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cory

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I had to put down the mouth and eyeball creatures for a little and work on this project. It's a new creature for a possible small budget feature length movie. I still have a lot of work to do, but this is the start...

 

http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbug.mov

 

and the sketch I made...

 

http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbug.jpg

 

It's mostly based on the sketch with a few changes. Which head looks better, the one on the model in the movie file or the sketch? I like the sketch myself, what do you guys think? Should I go with the muscles as seperate entities or should I try to wrap a solid mesh in the same shape? Isn't there some sort of shrinkwrap utility I saw somewhere?

 

Cory

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I like the render more than the sketch. I think you might leave him all white (or bone colored) to make the exoskeleton look more "skeletal," with "meaty bits" (musculature and tendons) showing at the joints. Kind of like the opposite of the cute little "mouth" puppy.

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You should think about its "hands"... why not turn his fingers to the inside, like a gorilla would do with his arms to run on them?

You properly wanted to create a strange look, but it is after all a bit confusing...

 

*Fuchur*

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Cory

 

That is one ugly bugger! Or should I say bug :D

 

Nice work and I like the dance floor lighting. I am inclined to agree with luckbat about the tail though, it looks like it isn't finished, kinda like a bent tube. If it is meant to look like that then fine but it doesn't suit the rest of the model which is quite detailed.

 

Looking forward to seeing you make this critter move. I remember animating a spider walk cycle years ago and it drove me mad, have fun…

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Cory

 

That is one ugly bugger! Or should I say bug :D

 

Nice work and I like the dance floor lighting. I am inclined to agree with luckbat about the tail though, it looks like it isn't finished, kinda like a bent tube. If it is meant to look like that then fine but it doesn't suit the rest of the model which is quite detailed.

 

Looking forward to seeing you make this critter move. I remember animating a spider walk cycle years ago and it drove me mad, have fun…

 

Looky here...

 

http://home.alltel.net/collinsfamily04/meatbugwalkwire.mov

 

The jump you see in the cycle is where I used a dynamic constraint on the head.

 

Cory

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Na! That's easy! Your creature has only go six legs - try doing a spider with eight! :P

 

:lol:

 

Very nice action there m8, I like it. But I would remove that dynamic constraint, it looks the keyframe on the head is different from at the start of the cycle to the one at the end hence the rapid reflex.

 

Not sure about the animation on the tail though, don't look quite right.

 

Apart from that very nice and how long did it take you to animate that cyce?

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It's people like you that both inspires us and causes so much frustration. This looks awesome, and you make it look so easy. <the inspire bit> But I bet it's not near as easy as it looks <the frustrate part> Thanks for sharing!

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Thanks again everyone, for the kind comments. This cycle was a couple hours in the making, it was rather simple, something I have studied before. I wrote an article for 3D artist magazine years ago on the same subject.

I like to stretch muscles and bones once I get the basic skeleton in place. Lets me see what needs to be added, or taken away. This .mov file was me taking the new guy for a walk. Now I see a little how it behaves, I can go back and start refining both mesh and skeleton. Then I'll make a low res proxy and really try to animate some action.

As far as being easy, I suppose it is and it isn't. I draw, paint ,sculpt, create things all the time. This is an extension of the same thing. A:M kinda fits right in there with the rest. But there is still a lot of work involved.

 

Cory

 

P.S. I'm still working on the tail, it may have a sharp, pointy object on the end.

P.S.S. As far as disco lighting, there actually is a scene in the script where the creature is in a nightclub. Go figure :)

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Man, that's nice... His back plate seems to deform a bit when he's lunging... It could just be the lighting.

 

He's a wicked one, though, and I like how he moves, and the general feel of him.

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Man, that's nice... His back plate seems to deform a bit when he's lunging...

 

Yeah, the plates are more fleshy than solid. The one on it's left needs the dynamics tightened up a bit, it seems to bounce too much. I used 10.5 to render this one, and it seems there was a big differrence in the way dynamic constraints looked on the shaded render and the way it looked on the final. I thought it may be the motion blur makes it look like it's not as loose. I had to set the stiffness level back from 20% to 10% to compensate. Looks like I shoulda went with 15% maybe. Another neat little feature is I used relationships in the feet to straighten the toes as the foot is raised and to offset the shoulders as well. I may add some inward curl on the toes too. Man, that saved a lot of keyframing there, seeing as there are six feet with two, three jointed toes on each to deal with.

 

Cory

 

wow thats awsome! great job. is it going to fight anything?

Not really "fight" but maybe a lot of eating (people)

 

Cory

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Grrr!!!

 

Cory what version of DivX are you using? I have downloaded the codec and it still won't play on my iMac any chance of a normal QuickTime movie for the rest of us?

 

I'm using 5.1 , I would post the quicktime, but I only have 5 megs of serverver space, the qt files are huge compared to the divx. When I can get them under 5 megs they look horrible. If some one has some server space, I could upload some quictimes.

 

Cory

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Cory,

 

I agree with Ken, That should show in the HASH booth!

 

It looks great! I like the musculature/tendons showing at the joints (though they look a bit tubular rather than sinewy especially at the fingers)!

 

Sound would be "more greater!" I'm thinking something high pitched rather than low growl... Something like fingernails on a chalkboard; a screeching (makes you shiver) kind of sound... everybody hates that noise, and it sends chills to most folks where a sinister lion's growl-like sound is overused.

 

Man, I hope I can do as well when I start work on my monsters.

 

good GREAT stuff, keep it up!

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