@Blackheart - It's hard to give a tip for maya, I'm working with max..
In 3dsmax 64 samples for ao map its ok for a nice render, with min1/max4 samples per pixel in mental ray configuration (for a little better samplig try min4/max16). I suppose it's similiar in maya with mental ray config. You have lowres meshes, so you don't need high sampling values.
pretty badass. it would be coll if you did some editing and camera tricks similar as in the movie 300. where there is some slowmo then speed up, zoom in... Im sure you know what i mean, but here's a vid just in case.
Ok, I am unsure about this. Am I allowed to color the polycount logo Green? I know I can have any lighting solution I want but what about shader colors?
Also If you have any ideas for a set/place these two could be fighting in, That would be great. I could also help me come up with an idea of my own from your suggestion.
Here is how far along I am in my Animation so Far. Critique away...
I'm not personally into animation but you guys are cracking out some awesome looking stuff
Keep up all the hard work guys.
Out of curiosity Blackheart, how long have you been animating for? and i mean in a scale of your life opposed to for this competition :P
Ive been playing with toys since I was 6, so I think I started animating back then but professionally animating for around 5 years now, didn't really want to start in animating but that's where my company put me so I've been there ever since
Sorry guys my nets busted at home so I can't even see vids, replyn from my phone.
I made a sexy ao with motion blur and it made the whole scenE feel better to me, plus I've added armor to skinny dude. Check under my YouTube vids to see the armor upd if ur curious. I'm to disabled right now with phones lol
Alright... it's about time I post something, however reluctantly...
It's still super crazy rough, little more than a block-in (and not even fully finished at that :P). I'm just trying to decide if I want to continue and finish this or not.
Feedback on if people like where this is going would be great, what is/isn't working, etc, then I'll see if I can get it where I want it by the deadline :P
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhh9MqOzA84[/ame]
Thanks for looking!
Blackheart - Really liking what you have going there! Fun, dynamic camera angles too!
Zadrel - Looks good! You'll have to re-read the rules over carefully, cause they might or might not be ok with the green glowing effect. Would be cool if you could keep it, though
@Mezz : I am quite sure I can use all the lights I want because of this line in the rules:
"All lighting solutions and rendering solutions from any software package is allowed."
And If I cant use color for the staff because of this line:
"No textures or coloring allowed. Entire Mesh should be a single color."
then I can just put a light on either side of it, parent it and make them only shine on that object.
Also, for you animation block out, The DEFENDING character has to end up dead on the floor or off the screen. I don't see a clear winner in you block and the attacker right now seems to lose. Good luck.
Well you have clearly taken to it well man we are gearing up for an animation module at uni, kinda nice to know how long people have been doing it so when i totally screw it up i can remind myself i havent had "x" amount of years at it :P
But yeah hopefully your net will be back soon and we can see more
Like what you have man, the idea of him just coming at your from anywhere is nice.
Only issue currently is the staff at the end, it's out of the characters hand for about 2 seconds, but does actually hit the floor until both characters are out of shot? But yeah apart from that liking it alot.
@Elith2 : Thanks for the comment about the staff. I think you will like this better.
I know this animation is too long and I will cut it down for the comp, but I also want to use this for my demo reel and I think I needed the extra second on the end to sell the animation. I did a quick render so you can see what the lighting would look like.
@Barnev anims looking great. love the feel of the demon chasing the big dude about, one thing that stands out to me though is how quickly the ball and chain stop after the throw, even when it wraps around the guy i was expecting to see the heavy balls momentum dragging him back for a bit.
@Zadriel
Looks sweet man, love the staff roll in the end, its a great touch, but its gonna be abit hard to keep with while reducing the anim. For some reason his attacks still look abit weak to me, i think the step in with each attack is distracting me, i love how he drags her down, and nice camera work too.
Nets still down at home, I'm pretty much ready to render out my scene and submit. just waiting on the mods to confirm if its ok to actually use colored base mesh, with different grey colored armor.
or i might just do the whole thing as a high quality ao render, without the need for color so you can still see everything.
here's the latest upd with the armor. its draft quality render, hopefully it will look better when i start finalizing.
@Blackheart : I hope we are allowed to put some color in, that being said I only used lights, no shaders, to color my staff object. i am also going to render out an AO just in case. Thanks for the critique, i agree with you but its hard to know what to change. I have re worked it a bit because of you comment. you animation is still looking great, I don't know what else to say...
A few things that might spice it up a bit.
-Instead of having her just flick him off maybe you could incorporate a spin. Put some real power into that instead of treating him like a fly.
-Instead of having him fly backwards think about having her drive him into the ground (sort of a revenge for what he did to her).
I suppose my first introduction to the forum could have been better than a later than I'd like blocking video, but hey. Let's see if I can catch up a bit before Sunday night.
Timing in the steps is largely too slow, so I'm still playing with the spacing. Haven't thought about cameras too much. Youtube is also saying that it's 7 seconds, but I'm not sure why - seems to skip the number 6.
at blackheart, i was about to suggest a camera shake on each hit if possible seeing that isn't any sound. smaller ones earlier in the sequence...not sure what the rules are either
not sure how it would come together...just an idea
Ok, no more changes... just tweaks from here. Tomorrow I'll figure out camera angles and rendering. Did we ever get an answer on motion blur?
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8FDxz7wyhc[/ame]
I do have an ik/fk switch in the rig, but i hate using it honestly, its just quicker and easier for me doing it all IK,
on the arms, its just a hand controller. and finger pose controller conected to the hand controller, with all separate finger attributes on the pose controller. and using a pole vector for the elbow. i cant live without pole vectors i dont know how people love rigs without them like motion builder stuff.
@doublemint
i know mate, but i dont wanna risk getting disqualified... even though i shamelessly spent 24 hours rendering my ao motion blur lol
@Dn2
thats the first thing i tried.:) i wasn't to happy with the result though, it seriously was so distracting cause theres so many hits and in the end the movements hard to follow enough with out the shakes in there, as he climbs above the demon.
@doublemint
yeah i asked Emil if its counted as a special effect, he said it was, and all special effects are not allowed in the rules. so probably just skip it aswell.
fyi loving the new smash down before the dude gets thrown away.!
1. More threatening walk for my War General (number 3, big fella). As it is he's a bit too casual, and I need to get him to stomp the ground a little more without it being an actual "stomp".
2. Punch a bit more erratic twitchy fear/aggressiveness into the Corrupted.
3. Add in the Corrupted starting to get up before the final hit.
4. Let the War General's sword hang up a little more, get it to be a little more dramatic.
On another note, anybody know why my Youtube uploads keep saying 7 seconds? Animating at 60fps, it's 360 frames. I'm sure the Youtube vid is playing at 30fps or something, not sure if that's what's screwing it up if it converts it - when you play the vid you can see the timer skips 6 entirely and goes from 5 straight to 7. I just don't want that to be a problem later on.
EDIT: So I guess it's just how it shows up on the main Youtube site? When you watch the embedded vid it snaps from 7 seconds total to 6 seconds.
I guess I'm not done since they extended the deadline. Well, time for one more pass. I'm going to add some secondary animation to the technomage's hair.
Here is my final submission. Hopefully this will be good enough . Unfortunately, I had to take some of the end staff rolling out to fit the time frame.
Wanted to upload that last night, but Youtube was in read-only mode apparently.
Still need to put in the Corrupted struggling to get up at the end, some more tweaking on the wriggling in the air. I'm sure I'll change other stuff over the course of the day. And obviously a background.
Spent a little time playing around with putting it into UDK, but I never set my Maya unit scale to UDKs and I always forget how getting stuff from Maya's cameras into matinee is a pain. So I guess I'll be using mental ray.
@Zadrel Probably my favorite bit is your hit pauses with the weapons, they add a really nice style to the piece. Very cool stuff!
@ Doublemint : Thanks, and I defiantly know what you mean.
@Elith2 : I am not worried at all about the end staff rolling, just a little disappointed because I really liked it myself :poly125:
@HereticJD : The animation is coming along but I don't think the camera move at the end suits it very well at all. ( after the 4 second mark) It would be better with just a still camera or VERY subtle movement. It's up to you though.:)
haha thats a funny one actually, I didn't have a proper video editing programs available before dec 6th. So i rendered that whole scene, including the text box and light in Maya. Its the spotlight reacting to that ground that was parented to the camera, along with the "text box". so when the camera got to close to the ground it lit up the whole thing lol.
good eyes!!!
thats my submission, i made it on the 6th. but i don't think the continue button was working!!!! omg WTF>! nooooooo
EDIT, i figured out what it was, GA website was messed up, i clicked continue over and over and was wondering why it was refreshing my page insntead of moving me to another. I then click on my link to see if it was uploaded the one above, and it worked on the 6th.
i re signed in after my 20th time on the GA site, and finally was able to go to the submit page. and pressed it again this time continue took me to a new screen, then linked me to the link above.!?! dammit GA!
If you are going to use 3dsmax there is Character studio and CAT as animation systems. I found the best solution was to rig a lowpoly character with simple max bones using the skin modifier and FBX export it to motion builder for animation. You can then FBX export the model, rig back to max for rendering.
Hey guys! I am happy my animation made it to the finals. The points in polycount are very close. 4 points separates me from second and another 22 from first.
Congrats to Blackheart and Pavel Barnev for making finals also! So, this being my first comp, what happens now? When do we go up against everyone?
Hey guys! I am happy my animation made it to the finals. The points in polycount are very close. 4 points separates me from second and another 22 from first.
Congrats to Blackheart and Pavel Barnev for making finals also! So, this being my first comp, what happens now? When do we go up against everyone?
This is very exciting...
Being a newbie to actually getting in the finals.
I'm assuming we just ignore the excitement and get ready for the real thing, considering winners will be announcer mid 2011.
damn, I'm still obsessing cause apparently motion-blur is a-ok with the rules even though its a special effect.
Replies
In 3dsmax 64 samples for ao map its ok for a nice render, with min1/max4 samples per pixel in mental ray configuration (for a little better samplig try min4/max16). I suppose it's similiar in maya with mental ray config. You have lowres meshes, so you don't need high sampling values.
Good luck!
Keep up all the hard work guys.
Out of curiosity Blackheart, how long have you been animating for? and i mean in a scale of your life opposed to for this competition :P
[ame]
Also If you have any ideas for a set/place these two could be fighting in, That would be great. I could also help me come up with an idea of my own from your suggestion.
Here is how far along I am in my Animation so Far. Critique away...
[ame]
Ive been playing with toys since I was 6, so I think I started animating back then
Sorry guys my nets busted at home so I can't even see vids, replyn from my phone.
I made a sexy ao with motion blur and it made the whole scenE feel better to me, plus I've added armor to skinny dude. Check under my YouTube vids to see the armor upd if ur curious. I'm to disabled right now with phones lol
It's still super crazy rough, little more than a block-in (and not even fully finished at that :P). I'm just trying to decide if I want to continue and finish this or not.
Feedback on if people like where this is going would be great, what is/isn't working, etc, then I'll see if I can get it where I want it by the deadline :P
[ame]
Thanks for looking!
Blackheart - Really liking what you have going there! Fun, dynamic camera angles too!
Zadrel - Looks good! You'll have to re-read the rules over carefully, cause they might or might not be ok with the green glowing effect. Would be cool if you could keep it, though
Better late then never. So I join to this animation challenge. I'm not an animator and participate just for fun and to get some experience.
There are some pics of my animation's heroes and one frame from 1st second of the animation:
"All lighting solutions and rendering solutions from any software package is allowed."
And If I cant use color for the staff because of this line:
"No textures or coloring allowed. Entire Mesh should be a single color."
then I can just put a light on either side of it, parent it and make them only shine on that object.
Also, for you animation block out, The DEFENDING character has to end up dead on the floor or off the screen. I don't see a clear winner in you block and the attacker right now seems to lose. Good luck.
Well you have clearly taken to it well man
But yeah hopefully your net will be back soon and we can see more
@Zadrel
Like what you have man, the idea of him just coming at your from anywhere is nice.
Only issue currently is the staff at the end, it's out of the characters hand for about 2 seconds, but does actually hit the floor until both characters are out of shot? But yeah apart from that liking it alot.
@Mezz
Keep at it man
Awesome stuff though guys
I know this animation is too long and I will cut it down for the comp, but I also want to use this for my demo reel and I think I needed the extra second on the end to sell the animation. I did a quick render so you can see what the lighting would look like.
I have also animated her hair now.
[ame]
Thats awesome dude, i love that.
But yeah that now makes sense and there are no complaints from me
Yeah well done.
@Zadriel
Looks sweet man, love the staff roll in the end, its a great touch, but its gonna be abit hard to keep with while reducing the anim. For some reason his attacks still look abit weak to me, i think the step in with each attack is distracting me, i love how he drags her down, and nice camera work too.
Nets still down at home, I'm pretty much ready to render out my scene and submit. just waiting on the mods to confirm if its ok to actually use colored base mesh, with different grey colored armor.
or i might just do the whole thing as a high quality ao render, without the need for color so you can still see everything.
here's the latest upd with the armor. its draft quality render, hopefully it will look better when i start finalizing.
[ame]
@Blackheart : I hope we are allowed to put some color in, that being said I only used lights, no shaders, to color my staff object. i am also going to render out an AO just in case. Thanks for the critique, i agree with you but its hard to know what to change. I have re worked it a bit because of you comment. you animation is still looking great, I don't know what else to say...
[ame]
[ame]
I've finally finished with the most of the major animation work. This render doesn't have the camera animation in it as that's still being finished.
[ame]
c&c welcome
A few things that might spice it up a bit.
-Instead of having her just flick him off maybe you could incorporate a spin. Put some real power into that instead of treating him like a fly.
-Instead of having him fly backwards think about having her drive him into the ground (sort of a revenge for what he did to her).
I like your suggestion. That could add a nice last bit of action to the sequence. Lets hope I can get that in before the deadline.
really worried about this one, since premieres acting up at home, and i can only do it on lunch on my break XD
my final.
[ame]
[ame="
Timing in the steps is largely too slow, so I'm still playing with the spacing. Haven't thought about cameras too much. Youtube is also saying that it's 7 seconds, but I'm not sure why - seems to skip the number 6.
thats the final, no motion blurring this time
good luck everyone, thank you for all the critiques and comments.
I hope you all kick ass!
I'm gonna start enjoying my long holiday now XD
I'd like to add motion blur to my sequence. Maybe if everyone ads it, they can't keep us from using it.
or you're all disqualified lol
not sure how it would come together...just an idea
[ame]
I do have an ik/fk switch in the rig, but i hate using it honestly, its just quicker and easier for me doing it all IK,
on the arms, its just a hand controller. and finger pose controller conected to the hand controller, with all separate finger attributes on the pose controller. and using a pole vector for the elbow. i cant live without pole vectors i dont know how people love rigs without them like motion builder stuff.
@doublemint
i know mate, but i dont wanna risk getting disqualified... even though i shamelessly spent 24 hours rendering my ao motion blur lol
@Dn2
thats the first thing i tried.:) i wasn't to happy with the result though, it seriously was so distracting cause theres so many hits and in the end the movements hard to follow enough with out the shakes in there, as he climbs above the demon.
@doublemint
yeah i asked Emil if its counted as a special effect, he said it was, and all special effects are not allowed in the rules. so probably just skip it aswell.
fyi loving the new smash down before the dude gets thrown away.!
Ok, so I finally came and changed the part after the bull gets hit. Think this is my final cause I have some schoolwork I must do.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7179363/bekonDWwip2.mov
[ame]
Good work everyone else!
Some stuff I'm working on:
1. More threatening walk for my War General (number 3, big fella). As it is he's a bit too casual, and I need to get him to stomp the ground a little more without it being an actual "stomp".
2. Punch a bit more erratic twitchy fear/aggressiveness into the Corrupted.
3. Add in the Corrupted starting to get up before the final hit.
4. Let the War General's sword hang up a little more, get it to be a little more dramatic.
On another note, anybody know why my Youtube uploads keep saying 7 seconds? Animating at 60fps, it's 360 frames. I'm sure the Youtube vid is playing at 30fps or something, not sure if that's what's screwing it up if it converts it - when you play the vid you can see the timer skips 6 entirely and goes from 5 straight to 7. I just don't want that to be a problem later on.
EDIT: So I guess it's just how it shows up on the main Youtube site? When you watch the embedded vid it snaps from 7 seconds total to 6 seconds.
Has anyone else taken a look at the other teams?
[ame]
Wanted to upload that last night, but Youtube was in read-only mode apparently.
Still need to put in the Corrupted struggling to get up at the end, some more tweaking on the wriggling in the air. I'm sure I'll change other stuff over the course of the day. And obviously a background.
Spent a little time playing around with putting it into UDK, but I never set my Maya unit scale to UDKs and I always forget how getting stuff from Maya's cameras into matinee is a pain. So I guess I'll be using mental ray.
@Zadrel Probably my favorite bit is your hit pauses with the weapons, they add a really nice style to the piece. Very cool stuff!
@Elith2 : I am not worried at all about the end staff rolling, just a little disappointed because I really liked it myself :poly125:
@HereticJD : The animation is coming along but I don't think the camera move at the end suits it very well at all. ( after the 4 second mark) It would be better with just a still camera or VERY subtle movement. It's up to you though.:)
My submission page.
[ame]
That was a fun challenge. Let's see how the actual dom war animation challenge goes.
haha thats a funny one actually, I didn't have a proper video editing programs available before dec 6th. So i rendered that whole scene, including the text box and light in Maya. Its the spotlight reacting to that ground that was parented to the camera, along with the "text box". so when the camera got to close to the ground it lit up the whole thing lol.
good eyes!!!
did something happen?
thats my submission, i made it on the 6th. but i don't think the continue button was working!!!! omg WTF>! nooooooo
EDIT, i figured out what it was, GA website was messed up, i clicked continue over and over and was wondering why it was refreshing my page insntead of moving me to another. I then click on my link to see if it was uploaded the one above, and it worked on the 6th.
i re signed in after my 20th time on the GA site, and finally was able to go to the submit page. and pressed it again this time continue took me to a new screen, then linked me to the link above.!?! dammit GA!
Good luck guys.
Congrats to Blackheart and Pavel Barnev for making finals also! So, this being my first comp, what happens now? When do we go up against everyone?
This is very exciting...
Being a newbie to actually getting in the finals.
I'm assuming we just ignore the excitement and get ready for the real thing, considering winners will be announcer mid 2011.
damn, I'm still obsessing cause apparently motion-blur is a-ok with the rules even though its a special effect.
I submitted my rushed vid without mo-blur.
[ame]
compared to what i wanted to submit initially.
[ame]