vnavone
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Posts posted by vnavone
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Big Bang is lying low right now for various reasons so I'm not going to repost any content at this time. Rest assured that it is not dead and will return sometime in the future...
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Thanks!Wow, that's a really nice piece. I like his reaction, it shows he's in the moment really well to me- not broadcasting too much or indicating unnecessarily. His look as he goes down is priceless, and the time he takes to experience that his landing is OK at the end reads really well to me.
What happens next is a part of the story that I don't want to reveal just yet, which is why it may feel like there's a beat missing at the end.Only thing missing for me is the thought that's going to cross his mind next and lead to his next action... "Let's do that again...." -
For some reason the video won't work on my machine. The anim shows all white and quicktime says there's a compresser missing. How would I get it it to work?
Only thing I can think of is to reinstall a fresh copy of Quicktime on your machine. Or maybe try downloading it to your local drive and playing it back in Quicktime Player rather than in your browser.
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I still agree with John that I'd like to see just a *bit* more of the "uh oh" expression as he realizes he is in trouble. It is so fleeting I realized I missed it until John even mentioned it. Whether its via neck stretch or some other vehicle, that would perfect it for me.
I know what you mean. I'm actually stretching the neck pretty far it you check out frame 98 or so. I suppose I could start the reaction a couple of frames earlier...
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I went back in and made some more changes. Redid the hands AGAIN as well as some other little tweaks. Enjoy!
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I am missing the hand movement at the beginning though.
Damn you, Keates. Damn you and your valid notes. Now that I look at the hands again I don't like them. Back to the drawing board, I guess.
The title says Update on page 3....but it's page 6 for me!That may be a preferences issue. I've ammended the title.
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Here's an updated version of the animation (I left the original version up on page 1 for comparison).
Caveats: Lighting, textures and background are still temp. There are still problems with deformations in the neck and shoulders.
Notes: Timing has been adjusted in various places, and more time added to the end. The spacing on the flip has been reworked and I moved the center of gravity for the midair animation from the chest to the base of the skull (seemed a more reasonable place given the size of his head). I tried having him flip in the reverse direction and didn't like it as much. After reanimating the hands 3 times for the rocking sequence I finally just decided to keep them simple and stuck to the planet.
Next: I want to start playing around with v12's multi-channel rendering and improved raytrace shadows!
Comments welcome, as always. Enjoy!
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The bone setup in the face, parenting wise, is pretty clearly explained, but do you use any (math) expressions, restraints, limits or other automation on your rig?
I mean how free and flexible is your setup. Not only talking about the facial setup.
I'm using expressions for gross squash & strech in the head and body, but that's all. I'm not a fan of using limits because I often like to "break" joints to get a good pose. I can switch between IK and FK in the arms and legs. Nothing else fancy. No automation going on; everthing is hand-keyframed. I'm just picky that way.
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It's my own rig created from scratch.Have you devised your own rig for animation, or do you use an available rigging technique.
There are no real lids. Each eye has five or six pose sliders to control blinks, bends, tapers, etc. They can also rotate, translate and scale via bones. You get a closer look at them in this old face test I posted:Did you model lids with the head for those or do you just deform the eyes themselves to make the blinks and changes in expression? It's hard to tell at the current rez. -
Victor, do you have any models or scenes of the aliens finished?
Nothing yet. I've been revising the animation in this thread, which I will post when it's done. Then I'm going to start experimenting with rendering and compositing techniques to figure out the final look. I'm also revising the story reel right now, which is why it's taking me so long to finish the animation. Sorry for the delay!
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Does Blit get a cameo part in Big Bang?
Just curious...
Mmmmmmaaaayyyyyybbbbeeeee....
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Except that Big Bang might actually be finished someday.
I'm not so sure...
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I'm wondering if it would be too much too have a reaction if the arm hits it.... like the arm gets cut off? No wait, what I ment was, like if the arm hits it,
miniscule little rocks and fragemens(particles) get knocked away and dissappear into nothingness......
Good suggestions all! That's why I love this forum!
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Not necessarily bend, what I meant was to have the entire ring around his head tilt, for example like the way a symbol tilts on a drum set when you play it.
That's what they do already, but sometimes I run into a pose where I can't tilt the rings any further out of the way without them intersecting somewhere else on the body. I'm also trying to avoid really extreme movements of the rings over a few frames that would draw the eye unecessarily.
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Couldn't you make the rings around his head in this case act like the bill of a hat, and move up when/if his arms touch it? That would remove the need to have to 'cheat' a little with it, and possibly save you work in the long run. Just an idea -Robert Lazzarini
I thought about this, but it doesn't feel right to the "material" of the rings. Even though they are technically composed of lots of particles, I see them as being rigid rather than flexible. Once you see them bend they would cease to look like planetary rings.
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Very nice. Looks like the seat on the left needs to be cleaned, though!
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may I ask how is it that you go about comming up with the facial expressions you use...it all goes together so well..is it in your head?
It's all out of my head. I did thumbnail drawings to plan the shot, but most of the facial stuff I figured out as I was animating. I do use a mirror sometimes for reference.
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Great lighting too, what kind of lighting rig did you set up for that, or was most of that fiddling around with the toon shader's thermal gradient with a bit of fall-off?
Nothing special about the lighting. Just a warm key light, a bunch of reddish fill lights to warm up the shadow areas, and some cool rim lights. Again, this is just temporary lighting and its a quick shaded render. No shadows or anything.
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PS I also like the rings. The only thing I'd worry about is them possibly limiting the characters movement.
This is an issue, especially with those long arms. I'll probably ending up cheating a lot of it and painting or comping out the intersections.
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My only crits are small ones.
The part where he rocks back and slips off/down the planet he's on seems a bit fast, there's no anticipation. Perhaps, the rock back could be slower or as it reaches it's balance point, it comes to a stop before spinning back. He could just start to realize that somethin's wrong and then wham.
I think that what you were showing with the end grin and the eyes was "dizzy", but it seems abit more like "dopey". It seems a little quick. Something about it isn't reading as clear as you intended. Perhaps, he shakes his head to gather his wits?
Just my two cents,
Steve P.
I think I understand what you're saying in the first crit. I'm going to be playing around with the timing in there.
As for the end, he will be "shaking it off" immediately after this, but that coincides with a story event that I've chosen not to include here.
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A possible sight gag: The 'rings' are around the planet to begin with...he flips...and THEN the rings are around his head!
That's a cute idea, but I've already worked out how he gets the rings on his head earlier in the story. I guess I should have mentioned as another caveat that this shot is from the middle of the film, so many events take place before and after this.
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Thanks for all the feedback, especially the notes. These help keep me honest!
When your giant rocks the planet, leaning backwards the first time he(?) keeps his fingers down. The second and third time he stretches his fingers so they don't touch the planet. For me this seems a bit odd and I'm worried he'll slip. I would feel more comfortable if he kept his fingers downYeah, I'm not totally happy with the hand animation for the rocking sequence. It was really hard to get pleasing shapes in the wrist and still sell the physicality of the action. I'll need to revisit this.
I think you should change the grin at the end. It feels wrong, somehow.Can you elaborate?
Did you study physics or is it just by eye?All done by "eye", for what it's worth.
Did you use a dynamic constraint on the halo/rings for the last few frames or was that hand animated?Everything is hand-animated, though I'd be curious to see what a dynamic constraint would give me.
Are you doing anything unusual with the arm rig?Nothing unusual. I was just very specific about sculpting the elbow shapes using rotational relationships. I try to keep the outside of the elbow pointed and the inside curved.
The only thing that I notice is when he's flipped up & off of the planet... it doesn't feel right to me... hmmm.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.
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.Most of the squash and stretch is achieved through animation, but I do have some squetch built into the head an body using simple volume preservation expressions. I'll probably add stretch controls to the arms later.
I wonder if squashing the planet when he lands would make much difference....hmmm.I thought about that but I think I want to keep the planet feeling more solid for contrast to his squishy body.
I feel the ring around his head shoudn't be there!Well, I like the ring, and my vote wins! I figure for someone whose head is the size of a planet the only thing you could find to serve as a hat would be rings. Also provides an opportunity for some secondary animation and adds some interest to an otherwise very simple head. It's not terribly important to the story, but I'm stuck on the idea. Perhaps you're objecting to the way the ring is animated and not the design itself. There's a fine line between realistic overlap and distracting motion in this case.
Hopefully I'll be able to make these changes within the next day or so. Thanks again for all the feedback!
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Here is an animation test for the Giant character from my short film "Big Bang". I decided to go ahead and animate and actual shot from the film to kill multiple birds with fewer stones. Critiques are always welcome.
Caveats: lighting, texturing and background are temp. There are some outstanding deformation problems in the model, most noteably in the upper arms and wrists, that I haven't figured out how to solve yet. This film may not be finished before AM 25.1 ships.
Next I'll be experimenting with lighting, rendering and compositing techniques on this shot to figure out the final look of the film.
Enjoy!
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Just thought I'd bump this topic back to the top. I never recieve any notifications for topics I start or manually subscribe to. Hope this is on the "to do" list of things to fix!
A:M at Pixar?
in Off Topic
Posted
Sorry, but A:M has never been used at Pixar, to my knowledge. All our anim software is proprietary, and in fact was recently rewritten. Brave will be the first film to have used the new software. It's only called "Marionette" outside of the studio. Internally we call it "menv" (MEN-vee), which is an outdated acronym meaning "modeling environment", I think.
Wow, haven't been on this forum in years. Nostalgia!