New Crew

[adamP]

I've been working on these for a LONG time and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, but they're still about 99% complete. Any comments are welcome (just don't hurt my feelings )

[Dearmad]

Do you have an overall "look" to your design for your project?

 

I'm not familiar with your stuff- is there another thread?

[adamP]

Do you have an overall "look" to your design for your project?

 

I'm not familiar with your stuff- is there another thread?

 

I just want a cartoony look

 

This is my first post for WIP

 

Here's one of the other guys

[PlJack]

I love the second one.

They both look very smooth.

 

What does the "L" stand for.

[Sacman]

I agree. Great look, especially the robot in the second pic. Can't wait to see more.

 

Wade

[adamP]

What does the "L" stand for.

 

it's actually "OL" and it stands for OrangeWorld Legion. OrangeWorld is something a friend and I came up with and these characters are members of the planet's army, the "OL" is like their badge. The green guy is like the captain of the crew and the robot is basically the muscle of the crew.

 

I should have a pic of their spaceship and another crew member posted soon.

[adamP]

Here's the link for a little animation I did with the green guy:

http://amfilms.hash.com/search/Entry.php?entry=837

 

it was the first animation I did with him after finishing his walk cycle.

[MATrickz]

Very nice characters and I love the animation! Keep us updated!

[dborruso]

Hey Adam.

 

I like these characters. A lot of personality. I especially like the robot model.

 

I don't really have any suggestions, I just think you did a really good job with them.

 

I look forward to seeing more animations. I feel bad for that little guy and his jetpack but I laughed anyway.

 

What rig are you using? and what version A:M? just curious.

 

Take Care

[adamP]

What rig are you using?

I basically created my own simple rig based off of the one Jeff Lew used for his dvd. I downloaded the free models and studied the heck out of their rigs because I really liked them on the dvd. Then, following the same basic hierarchy, I began to rig the green alien adding some subtle differences to the rig. Now I have the rig saved as a separate model and it's what I always use. Here's the link for the free models

in case anyone doesn't know already:

 

http://jefflew.com/DVD_support.html

 

and what version A:M?

 

I'm still using "good ol" v9.5

[modernhorse]

Very funny and well done animation. More !

 

 

Doug

[adamP]

Here's a pic of the crew's ship. This is more of a WIP than the characters are.

[adamP]

These are just some various face poses with the green guy. Next on my to do list is a lipsynch test with him.

[JohnArtbox]

Nice expressions and characters Orangemaster

[Atomike]

I love your expressions!!! I've always had trouble getting my mouths to look right - the 5 point patches and such around mouths always end up looking bumpy and deformed. But the mouth on "greenie" there looks great - very smooth. Good stuff.

[adamP]

Wow, I didn't think I'd get so much positive feedback. I was really hesitant to post these characters on the forum.

 

Thanks a lot guys!

[Rodney]

Very nice Adam

You've really got a winner there!

 

The style that you are working in is a favorite of mine.

Not too much CG and not too much 'claymation' look.

 

Just right

 

Keep it up!

[adamP]

This is the third crew member. He is actually the first character I ever created. But he got thrown aside when the ideas for the other two came about. I decided to finish him and give him a uniform similar to the green guy's, but I still never made a mouth for him.

 

btw, he has a slight napoleon complex, so don't laugh at him.

[adamP]

Here's a pic of the crew together so you get an idea of their respective sizes. I don't have any ideas for another crew member right now, but I've been thinking of keeping it a trio anyways.

[CRToonMike]

Great characters. I really like how different each are from the other. It'll be very interesting when you have an enviroment to drop them into. If the crew's ship is any indication, it should be fun.

 

The expressions of the green guy are very nice, should be able to get some good acting from the character.

 

I like the colors of the uniforms, could lend itself to some pretty neat visuals. Such as in a dark, very dark place, you could use the 'typical' eyeball white (like in comics and 2d 'toons) and add the white of the uniforms to this fx and have a totally black scene with only the whites of the eye(s) and the white of the uniform visible. This could be a good back-ground info, as the whites of the uniforms would make it easier to pick out the crew in the blackness of space if an accident happens.

 

Too bad the acronymn (or OrangeWorld Legion) for the crew is "OL" instead of "OWL" -- that could add a bit of word-play and visuals that OL just doesn't have for moi. IMHO, having a symbol for them makes it seem a bit 'super-hero-ish." Some kind of graphic logo would serve the job better. Or if you look at military dress uniforms, the actual branches of the services distinquish themselves apart by the overall look of the whole uniform. If done right, you can have a look for the uniforms and give some visual indicators of the crew's status (rank) and job by tweaking the uniforms a titch. I feel that little things like this may not be overtly noticed by viewers, but add to a sense of 'realism' when the overall scene/series is taken as a whole. And you could take the visual look of the uniforms and extend it to the way the ships/interiors and such look. This could be really good if there's some kinda dog fight in space.

 

Good luck with this project, I'll be looking forward to seeing how it develops.

[adamP]

Too bad the acronymn (or OrangeWorld Legion) for the crew is "OL" instead of "OWL"

I tried a logo with OWL and OW but just didn't like it as much as OL.

 

Or if you look at military dress uniforms, the actual branches of the services distinquish themselves apart by the overall look of the whole uniform. If done right, you can have a look for the uniforms and give some visual indicators of the crew's status (rank) and job by tweaking the uniforms a titch.

 

If you'll notice the cuffs and boots on the little guy and the green guy, they are different colors. That's because the green guy is the captain and the little guy is lower in rank. I wanted to show rank by the color of the boots and cuffs, kind of like how star trek shows rank by different colored shirts, instead of having completely different uniforms. I have been thinking about maybe making what's dark blue on the little guy a dark green. That way his uniform is all white and green, and the other guy's is white and blue.

 

Thanks for the suggestions

[starwarsguy]

GREAT JOB with this stuff! Love the characters. I've been using Animation:Master for awhile and this is some of my favorite stuff that I've seen.

[starwarsguy]

I'm pretty experienced with A:M but I still wonder one thing. How do you get those curves (like in the spaceship) to merge so smoothly? Do you do all the patches by hand?

 

And how do you get all those strange shapes that you could make using extrude or lathe. I know this sounds newbish but I still haven't figured that out... I want to make better models and I can't until I know this. I'm limited to using circles and squares right now...

 

Oh, one more thing... On the robot, how did you apply those blue decals (for the lines and the logo) so smoothly?

 

If I need to know all of this i guess I am a newb lol. I've had the program for 2 years though...

[CRToonMike]

If you'll notice the cuffs and boots on the little guy and the green guy, they are different colors.  That's because the green guy is the captain and the little guy is lower in rank.  I wanted to show rank by the color of the boots and cuffs, kind of like how star trek shows rank by different colored shirts, instead of having completely different uniforms.  I have been thinking about maybe making what's dark blue on the little guy a dark green.  That way his uniform is all white and green, and the other guy's is white and blue.

 

Thanks for the suggestions 

 

Oh, I see it now. It's like how officer rank goes in the Air Force: gold bar: luientant, silver bar: first louie, two silverbars: captian, gold maple leaf: major, silver maple leaf: lt. Colonel, silver eagle: Colonel, stars: general... and so on...

 

Think you have a good solution to this in the way you're doing it. I would only up the contrast between the ranking colors. But that's a quibble.

 

Now get off this forum and get to work mister

 

I wanna see more!

[adamP]

How do you get those curves (like in the spaceship) to merge so smoothly? Do you do all the patches by hand?

I basically just started in the back and lathed all the way to the front, with some tweaking here and there. It's as simple as that really.

 

And how do you get all those strange shapes that you could make using extrude or lathe.

 

You'd be surprised at how much lathing I did with all of the models.

 

On the robot, how did you apply those blue decals (for the lines and the logo) so smoothly?

 

The logo is the only thing that's a decal. The blue lines are just cp groups. I basically modeled the cps so that I got the lines the way I wanted them.

[adamP]

First attempt at a walk cycle:

 

uuhhhhh, ok, nevermind, the link to the clip isn't working, so:

 

First attempt at a walk cycle:

 

--Coming Soon--

 

--I Promise--

[Sacman]

With regards to your 3rd character with the big eye and napolean complex. You mentioned that you never made a mouth for him.

 

I would suggest that you just never take his helmet off. You can have him talk with no mouth and probably get away with it. If you slightly muffled the dialog or even gave it a radio chatter sound you could get away with it. The eye blink would be the limit of facial expressions but you could use a creative use of hands and body motion to convey emotions.

 

Just a thought. I think this would be a great solution.

 

Love them all,

 

Wade

 

By the way, I am assuming that the blue head thing is a helmet. If not then ignore these remarks.

[adamP]

By the way, I am assuming that the blue head thing is a helmet. If not then ignore these remarks. 

 

I've never had anyone think that his head was a helmet. But you may have convinced me to model a helmet over his current head because I like your idea. Before I was just gonna have him grunt and stuff like that.

 

 

 

btw, I don't currently have a website and I don't currently want one, but I need a free place to upload my videos so I can post a link to them here. Anyone know of a good, free site I can use?

[adamP]

First attempt at a walk cycle:

 

Click this

 

then click on walk test

[adamP]

Okay, the above link isn't working right so try this one.

 

click this

then click on walk test

[adamP]

I've been losing a lot of sleep lately trying to find a place on the web that can host a video without having to sign up for anything, and I still haven't found such a place. So I played around with the resolution of the walk cycle and got it under 1mb.

 

Comments Please

walk_test.mov

[adamP]

I'm going to start making the lipsync poses, but first:

How is this wireframe?

Are there too many splines?

Not enough splines?

[starwarsguy]

i think it looks grt! i love your characters by the way... very unique and cool design. the expressions are grt