MiddleKid

Yeah, give us a bit more info, Xtaz. Patch counts, render times, number of passes, light rigs... etc. The DOF is pretty nice too.

Sweet... Major kudos to the guys building the rig, especially David. He's been working is @ss off on this thing for quite a while. The few times (the last was a few months ago, I believe) I've played with the rig I was really impressed. It's an incredibly advanced rig without being incredibly hard to use... Not an easy balance to strike. Can't wait to see the finished product!

Nice work Dagoos! Good, snappy animation and a pretty good sense of weight overall. You should post this on cg-char.

Keith Lango www.keithlango.com has some excellent free tutorials. They're done with more "toony" characters but all of the principles apply to realistic characters too. He's also got a subscription tutorial service but I'm not sure what's happening with them.

1) Personally, I have no idea, but I think it's been done before. 2) Ditto - 5x5 gives you smooth shadows and almost perfect anti-aliasing. Though the new "soften" option in v12 might get you the same results at less than 5x5. Of course, the regular A-Buffer renderer is fine for most things. In my experience, multipass gives you much nicer ray-traced shadows and motion blur, but takes much longer. If you haven't already, you might want to do some side-by-side comparisons and see if multipass is worth the extra time. 3) If you have enough space and CPU power, render and edit at the highest resolution you think will be used. You can always shrink it later. At work we experimented with "up-rezing" old footage to HD... Looked like crap next to actual HD footage. Presets for 1080i and 720p are already in the render panel. Also, to save time animate and render at 24 fps then use FinalCut or AfterEffects to do a 3:2 pulldown. It looks just as good and can save you tons of time and disk space on large projects.

I feel ya... If only we didn't have to deal with this "life" crap we could actually get some stuff done. Or maybe I should just invest in a day planner.

Hey Jamagica... Nothing worth posting lately, sorry to dissapoint. I've been insanely busy with paying gigs and the last thing I've wanted to do in my free time is to stare at a computer. I did some minor things a few weekends ago... Mostly experimenting with rigging Clay's face... I'll post some tests once I'm happy with it but that's probably a few months down the road. Thanks for your interest!

Very nice Victor! The timing and weight feel great now! If I were being nit-picky (and for some reason all of us animators are nit-picky) I'd say that your little dude could hit with just a tad more force when he falls back down on the planet. But I think that's more of a personal preference than a real issue. So, if you're happy with it... move on and show us the next shot. C'mon man... you know you want to.

This has probably been mentioned but I didn't bother going back through all 10 pages... Truly great modeling but those white, zombie eyes just ruin it for me. I know you've got a killer eyeball model laying around, Colin. Throw 'em in there and give the guy some soul.

Sigh. Yeah, I see this now that I've posted it for everyone to see. Funny how that works. I'll play with the timing and spacing on this, and I may end up reversing the direction of his flip. "Don't go chaaangin'.... just to try and please me." I'm with Ken on this one. I really like the reverse spin after he lets go of the planet. It's got a great 'toony' feel to it and it's a good contrast to the preceding action. Perhaps if the planet were spinning a bit faster and, after his butt and legs leave the surface, he held on just a frame or two longer to get the energy needed for that final flip. Perhaps, perhaps, perrrrr... haps. So many obscure song references. So little time.

Very nice Victor! The only thing that I notice is when he's flipped up & off of the planet... it doesn't feel right to me... hmmm. I'm not entirely sure of the reason but it doesn't look like there's enough energy at the end of the spin to throw the little guy up that high. Perhaps the planet slows it's spin a little too quickly after he lets go? (watches about 20 more times) Ahh... The little guy's butt leaves the planet appropriately but that big head of his feels a little sluggish. Perhaps that's what is making it seem a bit off. The facial expressions are great! That's no small feat with those black beady-eyes! And it's so cool to see your film coming together. I don't know how you find the time. Also, care to share any tips on your rigging? I'm rigging my lead character now and I'm having trouble coming up with a good squashy-stretchy solution.

Ahh... Thanks Wegg! I was planning on getting either a faster CPU or another render slave. I think I'll go for the new CPU since Colin has so graciously offered up his slaves. I have to admit, the more I play with materials, the more impressed I am. I still feel like I have more control over things in Maya's hypershade... but Maya sucks at everything else. It seems to me like materials involving bump or displacement are the real time-munchers. The textures I'm building now are a lot like your reptile skin.... A perlin, a few layers of CellTurb... good times, good times... Dear god! I just realized it's 2:30! No wonder I'm rambling. G'night!

Really? It's not paging out to the HD during rendering. You're right... no money right now. But, we were going to set aside money for an XBox. I suppose I really don't need to play Halo2 that bad. -- edit -- Oooh... Just visited Newegg... They've got two 512Mb sticks from Mushkin on sale for $136. Mighty, mighty tempting!

Kinda off topic, but... Wegg, what sort of render-time increases do your procedurals usually incur? I ask because I'm doing a ton of stuff with procedural textures right now and it seems like they just eat my CPU for lunch... and then spit it out 20 minutes later. I'm not doing anything uber-complex either. Mainly gradients with a CellTurb. (crap.. the right arm just fell off of my chair.) Anyway, just trying to figure out if there's a way to optimize these boogers or am I just going to have to do my best with texture maps? Thanks! Oh yeah, my specs: AthlonXP 1.8 GHz. 512Mb RAM. The "Toys" project renders at about 55 seconds per frame.

Well... I tried using a couple of different terrain generators (the kind that build a terrain based on a grayscale image) but I couldn't get the smooth, organic contours I wanted. So, I took the image I created for the terrain generators, placed it as a rotoscope, and just modeled it by hand. The modeling is quite ugly really... Lots of five-points and hooks in the areas that the camera doesn't get close to. The rippling in the crevasses is a big bump map I painted in photoshop (about 1300x800, I think) and there are a couple of procedural textures for more bumpiness and color. Oh, and an edge gradient to help define those hilltops. Since I plan on rendering this at a pretty high resolution, I'll be adding a bit more detail soon. Didn't mean to come across too sarcastic before.... It's way past my bedtime.

Thanks... I, uh, modeled them... Also, learning to use materials well is a huge help. Getting the numbers up top is easy. Just open your libraries, go to the Post Effects tab and drag "Frame Burn" on to the camera you'd like add the numbers to.

Huh... would uploading to the Hash Forums server help? --edit-- nevermind... I forgot about the 1MB limit... sorry Rodney.

And viola! It's uploaded! http://www.jgriffin.org/dysthymia/HashPics/FlyThruFour_B.mov About 4.8 MB, QT, Sorenson 3 compression. The root idea behind this sequence... What if you were a tiny insect flying through Jabba-the-Hutt's fat rolls. Critique away!

William: This is indeed a microscopic world. I'm not trying to mimic the look of an electron-microscope but I am trying to give that impression. Any suggestions? Oh... I wonder if there's enough of us in Atlanta to warrant another meeting. The two that I made it to were great! John: Good eye! Actually, there aren't any five-pointers in the whole scene. In the process of copying, pasting and deforming the structures, some of the textures have gotten spun around, so they no longer tile properly. I've got to go through manually and fix them. Of course, there are other little things to fix too... Some of the things penetrate the floor, etc... Why, oh why, do I have to be such a perfectionist? MATrickz: The eyes in I-Robot? Thanks! Though I don't think the movie itself is all that great, it's totally amazing when in comes to the robot's facial animation. The "Bone Forest" scene is actually one of the smaller scenes. At full resolution (1280x720) and 25 passes for smooth mo-blur... I'm getting about 20 minutes per frame on my 1.8 GHz Athlon. robcat: Very, very good points! You're right, the camera isn't banking much at all. I've got the camera roll constrained to a null so I can animate it manually, but I'm still hoping I can figure out a way to automate it.... Though that comment about Indiana Jones gives me a great idea... maybe I should just animate it manually. Hmmm.... Hey... you just gave me another great idea! You mentioned that the root thingies should change as we get closer to the hole... Well, I was going to a bit of that anyway, with texturing and whatnot, but... The should get more and more twisted and gnarled the closer we get too.... Ooooh... that would be good! Thanks robcat! Dearmad: The faith is alive my man! This is one of those I-Can't-Not-Make-It projects. If I let it die I'll never be able to live with myself. Dysthymia is now in it's fifth year of production! I actually got a good bit of it done (about 15% or so) several years ago, but it just wasn't good enough. So, I scrapped it all and chalked it up as "proof of concept". jamagica: Good idea with the camera tilt. I think it would work if I did an extreme tilt just before it shoots through the hole. There's a thick layer of clouds to go through after that, so spinning around a couple of times could done easily and might add some drama. Parlo: Parallax.... hmmm... I think I might try that out. In these establishing shots, I'm treating the camera as if it were on some sort of theme park ride since I don't want it to exhibit too much 'character' of its own. Since parallax would involve the camera looking left or right during its travels, I wonder if that might break the feel I'm looking for. I'll give it a try though... Thank you all for your comments! You've given me some great ideas on improving my work! The second section is uploading as I type!

Holy Crap! Finally, I've got some video to show! It's a preliminary render (480x270, 4 passes) but it gives a really good idea of where I'm headed: http://www.jgriffin.org/dysthymia/HashPics/FlyThruFour_A.mov Sorry for the crappy quality but I've got to keep the size down for all my dial-up brothas out there! This is the first chunk of the teaser I was hoping to release by the end of this year (yeah, right)... I'm shooting for the end of January now... It's our first peek into Clay's world and this particular section has been dubbed "The Bone Forest". It's a fairly graceful and, hopefully, dramatic fly-thru before we descend into the canyons and then down into the abyss where Clay resides. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is final until I hit 'render' so, if there are any suggestions, comments or critiques on anything at all... Let 'em fly! (and feel free to be brutal if you must... I got no problems handling other's opinions) I'll post the other two sections, "Canyons" and "Abyss" as soon as they're done rendering... looks like I've got about 36 hours left.

Heh... Yeah, the "hire a bunch of programmers to build it for you" package. I guess I'll just have to settle for what my measly $300 can buy me... (that's sarcasm guys)

boy... this thread brings back some memories. http://www.jgriffin.org/animation/iHopSmall.mov I made this on a PowerBook G4 several years ago. I didn't model nearly as much detail as you two have done as I just wanted a simple model to animate. The G5 is looking really nice! You might want to try giving the Mac something to reflect, to give it that super-slick Apple marketing look. I've gotten good results in the past by using some big, white planes set to 100% ambience... I suppose a reflection map would render faster though. Later, J

Thanks for the comments guys! I think the coolest thing about the last image is that it was so freakin' simple to make. It's a bunch of twisted and warped cylinders, a simple gradient material, one displacement map and one bump map. Of course I'm going to be adding some more detail and a bit of grunge, but I'm really happy with how things are going. And yes, it's supposed to look a bit like those cool electron-microscope photos... I'm not trying to re-create the effect exactly, but just enough to suggest the microscopic point of view. Oh... to smudge... if you want great looking renders, learn how to use materials. There are a few simple tricks you can do with materials to give your objects a great deal more depth and realism. Check out Yves' website, he's got a great overview of materials (among other things).

I so should be in bed right now but I've been playing with displacement maps and having too much fun. Here's a WIP of part of Clay's world: And as usual, a full-res version is (1280x720)available here for those with phat pipes. Must get some sleep now. J

Thanks TC and Matricks... I've just gotten a three-week paying gig (good for me, bad for the short film) so it will be a while before the next update. Hopefully, I'll have part of the trailer ready for viewing by then. Finally some movement and not just a bunch of stills. Thanks!