JohnArtbox Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 It's been a while since I posted. Just a simple character I'm building to have fun with.. Quote
Ganthofer Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 Cool little guy you have there. The two on the left (with the meshing teeth) look like they could get nasty. The one on the left looks like a good buddy of mine. Quote
dj_jonnyg Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 Hey John, Awesome! Really cute guy. I especially love the rendering. I'ma assuming you used your SkyCast plugin for this. If you can tell me how to duplicate this EXACT rendering then I will gladly purchase the software. This is the exact look I have been trying to acheive. Either post here or email me if you like at jug@rogers.com Thanks in advance, Jon Quote
Admin Rodney Posted July 5, 2004 Admin Posted July 5, 2004 John, Those look really fun... if not a bit dangerous! I am curious about how well they'll animate walking with those stubby legs... or do they waddle? Keep posting John! Always great (and inspirational) to see you work. Quote
williamgaylord Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 Not sure I'd want to swallow one of these. Are these suicide capsules? A lot of character in such a simple design. Look forward to seeing these guys develop. Bill Gaylord Quote
CreativeAustinYankee Posted July 5, 2004 Posted July 5, 2004 I like these! They remind me of a purple minor character in The Neverhood game.(comes out of the wall and clubs Klayman over the head with a mallet) That guy kinda waddled when he walked. Animating these should be alot of fun. Quote
tobinjim Posted July 6, 2004 Posted July 6, 2004 John, are those capsules playing soccer? I ask because I was just reviewing the pictures I took tonight of my daughter's soccer game, and I can't help but notice the similarities... hmm... where's that one photo..... Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 6, 2004 Author Posted July 6, 2004 thanks...here are the sketches that I started with... and some answers Jon: it's a Twin Light Rig using a 4x4 twin skydome action colour set to white and the two lights set to suns at 70% intensity Rod: extreme squash and stretch the legs will stretch when they need to CAY:still one of my favourite games , beautiful quirky design and animation, but I must admit I can't remember the purple guy tobinjim: more like one of my daughter's games...under 6 soccer all enthusiasm and no coordination Quote
tanassi Posted July 6, 2004 Posted July 6, 2004 Hi john, nice sketches, some years ago I drawn similar characters for a kids cartoon and i call them mr. & mrs. Pills. bye... Vince Quote
pdaley Posted July 6, 2004 Posted July 6, 2004 Hi John, Can I see a closeup of the wireframe around the eyes? I've been wanting to do some cartoony eyed characters, but haven't been happy with any of my eyelid attempts... Quote
OzTiff Posted July 8, 2004 Posted July 8, 2004 I bought Skycast a couple of months ago and haven't really had much of a play with it so at the post from Jon I thought I'd see if I reproduce the look for the Kapsules following John's settings. I'm sure I could tweak it further but not bad for a very short play. Quote
OzTiff Posted July 8, 2004 Posted July 8, 2004 Cool characters and very nice product by the way too John. I look forward to a growing number of models being available on your site! Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 8, 2004 Author Posted July 8, 2004 almost alive . I've added the Setup Machine Rig and used weighted CP's instead of fan bones to smooth out the joints. Nice feature Hash Tip: for easy point weighting start a new action and put your character into an extreme pose. Open a model window and adjust the CP weighting. if you click in you model window and hit "Spacebar" to update you can instantly see if your cp weighting figures are working. Paul:I hope the eye wireframe isn't a disappointment. I'm just using a sphere for the eye, a smaller sphere for the eyeball and two hemispheres for eyelids. OzTiff: Funky Character. There'll be more models available soon, I need time to organise them and a little more webspace. Quote
Iham Wrong Posted July 8, 2004 Posted July 8, 2004 Hehe! Bat Capsula. Everything is looking really spiffy. I too love simple characters and these gems look like they are going to be just too much fun. I would include some special charactures such as Albert Einstein, Richard Nixon, Omar Kadafi, Fedel Castro, The Marx brothers and the Three Stooges. Gosh! There are so many possibilities. Frankencapstein, The Warecap, The Swamp-cap-Thing. Even Mr. Potato-cap. Then there are also NASA's notable characters to play a role in the the space capsule. So many possibilities can make your head spin! Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 12, 2004 Author Posted July 12, 2004 Playing...too busy to get much done at this point ) Quote
pdaley Posted July 12, 2004 Posted July 12, 2004 I see. That's what I've been doing, but for some reason I can't find the 'sweet spot' to place the bone's pivot so that they can go any direction and not let the whites of his eyes peep out. Quote
Admin Rodney Posted July 12, 2004 Admin Posted July 12, 2004 Awesome John! Looking better and better every day. They look like they are a blast to animate too! Quote
KenH Posted July 12, 2004 Posted July 12, 2004 I've added the Setup Machine Rig and used weighted CP's instead of fan bones to smooth out the joints. Nice feature Hash Does just weighting do it? No intermediate bones? Do you use the fall-off capsules? Doesn't the joint shrink if turned too much? Can you give an idea of the weighting values you use in a joint? Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 13, 2004 Author Posted July 13, 2004 A bit of background fun....The characters are so simple I thought I'd try a matching style. Paul: I just use the eye's centre as the central point,The eyelids are larger so the eyes never pop out. Not sure if I understood your explanation though Ken: I've just hand weighted points, I started with capsules but couldn't get the effect I was lookin for. I started with 50 50 weighting on the splines I would normally have used a fan bone on, and then modified that to smooth the surface. in some cases I used 80 20 weighting on the splines before and after to smooth in Quote
pdaley Posted July 13, 2004 Posted July 13, 2004 I must be just sloppy when it comes to placing my bones and spheres is all. Thanks, John. Quote
Atomike Posted July 13, 2004 Posted July 13, 2004 There's been much discussion about the eyes, but I've been trying to do a mouth with the flexibility your pills exhibit. I don't suppose you could capture a close-up of your mouth CPs sometime? I'd like to see how you avoid the awkward patches I've been forced to use. Thanks Quote
ZachBG Posted July 13, 2004 Posted July 13, 2004 Damn, but that's nice stuff. I'm curious about the edges of your characters in the last render you posted. It looks like they're ever-so-subtly back-lit and have a translucency to their edges that really helps them look like clay rather than plastic. It's wonderful--was it achieved with materials, lighting, or both? Making me wish, again, that SkyCast was available for the Mac (with all due respect for my friend Godfrey's rig...) Zach Quote
Admin Rodney Posted July 13, 2004 Admin Posted July 13, 2004 Wow John! Market those guys so I can watch the series!!! You've got some simple stuff going on there (spheres, spheres, and more spheres) but it's perfect. These are *your* characters right? I hope so because there is some awesome potential there. The children's books alone I wanna collect! Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 14, 2004 Author Posted July 14, 2004 Answers Atommike:your wish is my command The six relationship shapes I use for the mouth and a screen shot of the wide neutral and narrow mouths. Zach: A key and a fill provide very basic lighting. I used a simple edge gradient material( the outer attribute with the ambience cranked up to 40 and a lighter colour) and I used a post effect with custom bloom and filmgrain settings. Rod: Mine..all mine Quote
Atomike Posted July 14, 2004 Posted July 14, 2004 Thank you so much, John! Very, very good stuff. Quote
CRToonMike Posted July 15, 2004 Posted July 15, 2004 Great Characters, John! As mentioned, they are getting personalities and the look of the enviroment is really charming. I really like the material for them and the renders you've posted. Thanks for sharing them, they have inspired me to revamp some toons I've been drawing for most of my life. What I kinda find interesting is the number of artists who doodle these Grylii characters (Grylii is the name for a image where the head and body are either "melded" or one and the same... like the M&M characters, etc). It must be one of those archetype thingies. now if only there was a version of skycast for the mac... Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 20, 2004 Author Posted July 20, 2004 CRToonMike: was Grylli an artist or is it just a very obscure term? The first of my Kapsule characters. Some of the splines aren't correctly setup yet. This render I switched to Skycast lighting and I added some extra detail to my "soft plastic" material. Quote
CRToonMike Posted July 21, 2004 Posted July 21, 2004 Hey John: According to Webster's 3rd international dictionary: Grylli: a comic representation of animals or of animal and human forms in Greco-Roman glyptic art esp. in intaglios. According to John Adkins Richardson, in his Complete Book of Cartooning, pg. 41, "...[this figure] is nothing but a bodiless head with legs and arms sprouting directly from the chin and cheeks. Such figures are of very ancient origin and even have a name. They are grylli (gryllos for singular) and while there are more complicated and monstrous varieties passing under the same rubric, this version [refers to an illustration] is the most typical. During the 1960s underground cartoonist Rich Griffin invented a particularly disquieting version of the gryllos, a dsembodied eyeball on legs..." So it refers to a type of cartoon figure, imho. And the fact that they seem to be so common-place (the idea of a head with legs sprouting from the chin and arms from the ear/cheeks) I think that there may be some kinda archtypical influence at work... Oh, and I really like the orc-Kapsules. Keep up the fun stuff! Quote
Admin Rodney Posted July 21, 2004 Admin Posted July 21, 2004 More great stuff John! As if you didn't have enough time as it is... looks like you'll have to adapt the Lord of the Rings trilogy , Spiderman, Star Wars and any number of popular icons into your Kapsule world. Too much fun! Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 21, 2004 Author Posted July 21, 2004 Iham Wrong: Close but no cigar Here's a hint "FeeFiFoFum". They make pretty good orcs though, don't they. CRToonMike: Thanks, I checked my Websters...but it's the concise edition and Grylli didn't make the cut...plus I guess they're becoming less Grylli-like anyway Rodney: Doc Oc was really tempting... but here's Jack. Critiscisms always welcome. Quote
shaunf Posted July 21, 2004 Posted July 21, 2004 I love them John! They're oozing character. You've gotta animate them. I want to see them do stuff! Quote
ZachBG Posted July 21, 2004 Posted July 21, 2004 What I love is that (at least in these renders) they don't look CGI. They look like clay figures, and that's awesome. Quote
nerrazzi Posted July 21, 2004 Posted July 21, 2004 Wow! kind of has a "monsters inc" feel to it... i love the lighting, great work! Quote
Moonshine Posted July 21, 2004 Posted July 21, 2004 Could you divulge how you created the "soft plastic" material? Maybe? Please? Quote
CRToonMike Posted July 21, 2004 Posted July 21, 2004 Heck, John, whateveryacallem, they are really neat and like Shaunf said, they ooze character. And the fact that they look so "un3d" (i.e. not possesing that too-sharp-shiny appearance) really shows what one can do with his/her abilities with a faboo soft like A:M. thanks for sharing the developement of these great characters and world that you're creating! Quote
Flog Posted July 21, 2004 Posted July 21, 2004 I think you have something here in way of marketable You want to make money? I think you have a way to do it with these characters. First I think you should copyright them. Then select a few from the forum to make an animated webisode using them, post it at AM films, then sale tshirst and stuff Here is an example of what you can do but in 3d!!! http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/ Quote
Flog Posted July 21, 2004 Posted July 21, 2004 I think you have something here in way of marketable You want to make money? I think you have a way to do it with these characters. First I think you should copyright them. Then select a few from the forum to make an animated webisode using them, post it at AM films, then sale tshirst and stuff Here is an example of what you can do but in 3d!!! http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/ Quote
Dagooos Posted July 22, 2004 Posted July 22, 2004 Those are some great characters and the set very complimentary to them. nice work Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 22, 2004 Author Posted July 22, 2004 Here's the latest Kapsule. the giantess in progress, and beside her is an image of the prj you can download below. Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 22, 2004 Author Posted July 22, 2004 As promised here are the bg objects, materials, the lighting, and the post fx I used for the above images edit (I forgot to add that render settings are multipass on 16 passes, with Motion blur set to 100% and DOF on, if your browser starts to open the file try right clicking on it and selecting "save as") BG_Materials.prj Quote
Admin Rodney Posted July 22, 2004 Admin Posted July 22, 2004 Wow! Thanks John! Gonna check them out now. Quote
Moonshine Posted July 22, 2004 Posted July 22, 2004 Hey, I'm trying to download the sample project but all I get is a browser window with text in it. What am I doing wrong? I guess I don't know how to use this internet thing... Quote
JohnArtbox Posted July 22, 2004 Author Posted July 22, 2004 since master files are text files your browser is opening it as such. try right clicking and saving as, if you still have trouble let me know and I'll zip it. I forgot to add that render settings are multipass on 16 passes, with Motion blur set to 100% and DOF on Quote
Moonshine Posted July 22, 2004 Posted July 22, 2004 Okay, that worked. Thanks for sharing your work. It's really amazing stuff. Quote
mtpeak2 Posted July 22, 2004 Posted July 22, 2004 Thanks John. I love the bump material. I added it to the trees and cloud and bumped up the percentage a little, looked cool. Thanks again. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.