@maxani
Dude, i totally understand but if i take a breather like u guys (no pun intended) people are gonna think that we quit. Also, it mite even start affecting our overall morale.So sorry if i haggled u guys too much but, It Has To Be Done

hey, folks, what's going on? are we having any probs? feedback pls! how's it going with all the sketches your'e modelling? what about OKX's recent sketch? is it taken? are we on break?

i was instructed to submit the sketches, i didnt do them. OKX is out of the country until next week.i am not part of the team. see attached his last sketch, i was meant to have sent them together.

last batch

@maxani
u fill my pain but what can we do?So meanwile, what do u think of OKX new sketches??And what of the king's modifications that u were supposed to do?

@exfactor
my bad. U mentioned filling in so i thot u were literally filling in. Thanx for the pics.

@others
hope when u guys shake the festive spirit loose u wont forget what we had going on here?? Merry Xmas Ya'll

@resichild
I posted slight modifications for the king's facial profile, remember? You said you picked the second. I didn't know you were still expecting more. pls, clearify.
@ all
what's up? hope y'all doing good. Here's a sketch I feel can go for either Akin or Seun-depending on what we decide with OKX's sketch. That should leave us with the twins, right?

@maxani
Clarification.Since i picked the second one, u were supposed to now sketch that head on the okx's king's body. When thats done then u move on to the character planes for the king. Hope we are on the same page now?

@all
Guys, hope when the break is over u all aint gonna give up, cos im beginning to wonder, happy holidays

ExFACTOR,

Please can you post a side view of the character with same horizontal alignment

@resichild
o.k
(thinking aloud) NOw what! I had to stare at the monitor for ten mins before the reply page came up!!

@ all
what's going on folks?

Hi peeps, what's up on the project? Aint seen any relevant posts apart from quick sketches. I'm not really aware of all the other hidden characters so I won't really bother to go there. I'll send in some modification on the priest image when I'm up to speed.

Keep up your fire! Cheers!

hey guys
back home.
should be back at my work station by the weekend, seems to be a lot of dust n cobwebs on the project at the mo.

my cuz (exfactor)was a bit lazy with the posts, took his sweet time abt them. my bad!
resichild, noted ur suggested amendments. pretty kool. will post em asap!


@ resichild
good job rallying the folks. think its the holiday thingy.
roll with the dudes present, the rest will eventually fall in line.

@ maxani
good job bro.
hope ur clear on ur output now.

if we r okay with working right thru this period, i think the three of us, at least can get a sample animation of any xter we choose, up n running by the end of the first week in Jan.

we need to find out the potential challenges we will face in that aspect of the project. (animation, rendering)

@okx
good u are back bro.Trip and all was ok i suppose??
Neeways, u must hav read all up to speed. I feel u with the sampla animation team and rite now with the holiday period, its possible. Regards to rendering, i dont think out of the world textures are needed for the sample rendering so lets not bother about that. A greyish environment and xter model will do. The animation, i am so up for it. I can do a fast default rig in max and be ready with an animation. Rendering can also be done in max so i dont think its too far fetched.
Firstly tho, we hav to focus on the model to be used. Neikid made a promise to deliver the demigod b4 newyear but i dont know if he'll meet up cos he had some probs. Tunslike was supposed to post the environs alsom but he's just vaporised for now.
I'nm out of options, what do u think

@maxani
nice to know u feel me correctly now. Whats next?

@kemji
they'll come around after the booze and rice and chicken

since we r good on the demigod, i will do a ruff model n post. i will not hit my workstation til the weekend, but if i can get my hands on Maya here, i will cook up sumthn b4 then.

tru, i am not thinking of awesome textures, but we need to have textures of some sort applied. greyish environs wont cut it.
we need to find out approx render times for our scenes so we can plan our project timing properly.

of course to assess the animation we dont need major textures, but we also need to determine rendering technique/software, we need textures to assess those.

the other project i am on is about to kick in majorly, and my time-noose will become even tighter. we have a february deadline to catch.

if u are feeling super creative tho, u can do ur sample animation with any biped rig u have. we can transfer n tweak it on the demigod when its set. that could save us a day or two.

lets end this year with some output of some sort! yes?

@Okx
thanks, man. welcome back.

@resichild and OKx
nice to test a few animated xters. but d'you have a snd trk you are animating to?, or some naration? ain't that the way to go if we don't want a difficult timeline or SFX that's outa sync? pls, educate me if I am wrong. cheers

@ maxani
this is just a 10 or 20 second test animation.
all we need is a ruff storyboard. we wont be dealing with speech just yet.
when we start for real, we will have the sound 'n all dealt with.

no education needed, u were quite right.

@maxani
u were right on the money.Quick anim that hits home

@okx
yep, lets go out with the bang or start with the bang, whichever suits us. I'll work on the rig.Can also do the biped thingy in max. Renderin like i said can be done in max for now. Textures will just slow down the output if we want it to come out in time. I believe its better to go gray for now so we keep people guessing how cool its gonna look. That way when we come out with our true graphics(dont mind the crap expression) we get the awes we want.About assess, we can do it with the same animation sample but after we hav hit out textures to say 75%.

Goodluck on your project man but dont leave us high and dry.

just 2 re-confirm art style. should be done later today.
working on a mega slow machine.(took over 3 hours to get this done!)
i will upload the hi res version 4 d test animation. (will post to the secure email addy)

@ resichild
the purpose of testing with the hi res, fully textured model is to test our render times and see how our machines handle the heavier scenes. dig?
its okay if it takes time- we need that info.

if ur saving for the 'awe factor', well, u dont have to make the sample public yet. its actually 4 analytical purposes only.

kool, do ur max thing, i will roll with maya n motion builder- but like i said, u can start blocking the animation with any rig u have. we can retarget later, unless u'd rather wait, ur call.

sent raw files to e-mail addy.
its in .obj format.

@OKX
Good one man. Although I'm a 3D newbie, and not up to speed yet, I must confess that the Demigod image looks kinda childish (Not half as scary as the previous 3D model posted). I don't mean to sound sarcastic and I know its still in the works, but I'm making my criticism based on my view of the intended audience.

@okx
I understandwhat u mean rendering in hi-res so thats no prob. We need to choose which platform will be our proprietory for rendering. Except u want to compare maya/max on this note from the sample animations if not, then why two platforms?
In regards to animation , does maya&motion builder support .bip files so that we can switch anim files between ourselves?

@maxani
King temile is done. Nice concept, now we need the planes for modelling. U see how okx does them rite, here's ur first go. Thanx and keep up the work.

@kemji
This is not our real model, its just a dummy demigod for sample animation and thats all. We dont have the raw file of the real model yet.

@ res
nah.
motionbuilder n maya support .bvh or .fbx not .bip.
3d max exports those formats so it shouldnt be that much of a problem. if u use human ik in max, thats kool- thats common to both software.

i am exploring the possibility of parallel outputs on various software, that way we dont have to rely on a single source for output. thats why 2 platforms- its just experimental tho.

im a mayan, as are a couple others on the team; and believe me- unless u got a monster machine, no s/w gives u realtime feedback like motionbuilder does! u might want to explore it.
but lets start with this sample, we'll work out the kinks as we progress.

@ kemji
yes. this is a test model. however, a definition of wot u mean by 'childish' could help me understand u better.
in modeling, the rule is- never model what u can achieve by texturing.
the veins,scars and craggy skin features will be achieved with displacement maps, bump maps n textures.

if i can squeeze it in, i will show u how the same model can be made to appear with the above applied. also, we are not going 4 realistic in our art style. its a cross between that and comic- we are trying 2 reach all ages.

and ur critique is welcome.
we seem to have lost contact with neikid, he was meant to submit that first demigod , he still hasnt,

back @ res
a ruff storyboard of the section we wish 2 animate- thats ur detail.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, its 2009 !

Tunslike's back in the building

@ Bosses
am so sorry bro, had some multiple projects piled up in Dec, but thank God at least i did my best a little and we accomplished greatly.

@resichild
Reading the previous post, i noticed you queried me of giving fake numbers well not really, i wasn't around so my phones were unreachable. my contact numbers are 08023429574 and 018785293, you can give me a call if you wish

@All
great work, let's keep it up,

@Bosses
well still relaxing, however hope to bounce back on my system on Monday but i will try and do some postings before sunday or make sure the files are ready and start posting first thing Monday morning.

hope not bad!

well, i pray we have a great year ahead of us, God's favor, mercy, protection and blessing shall be our portion this year. AMEN!!!

Tunslike

@okx
i really will try the maya/motionbuilder thing but hey we also (HAD) max users if only they remained
Anyway multiple output platforms sounds cool. Lets not just experiment, lets try to make that work so we can really ramp up our output speed when the time comes.Good going and i'm on the sample story board. Shold have stuff ready say tommorrow. Its gona be short though and i dont draw that well.nice going
And about neikid, i spoke to him just before the xmas and he promised to deliver once he was out of his villa. Just hang on a bit, he will deliver.

@tunslike
If u were next to me right now im sure i would have hit u then shake hands with. Hope u enjoyed ur break and yes i will give u a call.

@ALL
Good year it will be, I smell it, feel it and Know, God's with US.

OKX

you need to define your topology before smoothing it or subD-ing it, thats what happens when you sub'D a low res geometry

@resichild
hey ogami! no be my fault oooo, na money matter,

@ webdezzi
lol.
thanx 4 that totally unnecessary tip.

we are testing our process with a dummy model- very lo res and undetailed.
however, as i told kemji, i can introduce an awesome amt of detail on the present model by just skillful use of various mapping techniques without modelling in any more detail. its uv mesh is quite adequate.

u mean well tho.

@ res
where are we @?
i have a free window of a week.

@ maxani
planes coming up?

@ tunslike
so ur back, then output man!

@ rest
u guys out or wot?

I think we're kinda on standby!

@kemji
i dont get what u mean by we are on a standstill. Everyone has to deliver what they've been assigned. U can only claim to be on a standstill if u ahave delivered and are waiting for the next stage,

@okx
I must admit, i have been dealing with the vertices weights on the xter. The first rig didnt deform the mesh to my taste. His posture is quite not T but im trying to work around it. I'll try to post the short clip frames tomorrow, hope not too late?

@tunslike
Like OKX said, DELIVER MAN. U really havent posted ur own side and need u to post the raw data to the email in .obj format so we can use them for the short animation i.e the fences, huts, and trees. I'll post the props in .obj also so okx can get at them

@maxani
whats up dude

@neikid
where the hell are u man

@okx
here are my scenes.Since its just for a sample animation i did illustrations and its actually supposed to be a short clip. For enviroments, u can muddle up the props and huts(if tunslike decides to post the raw files) to create a background scene. I posted the .obj files for the props to the email.

Q@tunslike and neikid and maxani
guys, what is keeping u three from posting. Please let us know what the snags are so we can chip in or advice.

@kemji
bro, howz it coming with the texture thingy

And now scenes 1,2 ,3,4

And now scenes 5,6,7

and lastly 8,9