Digital humans the art of the digital double
Ever wanted to know how digital doubles are created in the movie industry? This course will give you an insight into how it's done.
# 46 11-01-2010 , 12:56 AM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
Thanks Tom,

I would have liked to spend more time on the texturing, but with there being a deadline I was a little worried about running out of time so am keeping it simple for now.

There's a lot I could have done to improve it, but as it's my first attempt I'm happy all the same!

# 47 11-01-2010 , 07:10 PM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
# 48 12-01-2010 , 07:45 AM
Chirone's Avatar
Subscriber
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: NZ
Posts: 3,125
the last trick looks a lot better now, not so suddenly fast at the end.

the issue i have with it atm though is the camera for the first trick. looks too jittery

don't forget the cuts and blood when he crashes!!




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D
# 49 12-01-2010 , 08:32 AM
G-Man's Avatar
Subscriber
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Bowling Green. Kentucky U.S.A.
Posts: 810
Dango, its looking good mate.
didn't think to ask you before..
Did you model the scene fresh for this comp, or was it something you had laying about?.
and how much if it is actually modeled, and how much is post?

Just curious on your animation work flow.
Looks very good though.

I woudl have to make one crit, actually that would be in disagreement with Chirone though.
I'd say the camera all need to be jittery, a video of this nature, in a park like that, would be taken by an amateur, possibly on a cell phone or something, and as i've never seen a cell phone mount for videography, nor am i personally able to hold a cellphone steady for video purposes i would have to say if you are going for a realistic cartoony approach...if that's possible, camera jitter is a must.

G-man


Follow My Business
On The Web!
Or
On Facebook!
# 50 12-01-2010 , 08:48 AM
Chirone's Avatar
Subscriber
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: NZ
Posts: 3,125

Originally posted by legendofzombi
I woudl have to make one crit, actually that would be in disagreement with Chirone though.
I'd say the camera all need to be jittery, a video of this nature, in a park like that, would be taken by an amateur, possibly on a cell phone or something, and as i've never seen a cell phone mount for videography, nor am i personally able to hold a cellphone steady for video purposes i would have to say if you are going for a realistic cartoony approach...if that's possible, camera jitter is a must.

a well justified argument

i suppose as a frequent-but-not-absolute hater/abhorer/feel-the-need-to-slap-the-person-who-decided-to-use-shaky-cam-a-few-hundred-times-for-such-a-retarded-effect of shaky cam i'd say i'd prefer the scene to be smooth and flowy-like

but, g-man, you do have a good point, the person taking a video of this dude probably won't be able to hold the camera steady, and if they're keeping up at that speed then they must equally have wheels of some sort.

but i guess my issue wasn't with the shaking in general but rather the way it was jittering.
it looked more like how your eyes move when you're watching the outside in a moving vehicle.. only moving side to side and it didn't look like it was done on purpose as whoever has the camera had been keeping up so i'd think there to be some verticle jittering as well.
(apologies if it was on purpose, dango!)

i think shaky cam is done in post, so i'd guess you'd render everything out bigger than the resolution of the medium you'd play such clip on and then you can have the movie layer in AE move around or something?




that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D
# 51 12-01-2010 , 03:18 PM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
Thanks for the comments Zombi and Chirone,

To answer Zombi first, everything, including the character has been modelled from scratch from the start of this battle, everything is modelled, nothing done in post apart from putting the clips together.

As for the camera jitter, well that's all debatable. Skate videos used to be filmed on crappy cameras years ago, so would always be quite bad quailty, but these days they have very good equipment, and with some videos hundreds of thousands of dollars can be spent making one. Skateboarding is a multi million dollar industry, with a lot of the top pros making themselves millionaires from having fun! (Would have been nice if I'd managed that....lol)
So filming and making the run of the camera smooth isn't so much of a problem for them these days, most of the cameras they have would probably have pretty good anti shake functions, and they can be quite creative when it comes to the way they set up shots. They do shoot using bikes sometimes, that'd make the shot pretty smooth, but not "perfect"....

So with that said, I'm not too sure about whether to add camera shake on this once the whole thing is finished, as Chirone said there is a very easy to use feature in AE to do camera shake, but I think I'll have to give that some thought once the clip is rendered and complete.
I guess the end result of that debate is, you're both right! Haha

# 52 16-01-2010 , 12:24 AM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
Got some more done to this, I was going to do the "Crash" part of it and then leave it at that, but I keep thinking of new tricks I want to animate, so it seems to be growing a little longer in length than first planned!

Stwert: Are you still in on this? I hope so! If so I'm wondering about the length of the short, was the "20 seconds" part of it a must, or is it that it has to be at least 20, but can be longer if you want to?

Anyhow, here's the latest progress, it's at 32 seconds as it is, ignore the title bit at the start, just didn't like it starting straight in on a trick.

Maya Skate Tricks....

# 53 16-01-2010 , 12:33 AM
EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,374
Lookin' good! Yeah, I'm still in on this... at least in spirit, if not in actually posting anything. I really do apologize for being such a poor challenge opponent. I've been working through some rigging and animation tutorials to get a better foundation for approaching my animation.

I think I'm just going to skip the rest of the modelling and get into the animation, cause I've really lost a direction for my character's look, and it's not coming to me. I should have done reference sketches at the start. Lesson learned. I promise I'll have an update before the end of the weekend.

Anyways, about the time, really doesn't matter that much to me. Less than 20 seconds, more than 20... as long as it's less than a minute and longer than 10 seconds, we'll call it fine... user added image

And can I add a crit? Keep working on the gravity and weight of the animation, as it seems to be a bit "floaty" for lack of a better word. Weightless would be a better word.

# 54 16-01-2010 , 12:41 AM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
Cool, glad that you're still in Stwert!

And thanks for the crit, at times I'm trying to get that "Weightless/floaty" feel, but I guess it's carrying onto bits where it shouldn't too, I'll work on that, I won't be re-rendering any of what I've done so far as it'll just take too long, but I'll keep it in mind for the rest of it.

As for the length of the clip, I'll do my best to keep it under a minute then....lol It's just too fun getting this guy moving around!

# 55 21-01-2010 , 12:54 AM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
I've added the "Crash" part into this, and title and end sequences into it, to try and break it up a bit and not just go straight into the skateboarding, so don't count those bits into the animation side of it.

It's at around a minute of actual animation at the minute, and as there's still time left I'll probably add some more to it before the finish date, so you could always count this as my final entry, and whatever I post after will just be updates to it after that.

Here's a link to it as it is at the moment...

CRASH CONTROL SHORT

# 56 21-01-2010 , 01:26 AM
EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,374
Great stuff! Really like the crash animation at the end. I think the titles could be a bit quicker, as well as maybe just cuts in between shots, instead of dip-to-blacks.

I noticed he changes shirts every so often... is this intentional? Or two people?

Anyway, I really gotta get my act together now... only ten days left!

# 57 21-01-2010 , 08:37 AM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
Cheers Stwert, I was quite happy with the crash part at the end, was one of the most fun parts to do.

The shirt change, and trouser change is the same character, just made slightly different coloured textures to break it up a bit. I'm going to do a couple more "outfits" for him, with different logo's on the t-shirts,so that as it grows longer he looks different here and there.

Good luck with getting your's done in time!

# 58 21-01-2010 , 08:15 PM
G-Man's Avatar
Subscriber
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Bowling Green. Kentucky U.S.A.
Posts: 810
looks good mate, specially the HD version on this HD tv i use for a monitor...
user added image

G-man


Follow My Business
On The Web!
Or
On Facebook!
# 59 21-01-2010 , 09:50 PM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
Cheers G-Zombi!

Good to know it holds up on that size screen!

I've combined all the objects, ramps etc from the animation into one scene,added a few more, and made a skatepark out of it all. So will probably add one or two more tricks to this before the end date.

Here's an overview of the park at the moment, pretty much finished, doubt I'll add any more to it.

Attached Thumbnails
# 60 28-01-2010 , 10:49 AM
Dango77's Avatar
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: London, England
Posts: 1,009
Been playing around with the park and it's grown somewhat larger in size, added loads of new ramps and bits to play with.

Added a little bit more to the vid, including a couple of camera pans showing the park at the start. Not really going to get any time to do much more before this battle ends so this is about it for now.

Sorry for the length being a little longer than planned Stwert....lol

CRASH CONTROL SHORT

Posting Rules Forum Rules
You may not post new threads | You may not post replies | You may not post attachments | You may not edit your posts | BB code is On | Smilies are On | [IMG] code is On | HTML code is Off

Similar Threads