Aminator Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 I just completed a job to produce two one-minute animations about water salinity, osmosis, and fish, for a museum kiosk. I was given the soundtrack, 3ds models of a fresh and saltwater fish, and 10 days to design, model, animate, render (at 1024x768), add close-caption text, and composite the animations. I'm satisfied with the results (the client is thrilled), considering the time limitation (with one person, one computer). I used just about everything in A:M's box of tricks to pull it off. Low-res renders can be seen here (4MB Sor3 QT): http://www.digins.com/jack/s2f_small.mov http://www.digins.com/jack/f2s_small.mov Here is one of the 2D animatics I threw together very quickly to plan out the animation (with some more amusing ideas that were discarded for more realism): http://www.digins.com/jack/salt2fresh_2d.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grubber Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 OMG! the picture looks great! I allready downloading animations Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted March 20, 2005 Admin Share Posted March 20, 2005 Great job! I can see why the client would be happy. Here's hoping this will lead to more of the same for you. Thanks for sharing this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heyvern Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 10 days... You are the man! Your client must REALLY be thrilled... to do something like that in that time frame... your client must also be very "hands off"... most of my clients would have turned that timeline into two months just by tweeking the bloody hell out of it...just so I know who's in charge. I knew as soon as it started that the fishies would die at the end... I was really hoping to see them shrivel up and die or swell up and explode like something from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or "Scanners".... ...of course you don't want to scare the kids... Vernon "!" Zehr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyGormezano Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Beautiful - so what kind of project is this ?- ie where/how/when will it be shown? EDIT - saw in your first post - destined for musuem kiosk - which one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZachBG Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Wow... GREAT job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Yeah, really nice. Too bad they took out the humor! Especially since humor means water, but then that's a whole nother kiosk! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mediaho Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 I knew as soon as it started that the fishies would die at the end... Hey! No spoilers! Excellent job on the project. The fish models and textures look great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Forwood Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Nicely done, Aminator! 10 days to visualise, research, model, texture, animate and edit? That's quite an achievement! Did you use caustics or did you fake it somehow? Very nice whatever. I hope that they are suitably impressed to keep you busy with more commissions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisThom Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Very nice job and educational too. I had no idea that's what happened to fish if they got out of the water for their type. I can understand why the client would be happy. What museum was this for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aminator Posted March 21, 2005 Author Share Posted March 21, 2005 your client must also be very "hands off" He said I had "full creative control", although he did vote for the realistic approach (if I had more time, I would have sold him on a second fish lip-syncing the narration). I knew as soon as it started that the fishies would die at the end.. At one point I had them turning around swimming back to safe water, but it didn't fit the narration. Also thought about having an "angel" swim away from the lifeless body. In the end I just added a little fade away to soften the effect. I may try animating specularity on the eye as they die too. where/how/when will it be shown? The project is for the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center. Don't know when it opens, probably early April. Did you use caustics or did you fake it somehow? I cheated. There are only 3 lights: a backlight sun, a seafloor bouncelight sun, and a primary klieg. The primary is the only one casting shadows. I rendered a grayscale noise material, applied it as a transparency decal on a square patch, and animated the patch moving around between the light and the scene. For the freshwater scene, there are two instances of this "caustic gobo" moving around to make the caustics more active and random. Another neat trick was to use "orient like" with lag to animate the flapping tails and fins - I only had to animate one bone to get a nice whip action on the fins. And I used a repeated action for the longer swimming sections, with the background rendered in a separate layer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aminator Posted March 21, 2005 Author Share Posted March 21, 2005 The fish models and textures look great. Thanks. I had a simple cartoon fish model (the one I used for the winning Q2 '03 Hash animation contest entry) and used Phil Leavens clever 3D rotoscope idea http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12790 to rework that over the 3ds polygon models I received. Then I found hi-res textures on the net, and made good use of the UV editing feature to line those up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 yeah, um..that is REALLY kick ass - and the record time of completion makes you like some sort of wizard. Awesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyGormezano Posted March 21, 2005 Share Posted March 21, 2005 That is a great description of all the short cut tricks you used - worked wonderfully - I wouldn't call it cheating - I'd call it SMART. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 21, 2005 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 21, 2005 Those animations look very fine. I hope the museum paid you well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biotron2000 Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 I knew as soon as it started that the fishies would die at the end... They're not dead, they're just sleeping...right? Right?!?! Seriously, though...wow! I am amazed at this being pulled off in 10 days. You need to write a book on the subject! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickHutson Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 Write a book indead he should. This thing is awsome. 10 days?! 10 days?! Impossible. Or should I say improbable? I really thank you for sharing it with us. Isn't that a dangerous thing for you to do though? I mean aren't you under some kind of contract? Well I guess you know more about that than I. But thanks for taking the risk if you are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisThom Posted March 29, 2005 Share Posted March 29, 2005 The only thing is, Jack didn't mention that he never slept during those 10 days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aminator Posted March 30, 2005 Author Share Posted March 30, 2005 Jack didn't mention that he never slept during those 10 days. Mostly while rendering Some more time-saving tricks I used: - the coral pieces were just cookie-cut decals on very simple, mostly-flat models. - the sea grass was a hair material on a single patch under the sea floor (which is why their bases move around a bit instead of staying rooted in one place, oh well). A couple of width keys and color keys kept the appearance from being too boring. The waving was done by setting a few keys on the four corner hair guides. - depth-of-field effects were done during compositing in Premiere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dagooos Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 Real nice job on the animations. It amazes me some times how much an aminator can get done when put under a deadline! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamikaze Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 Great job Jack, The animation did its job very well, and thanks for the tips....... I learned something about fish and animation...killing 2 birds with one stone.(Attn:PETA ..that's figuratively not litterally) Micheal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Jaqe Posted March 30, 2005 Share Posted March 30, 2005 Dying of hydration while swimming in water... Ironic, isn't it? Love the flick, very nice fishy, both of them. And the surroundings... Very good job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lightningad Posted April 1, 2005 Share Posted April 1, 2005 great job with the movies......now all you need to do next time is convince them to record the dialogue properly. just because its going in a kiosk doesn't mean it should be recorded in a kiosk!! Her voice really lets your work down. I can see why your client is happy. Congrats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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