Icons of Andria/ My first animation!

[Kerro Perro]

Hi guys, i just want to share this with you, any thoughts and crits are welcome!

I will update this post to show the latest progress.

The Project:
After many years of creative water treading and about 2 years of learning 3d animation I’m taking the plunge and committing the next year or more to making an animation. It’s pretty much a lifelong ambition to make either a comic book or an animation in a cool scifi style – this in a way satisfies both.

The spark was lit for me after I saw Damian Nenow’s impressive animation Paths of Hate – a stylized 3d animation that to me was more than just emulating traditional cell-shaded animation, it was a comic book come to life! That to me was seeing the light! I could combine both of my passions in one!

Shortly after that Rodney Sellars suggested I could make an animation to one of the songs of the concept album he’s working on called Icons of Andria. It had a very cool scifi story that instantly appealed to me and I jumped at the chance!

And so the stars aligned and the world trembled in anticipation!

In other words: and so a weird guy got a fire lit in his head that would keep him busy and out of people’s hair for a while ;)

The Plan:

Fase 1: Look Development

Model, texture and shade the two main characters and build a first basic set. Experiment with shading and composition to get a look as close as possible to the art that I love: that of the great Juan Gimenez and Giruad/Moebius (rip) and that of Rodney Sellars – whose images are the basis of this project and who is also the Music Man

End result: A short “teaser” animation showcasing the stylized look and the two main characters interacting.

Fase 2: Storyboard

Pick a song from the concept album to use for the video. Draw up a rough storyboard outlining the storybeats, show it to some creative allies and tweak it till it’s satisfactory.

End result: A storyboard that is semi-final.

Fase 3: Animatic

Make a timed out animatic in Flash that lays out all the shots, animations, camera angles etc.

End result: A final animatic storyboard that will serve as the definitive guide for the animation

Fase 4: Start production

I’m still a bit fuzzy on this one; it still seems such a faraway mountain! I suppose I just start making the shots one by one…

End result: A new plan for making the shots one by one and putting it all together!

[Kerro Perro]

So this is the first test:



At first I had some trouble with getting a painted look to the colors without it flickering/jumping (i ranted about that here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2477)

I decided to put painted textures on the meshes and with some tweaking in comp i got a look that i'm fairly pleased with.

The lighting is non-GI/FG btw, it's just a spot light and bounce light with an AO shader for ambience. I found that (pixar) technique right after i bought Maxwell because i wanted a clean lighting pass. The Maxwell render took me 16 hours for 8 secs. of animation and the "old fashioned cheatey way" took only 2,5 hours. I'll see how far the old fashioned way gets me - i plan to use it as much as possible because i like the control and speed of it!

The thing i really don't like about his test is how the line art behaves: there are a few "broken frames" (frames where the lines are missing on a few areas) and it strobes a bit when rotating the striped areas. There were more problems with it earlier and i managed to fix those by using a weight map to kill or cut down the spread (line presence and thickness) but i was a little to aggresive on some areas. That and the broken frames can be easily fixed - i might have to rethink some of stripes in the design...

But for now i'm going to get back to modelling - her body is next!

[Nizar]

Nice done! Wait for the rest. Rally like the shader

[Kerro Perro]

Thanks! I'm currently making her body.... and also some robots for no good reason ;)

[Letterbox]

Ok you're taking a year. But your trying to learn too many things. Narrow it down. Then follow these rough guidelines to help you make it.

1) Write the story. Look on here, old thread, community project. Note it's structure.

a) showing the characters by doing and then you learn they have a goal.
b) Show the obstacles they have to overcome to reach their goal.
c) The destination and goal either achieved or not.
d) All movies have the same structure, 1st 20 min is a) Next 60min is b) last 20 is c) ......your short should too.

2) Make an fast easy storyboard, not a work of art. Not Flash. Do it with pencil. It's much faster.
3) Make all the models that you need from 2). This gives you 'core modelling practice' Once you've done them once do them again from scratch, only better. Then do them again, from scratch only better. Then keep doing it again, until they cant become any better.
4) Use Zbrush to sculpt the models made. There are more and better tutorials for ZB, so it's the preferred choice, in this case.
5) Animate all the scenes from the story, keep each scene very short and focused. Stick to serving the story. Play, check re-work.
6) Move on to lighting, and camera moves, Does it add atmosphere? No, then do it again. Watch movie dvds, not the film-just the camera moves. Play, check re-work. For each scene.
7) All of the above is done in Phong. If something looks good in b/w its on the right track.
8) Move on to texturing and style. Make a colour palette, stick to it. What are the emotionality of colours? How does that work with your story? Does thecolour palette work for the theme? eg mystery, romance, sci-fi. Play, check re-work. For each scene.
9) Rendering check that the look and feel you want is deliverable with the renderer you choose. Do the characters and the atmosphere pop (even if it's dark), does it draw you in?, are you emotionally engaged?, can you see details even in the shadows? No, do it again. Start at 6.
10) Move on to post. Effects. Create as needed for each scene. Play, check re-work.
11) Audio. Music / effects. Again it's what the story needs, not what you like. Visit someone like Naxos, in fact play it while you work, for the whole year, and then pick out the pieces you like. Again does it draw you in, are you emotionally engaged? Does it enhance the work? No, do it again. Create as needed for each scene. Play, check re-work.

Turn off the TV, no TV for a year, nor games, nor.... Instead watch softimage videos and buy some of the blender videos animating characters from the blender store, etc, watch them. Download and watch Houdini videos. Take 1 hour to watch 1 hour to practice, each and every day. That does NOT include the above work.

Only using ONE app / each phase to do the job, its about stripping everything away that you dont need to get the job done, and getting real skilled in just that part of the app.

The other videos/practice are skills learning/comparison only, don’t get distracted or start swapping. It will eat time.

Notes: Maxwell while a great render will take huge times to render specifically an animation, unless you have a large chunk of cash to give to a render farm, and in general does not product stylized material well. Mental ray can do the job, but somethings are not implemented at all or are implemented poorly. VRAY may well be the best alternative that's really worth looking at, and the uber show (link in top row above) gives you a 25% off. Good skills learning too.


But who the hell are WE to tell you this....???

Daniele (d3d.it) did this with us 16 hours a day, for 3 months, as did others. Look where he is now, doing work for tv, movies games, wacom evangelist, zbrush certified. Look how good he became at modelling because we forced him to do it again, and again and again, now it shows, all of his works have great details. Tekano on here, we've helped with his desire to make excellent volumetric clouds. As seen on vimeo.

They are two of hundreds, if not thousands that have followed the above, that we get emails from because they've download and practiced the material from redi-vivus.com, and got something valuable from it, they've worked at places like ubi / ea etc, many freelancers on film tv etc.

That's some idea of what your facing, a flexible step plan to achieve it, a simple yet utterly brutally effective way to make it become a reality. I know this is long, deal with it, there is no shorter way of honestly writing it to help you get there.

Best of luck.

[Kerro Perro]

Wow thanks guys for taking the time to "school" me - it's much appreciated! In fact it's why i posted my plan in the first place:
It is made from pure guesswork on how these things are done plus whatever i could gleam from certain "making off's" - most notably the making of "Path of Hate" by Nenow, wich serves as my main inspiration for doing this.

I would like clear some things up and ask a few questions if i can impose a bit more.

First of the basic outline of the story is already set by the guy i'm doing this with as it is more of a music video with a story than a regular short. So the music is already set, i don't plan to use any sound effects and the length is set at a little over 3 mins.

I do still need to plot out the actual scene-by-scene action though wich leads me to my first question:

1) Why no animatic? Do you think it would eat up too much time? I would add that i'm pretty good with Flash, it's what i used to work in before i came to 3D. The reason i think it would be very usefull is that i could time out and "design" all the shots in a rough and easy way without doing it "the hard way" in 3D:



But maybe you're saying it would be better to rough it out in 3D so you get a better sense of how the end result will look?

2) Another thing i see you leave out in your method is the "teaser" i was planning to do. To be honest i mostly came up with that because i saw Nenow did it for Paths of Hate. I thought it would be usefull do first make a "mini-version"/proof of concept so that i could see how far i could push the stylization and basically find the limits of my scope so when it came time for the storyboard i wouldn't plan anything i couldn't handle down the line. I still think i need to do some test shots but maybe a full teaser is a waste of time.

3) Ok this might be a very stupid question but is there any special reason do step 5 and 6 in Phong? Frankly i hate the look of Phong and am already doing my lighting pass in Lambert - specular is something i like to add as one the final touches.

All the other stuff i am really taking to hart, especially the "do it, check it, do it again" mentality. I must admit i was already going wrong there: i was planning to just make the two main characters once and because of that my modelling was getting a bit precious. In fact that's why i just starting modelling a few robots just to train my modelling/sculpting muscles if you see what i mean. It's pretty stupid because i learned this in drawing long ago: you can't draw someting as if it's going to be perfect - you draw the best you can, then you do it better next time! Silly of me not to take this with me in 3D - thank you for reminding me!

As for the rendering: i had already decided to do it all in mental ray without GI/FG, i've become pretty confident in it and although it might take more time to set up i've found that doing lighting the old fashioned/early pixar way is really compatible with stylized look i'm going for.

[Nizar]

Letterbox@ I think this is good advices. Perseverance is a great, valuable skills

I agree also when you said:

Only using ONE app / each phase to do the job, its about stripping everything away that you dont need to get the job done, and getting real skilled in just that part of the app.

agree, dispersion if a big issue. I'm the first who jump in different application (I started with blender 5 years ago, added Zbrush to my software portfolio and after this softimage and modo). Softimage is the only where I'm comfortable with, and only now I see myself like a competent modeller, uv maker and have a step in texturing I like softimage, it look like a supercar with a powerfull engine, I love modelling and rigging in it (but not retopo... don't know why but retopo don't work well (I using surface constraint and shrinkwrap modifier but is a bit pain retopology in softimage, in this field either blender and modo are more advanced) . But rendering... my mind cannot match mental ray, also slowness is terrible when you would like test your shader, for these reason I prefer modo and cycles render, in a eye blink I can see the result, paint directly my mesh in 3d and look how appear when rendering it. It a shame, because import/export is tired and sometime dangerous operation and for the rest I'm at home with softimage, workflow, navigation, menu etc. etc.

But who the hell are WE to tell you this....???

are you a graphic course owner?

[Letterbox]

if the music is set, then thats that, try to make the animation style and timing match the drama of the music, ie the moments of tension, attack, decay.

if it's three min long, I think you can keep that in your head, and your doing it a faster way pencil. just as a proof of concept. and to see how long the timing works. Thats why you dont need to flash it all out, rather spend the time learning modeling animation etc.

1) as above it's time, you really will see time fly, and your on the clock, you have to deliver. (a good work lesson)

2) What does phong matter, you can use blinn, lambent. its about speed, you dont need mia sss fg gi etc, you only looking to see a) if the modeling is good, and b) if the animation is good. And you'll see that clearer if you dont have textures etc, plus thats slows everything down. If it looks good in lambert it WILL look good when textured. That's the point.

3) Daniele hated us, because we made him do hundreds of models, again and again. But that practice, meant he in the end could just look at any object, and go, ok I know how to do that. That's the goal, like a tennis player, they dont think, oh I should use a backhand here. They have practiced enough that they do it instinctively.

Nizar: All of our work is NDA, no we dont run courses, we did the course with Daniele, and many others free of charge. We built REDI-VIVUS so people could get and education FREE of charge, instead of paying large sums of money, which a lot of people around the world just CANT afford (visit Africa, or Vietnam or China). One of the reasons is we have NEVER forgotten whats it's like to be starting out, in any industry, and how young people need help, and that does NOT mean handing over your credit card number. Instead of charging for courses, that people can barely afford, if at all, we decided to help and do it for free. And that's why REDI-VIVUS was born because unfortunately we could not afford to run more and more courses.

We have a lot of faith in young people, we feel all they sometimes need is the encouragement and training assets like RV and a solid plan and some guidance, and that we help with when ever we can. And the ONLY thing we ever ask, is that when you make it, you don't forget where you came from... and you too take the time to help others. The world is what WE make it.

[Letterbox]

...these reason I prefer modo and cycles render, in a eye blink I can see the result, paint directly my mesh in 3d and look how appear when rendering it. It a shame, because import/export is tired and sometime dangerous operation and for the rest I'm at home with softimage, workflow, navigation, menu etc. etc.

Import / export is always a pain, which is why I recommend only using phong etc and making uv's when modelling. Anything more wont translate and you lose time and work. When you start animating (in any package) know that never translates. Alembic will help, but it does not do materials. Maybe someone with the skills and time will port cycles to SI, it's open source after all. WE HOPE SO.

[Nizar]

Letterbox, your is not good thing... it's great!
My sincere congratulation! And sure, I want participate, I would like to sharing what I've already learned and want learn more from your course. Repeat, your project is a great thing (I don't know exactly what is but just love it). Please, give me a link (write here or post me a PM)

About cycles, don't know nothing about scripting, and lesser about coding, so don't know if it is possible, but would be great.

[Kerro Perro]

We have a lot of faith in young people, we feel all they sometimes need is the encouragement and training assets like RV and a solid plan and some guidance, and that we help with when ever we can. And the ONLY thing we ever ask, is that when you make it, you don't forget where you came from... and you too take the time to help others. The world is what WE make it.

Very cool I hope to be in a position to inspire others someday - for now i really appreciate this guidance, i hope you guys'll keep eye on this thread! ;)

@Nizar: I just assumed he/they meant this : http://www.redi-vivus.com/index4.php but maybe there's (even) more to it?

[Letterbox]

We have a lot of faith in young people, we feel all they sometimes need is the encouragement and training assets like RV and a solid plan and some guidance, and that we help with when ever we can. And the ONLY thing we ever ask, is that when you make it, you don't forget where you came from... and you too take the time to help others. The world is what WE make it.

Very cool I hope to be in a position to inspire others someday - for now i really appreciate this guidance, i hope you guys'll keep eye on this thread! ;)

@Nizar: I just assumed he/they meant this : http://www.redi-vivus.com/index4.php but maybe there's (even) more to it?

But it's not only us...far from it.

Rork posted up some more the 4 production dvd's. Those + RV. Your golden. (there's a tut thread on here somewhere to get the links.)

Daniele posted up training, so he teaches you, and he's a certified zbrush instructor, that was do cool of him to do that.


And what I love about the SI community, is that so many take the time, and dont ask for $. That being every single person who's posted their compounds.

That's what makes it special.... US.


And here some work that has been posted regarding lighting.... http://www.blenderguru.com/videos/mastering-lighting

[Letterbox]

Letterbox, your is not good thing... it's great!
My sincere congratulation! And sure, I want participate,

Hi we're not running anything at the moment, trying to get things organized, seeing whats possible. As soon as we have news we'll post. For the moment we're helping, when time and requirements permits ... like the post to Kerro.

And everyone will be expecting Kerro's (since he's no longer watching TV or playing Mass Effect) final model images up next week.

Normally we'd post on xsibase.com, but that seems to be permanently infected, which is a real shame, a loss to the community. So this one of the few active English speaking SI community forums remaining.

[Kerro Perro]

And everyone will be expecting Kerro's (since he's no longer watching TV or playing Mass Effect) final model images up next week.

Ah so no pressure then?

Normally we'd post on xsibase.com, but that seems to be permanently infected, which is a real shame, a loss to the community. So this one of the few active English speaking SI community forums remaining.

Yeah if it is never fixed it will be real loss of knowledge too, i can't count the times i googled a quick Softimage question and xsibase came up with the exact answer i was looking for! It still does except i can't actually read it in full...

[Kerro Perro]

Ouch i've really taken way to long with this but here is the model for the main character:





Like i said i took way to long with this but that had two reasons: i redid the design at least 6 times and i had a messed up workflow at first. I would concept in z-brush wich would be very slow - mostly because i suck at sculpting - and then doing the whole retopo thing only to not be quite satisfied back in Softimage would really kill the flow.



So after fiddling back and forth with that and even adding 3d Coat to my already bloated workflow i decided to throw out most of what 'd done in Z-brush and just concept in photoshop and use good old fashioned modelling to bash it out - in the end it took me little over a week!

Yeah i know - i should have listened better!

[Letterbox]

Ouch i've really taken way to long with this but here is the model for the main character:
use good old fashioned modelling to bash it out - in the end it took me little over a week!
Yeah i know - i should have listened better!

Well Kerro you learned a good lesson. Keep everything/workflow simple - you get more time to excel and parctice, even if that is just core modeling. As you can see its still a good skill to have.

I'd advise not texturing yet go with the rest of the assets. It'll keep you in that same skillset loop. And constant practice will make you remember, get more efficient and gain you confidence.

The clay looks good. Keep going.