Bad Egg

[Ilidrake]

Finished this up a couple days ago. It's basically a ninja egg dodging a bullet with a backflip. I really wanted to just play around with bullet time and slo-mo. And it was pretty simple character to model and rig. Works pretty good as far as animating goes too. Anyway, just a little contibution to the community. Enjoy.

Egg.wmv

[Ilidrake]

So.......any comments would be appreciated....good or bad

[oakchas]

The "bullet time" doesn't seem to work so well... it almost apears as though the bullet goes backwards... I think you need some sort of transition from real time to "bullet time."

 

Maybe it's just a matter of anticipation or exaggerated moves, and or a change in camera or camera angle... somehow not as believable as "bullet time" in the matrix movies.

[brainmuffin]

Charlie's right. The bullet time would be more believable if there were more realtime stuff before and after, but other than that, I like it! do more! a "Killer Bean" style ninja flick is just what we need!!

[Ilidrake]

Ya, Jeff Lew is definitly my idol right now. Killer Bean is awesome. I got the DVD and Jeff made the comment that the easiest and best characters are the most interesting and fun. He's right. I got the idea for the ninja egg while reading Humpty Dumpty to my daughter. I thought, wouldn't it be great if Humpty kicked major a$$!!! So i started modeling and came up with this. I still have problems with his legs being so short and his body being round (tends to shear a bit) but if I'm careful the over-all effect is pretty nice. Glad you liked it, makes me want to work on it some more........

[Viper GTX2.0]

I think there is something wrong on how the arms move other then that its very nice.

[the_black_mage]

if you wanna make the bullet go slo-mo put it on a path and have the ease increase slowly until you want it to then put it at 100% at the last frame

[the_black_mage]

heres an example i made...

i would a made a video but, i kinda didn't have the time.

bulet_time.zip

[Ilidrake]

The bullets is on a path with ease controlled. I actually had a nice transition from slo-mo to live time but I decided to play with the bias handles in the dopesheet and never corrected them. I suppose I'll finish this thing up one day and correct it but for now.....thanks for the input though. I get enough of these and I'll have to go back and fix it and maybe finish the whole piece up.

[Zaryin]

I love the idea of a Humpty Dumpty short. If you do work this through, I would love to see it.

[case]

hmmm cool but yes slo-motion is hard just tweak with it

[Rodney]

It'd be interesting to see Humpty Dumpty have his day.

You'd definitely want to make him enough of your own character to make it worth the effort though.

I suppose there are worse things than spending the rest of your life as 'that guy that did the film like Jeff Lew'.

 

One thing to consider...

The bullet trajectory is probably too high.

Humpty actually jumps up into the path of the bullet.

Nobody has established that he's got a brain in that shell yet... so that might be okay.

Lowering the path of the bullet to indicate Humpty is avoiding the bullet is the look I'm sure you are after.

 

The premise is good... now make it your own.

Finding your own voice and establishing your own distinctive style of storytelling will help you become the next Jeffrey Lew.

 

Rodney

[Ilidrake]

That does bother me a bit, the 'Jeff Lew knock-off', but I'm simply following some of his suggestions. I've animated complex characters and found that it can get really messy. And the fact that I'm extremly critical of my own work (my girlfriend forced me to upload this for feed-back). The fact that he's an egg with simple arms and legs makes animating soooooooo much easier. Of course his rig is actually pretty complex. He has a complete facial rig so the range of expressions is really nice.

I went over the animation last night and found that if I rotate the camera the opposite direction it has a much better effect and it's more clear of whats going on in the scene. I'm going to tweak it and render again and post the results monday along with additional footage. Keep your eyes peeled.

(Just so everyone knows, I'm a big Dragonlance fan and currently have a RPG in the works that will use movie sequences that I'm doing in AM.)

[Ilidrake]

It's been a while since I posted anything on this short. I've been happily chuggging along at it for a while now. Biggest thing was character reconstruction along with story layout. HD has had a major overhaul in looks and is currently in line for rigging. As you can see I've also modeled him up a bike Anyway, I'll post any updates that I get time for. Cheers.

[phatso]

The bullet time spline needs to be tweaked. Bullets have almost no change in velocity over short distances. From the moment you enter bullet time to the moment it hits the wall, the timeline spline that places the bullet should have a constant slope.

 

Now, wouldn't it be funny if Humpty backflipped over the bench, hit the floor, and broke into pieces?

 

Okay, that's prolly not the story line you have in mind. Just a thought.

[Ilidrake]

The bullet time effect is from a very early render and has also undergone many changes. It will be a while before I show any actual footage. But it's still in the works.

[Ilidrake]

Chaged up HD's look some more. I also have him completely rigged and as you can see form this pose his skeletal system seems to be working great. I'm actually pretty proud of his skeleton because I did the whole thing with no Setup Machine.

[Ilidrake]

Well here's an update to the project. I've gotten his bike at 90%, but as u can see it needs the tread fixed, the handle bar shape isnt what I really want and the kick stand just plain sucks. I also would like to redo his mouth as the current look causes problems with phenoms and facial expressions.

[robcat2075]

I'm thinking a mouth that is modeled into his shell rather than placed on the surface might be something to look into. It would get away from the Killer Bean look and be more like a smooth-shelled egg.

[Ilidrake]

I'm thinking a mouth that is modeled into his shell rather than placed on the surface might be something to look into. It would get away from the Killer Bean look and be more like a smooth-shelled egg.

Thanks. I was thinking the same thing. I've been going over the model now and it's gonna be difficult to make the mouth intregrate seamlessly though with using 5-points, which i'm trying to avoid. I guess its inevitable though.

[robcat2075]

The thing about 5 pointers is to avoid putting them where they will be very thin or very curved. Use 4 pointers for that then use 5 pointers to lead into those areas.

[mtpeak2]

I think a hairline crack with a bandage on it, would be funny to see. On his forehead, perhaps.

 

Also, for the mouth you could use a boolean cutter. I've done this before and it works pretty well. Then you just animate the mesh of the boolean to get the mouth shapes.

sptoontest.mov

[Ilidrake]

I think a hairline crack with a bandage on it, would be funny to see. On his forehead, perhaps.

 

Also, for the mouth you could use a boolean cutter. I've done this before and it works pretty well. Then you just animate the mesh of the boolean to get the mouth shapes.

I've never used a boolean cutter. It seems to work rather well from your video. I'll have to look into that. Could u post the project file example for me to look at? Please. Pretty, pretty please.

[Ilidrake]

Okay. The boolean cutter is actually pretty dang neat. The only thing I see being a real pain with this method would be the phenome shapes. Any suggestions on how to fake them better.

[mtpeak2]

I guess you got it figured out.

 

Just make sure the geometry for the boolean cutter has enough splines to make the different shapes.

[Ilidrake]

Okay. I've spent the last couple days working with the boolean cut mouth. I'm actually very pleased with the end results so this will be the method I use henceforth on this model. Thanks guys Heres a screen for ya.

[Ilidrake]

Okay. Just finished up the next character to be included in this little short. Its the chief of police himself.

[mtpeak2]

Looking good, I'm glad to hear the boolean cutter worked out for you.

 

I would suggest adding more color to the chiefs shirt.

[Ilidrake]

Thanks mtpeak2. I'm working on a decal for his shirt right now. Should be ready for another render here shortly. I do need to ask if anyone has any idea on how i could effectivly apply simcloth to his tie? Or would bones be better u think?

[mtpeak2]

Both methods would work, which would better, I don't know. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.

[Ilidrake]

I played around with simcloth a bit but couldnt get it to work correctly. I may just set up a small rig and animate it manually. He doesnt have any real action scenes anyway. Mainly he's just for dialogue and comic relief.

[Ilidrake]

Just for a change of pace and to help keep this short film progressing I started on the city street today. I've decided to upload all the buildings for the community as I complete them, as there really is a shortage of building props available. So use them and abuse them as you need to. Cheers! Oh, and you will need the simbiot plugin from DarkTree along with textures from there website. These models were made with AM version 13 T.

Outside_Set.mdl

Wall1.bmp

Outside_Set_2.mdl