Episode 3 Opening Animation: Old School Models

Opinions welcome

 

No need to triple post in less than 2 hours, people prefer if you edit your message after you post

 

Your link is weird somehow.

Adjusted Link

Anyway, the video looks very nice. My major complaint is that the ships appear, at times, to not be fully textured. Could just be me, though.

 

WOW. how long did this take you? i really like it.

 

You're correct. Some SDs are not fully textured. Had some rendering issues with fully textured. If you include the trials and errors, it took 2 months. What's his faces space battle with tie's vs. BSG completly blows mine away. Special thanks to all the modelers on the site. What an inspiration.

 

very cool I like it...Was it animated all by hand or was the ship on one of those guide thingys>>Sorry forgot what it was called.

 

wow. That was awesome. You beat me to creating similar passes for my film. Good show man.

 

DO you still have the footage without the explosions or lasers because I would love to play around with it if you don't mind. I noticed that you used AlamDV for the effects. I would be able to add the effects in using after effects and tons of explosion stock footage that I have.

 

WHOA! I was just thinking of something like this, and I find this. It could use some refining, but it still blew me away! Good work!

EDIT: If at all possible, could you add some Rebel ships (ie: the Blockade Runners, Rebel Transports, etc.) and TIE Fighters to the scene? You don't have to do that if you can't but it would be cool to see.

 

ok, WOW WOW WOW, looked awesome! keep up the good work

Ps: Next time texture all the ships, they look nicer that way

 

THX for all the feed back. It's amazing how one continuously learns things. Yes, if I were to do again I would have done things differently. As far as the textures. I couldn't use alot of the heavy textured SD's. Just from a RAM standpoint. I have 1.5 GIGs, but when it all has to be on one camera shot, the slightest moves can take minutes.
The explosions were done using Particle Illusion. Engine thrust, heat, lazers etc... were done with Ulead. I have learned how to do Explosions as well as other atmos. with MAX, but I would really love to learn lazers. I've seen the Lazer script, don't know how it works. "Somebody help me!"

 

I liked it, my only complaint might be that towards the end your x-wing becomes transparent and you can see the trade federation ship through the x-wing, probably as a result of whatever keying program you're using to composite the various layers together, you might consider rendering in layers, rather than post compositing, asuimg max can do such a thing..
Also, textures or no textures, that star destroyer was never intended for such extreme close ups, you might want to pull back a bit, also there's some kind of distortion on your courascant map, other than that, very impressive, oh and, your x-wing has no pilot Oh the humanity, who's flying this thing

 

I've got some critics:
- textures, but that was mentioned before
- explosions could improve a bit (they look like just floating in space)
- the engine glows look a bit fake, especially in the shot starting at 0min 58sec
- the lasers can bit a bit less thick and could move faster

Other than that, great animation. Good job!

 

The planet should have been part of the 3D scene.. the matchmoving isn't necessary. Ditto for the lens flare at the beginning.

The ships aren't really shooting at each other. There should be several thousand lasers zipping around in every direction.

Where'd all the other fighters go? There should be at least a few hundred of those.

All I see is Star Destroyers.. what are they fighting? Shouldn't there be some enemy ships somewhere?

There should be more Star Destroyers (in addition to the invisible enemy ships).

And the big nitpick that I noticed immediately: TURN ON THE SHADOWS. Any CGI that doesn't use shadowing automatically falls under the "sucks" category. Harsh, but true.. this is CGI 101 one stuff here.. shadows are NOT an optional feature.

Speaking of shadows, how many lights are in that scene? Please tell me there's more than just the one default light. A sequence like that needs at least several dozen, not to mention the interactive lighting from the lasers and explosions, as well as whatever internal lighting rigs the ships themselves have. Wouldn't surprise me if I had over a thousand lights in a scene like that (although they'd never be in the same scene all at once).

 

And the big nitpick that I noticed immediately: TURN ON THE SHADOWS. Any CGI that doesn't use shadowing automatically falls under the "sucks" category. Harsh, but true.. this is CGI 101 one stuff here.. shadows are NOT an optional feature.

The planet was part of the 3D scene. The camera matches were the whole premise for the project. That's what I wanted to do. And as I stated before, I would have done things much differently. Things ended up the way they did because of rendering errors and other issues. That said, I respect your opinion but don't say someone's work sucks when you haven't submited any of your own.

 

If you are using After Effects, you can save the rgb and alpha channels using the RLA Image file. You can then import the couple hundreds images as a sequence in AE.

 

I beg your pardon? Feel free to browse the 'net for my work, it's out there. There's also a few models of mine on SF3D from way back. I've work in no fewer than three fanfilms (two here on TFN), plus two independent film projects. Whether you've seen my work is irrelevant, I'm more than qualified to critique the work here on these boards. You'll be seeing more of my work soon.

My point wasn't so much to overly critique the work as it was to point out that it's not near as good as the praise in this thread may lead you to believe.

 

Sorry to but in here but... Unfortunatly what he said is true. Its brutal, yes, but also are the requirements to having a succesfull 3D scene. I havent submitted any notable 3D, and I still could critizice you on it.

That said. The animation was nice, but the scene simply doesent work, keep at it, you have lots of potentional.

 

Wow, very impressive, just add some more xwings vs ties in the background and a pilot for the main xwing and you really have something there

 

*Strange, I just tried to play the file again, and it died in the middle, might be a compression thing
..had to get rid of it, kept crashing my media player, which is odd because it worked fine the first time around