply adjust the slider for that eye to correct it's position a little. The null thing you got going works well- only at times when in an extreme position will you need to adjust the eyes alittle.

Very nice. 16:9 it for even more "theatre" drama... Incredibly funny idea! Seems like a poster AM would like for their booth!

Really nice work. I like the character design, colors you have, and the lighting. The character design is especially nice- she's really got something going on inside- seems alive even when not moving. Only crit I have: Her right eye goes a little too far into her skull when she looks to her left while thinking. It might be "right" but it doesn't look right. She's a brave woman walkin' around barefoot in a place like that.

Please use a fill light on him, with such a high contrast it's hard to see any of the details to the hair. Don't need to do it on your final composition- I just wanna see the hair... wanky whiner signing off now.

Kicks ass over my first model. IMO it's unrealistic only due to one reason: it's not textured yet. Place it in a test environment and texture it! Show us these textures you think look unrealistic- then we can crit from there.