Darkwing

ILM released this short video today about the making of the New York scenes in the Avengers and holy crap, it's pretty mind blowing the amount of CG work and detail they put into it! I knew obviously some of it was CG, but I actually had no clue that it was almost entirely CG.

I have lost so much focus over the last couple years, it's not even funny. Back in my Anim8or days, I used to be able to produce a 10 minute (terrible) short film in little over a month and all I did was work an hour a day on it. If I could apply even that level of commitment to something with the skills I have now, than that would be great!

These are all really interesting and I think helpful points! Having a reasonable target definitely seems like a key and recurring point. I think I personally suffer from two major things. One being that I don't set reasonable goals and the second being that I really lack focus. Take Red Squad for instance, I haven't worked on that since December. School is partly to blame but at the same time, I do have some free time that I use to just watch movies or TV. Between school and work though, I'm usually mentally exhausted so that extra push to get more work done is definitely very hard. Does anybody have any thoughts or ideas regarding that? I'm sure that's something everyone faces, working through when you're already tired. How do you do it? What motivates you to push through and do an hour a day or whatever your system is?

First of all, I've been out of it a while. Pretty much ever since school started, I've not done anything animation related or been around on the forum even, so hello again! So, I have a question, which I'm sure is a question many have had who've attempted to produce anything at all, which essentially is this: how does one successfully produce their own animated short? First I suppose I should define successful. By successful, I mean, have completed in its entirety (so basically script straight through to release) a short film (maybe no more than 5 minutes in length). Furthermore, how long did it take to produce it? What are certain goals a person should set for themselves when embarking on such a project? What is it that drove you to finish the project in a timely manner? Are their certain techniques that allow you to simplify or shortcut elements of the process? I mainly ask this of those who've completed projects, but anyone can throw insight in. Personally, I've been struggling for 6 and a half years to produce from start to finish, a short film with Animation: Master, but have yet to actually do so. I've definitely learned many lesson along the way, but I still think I;m missing something. Is it focus? Dedication? Something else? In addition, if anyone has any thoughts on the above, but for a series format (so have completed multiple episodes to say a web series) I would be really interested to also hear your opinions and see if there are similarities or differences in producing a singular short as compared to a series. Finally, is there actually a key (or more than one) to success? Or is it more of a luck induced phenomenon where you managed to somehow complete a project start to finish with no real explanation as to how or why? Alternatively, I'm also really curious to here from those who haven't completed projects. What made you stop? What were the hardships you faced? What were your expectations? If you tried again, do you think you'd succeed? What lessons can be learned? Nothing should ever be considered a failure so long as there were lessons learned and I'm sure everyone has learned numerous lessons over their career with A:M and animation in general!

So I came up with a plan of attack for animation. Essentially I'm going to "block" out each shot, so major movement and positions and render out animatics to give a sort of animated storyboard, and then go back and do fine tuning, lip synch, facial animation etc and then final renders. So here's 7 seconds of very rough footage. Also, I think I'm going to put the camera on the other side of the character in the final shot. RoughCut1A.mov And here's a couple of stills rendered out in full and with some post work done to them: I'm still gonna do more to damage the bridge in that final shot (more sparks, flickering consoles, hanging wires and twisted metal etc) as the ship really does take a massive pounding throughout the episode!

They are which is the funny thing. Like I said, the decals are visible on the characters throughout the entire thing, and on the enterprise set for one frame, but no more after that. They work in the final render though so I guess that's what's most important.

So how's this looking? Any better, worse? Also, how come in my render to wire shaded, it won't render the decals on the enterprise set after frame 1? It does on the character models and in final render it will render out the decals. I'm just kinda curious. take5.mov

Currently the whole thing runs at about 20 pages so about 20-ish minutes in length. It is split fairly even between exteriors and interior though, so I'll only really have to deal with doing about 10 or so minutes of the animation. And it'll just go on Youtube with the previous three episodes. This will direct you to the others BTW http://www.stredsquad.com/?page_id=116 I actually wasn't involved so much in the other three. I did a voice over in the third one though

Someone should probably add to the growing list of AM projects, an updated demo reel of the software!

Thanks! I'm just glad to finally be starting animation. After a year and a half of pre-production, it's nice to see it start to come to fruition! And I'm gonna do some further refining of the shot today based on the suggestions previously mentioned! Also, to answer someone's question about the patches, yes. The models are fairly low patched and so far seem to move rather smoothly. They have a few weird contortions if you say clasp someone's hands behind their back, but those type of motions aren't called for in this script. I actually wrote it knowing Im gonna be a crap animator and so they're basically sitting the whole time

Thanks for the input! I'll respond in more detail maybe tomorrow or something, but I'll throw a few things out here just as clarification. This shot is part of a rapid succession of shots as the Enterprise unexpectedly exits warp in an asteroid field causing some quick action and concern on the part of the crew. As for the focal point of this shot, it is indeed the viewscreen, so here's a quick preview of more or less what's happening. The warp stars are actually supposed to end as the ship exits warp, but all I have at the moment is just a continuous warp speed shot. Note this is just a quick one pass shot with no bells and whistles or post applied to it, so lighting and colours are a bit different in this render. Take3A.mov

Here's some more refinement of the shot. Now both characters move and their chairs swivel a little with them as well. Take3.mov Also, here's just a still frame that shows what's on the viewscreen: So how am I doing so far? Please, at any time throw out some criticism or something. I'm pretty novice when it comes to animation!

Baby steps, I like that. It's logical, makes sense. Looking at the whole thing at once is completely overwhelming. That's actually why the project was canned a couple years ago. It was basically too big and we weren't willing to reduce it. Making a scene or sequence though could be an interesting and manageable thing to do though. I'll definitely consider that!

Finally, that exciting moment when one begins to move into that phase known as animation! So, I figured I'd start a new thread dedicated to just the animation. I would very much like comments and criticism as animation is something I've pretty much not done before! To start off, here's the WIP of Scene 3, Shot 1. So far I've only animated Darren (on the left) and I've not animated his hand/fingers. These renders will just be animatics so that we can deal with just the animation and not have to worry about render times so much. So please, take a look, gimme the good, bad and ugly! Oh, I should mention, the goal is to be able to have about 2 minutes animated by Christmas so that we can have a trailer edited together for the new year! Scene 3, Shot 1, Take 1. Darren (Left) and Ricky (Right) are working at their console. The ship exists warp (visible on viewscreen) and Darren looks up just as the ship exits warp. So far, only Darren has been animated save hands/fingers. Take1.mov

Well I'm not just looking at dollar figures, but like, necessary roles that would be filled (ie how many animators would be needed, modellers etc). It's really just a matter of curiosity. I suppose with a lot of dedication and caffeine, one person could in theory (if they had the time) produce such a thing on their own or with a very small team.

I've only had a chance to take a quick look at the link. Looks like a useful tool, though I have no concept about how much some of those businessy things would cost (ie rent)

I have a question that I'm hoping some of you can weigh in on, especially those that actually has experience in making and finishing stuff and even more importantly, finishing big stuff (feature films essentially). But I'll take all opinions. First off, I'm going to post a script in CeltX format. Please don't redistribute the script and on top of that, if you're willing to read it at all that would be impressive (it's 130 pages.) Before I ask my questions, first make a couple of assumptions. One is that there would be minimal changes to the script, no reducing it to a short film or anything. The second, imagine it's a perfect and hypothetical world. So the question of questions. What would it take to make this movie? Like just off the top of your head, how many people, resources etc do you think ideally would be needed to make the movie in a reasonable timeframe (say 3 years). I guess just assume it'll be 3D animated in a photorealistic fashion (if you want to answer so far as a live action pic then go for it). But just in your general opinion, what would it actually take to make this movie? If you do read the script (or some of it even) look at the one labelled Draft 2. ELZ.zip

I'm not sure which mouse you use. I use a magic mouse and downloaded this software called magic prefs. It allows me to configure a whole bunch of options for the mouse, including middle click and things like that. Option keys are also generally labelled Alt at the top of the key as well. And yes, Command is the Mac equivalent to Control on a Windows.

I have read that Lucas is actually the sole shareholder of LucasFilms, mind you I read that in passing and not from an entirely reliable source, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was the sole shareholder.

Thanks all! And Rodney, couldn't have been me, I was in class all day right up until the night!

Wow, you're really going all out there with integrating visual media into the forum! Great job!!

I wonder if I have enough to scrounge together an update here... As life gets busy (both Chris K and myself are in school now, so that's a time drain) production slows down a lot. But we pick away at what we can when we can! So here's some stuff! A quick pan of the Enterprise bridge showing the WIP animated LCARS: pan3.mov A quick demo real of some weapons and shields effects done by Chris K: Our spiffy new Facebook cover photo (with the legal thing on it because CBS legal is now taking an interest in keeping an eye on Trek fan productions and have laid out some pretty clear guidelines on how things are to be done): I've been working on re-rigging the characters so that their joints roll better. The shoulders have definitely turned out well here, but I could use a few pointers in the hip area.

That would be cool. I use FBX fairly frequently myself for poly models when transferring amongst the different poly programs (autodesk ones) however I don't have the technical know how that would be required to make such a plugin

Rodney Thank you once again, but I've found a hiccup, nothing to do with AM but it has been irritating for some while. I followed up the link you provided and it asked me to update the Flash player. I did that and installed it but, when I went back to try the link again it still wanted me to install the latest version... This has happened before with other things, notably on Youtube, so I suspect it may be part of the Apple - Adobe battle I've heard about? Is there another format I could try ? regards simon The link appears to work for me. I'm using the latest Chrome on Mac OSX 10.6.8

I presume where you waited a few weeks, that you purchased the CD version?