Impulse

Submitted by rgreen on
Forum
Work in progress

Hi guys,

As the content suggests this image is a still from a little animated story (scene) I'm working on for my own personal enjoyment. It's been a lot of fun so far and the animation is in cleanup/polishing stages at the moment so I should post the final render in the next few days.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/47_impussouri01L.jpg[/img]

Comments/crits welcome [xx(].

Rod Green
----------
3D character abuser

Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 24/03/04 - 9:15 PMPermalink

Heya Rod, good to see you posting some stuff up!

I like this little guy - cutesy and simplistic but really appealing; I always enjoy this style of short animation, just something about conveying an idea and story in its basic forms along the lines of the animations 50% gray, white space etc.

One thing you may want to try out is making the flat enviro more continuous with a smooth horizon gradient - perhaps try a curved surface on the horizon by extruding the edges upwards and outwards smoothly, or maybe try a radial gradient in the opacity of it (doing a matte/shadow blend would probably be the way to go there).

anyways, good stuff, keep us posted on its development - I want to see it now! [:)]

Submitted by hobonation on Thu, 25/03/04 - 2:40 AMPermalink

That is awesome. I have no more to say. I love the style and shading. Keep it up.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 25/03/04 - 5:04 AMPermalink

thats really great, youve certainly got a very good theme in your shading/rendering happening there.

Submitted by hobonation on Thu, 25/03/04 - 6:52 AMPermalink

YES! That is one of the best characters ive seen in a while. I may have a sad life....But i think they r awesome. Did you say u were making an animation? I'll have to see it. Good Work!

Submitted by rgreen on Thu, 25/03/04 - 1:59 PMPermalink

Thanks for the kind replies guys! :)

quote:Did you say u were making an animation? I'll have to see it. Good Work!

Yep animation in the works.. very close only a few days now.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 25/03/04 - 11:04 PMPermalink

yeh, be sure to publish this one the web in a nice crisp codec for our viewing, it looks perfect for animation, hes so full of character

Submitted by Kalescent on Wed, 31/03/04 - 9:32 PMPermalink

nice - did you write your own maxscript for the stretchy spine / limbs ?

Submitted by rgreen on Wed, 31/03/04 - 9:50 PMPermalink

Well sort of I wrote my own MEL script for it. In the soon-to-be-posted animation you'll see that I have pretty good control over then too. I can control 'stretch' (so that they bow in the middle) and influence general shape (like an up vector constraint).

Submitted by Kalescent on Thu, 01/04/04 - 12:19 AMPermalink

Thats very cool :) ive dabbled in a bit of custom rigging before - and seeing that stretchy stuff going on reminded me of a little cartoon doctor model i rigged up. and had the same sort of stretchyness to him :)

Submitted by bullet21 on Thu, 01/04/04 - 1:53 AMPermalink

That is sweet, like i said b4 i love glowy things, it's even better when they move :)

Submitted by MoonUnit on Fri, 02/04/04 - 9:08 AMPermalink

downloading, cant wait :D will post comments afterwards

EDIT: amazing, so much expression and character, a really great peice. Love the little hand rejoining thing aswell.

Submitted by inglis on Fri, 02/04/04 - 9:17 AMPermalink

yeah made me laugh. nice work rod.

Submitted by Sorceror Bob on Fri, 02/04/04 - 10:44 AMPermalink

Just goes to show how far you can take a relatively simple concept.

*applauds rod*

Submitted by jacobt on Fri, 02/04/04 - 7:28 PMPermalink

Awesome Rod. The new soft horizon looks great. Looking forward to seeing more :)

Submitted by bullet21 on Sat, 03/04/04 - 2:16 AMPermalink

The hand rejoinging bit WAS cool, nice work.

Submitted by smeg on Sat, 03/04/04 - 5:20 AMPermalink

haha, thats very cool! Excellent work.

cheers

Submitted by Kalescent on Sat, 03/04/04 - 8:04 AMPermalink

so much expression yet he has almost no features to express them with... in that way he/she reminds me of vivi a charcater who is a custom line 'brought to life' rag doll from final fantasy 9... really well done man - its hard to pull of an animation that shows so much emotion and feeling with a character so simple...

Submitted by Me109 on Tue, 06/04/04 - 7:49 PMPermalink

I like it! awesome example of character animation dude! nice to see simple character being brought to life! cool interaction with the door as well.

Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 07/04/04 - 2:31 AMPermalink

Great stuff, I enjoyed that! Very nice fluid and exaggerated yet very believable animation - great secondary motion, and feel for weight and momentum.

Good stuff, keep it up! (and don't forget to bug your sound dept. to give you some background elevator music, thump sounds, and character squeeks [;)] )

Submitted by MoonUnit on Wed, 07/04/04 - 4:00 AMPermalink

yeah woulda been nice with some sort of ambient noise atleast, but your work wouldnt have changed ofcourse (the actual modeling and animation) and thats still great.

Submitted by LiveWire on Wed, 07/04/04 - 8:08 PMPermalink

hahahaha - that is awsome!

get some sound in there man for sure!

Submitted by jacobt on Fri, 09/04/04 - 11:13 PMPermalink

hey rod, that's a nice addition. Nice, minimal sound work, me likes [:)]

Some ambient noise as someone else mentioned could really work to fill in the silent parts... (soft jazz?) The noise sample you're using could use in some variation in pitch to match the dynamics of the animation. A high/low pass filter could work well, not sure which software you're using though.. but i think it could use something other than volume ramping. When I was watching it in silence I actually thought more of a classic laser sound when his optical arms were reaching out for the hands.

Also one of the largest movements (when he flies erm.. stage left) could use a noise turbulence sort of thing.

Ah I'm not sound guy but i do enjoy it. Gone are my days of tracking [:)]

Posted by rgreen on
Forum
Work in progress

Hi guys,

As the content suggests this image is a still from a little animated story (scene) I'm working on for my own personal enjoyment. It's been a lot of fun so far and the animation is in cleanup/polishing stages at the moment so I should post the final render in the next few days.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/47_impussouri01L.jpg[/img]

Comments/crits welcome [xx(].

Rod Green
----------
3D character abuser

Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 24/03/04 - 9:15 PMPermalink

Heya Rod, good to see you posting some stuff up!

I like this little guy - cutesy and simplistic but really appealing; I always enjoy this style of short animation, just something about conveying an idea and story in its basic forms along the lines of the animations 50% gray, white space etc.

One thing you may want to try out is making the flat enviro more continuous with a smooth horizon gradient - perhaps try a curved surface on the horizon by extruding the edges upwards and outwards smoothly, or maybe try a radial gradient in the opacity of it (doing a matte/shadow blend would probably be the way to go there).

anyways, good stuff, keep us posted on its development - I want to see it now! [:)]

Submitted by hobonation on Thu, 25/03/04 - 2:40 AMPermalink

That is awesome. I have no more to say. I love the style and shading. Keep it up.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 25/03/04 - 5:04 AMPermalink

thats really great, youve certainly got a very good theme in your shading/rendering happening there.

Submitted by hobonation on Thu, 25/03/04 - 6:52 AMPermalink

YES! That is one of the best characters ive seen in a while. I may have a sad life....But i think they r awesome. Did you say u were making an animation? I'll have to see it. Good Work!

Submitted by rgreen on Thu, 25/03/04 - 1:59 PMPermalink

Thanks for the kind replies guys! :)

quote:Did you say u were making an animation? I'll have to see it. Good Work!

Yep animation in the works.. very close only a few days now.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 25/03/04 - 11:04 PMPermalink

yeh, be sure to publish this one the web in a nice crisp codec for our viewing, it looks perfect for animation, hes so full of character

Submitted by Kalescent on Wed, 31/03/04 - 9:32 PMPermalink

nice - did you write your own maxscript for the stretchy spine / limbs ?

Submitted by rgreen on Wed, 31/03/04 - 9:50 PMPermalink

Well sort of I wrote my own MEL script for it. In the soon-to-be-posted animation you'll see that I have pretty good control over then too. I can control 'stretch' (so that they bow in the middle) and influence general shape (like an up vector constraint).

Submitted by Kalescent on Thu, 01/04/04 - 12:19 AMPermalink

Thats very cool :) ive dabbled in a bit of custom rigging before - and seeing that stretchy stuff going on reminded me of a little cartoon doctor model i rigged up. and had the same sort of stretchyness to him :)

Submitted by bullet21 on Thu, 01/04/04 - 1:53 AMPermalink

That is sweet, like i said b4 i love glowy things, it's even better when they move :)

Submitted by MoonUnit on Fri, 02/04/04 - 9:08 AMPermalink

downloading, cant wait :D will post comments afterwards

EDIT: amazing, so much expression and character, a really great peice. Love the little hand rejoining thing aswell.

Submitted by inglis on Fri, 02/04/04 - 9:17 AMPermalink

yeah made me laugh. nice work rod.

Submitted by Sorceror Bob on Fri, 02/04/04 - 10:44 AMPermalink

Just goes to show how far you can take a relatively simple concept.

*applauds rod*

Submitted by jacobt on Fri, 02/04/04 - 7:28 PMPermalink

Awesome Rod. The new soft horizon looks great. Looking forward to seeing more :)

Submitted by bullet21 on Sat, 03/04/04 - 2:16 AMPermalink

The hand rejoinging bit WAS cool, nice work.

Submitted by smeg on Sat, 03/04/04 - 5:20 AMPermalink

haha, thats very cool! Excellent work.

cheers

Submitted by Kalescent on Sat, 03/04/04 - 8:04 AMPermalink

so much expression yet he has almost no features to express them with... in that way he/she reminds me of vivi a charcater who is a custom line 'brought to life' rag doll from final fantasy 9... really well done man - its hard to pull of an animation that shows so much emotion and feeling with a character so simple...

Submitted by Me109 on Tue, 06/04/04 - 7:49 PMPermalink

I like it! awesome example of character animation dude! nice to see simple character being brought to life! cool interaction with the door as well.

Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 07/04/04 - 2:31 AMPermalink

Great stuff, I enjoyed that! Very nice fluid and exaggerated yet very believable animation - great secondary motion, and feel for weight and momentum.

Good stuff, keep it up! (and don't forget to bug your sound dept. to give you some background elevator music, thump sounds, and character squeeks [;)] )

Submitted by MoonUnit on Wed, 07/04/04 - 4:00 AMPermalink

yeah woulda been nice with some sort of ambient noise atleast, but your work wouldnt have changed ofcourse (the actual modeling and animation) and thats still great.

Submitted by LiveWire on Wed, 07/04/04 - 8:08 PMPermalink

hahahaha - that is awsome!

get some sound in there man for sure!

Submitted by jacobt on Fri, 09/04/04 - 11:13 PMPermalink

hey rod, that's a nice addition. Nice, minimal sound work, me likes [:)]

Some ambient noise as someone else mentioned could really work to fill in the silent parts... (soft jazz?) The noise sample you're using could use in some variation in pitch to match the dynamics of the animation. A high/low pass filter could work well, not sure which software you're using though.. but i think it could use something other than volume ramping. When I was watching it in silence I actually thought more of a classic laser sound when his optical arms were reaching out for the hands.

Also one of the largest movements (when he flies erm.. stage left) could use a noise turbulence sort of thing.

Ah I'm not sound guy but i do enjoy it. Gone are my days of tracking [:)]