Looking for critique

[Darthlister]

Hi all,

 

Working on a project featuring the character ROM and looking for critiques and ideas in some areas, specifically backgrounds; how do you get a background to look like an actual deep environment instead of a a middle-school play backdrop?

 

Any ideas on camera movement, timing, etc. would be welcome. It's pretty much my first animation of any complexity, so I know there's a mile of room for improvement.

 

Thanks,

Rich

 

 

romfall.mp4

[robcat2075]

Too many swinging camera moves. I would consider stabilizing that quite a bit more.

 

At about 0:13... one problem is that the background has brighter and more saturated color than the foreground. In general, objects in the distance will appear more faded. Perhaps that is the backdrop problem you are referring to?

[Simon Edmondson]

Any ideas on camera movement, timing, etc. would be welcome. It's pretty much my first animation of any complexity, so I know there's a mile of room for improvement.

 

 

romfall.mp4

 

 

Rich

I would concur with Robert's observations with regard to the camera moves and add that, part of the reason they don't work to your benefit, is that the change of direction, speed and shot is too too large from cut to cut. Sometimes within the shot too. For example the opening shot does what my brother calls "hose piping, moving from side to side as if watering the garden. There are three changes of direction, at least two changes of speed, in the first 5 seconds. While the colours and lighting are strong, the camera moves overwhelm their strength by disorienting the viewer. The section were the object falls to the earth might work better if, rather than follow the object, you let it travel through the frame with the planet in the background.

 

The movement of the object is a bit sudden in places. My guess is that is because it hits the atmosphere. It might read better if the speed changed gradually as it encountered resistance and the flares of friction came off ? That goes from a downward movement into a left to right pan, which moves upwards without a cross fade. The result is slightly disorientating. It might be better if the the shot was wide and static and the object fell into it then move into the impact. Hold on that, then fade in and out before the shot of the rocks?

 

The visuals are strong but the speed of the cutting and camera moves undermines their strength. A more relaxed, less urgent, approach would work to your advantage ?

regards

simon

[Wildsided]

Hi Rich,

 

I think the biggest issue with the background vs foreground is the textures (Decals). Planar application has this tendency of looking great from the angle you applied it and then awful from another angle because the decal has gotten stretched and blurred. The best way I've found to combat this is go into say front view and hide any patches that aren't facing right at you. Apply the decal. Then switch to another view and repeat the process until the whole thing is covered. On a complex shape this usually works best if your decal isn't a uniform pattern.

 

The proper way to do this though is to "unfold" the object and texture it as a 2D shape. If you search 'flatten tutorial' in the search box you should find a good tutorial by Jim Talbot

 

Alternatively, you could tweak a dark tree rock texture to the colors you need and do it that way.

[Rodney]

ROM... awesome. I've been thinking he'd be a great character to model and here you've gone and done it.

 

You've got a lot of animation in there and others have pointed out the main areas to focus on for improvement. I'll add a few of my initial observations.

 

There is a nice sense of clarity in the basic animation that you have here. Namely, an unknown object falling to earth, landing in the desert, ROM rising out of the crater. Reorienting. You've got all those story elements present and reading correctly.

 

The camera pans and moves in ways that don't support the visual storytelling and if those shots were removed entirely the story might still read just as well. My gut instinct would be to remove those and overlay them on the top of the other shots to give further sense of depth.

 

You've got some nice effects work going. You've got them headed in the right direction.

I really like the fire effects.

 

Texturing (especially realistically) is tough and is usually best accomplished by layering in of details.

For that to happen though you really need to have the geometry and animation locked so that you can use the texturing to further focus attention where you want that attention to be. I'm trying to formulate the right words here so this will be a bit rambling. A related example to the camera movement would be that the camera moves in closely on the burning rocks but then has to move back out in order to track back in again.

 

Here is a thought concerning the ROM model itself:

You've chosen to model the toy version of his helmet/head versus what I would call the comic book version.

When reading the comics I always cringed when I saw that toy-based head (so my thoughts here are biased due to that preference).

Sal Buscema seemed to come up with a nice blend between the toy what looked best for an expressive character with few features and other artists like Michael Golden then pushed that even further.

The primary tell-tale sign of the toy design is the LED eyes that stick out from the front of the visor that are stuck in place.

IMO the version with the glow of the eyes occurring behind the visor works better.

The primary reason for this is one of design. If the lights are embedded into the visor then they cannot move and the character cannot be as expressive.

with the glow emanating from behind the visor ROM's eyes are free to scan without moving his head.

 

Moving farther into the realm of speculation... and not so much a commentary on your modeling and animation:

I really like your readout at the end but think you could enhance that considerably.

I cannot recall this element from the comic book but I think this would be an ideal place to show how ROM assimilates Earth's languages.

Let's say that initially some foreign looking elements pop on screen that are hard to understand... perhaps characters that obviously represent a language (or languages) that cannot be comprehended. This would be like ROM is scanning to find the appropriate language for this new planet and it takes a few seconds for his system to accomplish that. Finally, as ROM looks around some familar words appear on screen. We might see some French as he looks north easterly, some Spanish if he looks south and the readout finally resolves to English as the focus changes and he looks at his hand. Again, I don't recall how that played out in the comic book... perhaps they didn't fully explore his transition and assimilation of languages to that depth.

 

ROM is ripe for hollywood movie treatment and I hope that Disney/Marvel can work the rights out with Mattel. (Edit: Apparently not Mattel but Parker Bros/Hasbro)

 

Thanks for the look down memory lane.

I'd love to see how you might handle ROM dispatching some Dire Wraiths!

 

You've done a really good job here. Now make it great!

 

 

P.S. My recommendation for texturing is to forego it as much as possible and just use basic texturing (grayscale and such often works best) then once the animation is perfected focus on the lighting and texturing that will further contribute to the over all cinematic effects.

[Rodney]

I just went back and freeze framed some of frames from your animation and I do see that you've got some Wingdings and other non-english characters appearing on ROM's screen. I had missed that when first viewing the animation.

 

If you can make those larger and more pronounced so those alien characters can be seen.

You've gone to all that trouble to put it in there... now make it readable!

 

If you wanted to add some in jokes you could probably even add some useful alien languages like Klingon. At least those that have fonts that are readily available.

[Kamikaze]

Enjoyed the basic concept here...l even enjoyed the fast camera movement , they were just too long, I'd shorten them up a bit . I'd suggest using material instead of decal for up close shots .... I speak of this as not an expert in any field but as a regular Joe who loves SciFi....good going in all !

[largento]

Love seeing ROM after all these years. As to camera movement and staging, remember that you are being the eyes of the audience. Arrange things so that the transitions are what we would naturally look to next. Keep the movements geographically sound. Don't break the 180.

[Darthlister]

Thanks for all the feedback. Had a gap in my licesnse for a month or so, but now back at it.

 

Rodney, I tried to make the eye glows without the visible orbs but couldn't quite make it work, but I agree. Especially the first few issues of the book, I enjoyed the way SalB drew the helmet.

 

As for the swinging camera, I can see where that would be distracting; in the long pan, I was going for a "look at the devastation" vibe.

 

Still looking for a way to portray a "world" without using a back drop. I saw someone's (not sure who ATM) flyby of NYcity and I think the whole city model was constructed under a sky-dome.

 

Perhaps I need to understand how to layer a bit better.

 

Thanks again,

Rich

 

 

 

 

Love seeing ROM after all these years. As to camera movement and staging, remember that you are being the eyes of the audience. Arrange things so that the transitions are what we would naturally look to next. Keep the movements geographically sound. Don't break the 180.

[Rodney]

Welcome back. I'm glad to see you are back on this project again.

 

I just had the last bit of my things in storage shipped to me and all the comic books that I've had for out of reach for over six years arrived two days ago. In opening boxes one of the comic books that stood out was... you guessed it... ROM Spaceknight. I had fun reading through the issue and remembering the character's adventures all over again. I recall the ROM comic book having one important effect on me (outside of the story itself) and that was a new appreciation for the artist Sal Buscema. Over the years I had developed something of a dislike for his style (in comparison to my favorite artists) and it was his artwork on ROM... and The Incredible Hulk... that converted me into a fan of his work. He had a simple and direct approach to his lines that communicated clearly and it wasn't long before I began to prefer his artwork on those two titles more than other artists when they attempted to draw the characters.

 

Still looking for a way to portray a "world" without using a back drop. I saw someone's (not sure who ATM) flyby of NYcity and I think the whole city model was constructed under a sky-dome.

 

Things like this are what drew me to Animation:Master in the first place.

When it came to drawing, the idea of redrawing entire city scapes... not to mention cars, trees and props of all kinds... I realized computer graphics was the future for illustrating these. Of course, the downside of CG vs hand drawn is that with hand drawn you can often get away with having only the barest of lines represent a thing whereas with a 3D model you have to often meticulously detail the thing. In both cases the solution is more often than not a matter of knowing what detail can be ommitted or 'faked' because it won't be seen are easily scrutinized by the viewer/reader.

 

In the case of displaying a world it might be sufficient to have a backdrop but to add in some elements that pull some detail out to make it appear 'real'. Of course how 'real' the audience perceives something is going to largely depend on the level of abstraction you set up for them in the first place. If everything in your scenes looks hyper-real then elements that aren't the same will stand out and break the thru the audiences' suspension of disbelief. Of course, in portraying a world, we are usually trying to establish a setting that tells the audience in what context to view a particular scene and what mood we should be feeling. If we can achieve this with minimal detail then we are just that much closer to achieving what Sal Buscema did himself all those years ago in establishing a world that wasn't 'real' but still was entirely believable.

 

Recreating an entire city is no small task. The best results I've seen usually combine a lot of methodologies to trick the eye into seeing what needs to be seen.

[Darthlister]

Update. Currently recreating the opening scene. The silver ball is reflecting starlight and the blue/yellow lights to reflect earthblue and fireyellow were reflecting off the earth cutout. My solution? creating the same project sans stars, earth, moon, etc in another project. same camera movements, just the silver ball, blue/yellow lights, and fire/smoke mats.

 

My question is, is there a tut or two on layers, and masking out a single BG color? I've haunted the forums, but most of the masking and AE talk is around compositing live-action (something that I'll def need to consider with this project, albeit not right away) rather than just two animated layers.

 

Thanks,

Rich

[robcat2075]

My question is, is there a tut or two on layers, and masking out a single BG color? I've haunted the forums, but most of the masking and AE talk is around compositing live-action (something that I'll def need to consider with this project, albeit not right away) rather than just two animated layers.

 

Typically in CG, if you want to drop out a solid background you render with an alpha channel. Can you show a frame from your project and explain what you want to disappear?

[Rodney]

My question is, is there a tut or two on layers, and masking out a single BG color? I've haunted the forums, but most of the masking and AE talk is around compositing live-action (something that I'll def need to consider with this project, albeit not right away) rather than just two animated layers.

 

It sure does sound to me like you are wanting to use Alpha Channel transparency.

If the original image is being rendered out of A:M then that transparency will be easy to make.

If the image exists already (as in a photo or preexisting texture) you will have to use a key color or mask to make that color/area transparent.

 

As Robert suggests, seeing a little of what you are aiming to remove will tell the tale.

If you can share a few screen captures or project files we can build you a custom tutorial to fit your need.

[largento]

Update. Currently recreating the opening scene. The silver ball is reflecting starlight and the blue/yellow lights to reflect earthblue and fireyellow were reflecting off the earth cutout. My solution? creating the same project sans stars, earth, moon, etc in another project. same camera movements, just the silver ball, blue/yellow lights, and fire/smoke mats.

 

My question is, is there a tut or two on layers, and masking out a single BG color? I've haunted the forums, but most of the masking and AE talk is around compositing live-action (something that I'll def need to consider with this project, albeit not right away) rather than just two animated layers.

 

Thanks,

Rich

 

 

Don't forget that you can also create an environment map for your sphere.

 

Create a new material and change the attribute to: Plugin->HashInc->Environment Map

 

Choose a bitmap to represent the environment that it's in and apply the material to your sphere.

 

Now you don't even have to use reflection, it will reflect the bitmap. See image below:

 

[Roger]

I like the idea. I'm not familiar with the character, but the spaceship crashing to earth and the robot crawling out of the crater is cool.

Lot of potential for story development. Why is he here? Is he friend or foe? You could do a lot of interesting things.

But yeah, that camera is way too busy. I think if you limit the actual pans to when he is looking around, it will work better. I really don't think there is a need for any pans in the rest of the shots. Or if you have to have one, make it simple.

[Roger]

One thing you could do, have the planet with its atmosphere in the initial shot, but don't pan as the sphere comes into frame.

Then, switch to a shot where you are riding down with it, sort of over the shoulder with the flames coming into the actual camera lens.

Then you're back down on the ground - no pans, but you are looking form a distance. Sphere strikes the earth.

You are then centered on the crater, but further away. You dolly or zoom in to the lip of the crater, but not so you can see into it.

Cut to the arms reaching up out of the crater. Next shot is the robot clambering out of the crater, what you already have is ok, probably don't need to change that. Next, when he is looking around, that is where you pan, but maybe slow it down a bit, like he is methodically scanning.

Definitely enlarge the font on the display so we can see what is there. Maybe instead of a pan down to the hands, cut to an external shot of his hands on fire, then back to his view with hands centered in frame and they are on fire (no pans).

 

That is probably how I would block this out.

[Darthlister]

Thanks for all the feedback.

 

Finally got an updated clip. Completely redid the opening clip, added materials (OMG the rendertimes ) tried to cut down on the wildly swinging camera, although a couple of pans remain.

 

Tell me what you think.

 

Thanks,

Rich

 

 

One thing you could do, have the planet with its atmosphere in the initial shot, but don't pan as the sphere comes into frame.

Then, switch to a shot where you are riding down with it, sort of over the shoulder with the flames coming into the actual camera lens.

Then you're back down on the ground - no pans, but you are looking form a distance. Sphere strikes the earth.

You are then centered on the crater, but further away. You dolly or zoom in to the lip of the crater, but not so you can see into it.

Cut to the arms reaching up out of the crater. Next shot is the robot clambering out of the crater, what you already have is ok, probably don't need to change that. Next, when he is looking around, that is where you pan, but maybe slow it down a bit, like he is methodically scanning.

Definitely enlarge the font on the display so we can see what is there. Maybe instead of a pan down to the hands, cut to an external shot of his hands on fire, then back to his view with hands centered in frame and they are on fire (no pans).

 

That is probably how I would block this out.

[Rodney]

I'm not sure where your updated animation is at this point.

Did you try to upload it?

[Darthlister]

Well, that was weird. Let's try that one again, eh?

Thanks for looking,

 

Rich

 

ROMfall.mp4

 

 

 

I'm not sure where your updated animation is at this point.

Did you try to upload it?

[thefreshestever]

nice. i like the ice effect on the hand and the last freeze frame.

 

you said you´re looking for critique:

 

i think you still got to much camera movement going on, in the beginning i think there are too much pauses, where nothing´s going on. especially after the thingy enters the atmosphere. i´d try to cut it more action-movie like... fast cuts with fast movements. in animation we tend to do everything too slow and too linear, if you speed things up a bit it will get more interesting. regarding the rocks i´d go for a decal or bitmap plus material rather than procedural materials, also with some bump maps to give it a little bit more natural look. on his analytic helmet screen (i don´t know what the right term for this is) i´d tint it more to one color, maybe blueish or green, the choice of the font doesn´t look right, some led-font might look better... take a look at "dafont.com" for instance, you´ll find a lot of free downloadable fonts there, very well categorized. if you add some glow lines to the displayed elements like the little screen on the bottom left it will look more techy, too...

 

greets..

[Vertexspline]

Rich---

First off you made much improvements with this version, but Sebastian has a lot of good comments that i would agree with. But still keep the thing as much how you like as well......I think if you try some of the suggestion on tempo and length of scene you may develop a slightly different style and find that what you thought was cool maybe was not so much----happens to me all the time. smiles.

[largento]

I still get a kick out of seeing the ol' Spaceknight, but to critique, I would point to two things:

 

1) Camera motion

 

I see a pattern of establishing a shot and then doing a quickjerk camera movement to find an object. This is very disconcerting. Better I think to have the object break some part of the establishing shot and then then have the camera move to focus on it. Even a lense flare that orginates off camera but then breaks into the shot, to give the camera a reason to look up to where the object is. Also, once we start following an object, we like to stay with it. Jump cutting away can be confusing.

 

2) Contrast

 

You want the focus to be Rom, but he's having to compete with textured rocks and background plates that are all in focus and competing against this. Rom is basically smooth chrome and the environment textures are drawing the eye away from him. Rom would stand off of the rocks much more if the rocks were darker in color and the textures more muted. Some depth of field would help with contrast, too and make the shots feel less flat. There are lots of ways to achieve contrast, but the important part is that you don't want the viewer to struggle to "read" Rom in a shot.

 

It's kind of tricky, but you want the camera moves to feel to the viewer like they are looking where they would want to look, while at the same time, getting them to look at what you want them to look at.

[robcat2075]

Is he climbing out of a crater that his landing made? I don't think that would look like rock it woudl be morlike mounds of dirt and not so veritcal. Dirt will be harder to do than rock, however.

 

I agree with the camerawork comments above.

[Dpendleton77]

Well the only crit I have since the other guys pretty much covered it is that the gun is a little thin side.

[higginsdj]

The opening sequence made no sense to me. I assume it is the 'object' in which your character is located heading toward earth or is it just your character flying through space? For an establishing shot show this object moving through space rather than a sweeping camera move of background stars. The a cut to a shot - a fixed camera showing the object streaking toward earth (wide view). Then cut to a closeup view as it enters the earths atmosphere - at an angle. Then perhasp a shot from the earth surface watching the 'burning' object streaking through the sky with a distant 'explosion'.

 

Cheers

[Rodney]

Lots of good feedback here.

It seems to me that the common thread throughout all the feedback in about 'clarity'.

Making the storytelling absolutely clear will pay off big dividends.

 

Regarding the very first part of the animation it would help to put in some sort of reference to clue us in to what is happening such as ROM's spacecraft passing a recognizable planet. With the first view being that of the spacecraft (presumably) moving toward Earth the next shot would logically be that of passing the Moon and heading toward Earth. I've taken the liberty of putting together an example with two spheres and a lathed circular plane (see attachment). There are textured planets posted in the A:M Exchange area of the forum to play with.

 

I've added a hastily put together progression of passing Saturn and Mars and approaching Earth.

I'm not suggesting that you necessarily follow this but something in the scene to provide a comparison with ROM's spacecraft would help clarify that we are tracking an object moving toward Earth.

[Rodney]

Lots of good feedback here.

It seems to me that the common thread throughout all the feedback in about 'clarity'.

Making the storytelling absolutely clear will pay off big dividends.

 

Regarding the very first part of the animation it would help to put in some sort of reference to clue us in to what is happening such as ROM's spacecraft passing a recognizable planet. With the first view being that of the spacecraft (presumably) moving toward Earth the next shot would logically be that of passing the Moon and heading toward Earth. I've taken the liberty of putting together an example with two spheres and a lathed circular plane (see attachment). There are textured planets posted in the A:M Exchange area of the forum to play with.

 

I've added a hastily put together progression of passing Saturn and Mars and approaching Earth (just spheres and a lathed plane around Saturn).

I'm not suggesting that you necessarily follow this but something in the scene to provide a comparison with ROM's travel/trajectory would help clarify that we are tracking an object moving toward Earth.

Approach.mov

[Darthlister]

Thanks for all the good feedback everybody. After dreaming about rock materials, I figured it best to take a different direction for a while, so I finished Firefall. I'll def get back to the silver guy in a bit, though. Just not sure where I want to go with the whole project. I satisfied with the modeling so far, but having uncertainties about story construction, camera movement, etc.

Anyway, this is a couple of pans featuring the cave where Firefall first shows up. Looking for feedback on the model, walk, fire effect, movement, etc.

 

Ahh, just tell me whatcha think.

 

Thanks,

Richfirefall.mp4

[Rodney]

I like. I could recognize who it was immediately (although I admit I had forgotten who Firefall was for a minute).

 

We don't get a lot of time to see him but he looks pretty good.

Perhaps the stomach area could be just a little bit skinnier?

 

The fire effects work well although you may want to consider getting ahold of one of those video sequences of fire that are designed for compositing.

Sites like Videoblocks tend to run recurring "7 Days of Free download" specials.

 

Looking good!

[Darthlister]

I like. I could recognize who it was immediately (although I admit I had forgotten who Firefall was for a minute).

 

We don't get a lot of time to see him but he looks pretty good.

Perhaps the stomach area could be just a little bit skinnier?

 

The fire effects work well although you may want to consider getting ahold of one of those video sequences of fire that are designed for compositing.

Sites like Videoblocks tend to run recurring "7 Days of Free download" specials.

 

Looking good!

It's interesting; revisiting the original books, Uncle Sal is at times very inconsistant in his penciling. Sometimes it's clear that the FF armor is much bulkier that Rom's, while at other times that disappears. I've been looking for a way to improve the fire effect, to make it look a little more like fire in the real world. I'll have to check out that site. Thanks.

 

Rich

[Rodney]

I think you are probably spot on in the bulk department.

I should have backed up my memory with some reference... because it's easy to forget.

This especially after I had gone back and forth over whether to suggest that or not.

 

This seems to be his fairly normal 'thick' self:

 

http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/comics/rom...s/firefall2.gif

 

There is at least one cover that has him bulkier/thicker.

 

In other words... I retract my earlier suggestion.

Looks like you've got him very well proportioned.

 

 

I meant to post a direct link to fire video with Alpha Channels.

Here it is: http://www.videoblocks.com/search/alpha%20fire/everything/

[Darthlister]

Hey all. Still working on this project a little at a time. Below is a bit of the newest. Eventually gonna take a look at the alpha channel fire when I get a chance, but for now still working with part. emitters. Comments, suggestions welcome as always..

 

Thanks,

Rich

 

ROMFirefall.mp4

 

 

 

I think you are probably spot on in the bulk department.

I should have backed up my memory with some reference... because it's easy to forget.

This especially after I had gone back and forth over whether to suggest that or not.

 

This seems to be his fairly normal 'thick' self:

 

http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/comics/rom...s/firefall2.gif

 

There is at least one cover that has him bulkier/thicker.

 

In other words... I retract my earlier suggestion.

Looks like you've got him very well proportioned.

 

 

I meant to post a direct link to fire video with Alpha Channels.

Here it is: http://www.videoblocks.com/search/alpha%20fire/everything/

[Rodney]

I almost got chills in the shot of Firefall exiting the cave and beginning his descent.

Very nice.

 

The final shot of this last sequence has Firefall looking a bit like a toy on a modeled set. (not necessarily a bad thing)

My thought to counter that would be to put something into the scene that would allow for a sense of proper scale.

 

I always enjoy your updates. Keep 'em coming!

[Darthlister]

Heya, Rodney, thanks for the critique. Do you think it might be the perspective, the model movement after he hits the ground, or something else? I had a little trouble figuring out the movements after he hits. Sort of a "how would a guy just getting used to the heavy armor move?" . Also had some stringy grass in earlier shots of the cave in close to where he comes down, but those seemed out of place

 

Thanks,

Rich

 

I almost got chills in the shot of Firefall exiting the cave and beginning his descent.

Very nice.

 

The final shot of this last sequence has Firefall looking a bit like a toy on a modeled set. (not necessarily a bad thing)

My thought to counter that would be to put something into the scene that would allow for a sense of proper scale.

 

I always enjoy your updates. Keep 'em coming!

[Rodney]

My first thought was that a few strategically placed rocks might help but even then the rocks might not suggest size (i.e. are they boulders, stones, pebbles or what?)

I'm leaning toward the set itself making the shot look toy-like although you may be on to something with regard to his movement.

Some of this feeling might also dissipate somewhat as this sequence is joined with the next one.

[Darthlister]

Been a while since my last update, so here goes: still treaking the fire effects and char movement. Took a look at the alpha fire effects on Videoblocks, but not sure how to fully take advantage of the compositing capabilities of A:M and the alpha channel, so any head's up toward a good tut would be appreciated.

Also been fooling around with taking our fiery spaceknight and compositing him out onto the parking lot outside my building. I got the lighting pretty close, I think, but couldn't figure out how to bring the shadow cast on screen into the live picture.

Thanks for looking and as always, any advice on how to do whatever I'm trying to do better would certainly be welcome.

 

Rich

 

 

 

 

My first thought was that a few strategically placed rocks might help but even then the rocks might not suggest size (i.e. are they boulders, stones, pebbles or what?)

I'm leaning toward the set itself making the shot look toy-like although you may be on to something with regard to his movement.

Some of this feeling might also dissipate somewhat as this sequence is joined with the next one.

faceoff.mp4

[robcat2075]

One item I'd note is that the orange guy doesn't land with much weight. He shoudl squash into a crouch more instead of just falling into a standing position.