₦airaland Forum

@ jimme luv d character design especially when I think  from a chartacter setup and animation point of view. Should be pretty quick to work with. which makes me wonder why u need 3 apps just to animate. If you don't mind I'd like to have a go at it to see if I was right.

Thanks for the feedback guys really inspires me 2 push even harder.

@zpix its about time partner. I think I c what u referrin 2 but can u eliminate doubt and elaborate? Is it about off point emoting with the eyes or keyframe issues and any specific time or the whole thing?

here's the rough sketch or concept

something i did this evening. fans of the anime cartoon "naruto" will get the idea better. its based on a group of defected ninjas from the cartoon known as akatsuki who try to take over the world.  the line art could have been better as im currently not with my tablet due to d strike. forced to use a mouse.

there are tons of tutorials to start if u have access to the internet. far better than any of us can teach you here.  just google 3ds max tutorials or search you tube. get max on a pc and get going.

Thanks for ur comments. I'm flattered that u haven't much 2 criticize. As u might agree the rig is quite intuitive and that helped a lot. As for testing the rig sorry I also have a short planned 4 it as well and want it 2 remain exclusive till I m done. After that I might share or even sell the rigged character. I think it would help the industry if we can start buying 3d assets from each other. That way we can save time in our projects and encourage professionalism in artists.

@ okx, zpixel, aphek and co. feedback pls guys

yeah as always comments and criticisms would be nice

Hello guys, Just got to take my GEJ caricature rig for a spin this morning and I wanted to share it with you all. I really had fun animating this even though i didn't really plan it . Just loaded a wave file from 11 second club as I like to do for lip sync tests due to the rich emotions in the voicing . It is just a head animation for now. It was done in about 3 hours with straight ahead spline interpolation with glances in a mirror for some reference. 

[flash=420,315]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nyRbsToohQ?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash]

https://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/377174_10151017213770206_739160205_21822541_2113003513_n.jpg
https://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/381922_10151017211445206_739160205_21822534_492205096_n.jpg


you can save the smaller animated image below for your black berry dp or what ever you like.

Yes I can. Hope u and your client knows what goes into this kind of work tho!

Hi people.
Though Its still a WIP, Just want 2 share a stylized 3d model of our president I'm working on for a personal animated short. Hope works that pay the bills dont choke up the project.

https://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/381922_10151017211445206_739160205_21822534_492205096_n.jpg

https://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/377174_10151017213770206_739160205_21822541_2113003513_n.jpg

animation here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nyRbsToohQ

Image from a current animated project. There's a test animation of one of the characters on the following link
nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-71864.192.html

And a little something just for laughs! This one is another test I carried out to try a different full body turn technique on basic characters I specifically set up for the exercise.
[flash=560,315]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URLOrXh4AFU?version=3&hl=en_GB"[/flash]

Hi guys, thought I should jump start this thread a bit. Its a test I made on a freshly designed and set up character for a current project. hope 2 get some helpful feedback.
[flash=560,315]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3WJMV2Fqys?version=3&hl=en_GB"[/flash]

Pls @Tutor Ugo 2u, help me mine is requesting plugins to display. what do I do?

he's talking about adobe flash plugin for displaying web videos on his p.c

u can post anything you have done to mark the day here.

well planned to animate something basic for independece day. in the end i was only able to spend four hours last night and came off with this. hope u like it.

really nice avenue for artists. i used to come all the way from kaduna just to attend. now im in Abuja. so u bet ill b there

https://forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/buttrock.giflookin forward to that.

sorry about my little deviation. the video is amazing. its incredible what talented artists can churn out of anything. afterall we have people making wonderful animations from clay frame by frame. i once saw a stop motion clip that had nothing in it but match sticks and matchboxes with the match sticks as people. you could still perceive character and emotions in the leading individual match stick characters. back to the old saying, the artist is the biggest tool. find something u can use, stick to it, master it, and doors shall open before you! i am not sure however about the availability ample top notch learning resources for blender that can rival the others you mentioned(could be wrong but i seem to bump much less into blender tuts as opposed to maya and max that i couldn't evade if i tried). this is very key as we usually have to learn a lot ourselves down here with little chance of learning it on the job or as an intern at an established studio.and the more the tutorials the merrier. also if you are looking to working with other artists in this part of the world blender may not be the best choice as you will barely fine people to work for or with who use it except if you are planning to set up a 3d house or studio and adopt it as your native 3d app. just like blur studios did. many people used to doubt what can be achived with 3ds max in character animation from a cutting edge perspective. many thought it was meant or more suited for archtectual viz and computer game design as most feature animation outfits were done with maya. that capacity is no longer in doubt. check out their old showreel from 2007.

[flash=425,349]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svu8g6XIrv0?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash]

damseremie:
Yet it has features like fluid simulation that even people like us having been waiting for in 3DMax all these years ,

Although max seems to lack a native high end fluid dynamics tool on the facade,talented geniuses like allan mckay still manage to command particle flow to behave in anyway they want with astonishing results via scripting. he is now a highly sought special freelancer on many hollywod movies out there like superman returns, blade and even the latest transformers movie. check out his old reel here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OCH23pwC_o.  there are commercial plugins like glu 3d that do fluid dynamics too well. most maya users also rely on commercial plugins like real flow for fluid dynamics. but its really cool that blender is totally free.

oh great i can finally post again after inexplicably being banned for apparently no reason! i wasn't even trying to post when it happened. 

I think it is subjective.It all depends on the production pipeline. With a very good Character TD / Animator you can churn out good quality animations in extremely short amount of time. Couple this with the non-linear animation feature in most 3D packages there is  room for animation reuse and experimentation. This advantage comes into play where you have to deal with deadlines and producing an animated series.

well i am pleased to inform you that the 2d animation package we use for this project has all of the above mentioned and more. for instance working as the lead animator of this project, i dont go animating walk cycles, run cycles, facial expressions and so many intermittent animations or actions each time i need them. i can just use the ones i saved or even cut out specific key frames and save it for further reuse in future. you can even transfer and re-target animation across different characters or simply just take one little animation like a human head nod and use it for a dog tail wag.i've put together a little demo to prove that. non linear animation and experimentation is not an issue here. i must say in my experience both as a 2d and 3d animator,i think this method of 2d we use is way faster than trying to do the same in 3d. especially if you adopt an animation style similar to the one we employ or even 3/4 animation (similar to family guy e.t.c) during production of the first d.v.d. there were times when i had up to 2 minutes of animation in one day. that is not an easy feat to achieve in 3d even for the best!
[flash=425,349]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PXEW46D8TU?fs=1&hl=en_US[/flash]

some of you have seen it before but this month is yar adua 1 year memorial and felt like sharing.

novaman:
it great but not in the level of matrix, common just because of their overkill in cgi doesn't mean you can match it with matrix, wait for my Nigerian version in 2013

well the thread topic was a question not a statement but all the same we eagerly await your 2013 masterpiece.

oh i see. i certainly noticed that the part where the robot pulls in the two trucks was not c.g. it did actually swerve on the road and it had a real dud in the middle adjusting his footing. it was certainly being rammed by some real cars on one side with some few real fireworks blended with c.g. also like the part where the robots become a bowling ball, the pillars were actually broken down as well as some glass shattering. the scene that also had a chopper (c.g with c.g missile)blowing up a car( real with real explosion too). intresting. well at least if they are smart they should at least learn a few tricks from the imports lol. by the way what do you think of the rigging of the robot in its formation (voltron )mode ? cool huh? i think thats pretty much where the japs will come in most handy. must also say enough indian hands to do the tedious boring work lol.

OKX:
i think both nolly n bolly r in d same boat on dat.

yeah they are very similar in so many ways. let us know what u dig up!

i agree, the action sequence was quite an overdose. a friend of mine who met a member of the film crew doing a t.v show in dubai just told me that the vfx crew was brought in from the united states.(i would like to believe its the main visual effects supervisors though) and as a result it is now the most expensive film in bollywood history! also i heard the movie storyline itself is somewhat wack. probably just a few rupees for that as all the dollars went to the american vfx crew.

Hi everyone. i only just got to view a video of scenes from a bollywood movie called Endhiran (robot in Indian)on you tube and i must say i was totally impressed. in fact i think that would be putting it mildly. i always wondered why i see so many extremely talented Indian vfx and c.g artists online but they are barely being utilized in their movies. one might understand if you take into account the fact that we also have a lot of very talented c.g and vfx artists in Nigeria but visual effects in nollywood movies are totally wack. hopefully the industry will eventually take advantage of the talented artists soon and we can be awed by some of the scenes. well bollywood seems to finally have started taking advantage of its skilled hands and although i still see some little loose ends (understandably since its not like a hollywood budget) i think this is a very brilliant concept and effort and even the wachowski brothers when they see this would be like "no frigging way!" and "why didn't we think of that". what do you all think?
[flash=560,349]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yysbbPStfWw?fs=1&hl=en_US"[/flash]

damn! totally forgot as the thread sank. hmm. and i was planning to really sleep really early tonight. any way i signed up so might as well live up to it.
nice going okx. nice workflow too by dropping your color palette on canvas for quicker access.

OKX:
kool
how come theres a strong wind in all your animations?

lol melvi loves flowing hair. in fact its so prominent in his work that who knows maybe one day we'll be saying "give the hair more melvi"
visible improvement. i just think you should work on using construction shapes when animating more. the help in preserving volume when rotating masses that way you wont get much of the squishing and stretching of characters when they turn.

OKX:
the day they fuse will be a nitemare for me.
hate wot they did with the maya interface in the 2011 release.

the dark look is my primary dislike in max and they now forced it on us in maya.
(atleast most other max-ish features can be turned off by the user if desired- but not this one!)

i think it detracts rather than adds to quality when one major vendor owns all the top apps for any sector in the industry.
maya has motion paths that u constrain objects to, but this new feature gives u the ability to interactively and intuitively edit animation without the graph editor.
u say max has had that 4 a bit?

lol. thank god we can customize and use any color for the u.i in max *sticking tongue out*. and yeah im not talking about constraining stuff to paths etc. i had to check the maya new features vid to see if it was something new that max did not have in order to gauge my future app of choice. so far i have no reason to consider changing my 3d app of choice. thanks to inspiration by likes of blur studios and tyson ibele. its been around in max at least since the 2010 release came out. thats when i discovered it anyway. you might not find it for an eternity because you need to hot key a toggle to go into the trajectory sub object mode. so even if you have the trajectory visible you cant click on it let alone edit if you dont know of the toggle function.

OKX:
yeah. good site.
Autodesk has some awesome features for their 2012 release of 3d apps.
i wonder y they bother, they long bought out all d competition.lol

i particularly look forward 2 d editable motion path that now shows in the maya viewport.
and the viewport 2.0 capabilities r awesome. u dont really need to render your scene to assess your effects.

it seems the decision to merge the autodesk 3d apps development teams under one person is yielding dividends on all fronts. editable motion paths (trajectories) have been in max for a couple of years now.  .its  just like the way i envied some of the edge modeling tools in maya and had to go third party with stuff like polyboost. was pleased to see similar stuff  with the introduction of graphite modeling tools in max. wonder if this means the 2 apps will eventually fuse into one someday.