Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => Arts & Talents => Topic started by: pecenipicek on November 04, 2008, 04:17:05 pm

Title: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 04, 2008, 04:17:05 pm
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=z24brRciwnY


in short, i was having some fun today in cinema 4D :p
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Retsof on November 04, 2008, 08:37:15 pm
It's ... different.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Droid803 on November 04, 2008, 08:38:28 pm
Its a...worm thing...
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on November 05, 2008, 02:24:58 am
It's funny. I like it :)
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 05, 2008, 06:36:48 am
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UzveBK3tNBw
and another one, this time with a fighter of mine, could anyone comment on the trail in particular? i'm using something similar to the technique used to make that squiggly line up there.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on November 05, 2008, 01:57:25 pm
Well, the trail looks as if there's a ribbon attached to the engine. Perhaps add a bit of motion? I do like the way it turns with the fighter.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 05, 2008, 03:27:14 pm
its actually on the fly generated geometry from a spline that follows the ships movement and the outline of the engines. but tweaking the material shouldnt be too problematic i think. just have to set it up right and off we gooooo :p


the trail texture is just a gradient with transparency and a bit of refraction.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Droid803 on November 05, 2008, 05:59:22 pm
If it flickered a bit it'd look less like a solid ribbon...
I think...
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Retsof on November 05, 2008, 06:15:41 pm
Or if it looked more insubstantial, just some varaiation in transparency....
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 05, 2008, 07:36:15 pm
i'm working on it, i dont have much experience with animating procedural textures at the moment.

i think i might have something better looking tommorow.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Raven2001 on November 06, 2008, 03:40:44 pm
Maybe try particles?
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 06, 2008, 03:46:00 pm
too slow to render, too difficult to achieve the desired effect. besides, this is exactly what i wanted to do sort of sooo :p (except the material that is, its still givink me headaches a bit)
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 08, 2008, 05:31:52 am
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ySRwG0f_BLk

an update... any thoughts?

[edit]can any of you folks actually access the bloody vid? to me it says tis been removed
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Mongoose on November 08, 2008, 12:46:01 pm
I can watch in normal quality, but not the high-quality I have set as a default.  Weird.  But that's definitely a big improvement from the first attempt.  Still looks maybe a bit too ribbon-like, but the particle effect helps break that up a lot.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 08, 2008, 01:25:43 pm
about the ribbon like thing, any ideas how it would look better?


yeah, the high quality is busted for some odd reason -.-
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Mongoose on November 08, 2008, 02:51:00 pm
I think trying to give some illusion of depth would go a long way towards that.  As it stands now, it looks for all the world like a completely two-dimensional stream of particles out the back, especially when it twists around as the ship rolls.  I know nothing about rendering, so I couldn't tell you how to achieve any sense of depth, but if there is some way to add a height component to it, particularly one that tapers off at the top and bottom, I think that would help.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Aardwolf on November 08, 2008, 03:15:10 pm
Yeah, make the ribbon get thicker and wider as it fades out. Also it might help to have a scale/speed reference in the clip--I can't tell from this how fast the stuff is supposed to be coming out of the fighter, or how big the fighter is. Also it matters whether it's in an atmosphere or in space.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on November 09, 2008, 01:36:39 am
The particle effect is :yes: Apart from some added depth, I think it would be a good thing to work on the edges a bit. A thruster tail shouldn't have sharp edges like that IMHO.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 09, 2008, 06:23:25 am
rendering new one with some "added depth" :p in short, i added in a glow postprocessing effect, which looks pretty nice at the moment


i'll upload it in an hour or so.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 09, 2008, 07:50:37 am
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RGGOyuDsqr8


once again watch the good old normal version since the high res one refuses to work...
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on November 10, 2008, 01:48:51 pm
Now it looks like a thruster :yes:
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Excalibur on November 10, 2008, 05:03:06 pm
youtube + high quality? :wtf:
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 10, 2008, 05:04:45 pm
its sort-of high quality. but please, if you dont have a comment on the content of the video itself, dont comment.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Mobius on November 10, 2008, 05:10:30 pm
Why don't you merge these little videos into one?
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Droid803 on November 10, 2008, 06:54:51 pm
Well, these are more of a procession so there's no real point to merging them...
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 10, 2008, 07:32:22 pm
mobius, please read the post above yours.
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Flipside on November 10, 2008, 08:03:28 pm
On the first video, I noticed that the light shone onto the ground object regardless of what side it was on, which looked a bit weird, but other than that, looked good.

As for the thruster, part of your problem there is the stationary camera, use the camera to give a clearer of view of what is intended ;)
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: pecenipicek on November 11, 2008, 05:03:53 am
hmm.... for the first vid... it was more of a test to see if i got the hang of the whole deal.


as for the thruster... well... its not like i do this **** for the moneys :p

what would you consider a clearer view?
Title: Re: A small animation
Post by: Flipside on November 11, 2008, 01:47:19 pm
Simply panning it across the ship, the reason it looks 2D is because there's no feeling of depth to the image, and that's because the camera is stationary, so try making it drift across the top/rear of the ship, using the model as its focus, that way you'll get more of the 3D feel of the model :)