short film: gladiatorial combat

[anoe_nomus]

very interesting.
one crit, IMHO, i think the camera for the fight scene is a unatutal; per say.
add some dynamics to it (i.e. jitter, shake, pan etc) ...use 35mm
animation is solid; very fluid

[YankyBJeans]

Childkiller! Hahaha

good to see you finally put this animation up on here aaron. You should get some good feedback. It was impressive when I saw it at BG, to say the least.

Yanky

[ryusen]

I think it should be a frontpage material. The models, lighting and animation are perfect. The storyline is mindbogling too. Top-notch. :buttrock:

[SkullboX]

Really well done short, especially the story was pretty cool - mainly because a nice story is often what lacks in short films. A couple of things came to mind when watching though...

First of all the small crowd was a bit of a disspointment. Especially because I've seen the Colloseum myself, the scale wasn't really impressive, and whether or not you wanted to go for a colloseum anywhere near that size, the crowd should have been closer together. Of course I understand it takes a lot of time to make and render a crowd, but especially since the main character mentions the 50.000 number crowd, this is kind of a shame.

I also felt there was too much motion- and environment blur. The background was really fuzzy in the fight, and the characters could have easily been rendered a lot sharper. of course, these are style issues, and I personally prefer not to use blur simply because it makes the animation less of a focal point. Film is blurry, one of the advantages of animation is that it's crisp :)

Other than that, very nice work. How long did it take you to complete this short?

[halifax]

thanks for the replies and comments. The animation took about a year... working on and off. I used maya, and handpainted all the textures in photoshop. The look and feel of the colloseum went through many changes. Originally, I directly referenced the Flavian Ampitheatre. However, as the story developed, I redesigned elements to fit a more stylized, altered reality which would exist in the olds mans mind. This gave me freedom to create things that perhaps aren't historically accurate, but accurate to a man who's watched too much of the history channel. As far as the crowd goes, I would have loved to have more people in it. As it was, however, there were close to 3250 characters in the shot, and it was a crapshoot whether maya would even open sometimes. Perhaps next time. Again, thanks for the comments.

[Shaykai]

Wow mind blowing animation... i hope the kid is just sleeping or something :( hehehe
I really loved the fight scene, and the vocals were top notch as well. No critiques really, it was very solid.

Shaykai

[JZA]

:drool:

Incredible. Models are superb.

The only possible crits are the sound of the impacts of the strikes of that big guy; they should sound far heavier, lots of more bass in them so that you feel the gladiator really gets the sh*t kicked out of him.

Whereas the lighting of the grandfathers eyes seems to be properly tweaked, the rest of the face, esp. Mouth seems a bit flat.

But what the hell am I moaning about, when I first saw I was collecting my jaw off the floor. Nice voice acting, too!

[playmesumch00ns]

Overall I was very impressed by this piece. Especially the opening couple of shots. Story was nicely thought out, but I don't know about the ending - seemed a bit off the wall and out of sync with the mood of the rest of th epiece. Still, well written and very enjoyable.

Crits on the technical side: Main gripe is with the numbers in the crowd. Perhaps you could duplicate a whole bunch of them in post? I think it really lacks something for having so few. I also felt the lighting was a bit washed out for my taste, everything was very flat in some parts and it often felt like there were no shadows at all.

Great work

[DrQuincy]

Increidble....

I agree with some of the above comments, namely that the camerawork could be improved in the fight scenes and the opening couple of shots are best.

Personally, I live that ending. Front page material for sure...

[Bluder]

really great! o love the story and everyting!
the animation was very good.
for how long have u been working whit 3D , sems like a pro jobb too me :)

btw i agree on the crit about the camera it would make the fighting scens more powerfull.

nice work either way!

[kr3ml]

WhAaAaa!?!?? Did he kill the kid in the end? lol, some kind of a serie killer story.

Anyway gerat job on the animation, modeling, texturing , rendering and particully whole movie :thumbsup:

[leigh]

I can't really add much to the crits that have already been given, but I really did enjoy this despite a few minor issues here and there :)

A really great effort, and a great looking result overall. Plugged on the front page :)

[nepaligurkha]

:buttrock: :buttrock: Great Job

[Joss]

What does that hairy beast look like under the helmet?

Is it Gorilla or Troll? :)

[modi]

hey man, firstly congratulations of finishing the film. Defenitely front page material.
The number in the crowd is actually hurting this peice IMO. Defenitely try doing something about it in post. I think when theres more crowd the easier it is to make us belive we are in there. ALso the lighting could use a lot more contrast. Overall great peice.
The animation for the most part was awesome. but i feel the kid could be more playfull and figity for contrast reasons.
Tell us your take on the ending. I'd love to hear about it.

[Vandal]

Awwww... I can't close my jaw. I loved it. I totally didn't expect an ending like that. It's perfect.

As the camera started panning down, I'm like "Is the stadium going to be called The Great Claudius Arena?" But no.. I didn't see it coming.

Great work. Very nice facial animation on the old mans face, the juggular moving back and forth.. good stuff.

[xtrm3d]

coool animation !!! :buttrock:

the lighning could have been a little bit better .. :shrug:

but the end is tottaly unexpected and really ggggooooooddd :applause: :bowdown:

[simonjaap]

sorry but all i can say is WHOW WHOW WHOW :eek: :eek: :eek: :surprised ouch my eyes

[SheepFactory]

i didnt get what happens at the end? is the kid sleeping , dead , what?

I really liked the animation , its very fluid and lifelike other than a couple minor problems. I agree with modi on the crowd.

overall great piece , congrats!

[chatta]

Whaooooooooooom :bowdown:
Great short story with a great modelling and animation:thumbsup: It's too short :cry:

[T Bomb]

Nice work. All I can say is that like posted above maybe a bit more contrast with the lighting... but everything else "rocksors" (i believe thats what the kids are calling it these days.. lol ) Good job, keep up the good work.

How long did it take you to complete this peice... from start to finish?

[AlbertoGarcia]

VERY cool. I would agree with the rest, you need a bigger crowd, everything else was just amazing. did you use mocap for the animation?

[Dabehu]

Awesome piece man. The animation was really good along with the modeling and texturing. The story was, although morbid (lol), very original and thought out. Good job on all that.

On the Technical side though you do have one foul up that I noticed. When the Grandpa first tells the boy of his time as being a Roman Gladiator and says, "I wasn't too much older than you..", if you look in the background the blue benches are gone, and then in the next shot they're back. It's right before the kid says, "Sure Grandpa." Other than that and the few other things people have said I think you have a real solid piece. :thumbsup:

[peanut]

Surprising End, i must say... hehehe

Love the scenery, the idea behind it is fabulous, i havent see anything quite like this before. Im totally moved be the end, great great great .

no crit on my end.

[FloydBishop]

Very nice. The twist ending reminded me of the kinds of things I used to see on "Amazing Stories" or "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".

I liked the fight sequence the best. I didn't mind the size of the crowd, either.

[shahrokh]

GREAT GREAT GREAT :........

THE ANIMATION AND FACIAL WAS GREAT....
face texturing though was a bit like games and real time renderings, other than that just GREAT

[Tadus]

Wow, that was nice. You definatly put alot of effort into it. I loved the the fight scene man!

:)

[the sparky]

Nice.

The crowd has obvious duplicates though. They all seem to move too much together.

The beast thing he was fighting didn't look that realistic when it fell. It needed more jiggle and bigger thud when it fell.

All the timing is great.

[halifax]

thanks for all the responses. To be honest, when I started the project, one of my main goals was to make it on the front page of cgtalk. Makes me very happy.

To answer a few questions, i started the project August '02. There was some down time in there. I spent a few months flushing out story, a couple months modeling nearly 100 props, characters, and set pieces, close to a month UV mapping and painting over 500 texture maps, couple weeks getting the voice recordings, and audio, and about two months animating. Rendering, luckily only took me a few all nighters.

The beast under the helmet is more an ogre than an ape. Although, there are influences from both. If you look hard, you can see that I didn't animate the face of the beast at all... and under the mask, he's got a huge pearly white smile, and big, white eyes... cute, I thought, although not supposed to be noticable. here's a pic of his face:
http://art.bgsu.edu/~ahalifax/images/face.jpg

in the end... yes, the kid is dead. Originally, I had the camera pan down to his face, but it was suggested to me to be a bit more subtle, so I chose to end on his legs.

no mocap. video reference was used as a rough start for some of the fight. I then exxagerated the moves, and made it flow throughout the piece. I have to say, deciding how to film a fight scene, and work the camera was pretty tough... and although not perfect, it's come a long way from the animatic.

and, finally, my take on the piece. I was going for "disturbed." Originally, I had modeled the kid to be around 20 years old. But, that was slightly unbelievable, and not as harsh as if the kid were younger, so I shot for the 12-14 age range. That seemed to push it over the top. The typical response I get when showing the piece is silence, which was exactly what I was going for. And, although there are numerous technical issues, and other choices which could have been made, I'm pleased with the short. It was quite the undertaking, and taught me alot about how to maintain focus.

[Project813]

I think a lot of the silence is due to people trying to figure out exactly what happened to the kid...

Is it his grandfather got so wrapped up in the story, he KILLED his grandson?

Great modeling, animation...Just the ending isnt very clear IMO.

[moose droppings]

way to put me in teh credits asshole. ;) ah well i guess if i actually textured that model for ya i would have :) hehe, just kidding sweet tits. :)

looks kick ass though mang, definately turned out nice.

[RedFish]

very well done

I am truely impressed

[anim8r3d]

very nice indeed. Is the animation mo-cap? There were about two cuts that I felt were a bit fast, but otherwise... Great job. Congrats on the front page plug.

[george0280]

i like it!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Neil]

uh...er... haha... i was gonna just say 'good work' and leave some crits... but ... that ending?

In the sequel you should have the grandpa playing chess with his other grandson and then get all fired up and cut his head off. :thumbsup:

[phoenix]

very impressive work

[gtidhar]

OH!

You have pleased your crowd without a doubt!

I think your animation looks very smooth. Even though I am no expert, I thought the fight would look the same at some points as if it would've been captured...!

The story was quite nice and original.

Great work :thumbsup:

[oxyg3n]

This is very interesting. I did not expect that ending.

[yangmiemie]

NICE :applause:

[sawoozer]

I really want to know what is the Monster look like~

[eek]

Blimey! bludgeoning his grandson to death with a walking stick, in the madness of beliving himself to be a gladiator. And showing no remorse afterwards......eek!!!. Some kinda pyscho!

Anyway nice work Halifax.

eek

[Modron]

Quite good!:bowdown:
The only thing I noticed to critisize, is that the movements of some of the spectators seemed a bit too exagerated. Other than that, I loved the dynamic of the battle,...the movements were timed really well, and the pace was good. Personally, I didn't see any problem with the camera work. I cant imagine having that many polys in a scene,...it must have slowed down the render to a crawl. Did you use a render farm, or just one machine?
<edit> p.s. what was the ior on the spectacles?
<edit again> also, could you commentators please watch it with the spoilers? It would have been a better watch had I not known the ending before even looking at it. :hmm:

[david]

I agrea with Margus. The ending doesn't suit the story at all. The only thing the ending can mean is that the granpa is mentally deranged and that doesn't make sense with story.
Other then that it looks great. I totally belive everything (up untill the end) as real life. The animation is very natural, kept to a minimum, I like that. Great job.

[samgrice]

oh my ****ing god!!!!

one of the best animations i've seen on cgtalk *****

excellent ending:scream:

[Oink]

Whoa :thumbsup:

Only thing i noticed is that when the kid pushes the open the gate it doesnt make a sound.... it looked like it hit the wall.

Oh well.

Its still great. I sure as hell didnt expect that ending though :surprised

5/5 - :bowdown:

[KotsVlok]

Great animation! :)

I love the horn at the end of the credits, i didn't knew they had those back then? :D

[Lekku]

You didn't give credit to the modelers/texturers

Who did all of that?

[dotbomb]

Wow. I thought that was great. You definitely acheived the surprise disturbing ending. I agree with your decision to show only the boys legs at the end, but I would make one change.

I think it would be a nice final touch to see the start of a pool of blood spread out from the direction of the boys chest or head. If you time it right, the viewer would be thinking "What? Is he dead?..." and then the little creep of blood spreading in would make it definite with out having the blatant and obvious shot of the boys whole body.

But let me say again, I liked it as is very much.
Thanks for posting it.

[darcru]

This is excellent, I really admire the work you've put into the story. The ending only kept me silent for a moment though....then I started laughing.....what a great ending...perfect.
I agree with some of the other crits, my suggestion would be to beef up some of the audio post. I think you could make the fight more intense with some more audio...just a suggestion though.. I really enjoy this piece.
Also, THANKS for responding to the members and letting us know a little of the backstory. I see too many people posting nice stuff here and then they never come back to talk about it!

Nice Work

[Riddick]

A very good work.
Not perfect, well it's not bad.
The essential is here, the technic serve the story.
AND the story is good!:thumbsup:

[JonnyNewo]

Nice work. One thing I noticed though: the old man's eyes don't look right. I realize glasses that size would cause his eyes to appear larger but they look very flat to me. Other wise good work!

[AndersEgleus]

Just falling in with the general praise, Amazing work! The animation is breathtaking - at times there is a weight and dynamics in the characters' movement that even outshines some of ILM's stuff (e.g. the Jar Jar Binks army in Episode One). And the ending is very unsettling.

Beautiful texturing and lighting overall but all that's been said already.

Some crits: I think the shadows are sometimes a bit unconvincing - as if there's just ambient light where they fall instead of real bounced light. Mostly notable on the old man's face.

Some geometry interpenetration occurs here and there and this could have been tweaked (or, in some cases, edited) away.

The first time I looked I didn't notice it, but the second time it looked kind of cheap - all the individuals in the crowd (ok, I admit, I didn't study every single one, but a lot of them) have just one short looping animation. It's understandable since the crowd is so big, but you could, with a bit of effort, have swapped the animation between the crowd member's skeletons to get rid of the looping.

I'm guessing it's an iron thorn that gets stuck in the shield when Claudius smacks our "hero" into the wall, and which he later uses to kill the monster. Some issues there: First of all it's very hard to see what happens. I had to look at that shot many times before I understood what went on. First I thought it went into his back (it's hard to tell from the camera position that it penetrates the shield). Also, if you'd seen it a few frames more before the shield hits it would also have caused less confusion. Since the camera angle is really cool, you could have solved it by having the hero smack into the wall with his arms facing forward and then having the momentum throw the shield back into the thorn/wall. Another thing - at the next edit, the combattants seem to be far out in the center of the arena. Also, at the end when he pulls out the thorn from the shield, it seems to have magically switched orientation, looking as if it had penetrated the inside of the shield, when it clearly penetrated the outside.

All in all though, an amazingly good job. Well done!:thumbsup:

[mbaldwin]

great job technically!

I've just got to say though, as an audience, do we all need another senseless death? Anyone would be hard pressed to create characterization in 3 minutes, so I admire your challenges with the medium.

That being said, I'm convinced that darkly violent is both easy and adolescent. You've got a lot of talent; the next creative year of your life, take bigger risks and create something audaciously beautiful.

or not. once again, technically great.

-m.

[DrQuincy]

Originally posted by DrQuincy
Front page material for sure...

Lol, just come back to CGTalk to see that you have made it to the front page.

Congratulations, it really did deserve it!

[HenningK]

The little boy model was so realistic. I liked him. Too bad he didnt believe his grampa though. Awesome! Good dialog too, whoever wrote it, and pretty good performance. I was wondering how grampa was alive in ancient Rome, but I guess from the ending we can assume he's just plain crazy?
love,hen

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