Temple 3D Animation test

[wildstorm]

Here is a small 3d animation test inside a temple. It has a few druids walking. I was basically trying to see what I can do in 3D animation and stuff.

http://www.wsfilms.net/templetest.wmv

Its 21 seconds long and its 2.01 MB

[theChad]

That was pretty awseome, really good texture mapping! The druids walk cycle was a little off though. For some reason they reminded me of those ghosts from Pac Man.

What software did you use?

[wildstorm]

For some reason they reminded me of those ghosts from Pac Man.

What software did you use?

The pac man reference made me laugh so hard lol

I used 3D Studio Max 8 to create the temple interior and I imported Poser 6 characters into max to use them as statues.

[Firestorm]

Really, in my opinion, that was all-around excellent.

[jackbauer24]

that was awesome. how long did it take you to make?

[wildstorm]

that was awesome. how long did it take you to make?

Creating the temple took about 3 days to do because of the particle system I used to create the fire for the torches. I downloaded the druid model from the Scifi 3D website. The model was actually a handmaiden dressed in a cloak. I then used a biped in 3DS Max and linked the the druid character to the biped which already had footstep animations applied to it and then just animated the camera. Rendering though was a different story. Instead of rendering to an AVI file I wanted to render the sequence in image formats and then use a program to comp all of the images together. Rendering took about 7 hrs for 22 seconds of footage because of the amount of particles effects I had in the scene. I'm seriously thinking of getting a suped up Alienware workstation computer specifically for this kind of work.

[aaronv2]

Let me get this straight...

*you downloaded the druid model & applied an Skeleton that was preanimated.

*You took models from poser

*You used the same preset on most of the brickwork and floor etc.

To me this doesnt sound like an awesome job at all...

Ok Hint one instead of using particle effects for fire which take ages to render and dont look real at all (your fire is tilting which defies logic science) use actual fire footage mapped on a plane and you will knock 80% off your render times.

Hint two in regards to lighting... Since there was no visible volumetrics to add depth and atmosphere i would suggest learning to light dramatically.
The falloff for the fire's lighting is too short to be able to light the scene like that. granted there are more on the walls but if you did a radiosity bake of your lighting you would see what i was talking about instead of the lights your using now.

Hint three your camera movment is unbelievably jumpy. Learn to use parented objects in conjunction with camera moves to smooth it out totally.


To me the ONLY thing that looked convincing were the actual thingies walking through the scene. but having said that there is no cloth simulation etc

It basically looked like one of those crappy dolby introductions before you get to the movie on a dvd.

P.S how easy do you find max is to use?

[ctbullet]

pft, i liked it, good animation, i could never do it, i did notice the fire tilting though, maybe its something you could work on, keep them coming

[wildstorm]

Thank you for the tips aaronv2. I find 3DS Max somewhat hard to use. I got a long way to go in learning this software. I bought me some training DVDs to expand my knowledge of the software, I got a DVD on creating dynamic simulations, a Character Studio 4 Training DVD, advanced film effects with pflow, and vehicle rigging with 3DS Max. To create the fire, I followed Alan McKay's video tutorial on using pflow. Is there something wrong with using Poser characters?? I attached the camera to a spline in order to do the camera movement. I agree that its jumpy. Thank you for the idea of mapping fire footage on a plane. And....

"To me this doesnt sound like an awesome job at all... "

Thank you for your vote of confidence

[aaronv2]

i say that because you have so much pre made stuff in it thats frowned upon in my opinion

[wildstorm]

i say that because you have so much pre made stuff in it thats frowned upon in my opinion

No comment

[Epsilon]

My only complaint is the camera movement should be worked a bit more fluidly.

[jcdenton]

not bad at all. shadows need much more contrast, scene maybe less saturation unless you want to have a cartoon look.

[Zac]

i thought that was good, the thing i didnt like was how the druids walked, just stretching up and down.

[cantoloupe]

i thought it was pretty good, but yea the camera was jumpy and had some akward angles when flying over the top

[FabianJansen]

i say that because you have so much pre made stuff in it thats frowned upon in my opinion

Evil evil man

[aaronv2]

actually if someone stole my work and used it as their own i would think of them as the evil, evil man but whatever im not here to tell you what is right and what isnt just a suggestion. maybe start getting used to the idea that you need to make your own models and textures...

[FabianJansen]

actually if someone stole my work and used it as their own i would think of them as the evil, evil man but whatever im not here to tell you what is right and what isnt just a suggestion. maybe start getting used to the idea that you need to make your own models and textures...

Which is exactly what i do :3

[NPMAX]

Thats a pretty good job, I can barely do 3-D titles. if you are interested drop me a pm, I can put you in touch with a few people looking for that kind of thing to use in films that get distributed.

[wildstorm]

Thanks for the offer but I'm not that good yet I'm actually teaching myself the ways of modeling 3D Characters so I'm very much still a beginner. The temple set will more than likely be redesigned. I'm getting a training DVD on modeling different game environments, not the low quality kind but the higher quality environments because eventually I'll be doing my first short film animation...... well hopefully I'll be able to do the project this century lol.

[aaronv2]

Im damn good at it. But noone likes to help me out... you know cause everyone thinks im evil.

[wildstorm]

Post some of your work on www.cgtalk.com You may get some offers from there.

[NPMAX]

Im damn good at it. But noone likes to help me out... you know cause everyone thinks im evil.

You maybe damn good at alot of s*** but you attitude sucks balls, I'm evil but you just have a shitty attitude.

[Epsilon]

Success in this industry relies totally on who you know and what impressions you make personally. What skills you may know are irrelevant if your demeanor is a negative one.

[windog]

what? we have a college boy with us !