Hey. Totally - you deserve it. I showed Plagaras to a friend last night and he was definitely impressed.
Early release: Don’t. Make it something you’re proud of, otherwise your audience out here might not get to see the whole damn thing if you lose heart.
I just want to see it play out like it’s been, so no pressure.
Free time’s a bitch because it’s so expensive. I find I have to make it myself and that’s often late nights and less goofing–seriously, I cut out video games.
I’ve watched the jump flip repeatedly. I really want to know how you made it so fluid and got all the movements in there (the arms, the way he lands on the rear of his heel instead of flat and perfect). I should probably shut up and just practice my walk-cycle, but I’ll say the one time I rigged a character and keyed him to do anything, someone thought I had autism, and they knew me.
Ha! I can’t wait to see all of that. Are you a writer, too? It shows in your work; that sounds like the sort of thing a writer would do - that one distant persistent universe. The reason I got into 3D - I wanted those worlds to SHOW; when I yammered, I wanted to be able to bust out an illustration; I wanted my characters to move and live and breathe in realtime outside the page.
So, soon. Bought a tablet today so I can start doing my own concept art and illustration as well.
May I offer some constructive criticism? I hope I don’t restate anything any-one else may have mentioned. I am aware that you’ve progressed a lot, and Cycles too since the first episode!
The microphone seems to be the most noticeable hindrance to the epiosode, it draws from the experience of the wonderful scenery!
Also, the voice acting was a little cliche, and a little empty. If this isn’t your forte then it’s understandable, but perhaps if you worked on it a little longer for the next episode or asked someone to help?
One other thing was the landing sequence. When the camera angles changed, there was a noticeable change in time where the animation was offset by a number of frames. Little things like that break the fluidity.
With the man animation, i think the issue is that he has little horizontal momentum, combined with his vertical movement. If he jumped like that he’d probably have some sideways movement which would help him regain his stance. He needs to land with leaning backwards a little.
Well done overall, I really like it!
A writer? I suppose I try to be. =D The jump/flip is taken from live action video I found. I was watching the “People Are Awesome 2013” video by Hadouken! (set to their song, Levitate) and discovered a jump/flip in there at 3:00 that I thought would be nice to implement in Plagarus for the main character. I’m not a big fan of the flying ninja swordsman kind of stylistic fighting that’s seen in many movies nowadays, particularly the Star Wars movies. I prefer more down-to-earth melee, more like Jason Bourne. But, there is a sort of romantic coolness about throwing in a ridiculously over-the-top flippy thingy sometimes. =)
Flying ninja swordsman has its place, but you gotta keep it subtle before it’s all-out, mind-numbing Blade. I prefer more… Assassin’s Creed style, at least I was impressed with 1 - the counters were ridiculously brutal but efficient.
Jason Bourne’s melee is so badass - same goes, brutal and efficient. I actually have all three and maybe I should watch 'em before directing any fight scenes.
I really dig that flip - so you just threw the vid up in the background on Blender and keyed the animation to it?
Thanks Dorien. =) And thank you all, for your nice suggestions, as well. I didn’t even see these before I posted the last comment! Sorry about that. =(
Dorien: Yep, that’s how I did it. It was a struggle, considering that in the video, the camera zooms out slightly, but oh well.
But on breaks, been scouring the internets for content to use for later and I could cover a wall in the photos, memes and other accumulated garbage on my phone right now.
Hey Dorien, that’s a funny video. =D Yeah, it does kind of look like it, doesn’t it?
I’ve got a new idea for the shot that’s been giving me trouble in Part Two. Mulling over it, now, and it seems like a nice compromise that’ll allow me to get past a bit of animation that’s too difficult for me to even begin to contemplate, while at the same time, seeming pretty classy. Hopefully it works. =)
Go for it! I’d love to see it. I’m about to start doing some animating, meanwhile building my real character model - I’m nearing completion on Jonathan Williams’ incredible character creation course, and I think I’m ready. I’ll post stuff in the WIP threads and link if you’re interested.
One thing Andrew Price has said is that you should go for those things that scare you, you’ll learn most from them, and I agree, after how badass that flip was I really do want to see what you have in store.
Wow! JDaniels, i’ts impresive! I love the sci-fi theme, the base (landing area) in the desert i’ts a wonderful idea. I like it a lot, congrats and good job.
Thanks, everyone. Sorry I haven’t been keeping up on this thread. The movie is moving slowly because of different obligations I have in real life.
Here is a short compilation of what’s been rendered so far with the travel montage for Part II. Keep in mind, it’s rather dull without sound and editing, as this is just the raw establishing shots without the close-ups or any filler stuff to spice it up.
I was making sound effects while watching this a few times, almost tried to video respond with a version with my voice over til I realized I was on too much coffee. Superb rendering, love it!
