Animated Fuchicomas!

[NEKOSEI]

Way back in July, barely 2 months after getting animation master, I decided I would make the opening video for Animethon 12 in full 3D.

 

By that time I had played around with the program enough to get a good start on one of my characters, Phin-Phin, whom you saw with her car in a previous thread here. And by that time I had created a Fuchicoma from the Ghost in the Shell manga and PSX game.

 

Quite literally I was cutting my teeth on the program and using this excuse to create something really cool to help me learn how to animate with AM.

 

I managed to create 2 pieces specifically for Animethon 12 that was to be shown August 5th, with one week to spare.

 

The first was the opening video for the convention.

The second was an introduction video for the AMV contest.

 

And now that the bandwidth usage on my website has calmed down from the many people downloading it after the con, I can offer to show the folks here where this was born.

 

All you need to do is go to this page: http://nekosei.com/amv/amv.html

And download the two videos at the bottom of it.

 

I hope you all enjoy my first animated works using Animation Master.

[Slipin Lizard]

That's awesome. To be able to do all that in within two months of getting the program is just great, you must just have the nack for it. I think people like you should write tutorials for the resst of us slow witted wanna be's! Nice work.

[luckbat]

Quite literally I was cutting my teeth on the program

Ouch.

[jon]

the fu?chikomas are awesome!

 

great work!

 

-jon

[3DArtZ]

was the music the japanese version of "YMCA"?

 

Both vids pretty cool! Good stuff

 

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[Noel]

You should post those to A:MFilms

Good stuff, and lots of work there!

[NEKOSEI]

Well, I must admit that I have done some animation before, by hand. Nothing professional, but enough to get a feel for how the process works well. So this was just a process of figuring out how AM does it, and adjusting.

 

As for the song, it's quite similar to YMCA, in that they form letter shapes with their arms, but for G-R-double E-N instead. And the song is about accepting what life throws at you, and finding the joys in just being alive.

 

As for posting on AMFilms... One day. When I manage to make it a quicktime file.

 

*goes to put some band-aids on his teeth*

[Slipin Lizard]

Just watched your little movie again... I still say that its an amazing achievement to go from opening the program to that in two months... I actually find it kind of depressing, like my brain must be resistant to input or something. I really enjoyed your camera work, it was very well done. Sometimes people come out with what they think is "da bomb" short, but the camera work leaves something to be desired. You nailed it on yours, really using the movement to help tell the story... loved the quick pull out from Mt. Fuji.

You should really do some tutorials. With so much aptitude, if you can convey that to other users, I'm sure they would be a hit.

By the way, how did you make your all white background? I notice you had shadows, did you render those out seperately and then composite in an all white background, or was it all done in AM?

 

Great job,

SL.

[NEKOSEI]

Well, I have thought of making a few tutorials, but I don't really know what kind of topics I should cover really. Certainly there will be some modeling tutorials I could create from what I've learned so far, and from what I plan to create eventually.

 

The quick pull from Fuji was basically figureing out a way to have a shadow show up fairly close to the shape it should be, and be able to zoom out from a 2D image that could not be rotoscoped.

Since zooming a rotoscope is a major pain to match up when the subject is off center of the image.

 

The all white background was pretty simple to create actually:

 

The camera background color is set to white.

This elimiates the need for any kind of walls surrounding the scene, as well as any potential shadow problems from them.

 

The ground Diffuse color is also set to white, with every other setting set to 0% and every other color setting on "not set". Setting everything to 0% is probably not really needed, but it was just something I did to prevent any potential problems.

 

The light is a Sun light, positioned at 0,900,0, and X rotated 90 degrees.

Intensity 100%, Wdith 100cm, Fall-off 500cm, Shadow intensity set at 50% so as not to make the details too dark.

 

And that's all there is to it.

 

Believe me however, I was reading every tutorial I could get my hands on online.

 

As for my camera work... I have done work with creating short films using video cameras before.

Two of my other videos on that page use live footage that I filmed myself. The Animethon 11 opening, and the Sakura Con opening.

[Slipin Lizard]

Hey, that's some good info. Here's a suggestion for your first tutorial topic... camera movement. Specifically, easing in and out of the movements. That part of your video was really well done. I think that would make a great tutorial.