higginsdj Posted March 14, 2013 Posted March 14, 2013 Having some fun getting back into Animation master. Here is another attempt at an entry for the upcoming contest. A trust........ Just working on timing. piratefoil_0000.mov Quote
Admin Rodney Posted March 14, 2013 Admin Posted March 14, 2013 Looks like you are having fun with this. She's needs some change in her face and that one would be a keeper! Quote
Ilidrake Posted March 14, 2013 Posted March 14, 2013 I love seeing actual animations made with AM popping back up on the forums!!! Keep going!!! Quote
Kamikaze Posted March 14, 2013 Posted March 14, 2013 Very Nice ! ...I too love seeing animations ........ Quote
higginsdj Posted March 15, 2013 Author Posted March 15, 2013 A thrust followed by a slash.... pirategloria2.mov Quote
higginsdj Posted March 17, 2013 Author Posted March 17, 2013 Another iteration. Other than a sword fight I am not sure where this one is going yet..... pirategloria2.mov Quote
largento Posted March 17, 2013 Posted March 17, 2013 Ignoring movie fencing, part of the posture is to keep the torso facing perpendicular to the foil. That gives you the maximum arm length. If you turn towards your opponent, your reach lessens. There is a move in fencing very similar to what you're doing here, I can't recall what the name of it is, but essentially the first foot movement is more a less a "fake" and then you go in for a long thrust with the second movement. So, if you can imagine it, the first foot fall is done to make noise and fake out your opponent and then the second part is a lunge. Alternately, you could bring the back foot forward after the first move and increase the distance of the lunge. I took a couple of semesters of fencing in college, so my knowledge is limited, but there was a guy in my class who was vertically-challenged and he used to use that all of the time, but he almost made it a sort of hopping action. It wasn't at all intimidating, but it was very difficult not to laugh, which made it somewhat effective. :-) I was very disappointed early on when I found out real fencing and movie fencing had very little in common. :-) Quote
higginsdj Posted March 18, 2013 Author Posted March 18, 2013 Ooops. Wrong version went up before.... I have been using a Pirate swordfight scene I found on Youtube as my reference source for the first part. I'm not fond of real fencing as it has zero theatrics in it. I like big and bold, arcing movements that look good to the camera The hard part is going to be putting in th eother pirate..... pirategloria.mov Quote
higginsdj Posted March 18, 2013 Author Posted March 18, 2013 the ship/camera should be moving. Its hard enough animating a sword fight on stationary ground...... I think I will leave the challenge of a rolling deck to another time (or someone more competent that I) Cheers Quote
largento Posted March 18, 2013 Posted March 18, 2013 Ooops. Wrong version went up before.... I have been using a Pirate swordfight scene I found on Youtube as my reference source for the first part. I'm not fond of real fencing as it has zero theatrics in it. I like big and bold, arcing movements that look good to the camera The hard part is going to be putting in th eother pirate..... Agreed, but can be helpful to look at real fencing and then exaggerate from it. That way it looks less like they are just wildly moving about. :-) Quote
higginsdj Posted March 18, 2013 Author Posted March 18, 2013 Started introducing the opponent..... pirategloriaPair.mov Quote
Ilidrake Posted March 18, 2013 Posted March 18, 2013 This is looking good. I can't wait to see what others bring to the table!!! Quote
nino banano Posted March 19, 2013 Posted March 19, 2013 very well done david, the animation looks great Quote
Gerry Posted March 19, 2013 Posted March 19, 2013 I was very disappointed early on when I found out real fencing and movie fencing had very little in common. :-) Actually that goes for real *anything* and movie *anything*! Quote
higginsdj Posted March 21, 2013 Author Posted March 21, 2013 Some furhter tests to try to put a start and end on the sword fight. Modified the Skyship from SO to have an interior that Gloria can climb out of... There is light coming from somewhere on the end wall - left side (from the outside) - not sure why.... Quote
Admin Rodney Posted March 21, 2013 Admin Posted March 21, 2013 not sure why.... Two possibilbities come to mind: 1) Flip the normal so that the outer side of the patch's surface is pointing toward the inside (of the room) and not outside the ship. 2) Single thickness patches can let light shine through. (I use to have a good rationale for why they do but even with the note I wrote to myself in my Tech Ref I couldn't recall why anymore) I'm going to guess that 2 is the more likely... 1 is the easy to check though. P.S. I love the stippling effect you have in that image. Very cool. Quote
higginsdj Posted March 21, 2013 Author Posted March 21, 2013 The stippling artifact is a result of using the windows 7 snipping tool on the A:M UI. Cheers Quote
higginsdj Posted March 22, 2013 Author Posted March 22, 2013 Can't get Bulbs or Suns' from penetrating multiple layers of surfaces (and I have doen numerous normal flips) so have reverted to Kliegs instead. Going to take a few sound bites from Cutthroat Island (Geena Davis) and work up my own scene in that genre... Hopefully I am not taking on more than I can chew. Quote
Fuchur Posted March 22, 2013 Posted March 22, 2013 Can't get Bulbs or Suns' from penetrating multiple layers of surfaces (and I have doen numerous normal flips) so have reverted to Kliegs instead. Going to take a few sound bites from Cutthroat Island (Geena Davis) and work up my own scene in that genre... Hopefully I am not taking on more than I can chew. Please have a look at the setting "Cast Shadows > Darkness" of the lights. To fully block the light you need to set this to 100%. Default is 80%. In some situations (I am not sure if it was a zbuffered shadow or a raytracing one) you need to have a object with a real thickness (no single-thick-object but a closed one). But first try the Darkness-Setting. See you *Fuchur* Quote
MMZ_TimeLord Posted March 24, 2013 Posted March 24, 2013 One critique I have for the animation is that the left foot is LOCKED to the deck. A true sword fight or even in fencing, the foot does pivot and move slightly with the other. Footwork is essential to keep you out of reach of your opponent's weapon. At one point it looks like her ankle gets broken. Other than that, the movements are a great start! Quote
higginsdj Posted March 26, 2013 Author Posted March 26, 2013 Yep - they are locked until I get the rest right. Once the rest is right I can move them about. I just needed to make sure I had the models locked in space so when I put the rest of the set in they didn't 'wander'/'drift'. OK, since the sword fight worked out so well (for me anyway) I started to think about building a "story" around it so working up a storyboard using A:M chor and models/sets. Here are a few renders so far (without giving anything away) I should point out that the story line is not original..... I'm not that creative - but it is a variation on a theme Quote
higginsdj Posted March 27, 2013 Author Posted March 27, 2013 After a night of rendering just the opening scene, my Laptop (Toshiba Qosmio) seems to have died..... It was locked up and too hot to touch. I pulled the power and let it cool but it won't restart. I does appear to be now able to run a startup repair though - running for 20 minutes so far, HD light is flashing so it's doing something! Hopefully I won't have lost everything! Cheers Quote
markw Posted March 27, 2013 Posted March 27, 2013 As a fellow laptop user also living in what can be a very hot and dusty part of the world this is my biggest fear. Every spring I open mine up and clean out the fans and heat exchangers before the hot weather kicks in. Fingers crossed for you... Quote
higginsdj Posted March 28, 2013 Author Posted March 28, 2013 It's back. I'll have to wait till I get home to put the air compressor through the multiple fan ports to blow out the dust. Enough dust came out when I blew into them with my own breath! Quote
higginsdj Posted April 1, 2013 Author Posted April 1, 2013 The laptop is behaving again so back into it. Wow, this is turning into an epic...... In all I think I will have 6 scenes. I have completed the first 3 scenes plus most of the sword fight scene (but I keep going back to tweak the animation after final rendering - will I ever finish?) and it's only 40 seconds of animation but 30 hours of rendering (not including the fight scene) using netrender and 4 rendering nodes so far..... I think this is going to end up being a couple of minutes long and I will have to give myself a full week to render it our then a couple of days to cut in the sound. Quote
higginsdj Posted April 1, 2013 Author Posted April 1, 2013 First 1/2 in varying state..... AM_PirateMovie.mov Quote
Dpendleton77 Posted April 1, 2013 Posted April 1, 2013 First 1/2 in varying state..... I like it. Quote
NancyGormezano Posted April 1, 2013 Posted April 1, 2013 The animation looks good, very impressive! Realize that this is not final render: but hope gloria gets some hair, & the scintillating of ocean horizon gets hidden (fog could work). Quote
higginsdj Posted April 1, 2013 Author Posted April 1, 2013 LOL - no hair but I may give her a bandana to 'hide' the fact that she has no hair The final render will take care of 'hiding' the pirate in that last shot until he steps forward out of the shadows. Gloria getting up off the pile of sacks still doesn't look right either. Something just isn't quite right and I haven't worked out what it is yet. OK, on to Scene 4 shot 2.... I'm really just winging it at present. I have an idea what I want each scene to 'achieve' but just setting up poses in a single frame that 'says' what I want the scene to say (or just looks OK) then 'tweening' them to fit together (working backwards in some cases - I know about animating straight ahead - but how about straight behind it's an interesting exercise.....) Cheers Quote
Admin Rodney Posted April 1, 2013 Admin Posted April 1, 2013 Very nice David. Very nice indeed! Now you've got me wanting to see the whole film. Quote
Fuchur Posted April 1, 2013 Posted April 1, 2013 Very nice David. Very nice indeed! Now you've got me wanting to see the whole film. Really looks quite well . A little bit work on here walking/sneaking but it really is well done and I like the whole composition quiet much... The music is nice, the character is visible and the new version were she gets rid of the hand of the guy is looking much more feminine. Keep on rocking *Fuchur* Quote
Kamikaze Posted April 1, 2013 Posted April 1, 2013 Color me Very Impressed ...I just love it ....! Quote
higginsdj Posted April 4, 2013 Author Posted April 4, 2013 7 scenes and 1:10 long thus far and hopefully only 2-3 shots to add to the final sword fight scene and it should be done. Maybe 1:30 all up! I did toss a scene (the scene seemed like a good idea at the time but just didn't cut well with the rest of the shots - ah it was only 4 sconds of finished animation......) and the sound/music overlays reasonably well (not going to get much better with 'cut together snippets/sound bytes from the Cutthroat Island movie....). I should point out that it's coming out of AE in H.264 at 104mb so far.......(the avi version came out at 1.3Gb) Is there a physical size limit to the file when it comes to FTPing to the Hash site? Hope everyone else is hard at it... Quote
higginsdj Posted April 4, 2013 Author Posted April 4, 2013 Don't you just love it when experiments work! I needed to reverse the bend pose on my foils so it would bend from the point not the handle end. Well I am no TD so I thought to myself - what if I simply reversed the heirarchy of the bones in the model ..... and it worked...... I love it when things come together Quote
higginsdj Posted April 5, 2013 Author Posted April 5, 2013 OK, another shot to add to the list. Thoughts? Is there too much going on? Does it read well? Cheers Sc07b_0000.mov Quote
higginsdj Posted April 5, 2013 Author Posted April 5, 2013 Just 1 shot left. I can't believe how hard/intense this exercise has been........ It's just fortunate that I was able to re-use the TWO and SO data and not have to build them myself! Quote
Dpendleton77 Posted April 9, 2013 Posted April 9, 2013 Nice I like the way the one guy does not even care. Flowed pretty nicely to me. Quote
NancyGormezano Posted April 9, 2013 Posted April 9, 2013 OK, another shot to add to the list. Thoughts? Is there too much going on? Does it read well? It reads very well, love the foil? bendy action. Well done. Pon's reaction is very good. My only crit would be the double take. Servant guy seems too blaise, unaffected when the foil first goes past him so closely. A natural response would be to jump or twitch unconsciously, automatically somewhat, or at least blink/shut eyes because of the close proximity and disturbance of the peripheral vision. The double take (which is good) would come when it finally registers consciously. But then again, it is a toon...and natural doesn't necessarily apply. Quote
higginsdj Posted April 12, 2013 Author Posted April 12, 2013 Rendering, rendering, rendering.......... Each VGA resolution frame is taking 12-30minutes to render........ 90 sec x 24 frame/sec x avg 20 min/frame = 43,200 minutes of rendering (~30 days). Now putting all 8 cores on my laptop to the task (no cores spare to do anything else). It's going to be tight! With the laptop busy rendering I am contemplating whether I should buy another subscription so I can still 'play' with A:M but haven't decided what platform to put it on (my iMac or another laptop) I do love my iMac's but I know the last time I subscribed (v14/15) the iMac version of A:M was somewhat 'flakey' (but the 27" screen made it so much more pleasurable to do things in) Quote
Simon Edmondson Posted April 13, 2013 Posted April 13, 2013 Rendering, rendering, rendering.......... Each VGA resolution frame is taking 12-30minutes to render........ 90 sec x 24 frame/sec x avg 20 min/frame = 43,200 minutes of rendering (~30 days). Now putting all 8 cores on my laptop to the task (no cores spare to do anything else). It's going to be tight! With the laptop busy rendering I am contemplating whether I should buy another subscription so I can still 'play' with A:M but haven't decided what platform to put it on (my iMac or another laptop) I do love my iMac's but I know the last time I subscribed (v14/15) the iMac version of A:M was somewhat 'flakey' (but the 27" screen made it so much more pleasurable to do things in) David If you get a subscription to V17 there is a feature called Multi Master that Mark W pointed out to me which allows you to run several versions of AM at the same time which might be of use to you ? Mark has also written a PDF file on how to use the net render option on a Mac although it is also applicable to PC's. regards simon Quote
higginsdj Posted April 13, 2013 Author Posted April 13, 2013 Rendering, rendering, rendering.......... Each VGA resolution frame is taking 12-30minutes to render........ 90 sec x 24 frame/sec x avg 20 min/frame = 43,200 minutes of rendering (~30 days). Now putting all 8 cores on my laptop to the task (no cores spare to do anything else). It's going to be tight! With the laptop busy rendering I am contemplating whether I should buy another subscription so I can still 'play' with A:M but haven't decided what platform to put it on (my iMac or another laptop) I do love my iMac's but I know the last time I subscribed (v14/15) the iMac version of A:M was somewhat 'flakey' (but the 27" screen made it so much more pleasurable to do things in) David If you get a subscription to V17 there is a feature called Multi Master that Mark W pointed out to me which allows you to run several versions of AM at the same time which might be of use to you ? Mark has also written a PDF file on how to use the net render option on a Mac although it is also applicable to PC's. regards simon Yeah, but I can't run anything else when using all 8 cores (out of 8) to render..... Quote
higginsdj Posted April 15, 2013 Author Posted April 15, 2013 Ahhhhhhhh..... lighting.... I have 1 rather complex scene that has been proving problematic to light. Character starts in the hold of the ship, partially light by a spot light (sun as it streams down the hatch) She then runs up the stairs through the hatchway and into the sunlight (camera moving with her in 1 continuous shot). I think I have rendered this one out 5 times now (at 30 minutes per frame) all to no avail! Thank goodness for light lists and animating light intensity over time - I think I might have finally nailed it..... 4 more hours and I might be done rendering. Now just to work on the sound track and try to piece something together... Quote
higginsdj Posted April 22, 2013 Author Posted April 22, 2013 Run out of time to fix and re-render a few issues so uploading the 'final version' now (all 64mb Sorensen 3) to the Hash site. Cheers Quote
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