dre4mer

John I did try using porcelain per your suggestion but it didn't seem to change the way it looked much at all. Maybe i'm not using the right porcelain? Small Update Adjusted the cape gave it some small ties. Hopefully it looks more like a cloak instead of a super hero cape! [attachmentid=18625] Still looking for more authentic details I might be able to add if anyone can think of anything. Thanks, -Ethan

Thanks for the comments! Very encouraging as i've been working hard on these effects shots over the last week. David they are compressed with the h264 quicktime perphaps you need to download the latest quicktime player? Rodney, thanks! You're right, the ejection port is also composited. I should have done it to the first gun that shows as well, but I hoped that in all the action of the casings and smoke it could be over looked. Your right about the dirt and grime though, in all the preperations for the rushed 2 day shoot, dirt grime and aging on the guns as well as forearms was kind of overlooked . And I'm not about to hand rotoscope dirt on all the guns Sacman these are the same take. This one maybe isn't as good as the last one, but here is another short shot with more composited smoke and casings. [attachmentid=18516] -Ethan MCU_Run_ExplosionCompressed.mov

wow looks sweet xtaz! Great job, love the feel of the hood. As always your lighting is incredible! -Ethan

Here is link to the "before" version for those interested. -Ethan http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=A...st&id=18463 edit - apprently it doesn't include the attachment if you just include the attachment id from another post?

ah thanks John! Sorry guys! I can probably put up a "before" version sometime today.

I thought I would post this in both the showcase and the compositing forum. I've been working on some effects shots for a short film (56 minutes) Using animation master to animate smoke and shell casings. Though certainly my implementation could probably be improved on it doesn't look bad compared to the relatively dead and inactive look of the shots without any compositing. The vietnam sequence consists of a about a 60 second firefight. -Ethan [attachmentid=18455]

After nearly 4 months of other work, not to mention waiting for v13 to come out so I could use displacement maps on this character, I finally got a little free time for an update on this guy. Added a cape, sword, sword holder, updated his nickers especially around the knees, shoes, as well as new tests with his sleeves using simcloth. Still no textures, displacement or bump maps. I'm thinking of possibly adding a more musketeerish hat, and some bindings for his cape. See any details i'm missing? Critique and comments welcome. I'd like to make his model as rich as possible. -Ethan [attachmentid=18385] Sleeves test (already posted in the cloth forum) [attachmentid=18384] SleevesTest3.mov

ah well crafted weapons! thanks man! -Ethan

Looking cool. But I think you need to put him in a scene where you can actually see the refraction at work, that would help sell the icccyy feeling even more. -Ethan

Hey mike, looking very good, I had missed the last two shots. Excellent work. I can only imagine the headaches trying to get the actions to work as you described. Though the result certainly doesn't show it. The motion looks good. I hadn't seen the whole kick and follow through either, also looking very good. It's especially cool to see you sticking to this, and fighting your way through the issues! Can't wait to see what's next! My only tiny comment is that his arm does a small pop straight while he's rising, which catches my eye. Love the umbrella bounce. Great work, -Ethan

Thanks for the comments guys! I've been working pretty hard on the lighting look so far and we are getting decent results but I am having some trouble keeping it consistant. It's surprising how much things seem to change just moving the camera to a different location in the chor. As for the lighting question I suppose it's an attempt at a sort of simulated radiosity. One major sunlight with numerous additional lights to try and mimic bounce lighting. Might seem like a detail but it seems to help quite a bit. Then 16x multipass with DOF to soften things up; 25x if I can afford the time. The 70 second opening shot these stills were taken from took 8 slaves 53 hours to unload at 25x. Also, interestingly enough, shadow maps took significantly longer to render with this scene than raytraced shadows. -Ethan

Kinda cool effect, reminds me of the water tunnels in Riven. Don't know if anyone remembers that from back in the day. -Ethan

Very happy with more results i'm getting with AM on this short film. 25 passes makes for some smoooooth looking stuff!!! Thanks Hash awesome awesome! [attachmentid=17816]

I wasn't either, the Setup Machine 2 and Weight Mover from Anzovin saved my neck as far as rigging. Frees up a considerably amount of time to be artistic instead of trying to figure out rigging. -Ethan

Nice work, be sweet to see him in a good pose with some nice lighting brandishing that lovely AK!

ah well thank you all for the encouragment! I posted an updated version to AM stills. [attachmentid=17721]

come to think of it.. I've never posted anything to AM stills... I guess I never thought anything was good enough

nice modeling and stuff, the needle itself is alot bigger than anything I'd want in my arm then again. I pretty much stay as far away as I can from any size needles... nice work!

Technically you're right, in getting the stills ready to slap up here I didn't mirror the second image. In the completed film any such instances will be corrected since the display is translucent. -Ethan

Here are two stills from a short film that is slated to be finished by august. It has both live action and 3D. I'll probably post some more about it as it nears completion but I thought it would be nice to show a tiny portion of what Animation Master is doing! -Ethan [attachmentid=17117] [attachmentid=17118]

looks cool though my eyes craved to see them from a liiiittle bit farther out. It would be nice to incorporate these physics into an animated film. -Ethan

You might try a sphere in the shape of your eyes with transparency and some specularity to give some life to those eyes. Here are some decent settings for eye specularity (depending on the surrounding lighting) Nice work, -Ethan [attachmentid=17096]

The only tip i've got is to try The Setup Machine 2 and Weightmover from www.anzovin.com. Rigging was frustrating me to no end till I got these, they are wonderful if you want to concentrate more on the ART of it rather than the technicalities of rigging. -Ethan

Stuart, thanks for the reply, The rig is mainly based on the TSM2 rig with some mods, so I do have a foot control bone, heel bone, and toe bone to work with. Though in this particular test animation he's on his tiptoes so that probably isn't helping me out much. But your right I guess I should be able to get it locked more solidly with this rig. -Ethan [attachmentid=16731]

Here's a little update on this character. I've been working on texturing him, and practiced my first ever walking without slipping animation! Sure seems like there should be easier ways to do it. I've never been able to get the stride length tool to give me zero slippage, so this is just manually keyframing the model bone in the chor to match the distance traveled. As you can see there is a still a hint of movement that shouldn't be there on his footfalls, I don't quite know how to totally get rid of this? -Ethan [attachmentid=16730] [attachmentid=16728] TsitraSneak.mov