my first 3d animation!

[_tom_]

^That is AWESOME. I feel so pointless after seeing that haha, its so much better than anything I've made so far :(

What renderer was used, and what exactly was After Effects used for? I'm thinking about giving that a go, they only teach that on the video production module of our course (which I'm not doing) but I feel like I'm missing out by not doing that.

[noodleplugerine]

^That is AWESOME. I feel so pointless after seeing that haha, its so much better than anything I've made so far :(

What renderer was used, and what exactly was After Effects used for? I'm thinking about giving that a go, they only teach that on the video production module of our course (which I'm not doing) but I feel like I'm missing out by not doing that.

Bare in mind he'd done quite alot of still modelling and rendering etc by the point he did that.

Knowing him the renderer was V-Ray, and I imagine most of what he used after effects for was filters, blurs etc, just to get it more polished.

After Effects is an absolutely awesome program, really good for post production, especially if you don't want to dive into things like combustion.

[hunter]

Very good for a first!

I've done a bit of it myself back in the late 90s (using Poser) and I know it's a LOT of work.

Did you use presets for certain movements or did you do it all from scratch?

[_tom_]

Cheers noodle. I've beem trying to get vray to work but cant seem to get a working "free" version :P The results look great though. Adam M recommended I try the free educational version of Brazil r/s but I cant get that to work, max doesnt recognise it in the assign renderer rollout.

Hunter, all the walking was done using footsteps as thats all that we were required to use. I know it doesnt look as good and isnt as flexible as making your own freeform walk cycles but we didnt want to waste time doing something that didnt need to be done. The rest was all done from scratch. Took ages to get things like the bunny ears pinging but I'm quite pleased with that, and the shocked movements on the magician like when he realises he hasnt pulled out the rabbit and when the music gets pulled :)

[Andrew W]

I imagine most of what he used after effects for was filters, blurs etc, just to get it more polished.

After Effects is an absolutely awesome program, really good for post production, especially if you don't want to dive into things like combustion.

If you're using a Mac then Shake only costs about £300 and is the compositing application of choice for visual effects both film and commercials.  For compositing, rather than say motion graphics deisgn, Shake would always be my weapon of choice for 2D work.

[Adam.M]

God i wish i'd never stopped doing 3D stuff. And game development... agh!

Spending all night up messing around in max without even realising it... those were the days.

[noodleplugerine]

I imagine most of what he used after effects for was filters, blurs etc, just to get it more polished.

After Effects is an absolutely awesome program, really good for post production, especially if you don't want to dive into things like combustion.

If you're using a Mac then Shake only costs about £300 and is the compositing application of choice for visual effects both film and commercials.  For compositing, rather than say motion graphics deisgn, Shake would always be my weapon of choice for 2D work.

I've heard great things about shake, but I use a PC so it'll never happen :/

[Adam.M]

All this 3D talk made me get max out again this morning




I can't for the life of me remember how to model properly, so most of that is just simple primitives modified and deformed.

When i do remember how to model properly, i'll redo his feet, they're cr@p, haha!

funfunfun

[_tom_]

haha that looks great. I'm useless at this program in comparison to what else has been posted here haha

[Adam.M]

Robo bob is doing the spok eyebrow thing at you tom!



Or... trying to.

You've managed to actually get something finished, which is more than I've ever done and that's a massive achievement. It's inspired me somewhat to make an animation again.

I'd say concentrate on whichever aspect you loved the most, be it the modelling or the animation and concentrate on one over the other. I'm definitely a rubbish modeller so once i learn how to rig properly i'll be concentrating on animation and using cell shading style rendering so i don't have to bother with UV maps for the majority of stuff :D heheh

[_tom_]

I hate UVW unwrap/mapping. I cant get my head around it properly. I can do it well enough for stuff at this level but its far from great, there are bits at the seams which look cr@p. We hid most of them for it ut theres still a bit at the top of his head where it goes pink for some reason. Rigging with biped isnt too bad. This book is pretty useful for biped rigging and animation - http://www.amazon.co.uk/3ds-Animation-Biped-Michele-Bousquet/dp/0321375726/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239123984&sr=8-1

I think I'm going to concentrate more on the animation side of things than modelling, materials and rendering. I enjoyed that the most.

[Andrew W]

I think I'm going to concentrate more on the animation side of things than modelling, materials and rendering. I enjoyed that the most.

It's good to specialise but if you improve your modelling and rigging skills as well you'll be much more employable than if you only animate. That's my two cents of advice anyway but then I'm so old that when I started out we all did everything. Not so much the case these days but specialisation can go too far.

No-one likes doing UV layout by the way.  Each vertex that you move sucks a little more of your soul. *shudders*