Collaboration in Progress:

[entity]

From- Dark Skull Productions including John Hubickey and Rich Jackson:

 

Greetings all,

An episodic space opera/ action adventure movie will be coming soon, called TekNu. The project should end up being around 20 episodes. So far, there is a web site with WIP videos, the story and episode descriptions, also the site includes details about the characters that will be seen. The web site is still under construction so some areas are not complete. We should be in a more complete state after the holidays. Late in January, work will continue and we might have the first episode by the end of the month.

 

Here is the URL for the web site:

 

DarkSkullProductions.com

 

...And here is some eye candy:

[Hubukai]

I just wanted to say that I'm glad Rich Jackson posted some of our initial Dark Skull Production work. It's been almost a year since we began collaborating on the project and we have come a long way. I just wanted to put up a little post thanking all of the people at Hash Inc. for making such a great program that has allowed creative individuals like Rich and myself to find each other and bring our science-fiction dreams to reality.

 

The Mid Atlantic Animation Master User Group (MAAM) has been a key factor in us getting together and finding out that we have similar interests and hobbies. Don Davis was the initial organizer of the Mid Atlantic Animation Master User Group and without his help and pulling us all together Dark Skull Production would not have been formed. So a little shout out to Don for getting us all together and also Hash Inc. for making a great rendering program that us mere mortals can afford.

 

I'll be posting some of the work I've done on the sets and props this weekend. Thanks again rich for posting our initial Dark Skull Production information on the Hash form.

[martin]

You guys make me feel so warm and fuzzy... I eagerly await seeing the work you've done, John!

[Paul Forwood]

Congratulations, Rich and John!!!

The website looks great and the models are outstanding!

 

It is indeed heartwarming to see another professional looking production coming from Animation:Master artists.

 

I wish you guys big success with Dark Skull Productions.

[ddavis]

This is soooo cool!

You guys are the best, can't wait to see the first episode.

[Dhar]

Congrats on your endeavor. You guys are inspirational. That's some top notch quality. Keep up the good work.

[Rodney]

Rich,

I've been eagerly awaiting this moment since I first saw your work in the A:M Community.

You have a great sense of the photoreal yet balance it with solid talent, great composition, texturing, lighting... the works! Its great to see your fine work getting out into cyberspace. I hope it'll find a willing audience.

 

John,

I know your computer skills have got to be an integral part of that webpage.

Very nice! Keep it up.

 

Hats off to the Mid Atlantic Animation Master User Group for your hard work and efforts to get together.

Best of everything to you in launching your project.

 

Rodney

 

Related plug: Both Rich and John's work can be seen close up on the current A:M Extra CD and the upcoming Extra DVD. Look for them!

[robcat2075]

Great looking models!

[Hubukai]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for the great responses... Right now i am ashamed of the web site. I haven't put much time in to it since i am trying to finish up some client web sites before Christmas. That darn holiday $$$ requirement... Darn, but with some luck ill be upgrading the site in the next few weeks. I will keep everyone posted. Rich will be helping on the site as well!

[entity]

Here is an animation that didn't make it to the site because it was the very first test for the Sentinel robots walk cycle.

SentinelRIG4_s3.mov

[animas3D]

This looks marvellous. Bravo.

 

However, I do not see any WIP videos on the website.

 

-Joe.

[entity]

In the menu under the skull click on videos, "animas 3D". On the page that appears next you will see links to 3 categories that will lead you specific groups of videos. The site is currently in progress and temporary and John is working hard to get things the way we want them... eventually there will be an interface for the videos, but that takes time to get coordinated.

Thanks for looking us up!

 

Here is some more renders and stuff we had while exchanging ideas and fleshing out the look.

[Rodney]

Nice!

 

I want one of those robots (and your talent!)

[Paul Forwood]

Wonderful robot! However, these bipeds have a centre of gravity problem. For that walk cycle to work it would need some sort of hover jet in the centre of the body to keep it balanced and prevent it falling over. I suppose if they moved at the speed of lightning they might be capable moving a leg forward without falling but they would still rock from side to side as they walked.

 

Hmmm. Must be some top-secret electro-magnetic foot locking mechanism and weight distribution gizmo.

 

Beautiful models ... Strange physics.

[rickh]

I agree with Paul about the centre of gravity of the robots as they walked. That really struck me watching the walk video.

 

I love the quality of the modelling and I think you really could be on a winner here.

 

Inspirational stuff.

 

Richard Harrowell.

[entity]

Thankyou... my rigging skills are not very good and the rig for the sentinel required a control rig to easily animate them. This was before I rigged them properly... so I will apply a more correctly weighted look to their walk.

[MattWBradbury]

I remember seeing the trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4 at E3, and I remembered how they made their biped mechs walk. It was very similar to an ostridge walk, but the legs were hinged the opposite way.

 

[attachmentid=22838]

 

I would consider this walk cycle to be a bit more graceful than what you're going for.

 

There's some video of mechs more like yours on this Battle Field 2142 intro movie around 1:19.

 

[attachmentid=22842] GIF

[Hubukai]

Here is a somewhat high resolution animation. This is a test render of the walk cycle animation. Please note, this is a 90 meg Quicktime video that requires Quicktime 7 to play. Its encoded in H264. This is the output size we are shooting for. Rich and I figure that if we are going to render it out, it ought to be high resolution.

 

Sorry for the large size but we want people to see the good quality.

Click on the image below to begin downloading the video. 90 meg

You can also do , Right Click, SAVE AS, to save it to your hard drive for viewing.

 

[MattWBradbury]

The file size is fine. I was getting 500 kbps down so it only took about 2 minutes to download. How long did it take you guys to render it this large? I must be using way too many high end features because that resolution usually takes me 20 minutes per frame.

 

The walk looks pretty good, though it needs a bit of tweaking. Around second second 17 of the animation, the right leg foot off the ground before the left leg even touches the ground. The feet also look like they're more or less floating at the ground rather than being firmly planted on the ground.

[Paul Forwood]

Uh.

-----------------------------

It just timed out on me before completing the download. I hope we haven't depleted your traffic allowance!

The still looks cool though.

 

------------------------

Got it! It came in the second time at about 256 Kb/s

[bentothemax]

dang, those look great.

 

imo

 

About the walk cycle though, if the robots are about a foot taller than a human... it seems like they should walk a bit faster. I don't know what the robots are for, but it seems that if they were invovled in any chase scene ( or somthing), right now i wouldn't belive it if they started running : \

 

nontheless... still Outstanding

 

Ben

[satyajit2000]

Interesting genre. Reminds me of the Starship troopers animation. But they were all motion captured and lifeless.

 

But, here the human models are realistic. I'm always eager to see some hand animated realistic human models. Can't wait to see your human animations.

 

Best of luck with your venture. The imagery is already looking great. The concept arts are great. You have already got another fan here.

 

Satyajit

[entity]

Thanks... I animated the sentinel with the new rig and added a tiny bit of body motion. John rendered the cycle on his duel or quad processor machine (with 4 lights,1 JLskylight rig at 25 passes, with reflections everywhere and got some really impressive render times. His machine renders 3 times as fast as mine!) using A:M v14 Alpha2.

 

When you collaborate with someone:

MSN is a good tool for exchanging files and also skype for voice. We have a shared folder with MSN so that we can instantaniously transfer files... of course John has the server space so that we can transfer and store larger files that we need for production... and it helps to have the exact same directory structure (like TWO project's SVN) that can be updated using FTP software. Much of the work on all of that is due to John teaching me how to use all of these tools. Most of you know about all of this stuff, but I'm a noob when it comes to that.

 

Thanks for all the support and suggestions... you've been very helpful!

[attachmentid=22896]

Sentinelwalk_12_04_2006.mov

[Fuchur]

Looks really phenomenal!

 

The robots are very cool and the humans are even cooler!

Very very impressive.

 

Just to say something negativ, so I dont have to feel too small :

The right foot of the robot seems to be much faster than the other... is this intended?

 

*Fuchur*

[Hubukai]

Actually, everything we are putting up on the forums is WIP so things aren't set in stone. We really want to see some Final renders and what AM can do so we are rendering some things out to see how good they look. We will be refining all the walk cycles, run cycles and a bunch more when we get close to finishing scene1... ( which will be a little while)

[trajcedrv]

This looks great so far! Keep us posted!

[animas3D]

Hi there,

 

Would you be so kind to tell me how the lighting was achieved for this amazing image? Was a "skylight" rig used? If so, would you point me in the proper directions or offer a bit of advice on how to do it? I may have a potential client and would like to make a presentation of their product box using a similar feeling for the lighting. Thank you very much.

[entity]

animas3D,

That was done with 25 pass Ambient Occlusion (A.O.) at 100%. Do a search on the forum or look under topic- "Radiosity" for detailed info on how to use it. If you want the shadows to show up better, using white or gray toned characters is better.

[DarkLimit]

I really like the design of the robots..I think with some creativity u can get them to move in a very effective abstract way.. Great job so far...!!

[animas3D]

animas3D,

That was done with 25 pass Ambient Occlusion (A.O.) at 100%. Do a search on the forum or look under topic- "Radiosity" for detailed info on how to use it. If you want the shadows to show up better, using white or gray toned characters is better.

 

Awesome. Thanks. Beautiful modeling job there. World class.

 

I will look up how to use it in the radiosity forum (I need to upgrade my version of AM). May I ask if there were any real lights in the scene or was the entire lighting handled by AO? By the way, is it possible to get reflections with A.O?

[entity]

No lights in that render, but there are lights in the others. Yes... reflections look great, but I'm not sure about transparency... I don't think AO was made to inhance transparency. I think AO was made to combine with other lighting as an alternative (quick) global lighting feature, compared to the slower and not so easy to set up up light rigs and skylights and radiosity. With our style of texturing models requires stronger lights, because the textures are color dense/dark. I think when your textures are "color dense" or have a high saturation, they tend to retain color better in strong light. Also, your highlights show up better.- I could be wrong about that observation, not sure.

Thanks for bringing that up!

[dborruso]

This is some seriously great modeling and texturing. I am blown away. I would love to see some models like this in a game as well as a movie. That would be awesome. Maybe when HAMR is ready for games.

[gugesbri]

Beautiful work.

Can't wait to see the finished product.

 

Keep up the great work,

Happy holidays

 

Gustavo

[entity]

Hi,

After hybernating for several weeks work has begun again. Having overshot our proposed deadline we've decided not to promise a finish date. Life can get complicated and problems arise when least expected.

We do have sample images of updates to the characters. Animations will come soon. We will have an animated story board as the sets are completed for the first episode (to be released from our website : http://www.darkskullproductions.com .) and many tests as well.

 

Thanks for all your support...

... and if there is anyone out there who would like to join us on this project, we still have plenty of work that needs to be done.