suggestions required

# 1 14-09-2006 , 07:01 AM

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Hi all,

I'm working on an environment which may be used in a TV add. The brief was for a clinical / futuristic room of sorts in which the main action can take place. In the centre is a column of energy which I plan to fill with particles to simulate data. At this stage, I plan to have the camera enter this room and then “access” the data stream (if this sounds like I’m making this up as I type – it’s because I am). The camera will then be taken on a journey through a bunch of motion graphics.

But now I’m out of ideas. Can anyone please offer suggestions on how this room could be improved??

pic1

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# 2 14-09-2006 , 07:02 AM

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pic2

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# 3 14-09-2006 , 07:03 AM

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pic3

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# 4 14-09-2006 , 07:04 AM

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pic4

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# 5 14-09-2006 , 07:05 AM

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quick texture render

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# 6 14-09-2006 , 07:22 AM

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It seems a bit too clynical to me, very sterile. Is this the look you are going for?

I would keep the particles within the central tube, they seem to spill out to the rest of the scene, have them verticle not horizontal.

Also the scene looks quite lonely, its not somewhere I would feel comfortable in.

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# 7 18-09-2006 , 07:27 AM

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Sterile is right R@nSiD, it need quite alot of details added. Maybe some robotic arms with dangling cables might help 'flesh' it out a little. Also I have not added the particles yet. That horizontal spill was caused by a double glow overlap that didn't quite work. I hope to spend some time on it this weekned and see what happens.

Small update: added some columns & downlights....

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# 8 06-10-2006 , 03:34 PM

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:: UPDATE ::

Well the concept has taking a different direction. The room that I started may still form some part of this project, but I am leaving it for now. As I mentioned before, this is for a TV add to promote a new web site (www.e-dunia.com) which will be advertised predominately in India. This site is about bringing people together so the client felt that they wanted to graphically see people "connecting" around the world. So I had the idea of modeling a planet Earth out of small polygon "tiles" with each eventually textured with a pic of a site member.

Had I completely understood the work involved with doing this, I would have never mentioned it to them. :headbang:

The first step was setting out a world map as a reference. This setout is comprised or 426 seperate tiles took over 3 hours...

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Last edited by tiddles; 06-10-2006 at 04:12 PM.

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# 9 06-10-2006 , 03:40 PM

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The next step was to place these tiles around a globe. I looked at several different ways and with some guidence from some simplymaya members, I finally came up with this...

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Last edited by tiddles; 06-10-2006 at 03:51 PM.

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# 10 06-10-2006 , 03:42 PM

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Here is a possible texture for the tiles. The customer will organize all the pics (I hope they also make the texture maps).

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# 11 06-10-2006 , 03:57 PM

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So, still with me?... hope so user added image

Next is a possible render of the finished globe with textured tiles (still using the test texture for now).

Note: The earth grid is made up of nearly 80 torii. I also placed a nurb sphere with a dark but almost transparent lambert on it inside the grid to try and mask the opposite side of the globe a little. (did I mention that I was regretting suggesting this concept to the client?)

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# 12 06-10-2006 , 04:07 PM

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Well all that now seems easy compared to trying to animate each tile to fly to the spinning globe, sticking to the surface at the correct location and finally begin rotating with the globe.

This was incredibly time consuming. With the help of a couple of custom MEL scripts it is now starting to take shape. The scripts did really help, however, I did still have to select each tile and their parented groups. After 3 days of setting up, testing and animating, I finally have a animation playblast to show.
(I'm sure I wore a hole in my outliner by clicking in it so much) :lmao:

https://www.kickarz.com/tile_animation01.wmv (6.5Mb - right click & select Save Target As)

This playblast has been sped up quite a bit for display purposes. The final shot will probably only show the last 50-60 tiles hitting surface.

All comments welcome...

"If you think you can or if you think you can't....... you're right!"
- Henry Ford.

KickarZ Studios

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# 13 07-10-2006 , 01:29 AM

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Ok, might have a possible camera angle for main action. After seeing this playblast for last couple of rotations, I feel that a static camera will be dead boring.

https://www.kickarz.com/tile_animation02.wmv (9Mb - right click & select Save Target As)

Any comments more than welcome....

"If you think you can or if you think you can't....... you're right!"
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# 14 07-10-2006 , 02:03 AM

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thats a pretty cool trick. static camera is pretty odd loking. maybe make its swivel toward where the planes are going to stick to.

ok. i think sticking the planes to the sphere could have ben done a lot easier using goal weights instead of animating by hands.
as a matter fact, thats a perfect solution for this type of thing, thats exactly what maya goal do.

if you select the polySphere with the tiles on it, and in the shape node tab, go under render stats and turn off double sided, it will not render the other side not facing the camera. this way u dont need the nurbs sphere inside it to bloack out

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# 15 07-10-2006 , 02:39 AM

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Cool! Thanks for the tip. Thats why I like coming here - always learning new things.. user added image

However, my goal was not to completely block out the far side of the globe - just to lessen it so it did not complicate things. Even though the result was only subtle, I think it's more effective.

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