Animation(WIP):Alien Rocker Kicks Out A Jam

At first, hi all SimplyCG comunity!
Let me introduce myself first just in few words I am 22,student of Riga's Technical University Power industry faculty(Riga is capital city of Latvia, one of Baltic states in East Europe) and here I should better be taken as animation enthusiast or, as I like it more to put, "yet-to-become" animator. I am not a professional CG artist for now and neither I have a job related to CG for now. I am studying total off-topic as I now realized.
I bee for a while here on this forum, although better I should be taken as newbie. For the first time on this forum I would to introduce my current 3D project that I am already working on for a many months already, probably some 7-8, can't say exactly now. As many others probably, I always have to deal with all sorts of distractions coming from outside and so on. This project originally and till this moment was intended as test to my character rigging, skinning and animating skills which attracts me most in 3D. Why I didn't mention modeling? That I left for other time, not this time although model and everything I indeed done by myself. Alien model was created by me following to very cool, awesome and clear Video Training provided on other forum http://www.3dbuzz.com which could be downloaded for free until their site has gone huge changes. Their training was awesome! and that lead to take steps further with my first ever created character and to skin him and put into action. And that's where we come to my project
Since first shoots it grown in it's own rights, ambitions and scale. It will be sort of musical 3D short, where this Alien fellow plays his guitar and gives a real kicking out a Jam He will be playin' one of Monster Magnet rock band songs but let this be kept in little secret which exactly. To make things straight I should mention that animation won't be long - approx. minute and half long without credits and intro.
When project gone into production I once realized that Alien is alone and he kinda feels like that. And here we come to Plankman. This 2D character appears from time to time. It was intended as an 2D and 3D integration. 2D Plankman + 3D Alien Rocker = 5D Space Jam
As I mentioned above, this project already gone quite long road and that's why I have to mention this - since many frames rendered, much of time and effort already spent, project gone it's own way I decided not to change anything. I know that some or many people could easily point flaws in Alien model or skinning flaws. I am still learning many stuff and that's my first rig and skin after all. I hope, I very much hope that community won't take this statement as my unwillingness to hear critics ! Not at all. It's just a matter of how things go around me and how much time I have on this project, hard to explain everything and no need.....
My desire to post WIP here was driven by my wish to introduce this project to wider public. It's already is in 3dbuzz.com WIP but I am here not to distract people from one forum to another, at no point! Quite opposite, I decided that probably this project could rise some interest and maybe even some inspiration in this community also.
One more thing you should excuse to me - for more intrigue I rarely post rendered shots or videos. I hope you accept that After all, everybody will be able to enjoy this animation for free, needless to say, so I keep my rights to little intrigue
Okay, now for my final word of my "short" introductory some tech specs. Software I use include this: for 3D I use 3ds max 2008. All renderings are done in Mental Ray with some Final Gather and Motion Blur usage. For Alien skin I used MR Skin material. There is also cloth simulations included. In first shots Alien is wearing only T-Shirt but later trousers appears, that's where things goes more interesting but also more computation-heavy. Alien is approx. for 50 000 polys. For 2D Plankman and few more stuff I use Anime Studio 5.5 Pro - awesome soft. For 3D scene background videos and some composite stuff I use AutoDesk Combustion 4. Video edit I do in Sony Vegas Video 7.

Ok, with having said all this looks like I am done. Oou, just one more. If anyone is interested, here I post link where people can watch my previous 3D works.

http://www.youtube.com/Intars1986

Enjoy!



(Bone setup)


(While working out UWRAP UWV on T-Shirt)


(One of first sequences working out)


(Scene cam movement refinement)


(Some other initial sequence)




(Scene with Plankman)


(Here comes Plankman)


(Drawing Skull Mountain on top of which Planky will stand for few shots)


(Another scene with new backgrounds. Cam movement refinement goes on )


(Sometimes shit happens and 3d collapses)


(Some other scene Alien walk refinement)


(Sometimes box degrading comes handy)


(Plankman standing on Skull Mountain with Space background)


(First trouser simulation for "trouser appear scene"


(While Alien keeps rockin' with his new cool trousers, Plankman flies somewhere in a Deep Cosmos)


(Typical trouser simul waiting)


(Both clothes simulated for another scene, Alien is happy and goes rockin' further)



(Sometimes, oh no, many times cloth intersection issues appears but just in order to be solved )


(New background set for trousers appear set)


(Space stuff scene)


(Render tests)


(Yet another background change)


(Another render goes on, Alien never stops! He kicks, and kicks a Jam!)

Hold on, people, encountered few problems with picture uploads.

Hehee Hello Baltic neighbour.

I started learning from 3dBuzz too.

Good luck.

Edit: Pics look good. I have modeled this alien too. Waiting for your final result

Virtual handshake to neighbors
Buzz crew really did amazing VTM's, that's for sure. And luck indeed may help, so thanks for wishing one.
I advise you really arm yourself with patience than since a lot of work still must be done. Me too can't/can wait to see final output But last scenes comes more complicated and very last scene is intended with some reactor simulation not to speaking about some cool stuff that I intend to do for intro
Just patience, just patience people.
By the way - how your Alien "does", is he still "alive" ?

Hahaha my alien is long long dead

And do not worry about patience. I have been learning 3D for 3 years and i still do not have anything to show

Just an quick update - another sequence worked out

i like it

Okay, people, here's quick update. Some progress in current sequence, cloths simulated, alien animated and now some stuff with camera movement refinement and background video playback change goes on. Also progress in new Plankman shot.

Quick update. Another Plankman short cut-scene done. Hee hee, the more I use Combustion the more I like it

Cool...also interesting to see someone using Combustion. I used it years ago but didn't like it very much.

=O people use combustion?

its looking good regarding combustion, what good compositing packages are there other than after effects?

I found combustion quite cool. At least it works for me. I wonder if Autodesk will "keep it further alive"? Combustion learning curve is not so deep as other comp packages like Nuke, so far I can't afford to spend a lot of time on compositing soft learning while doing this Alien Rocker project where compostion does play quite big part but in the same time it plays only additional role. Combustion gives me what I want in time that I can afford, that's why I like it. Besides, as a 3ds max user to me it's quite usefull that combustion has some specific "collaborative tendencies" with 3ds max although so far I hadn't chance to test this in reality. That sort of stuff I intend to do in my second 3d project which will be 3d short and is already gone into progress with help of friends. But that's possibly another future WIP thread.


Regarding comp softwares I heard that Eyeon's Fusion is the very cool software. To those who don't know - Autodesk has another compositing soft called Toxic.

Quick update. Tonight refined one scene, soon it will go to render phase. Some minor cloth issues and camera issues. This brings project closer to it's finish line which slowly appears on horizont

Oooo excited about the final result

Another scene with Plankman in progress

New scene with Alien goes into progress. Very quick shot with Alien "giving a tune" on guitar. Setting up scene, block out animation. Also working out some lighting stuff according to minor scene changes. Cloths simulated and scene soon will go to rendering phase

Things starts to go weirder. Zzzzwwwiiiiinnngggg and we appear in other place of Cosmos. Alien gives his "space kung-fu" performance. It's like in musical videos where performers from time to time appears in different places, dimensions. As usually all starts with animation blocking. Then goes cloth simulations, I start with trousers.


(Trousers simul goes in progress. All quite for now)

(Checking if any serious cloth collision issues)

(Sometimes work with cameras may become very, very tedious )

(Some scene setup rearranging)

(Quick render tests to check what is what and where)

looks nice ^^ but are we ever going to see some animation?

Well, about animation, I just thought that for saving intrigue and even time for myself I won't post animations, at least rendered. But preview animations isn't the best thing to watch, isn't it? I know that such attitude itself hide in itself some potential of disappointment when final animation is concerned but in the same time it lay grounds for some surprise moment for viewers. I can say that I do my best to make it look like it wouldn't be my first character animation
Try get best from pictures so far, maybe later I will post some animation sequences

After short break due to some reasons work on Alien Rocker resumes. Another small step towards the finish line. New quick scene with Plankman created and gone to composing phase in Combustion.


(Rearranging video plates, changing plankman animation,
messing around some video background timing stuff)


(Moon which appears in background)


(Composition)

Next will be Alien sequence with his "Cosmo - kung fu" performance

Quick update.
New scene, new sequence, routine cloth simulation and so on. But this time work almost turned out to be a total mess. This is the hardest one so far. Because of quite quick Alien movements cloths simulations goes more nuts.


(Blocking animation, making previews)

(Hand movements)

(Trousers simul)

(Cloth to cloth)

Cloth issues)

(Scene arrangement)

This scene turned more troublesome than expected. Investigating it more thouroughly uncovered many cloth issues - many "dots" where cloth anyway continues to protrude. I usd this as a cause to intriduce myself with paint modifier in Combustion and do it the hard way. I am a little bit of tired of cloth simuls for now!
Paint out everything messy frame by frame, old fashioned way!
For his mistakes one must be punished. I decided to punish myself in a good manner - a little bit of beer, music and some frame by frame work

Today work went on and quite smoothly. Finished and prepared for rendering so called "Plankman Last Cosmo-Stand" scene in which Plankman appears for a final time in Space with planets in background just to reunite with Alien Rocker in next, final scene of animation where everything goes...
...later will see what comes there.

Here we can see snapshot of scene's specific arrangements and preparings moment for Plankmans performance.


For Plankman animation I took one of previous I done and changed it slightly so it's not the same - I allowed myself to be lazy this time.


Scene's animation in progress, Cosmos comes into movement!
This time Plankman is done in max, since I intended to do head-rocking movements to Plankman and in max with bend and twist modifier it's quite straightforward and easy to do. So animation done in Anime Studio is just applied as material


While applying animation as bitmap material few issues appeared, quite expected issues. Nothing serious, default stuff - some strange tilings. Unwrap UVW modifier did the thing


Everything is in place, Plankman too is in place and is ready to take a lead solo!


Test render shot

Work proceeded today on scene "Alien Rocker's Last Cosmo Stand". This is quick two seconds sequence in which Alien finishes performing his cosmo martial-art, stands calm. It's final cosmic scene with Alien Rocker.

Calm stand worked out, movements animated, cloths simulated

For the last time changes in this space scene are made -
some planet placement changes for the sake of a better
picture in new camera

The scene probably will incorporate one quick FX -
sort of wire frame scanning runs through Alien Rocker
at one point. Getting wire frame animation for composition work

Cloth wire frame animation is taken in specific way. I gave
a try to GIMP, created there texture (blue grid) and applied
it to T-shirt. Made a preview animation of T-shirt alone with
new texture for further composition work and few tricks in mind.

Yesterday did some minor work on editing - some tweaks here, some there

dude your a mad man........work looks cool as hell............show me a trailer mate........

This is it - the final scene. "Last Cosmo Stand" where Alien Rocker and Plankman are seen together giving last accords. This will be the toughest part since this sequence will hold in it some additional visual effects and reactor usage. All I can say is that something gonna really break at the very end

Although almost finish line yet still hell and a lot of a job ahead. This final sequence asked for some little brainstorm which took some time. After getting clear picture about sequence's composition preparatory work went right on - some scene element's merging, recombining, some material reassigning, deleting something, checking this and that and so on. While scenes preparation, those two folks took some brief moment of rest.


After while time came for Plankman to do some rehearsal in front of camera. I worked on basic animation of Plankman and camera trajectory. That's it for today


Kilroy - since project came to it's near end and this project is already sooooo slowed down I think for me better is not to spend time on making trailer All I could suggest is to take some extra patience. Near some dates of May project could be finished. Can't exactly say now how much time intro and credits will take and how much distractions of all sorts I will have to encounter. Besides - there's simultaneous two more 3D projects of mine(sorry, no WIPs for now) and other musical video projects from me and friend of mine which we made for fun. Just in case if interest arises, here's link where one can watch our YouTube video projects
http://www.youtube.com/Yogzatot
That could entertain folks for a moment while I work on Alien

Alien Rocker's time. Blocking basic animation for him. While working with hand movements I decided to give a try once and for all for animation controllers - less known area to me for now. I found Noise controller very, very useful in achieving results of hand movement which I was after. It take some time to tweak Noise Position and Noise Rotation controllers but it's worth it!

Now Alien Rocker is with Plankman together again. Doing some check of camera movement, repositioning of background props, characters as intended.

Cloths simulation this time was quite easy one, no big troubles. After cloth simuls for Alien work on final scene's adjustments went right on. Some stuff I merged from previous scenes I did. And of course, as easily predicted, troubles came "into house" also. There happened huge mess with overall scene lighting - Alien Rocker with Plankman almost got blind. It took time after main troublemaker lights were found and nuked out - they were the hidden ones by myself and of course I forgot that. As the project comes more close to it's real end in the same rate chaos in scenes and working pipeline grows more and more.
But, things gets better after while

After hard fighting with lighting and material's mess overall atmosphere and picture started to appear. It took quite many test render shots to get proper atmosphere, colors, material changes and lighting setup. Alien Rocker stands near Plankman, and they both are almost ready for their final launch. There is still some changes to be done with Plankman, his singing animation. While doing this work I found max region rendering option and viewport direct lighting (works great in max 2008)very useful, very
With this, final scene's first part is almost ready for specific renderings with one visual FX in mind which will be achieved by using mixture of few composition tricks in next turn

Quick update - in days did few fixes with lighting and camera movements. One morning, after watching previous day's work I decided to totally redo cameras. While working with camera trajectories found Graph Editor very useful once again


Suddenly I decided to make lighting a little bit different than previous one. Just a little bit. But this small change and desire cost me sooooo much. I was sitting two whole days and starred in monitor while at one point I could say that I achieved overall look I was looking for. It's more red, more warmth atmosphere - almost like Alien and Plankman for the final shot returned from cold cosmic landscapes to warm place


End of song


With this the final sequence's first part is finished. Renderings goes already on and it looks like few days I can take some moment of rest while renderings
All I can offer here for now is this shot from final scene
Next will come compositing work on this scene. After that will come the hardest part of sequence - part 2 where I will use reactor and something more for final VFX with which everything will be ended

So, sequences rendered and composition work could go ahead. This time I went on with Vegas and did all necessary work in layers there. This part was quite tricky - the idea was to make scene with visual effect that would give feeling of environment being installed/reinstalled as if Alien Rocker and Plankman would be in simulated place. That included effect of "running" green scan-grid and changes in video slates as a consequences of sort of reinstallation. Green grid is a planes with grid materials assigned and animated slice modifier applied to them which later in Vegas was applied in screen layer mode with few tweaks. It took time while configuring which video layer and in which mode goes where.

Work incorporated usage of masks in Vegas. Here we also see how video foot plate reappears and follows to scan-grid, filling empty plate with video. Today I started to push things further to the close end and started to do last part of final sequence. So I get back to work

Final sequence's second part "CosmoShake" where everything goes away and falls apart went in progress.
Lights start to fade and something gona happen

Screens starts to give distorted picture in background, scene starts to shake little by little

For unknown reasons to Plankman and Alien Rocker scene doesn't calm, everything gets more shaky.
Situation becomes unstable. Lights went off, screens suffered from shaking and looks like everything will totaly fall apart


... singularity happens

Hello to this forum fellows and those who where following this projects WIP so far.

I feel obligated, due to long pause since I posted last pictures, to note that project is still in progress. It's not stopped. In contrary, I did pretty a lot of stuff, made good progress, and basically all the time I was working on additional scenes I found necessary to add after watching almost complete video. Main efforts went on creating special intro, approx. 40 sec of additional opening scene with a lot of stuff going on. I just was lazy to post pictures which I made plenty of for later. It's not only here, on this forum, I stopped giving signs of being "alive". It's on other one too.
Project is almost complete, all is rendered, all pieces in the place. What's slowing me down is a terrible situation, sort of technical problem I run into with my intro. I'm now in such a mess because of my own mistakes, I'm like stuck in a mud and move very slow forward - have issues with missing scenes, textures, scene corruption, scene elements corruption and so on. Also, after loosing my usual job (non-CG related) I had opportunity to work in non-distracted manner for two months which I used "in full speed" and ended with exhaustion. After one specially dedicated day for whole (with some issues still unfixed) project's preview to test auditory consisting of friends and which turned into great drinking party later, after all that I took my opportunity to be invited on a friendly relative guest status to take a two week relax on country side. Faaaarrr, faaaar away of city I live in That was sooooo refreshing and healthy to creative powers, to imagination and overall. Fresh powers!
But finish line is closer than ever, cleaning mess. Once this project is totally finished, I will post it on net. Until this I decided not to post pictures, sorry. It's just that I don't want to spoil some things too early, too much effort put there to make things funnier For the sake of more fun and enjoyable viewing experience of those who tried to imagine what this project will look like judging from WIP pictures
Still, I have to say that under current situation and distractions I have to deal with I can't ensure that it will be in upcoming weeks. Something of end of December, January is probable. I'm not sure.

So, to those who had time to follow and showed interest into this project so far, I want to say words I said to myself when taking upon this project:"It will be finished no matter what." Simple as that. Alien Rocker and Plankman will have their rock-time

Greetings SimplyCG artists. After some pause, I am coming back here after hard struggle, chaos and swamp where my project led me and this time I came to make announcement. Those who were following and showed interest into this project now can raise their heads up again. In a short moment something "wicked", finished will come to your way. WIP is no more a status of this project, Alien Rocker and Plankman is heading straight in your way!

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