StarCraft corridor for short film

coldwolf

Highres action from the fan-made short film, StarCraft: Chronicles.





Anyone work on cinematics? It's cool if there are poly objects in the scene right? Many objects aren't subd'd. I just don't think it's worth the extra polys when what I have is the exact look I want...

Emil Mujanovic

I don't see why it wouldn't be cool with having them in there. If it has the look you want then it should be fine. Great start by the way. Can you give us a synopsis on the short film or something?

-caseyjones

coldwolf

Thanks. As much as I'd love to put in more details, time says no. Plus the other pieces we're building have a similar level of detail, and I'd like to keep it consistent (meh, whatcanido).

We're making a 30-second trailer first to find out how we work as a team, before we commit to anything serious. The trailer is simply a Terran marine waking up in his room (one of those doors there), walking into that big door which leads to the armory where he suits up, walks out, and looks around the hanger of the ship. Pretty simple and straight-forward. Baby steps

Steve Schulze

"Suiting up" and simple aren't two terms that go happily together when animation is involved. I suppose it depends on how exactly he dons his power armour, but that could potentially be a really difficult thing to get looking decent.

Emil Mujanovic

Yeah, I agree entirely. Unless you have a knowledgeable animator, this will not be an easy task. Do it the Gears of War way. When Dom hands Fenix a duffle bag the camera spins around focuses on Dom, 5 seconds later, Fenix is fully dressed. Mind you Fenix is in the dark the whole time.
The only part I find stupid about the whole scenario is how does his armour fit in the duffle bag!!!!

-caseyjones

coldwolf

When I get a 360 I'm definitely getting Gears. Sounds awesome.

We... well yeah, we've takin' some shortcuts so that the marine basically walks into the armor (slipping into the arms and legs like they're sleeves) and mechanical arms clip the front parts onto him. Not terribly difficult, but if it is then they'll tell us to make it easier

Edit: Forgot to mention that we need some good modelers, animators, and texture artists (soooo everyone) to help out PM if you're interested yes yes?

PfhorRunner

[ QUOTE ]

The only part I find stupid about the whole scenario is how does his armour fit in the duffle bag!!!!

-caseyjones

[/ QUOTE ]

The same way that they get those giant-ass pokemon into those tiny pokeballs!

On topic: I'm thinking this is a good way to get everyone working together. Though, I'm also not much of an artist so I don't think i'd understand that much. To me, this looks really sweet, and I too am curious what exactly is going to come of the "suiting up" bit.

Looks pretty darn spiffy.

Ninjas

Your renders seem to have some pretty serious aliasing issues. Poly objects are fine, but I can't tell if you have put in the edge beveling, which is important.

coldwolf

Thanks PfhorRunner.
Ninjas, it's a viewport grab. I can't get a good render of it with my laptop (it overheats). This is the best I could do I didn't bevel the poly edges--if I did, I might as well subd it too. Why are bevels important?

Sage

Bevels are important because that's how in real life objects get their hightlights. The quality of a bevel tells the viewer if the materials has sharp edges, if it's smooth. If you are doing high poly modeling or any kind of modeling and you want a model to get a highlight in a certain area, to get the model to react properly to light you would have to add a bevel. There are a few cg artists that instead of using spec maps just use geometry to get their models to get the highlights how they want them, because they see the use of spec maps as a hack that doesn't yield realistic results. The premise to their argument is that a highlight in real life is just a reflection and not a round like what spec maps in shaders produce. I don't totally agree with this school of thought but it has it's merits...

Alex

Rhinokey

this is far from what i would expect the quality of a cinimatic to be. this is below what i would expect of cinimatics 10 years ago. i think you really need to spend some more time on this. objects don't need to be subd'd but they do need to look good and detailed, this is low detail for realtime work. keep plugin away and good luck in the project

warby

i think the word "Chronicles" really needs to get banned from movie and game titles.

the corridor is looking good though

coldwolf

Rhinokey: Thank you for being blunt and I completely agree. I'll dig around for some corridor examples and try harder when I get the time!