Asteroid Collision test

This is just about my first time attempting to do any 3D work. I have in the past, but, really simply, nothing like this.
I have yet to perfect the timing (like speed), and whatnot.

http://stage6.divx.com/user/mikefrisk/video/1478629/Asteroid-Animation-Test

Any comment is welcome.


Oh, and rocks are really easy to model!

 

It seriously needs some post-work, some dust being thrown up, and some smoother animation.

 

Nice work. The modeling and texturing are good - The rock and the environment look pretty photo-realistic, and they match each other well. To make the shot really work though, you need to hide some of your perfect work -

The previous comment about dust and debris is a good one - This is a VERY violent collision. Everything would be obscured at the moment of impact. Also, the rock wouldn't survive intact... if reality is what you're going for. It would be broken and push underground forming a crater. But if part of the gag is that it just lands and sits there, I understand. Still a big cloud of debris and and dust would be nice - This shouldn't be a difficult thing to do. Search out a tutorial on particle systems for whatever package you're using.

What would REALLY sell this shot is motion blur as the rock flies in, and camera shake when it hits. Simulating the imperfections of the real world goes a long way towards making a digital one believable.

Depending on what the shot is to be used for and how real it should be.... adding a particle system to the rock itself for it's fall through the atmosphere would be really nice.... it could either simulate dust particles breaking off, or a cone of fire as the atmosphere heats up your rock... I used to have a great tutorial on doing meteor through the atmosphere effects... I'll have to hunt for it. Tech details if you're ready for them: (The gist is you create a ball shaped emitter slightly larger than your rock and then you create time gradients on your particles color (they should start yellow and change to black), luminosity (start at full on glowing and fade out completely), size (they should start small and bloom a little), and opacity (starting around 75% and falling away to nothing). You could even start more than one emitter, so that one emitted a shower of lots of small particles that defined the trail and another created a few larger particles that broke off, fell away, flared, then burnt out very rapidly. etc. When you get comfortable with particle systems tweaking these options won't be hard... Take a look at some 'stuff falling through the atmosphere movies'... Anakin landing the broken ship at the beginning of Episode 3, (omg... never wanted to recommend this but....) Armageddon (/me ducks head to avoid flying vegetables), Apollo 13, etc.

But my biggest advice is blur and shake. Make the shot imperfect so it looks like a real person filmed a real object. A great start. Keep up the good work and feel free to shout if you have any questions about my reply. If you do have questions, it would help us all answer them if you tell us what applications you're working in/have available. Have fun!

 

Thanks awhaley,

I agree with all that you said... I tried to do all of that, but all ended in poor results. I would very much like to see the tutorial/s on this topic.

 

The tutorial I used was for Cinema4D... not the most popular 3d Package but a good one. What are you using?


The C4D tutorial is here:
c4d

And here's a particle tutorial for Lightwave,
lightwave

and one for 3DSMAX.
http://www.spoono.com/3ds/tutorials/tutorial.php?id=5

They might be able to help you adapt the C4D techniques to your package. If you're working in either Lightwave or C4d I can talk you through it more.

As you learn the particle effects of your 3d package... for the actual impact you can do an explosion/dust cloud entirely in After Effects, if you're using that for editing. A tutorial is up at:
AE



These are just things that take time to master. Keep plugging at it. And if you get something done but aren't happy with the results feel free to post it and ask what you're missing... there are a lot of setting in any particle engine and finding the right ones can be difficult for even very experienced artists. And next post, do include what 3d and video programs you use... that will help us tailor responses to ya. Keep animating. It looks great!

Art