[Tibberz]

Bear with the modeling, only 3 months working with 3ds max with no animation background before that.

This was for one of my classes I'm taking for Game Design.

I had a thread earlier about the how to make radio messages but I never got enough time to mess with it and audio wasn't a requirement but "was icing on the cake" if we could add some form of it. But I think it still turned out well.

http://youtu.be/mElQtbsuk5A

What do you guys think? As a student I would like advise/feedback.

[yuezhi]

um, it's a good start imo. but i never imagined camera shaking could be more annoying. either add some zooming in or just don't do it.

[An4ximandros]

As you wish sir:

 -The movement, the Galactica (is it?) moves too "hard", it's movement feels very... "angular" while it should be smoother and slower, like the show.

 -The textures, they need work (I can pretty much imagine your pain here, trying to texture what little I have myself is practically my modeling Ragnarok ), they lack detail and have no "depth" to them, they make the ships feel flat.

 -Lighting! it just doesn't feel as if the light comes from the star in the scene (at least to me.)

 -Scale, either the Vipers look too large or the Gala looks way too small to hold that many ships (this one is easy to fix.)

 -No turrets, the Gal lacks weapon models, so it feels the bullets are all Star Wars hull magic cannons.

 -Camera needs work, mostly towards the end, it just feels too jerky.

 I hope this does not discourage you. You have yet to tap into the true potential in CGI and your skills have yet to develop, keep at it!

[The E]

These are a few random thoughts that came up while watching the vid.

Yeah, the movement of all vessels involved is basically wrong.

Ask yourself: Why would a Viper pilot change direction by crossing a Battlestar's bow, when he could just as well turn 180 degrees in-place and be off without risking a collision?

The Basestars in the series have never done the sort of fast zooming motion seen here.

The Battlestar movement lacks weight. In the show, Battlestars (and Basestars!) were big, ponderous beasts, while able to turn rather quickly (See: End of 33, with Galactica turning towards the Olympic Carrier), they move slowly (See: Resurrection ship Battle, Battle of New Caprica).

It seems as if you've moved the Battlestar and the Vipers as one entity, while they should be separaated from each other.

[Ghostrider93]

You made a good start.
But you must pay attention to how ships can move. The Galactica is comparable to a spaceborne Battleschip/AircraftCarrier, not a fighter. A mile long ship is not going to zoom about like that.
You should only use shaking when you are 'sitting' next to the guns. Even then the amount of shake should be reduced.

The rest is covered by the posts above.

You made a good first step.
With some practice you can make it better.
Look at some of the episodes for reference of ship movements.

[Tibberz]

Thanks for the advice, it's all valid and even I knew the ship movement wasnt like it was in the show. I was more trying to make it faster paced (dont think the teacher wanted "30 seconds" of a slow moving ship). I only had about 3 weeks plus other class projects on my to do list so I had to simplify a lot of the scenes. (like the viper launch paths being tied to the gala). A lot of my decisions were on the fact that I'm trying to impress my teacher/class as a "beginning animator."

Once I finish the rest of these projects I gotta get done for other classes I will definitely go through and try to fix some of the issues with what I know how to do within the program (my biggest roadblock, can only perform what you know).

Keep the advice coming, it's brought things up that I hadn't noticed before.

[Luis Dias]

30 seconds of *good* slow moving ship is worth it, definitely.

[fillipos]

For first work it's good. Keep getting better, it's skill worth developing   Today i rendered some easy animation of my model of BSG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww9YX7TLyjE Still i wish i could finish it but finals are close so i won't have time :/ (i have 3d modeling as hobby not in school, done in blender).