CGTalk - 1st character post: Planet of the Grapes

Merlin

06-26-2002, 04:19 PM

hey, all, thanks for the comments. and yeah, his face does look very human, but that's pretty much what I had planned from the start. The idea is that the grapes were genetically spliced, as the apes were, and take on human traits, while remaining grape like. In this case, they grew arms, faces, and legs.

Can't say I agree with the man in a suit comment, but thanks anyways.

The army idea is something that I'm really looking forward too. Basically, taking one or two "soldier" models and cloning them and a march/waddle cycle, so that there's a squad of grapes, with maybe a large green grape general beside them. I don't know, that's way in the future.

At the moment, I'm working on tightening up the model's many problem area's and beginning to incoroporate endomorphs for lipsynch. I have hit a snag. Below is three shots. The first on the left, is the shot of the model in modeler with an endomorph that I'm doing. The second is a shot in layout with that morph applied through Morph Mixer's graph editor at 100%. Notice the extreme crappage on the side of the cheek ( I know it's not great in modeler either but it doesn't look like that!) and the final shot is a test render (with very low antialising on it:p ) and the carnage on the cheek is still there.

How do I fix this??? It's fine in Modeler and all crappy in layout and the render. Any suggestions are welcomed, thanks again guys

Sincerely

Merlin
nholman@arches.uga.edu

hypercube

06-26-2002, 04:33 PM

You probably forgot to set your subdivision order right..that's what it looks like anyway.

Cool char, but yes, WEIRD. :) I think maybe it's that the face has such a strong tim roth like structure..but that could help it be more disturbing/quirky in the end, which is good. Also unless they're in boots, there seems to be a disparate level of detail between the face, hands, feet, and body.

The idea of 'grape command structure' is cool, maybe 'grape social strata' echoing the ape factions would be interesting, too. Green, red, white, etc. though how do you figure seedless grapes would fit in there?

Perhaps chuck heston would discover a giant kool-aid man statue on the beach, artificial sweeteners and technology having gone too far and destroying the beverage world and man that went before.

Ok, maybe I need to take my pills. Keep on keepin' on. :)

Merlin

07-03-2002, 02:26 AM

Hey guys and girls, sorry it's been so long since my last post, been busy with school and an internship, so I'm not getting much free time. Finally got some bones and an IK chain in this sucker, also did a lot of clean up work on his face, gloves and waistline. I'm also working on endomorphs and expressions, this is actually a pic of two expressions, (roar and angry brows).

I kind of like the caption: "Lamp make Grape maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddddd!"

Merlin

07-03-2002, 07:57 AM

Planet of the Grapes.... you sir, are a genius! :applause:

The little grape looks very cool, nice and mean - the only (slight) change I'd think about making ot him would be to elongate him slightly.... or maybe make him green, just because with his current shape/colour it could be 'Planet of the Blackcurrants' - and that's not even half as funny (j/k)

Please promise me two things,

1. The grapes will remain grape sized in comparison to humans, and yet still overpower them (somehow).

2. There's a scene where one of the grapes opens a bottle of wine and all the other grapes turn to him in abject horror...

Sorry - it's your project... and I should be getting ready for work... :D

More I tells ya!

Merlin

07-03-2002, 09:26 PM

Heh, love the part about drinking the wine. If I get to it, that will definately happen. Green Grapes ARE on the way, and are more elongated than the purple grapes. The main green grape I have started is going to be the counterpart to the guy that played John Coffee in the Green Mile (I sat for five minutes trying to remember his name, nothing, absolutely nothing. sorry), sort of the muscle of the group.

Been messing around with background and lighting, here's basically the same shot with a background thrown in. Keep the crits' coming

Merlin

Merlin

07-03-2002, 09:27 PM

does help to attach the image

Merlin

07-03-2002, 09:29 PM

somehow I think the painting detracts from it, mostly I guess because it was photoshopped in, so here's one without it.

Merlin

gnarlycranium

07-06-2002, 02:52 PM

"In this world of insanity, we won't spank the grape-- the grape will spank US!!"

Cool! Show us hordes! There need to be hordes! Angry ones! With pointy sticks! And I dunno how grapelike you really want em to look... but maybe some little beige freckles would help.

Merlin

07-06-2002, 07:53 PM

hey, I finally got around to doing a walk/waddle cycle for this guy (or atleast I think I have, started rendering yesterday when I left the lab, we'll see on monday.) One question, how do you post a Quicktime movie, do you make a website and put it on there some how? Sorry, my web creation skills are less than nothing.

More shots coming soon, at present, with the exception of his gloves, this model is done. The next on the way is the big green muscle grape, and the soldier grapes. I'm thinking if I can get one good walk cycle for a soldier grape going, then load in a bunch of soldier grapes, I can have an army of grapes waddling through the hill side with various axes, spears, and stuff.

Other idea's that I probably won't get to by the end of the summer:

An old father figure grape, that looks more like a raisin.
A hot female grape (what color?)
The vineyard palace
an animation of a grape getting squashed, as others are horrified.
Dialogue is going to be tough to get done, as I need to start modeling the world, or atleast part of it.

Cheers,

Merlin
nholman@arches.uga.edu

sanhueza

07-07-2002, 01:22 AM

Hey, absolutely hilarous idea, I love it! I use Lightwave too, so if you're still having that deformation problem with the Endomorphs, I know how to fix it. Go into the Geometry tab of the Item Properties window with your grape-guy selected. Then set the Subdivision order to "Last." That should do it. Keep up the great work, I'd love to see this when it's done. :)

- Me

www.sanhueza.com

Merlin

07-07-2002, 07:19 PM

Hey, thanks for the suggestion, a friend of mine told me to do the exact same thing and you and he are both exactly right, fixed the problem entirely. Thanks! More pics and updates tomorrow, promise!

Merlin

Merlin

07-10-2002, 02:27 PM

sorry about the no updates, I'm out of town at the moment and didn't get a chance to post pics as the renders weren't done before i left.

What IS finished scene wise is a clip of four grapes waddling down a hall in unison, axes in hand. The hall has a large painting of a very miltaristic looking grape on the wall, and large window at the end of it. Haven't seen the finished render yet, but I'll post it as soon as I get to it.

I've also finished the large muscled green grape.

Merlin

Merlin

07-12-2002, 07:15 PM

hey, finally got a chance to post some updates, here's a screen shot of four grapes waddling down a hall. I really like this shot, but the back wall doesn't look anywhere near what I want it to be like, I want it to be sort of a large bay window with sort of organic framing. The Vineyard Palace of sorts. More pics coming!

Merlin

07-12-2002, 07:17 PM

does help to include the image.

Merlin

07-16-2002, 08:33 PM

heh, guess everybody gave up on this thread. Oh well,:shrug: nothing I can do about it, but keep posting updates. Here's an updated march pic, the render time on this thing is getting outrageous. At enhanced low with a soft filter on the camera, this took 45 minutes. No volumetric lighting or crazy junk like that, just some reflective and refracting surfaces. CRAAAAAAAZY. Crits and Comments welcome as always

sanhueza

07-16-2002, 09:47 PM

Merlin, are you using alot of procedural textures for your surfaces? (bump maps on the walls, etc.) That can increase your render time alot. If so, try using image maps applied by planar projection, or UV maps. That should help speed things up a bit (and generally look more original/realistic.) With a complex scene involving many characters, you'll end up with pretty long render times, no matter what. Wait till you get to the massive army scenes... :surprised Good luck!

- Me

www.sanhueza.com

Yiorgz

07-16-2002, 10:49 PM

Originally posted by Merlin
heh, guess everybody gave up on this thread. Oh well,:shrug: nothing I can do about it, but keep posting updates. Here's an updated march pic, the render time on this thing is getting outrageous. At enhanced low with a soft filter on the camera, this took 45 minutes. No volumetric lighting or crazy junk like that, just some reflective and refracting surfaces. CRAAAAAAAZY. Crits and Comments welcome as always

Merlin, if you don't use Motion Blur, then try turning off the Enhanced AA and replace it with a combination of Low Antialiasing with Adaptive Sampling (0.1) and Soft Filter.

Do some test renders and if you are still getting jagged edges, drop the Adaptive Sampling. Halve it by adding (/2) into the threshold box and press enter. Do a test render and watch how much coverage the white AA lines have on the Render Progress display. Check for jaggies in the Image Viewer, if you still have them, then halve your Adaptive Sampling Threshold again. Test render with F9 and watch how much coverage the white AA lines get.. etc..

Like "sanhueza" said: Try using image maps instead of procedurals to speed things up. Alternatively, if you like the textures you have so far, try BAKING them using Surface Baker. The more you can simplify the calculations, the faster things will render.

The Adaptive Sampling thing should easily cut down the time though. If you need Motion Blur though, you may have no choice.

Merlin

07-17-2002, 02:28 PM

Sanhueza: yeah, you pegged it with the procedural textures, they're all over the place in the scene, so I'll mess around with that today, my main goal today is to get this render time down. Thanks!

Yiorgz: Definately will try your suggestions! I've already caught on to the soft filter thing, and that's what you see above. I've never really messed with the adaptive sampling thing, mostly because I don't know what exactly it does. I have it turned on to .1 in the pic you see, with AA at enhanced low, motion blur is off as is particle blur. I'll mess around with the adaptive sampling, ala your suggestions and see what happens. Just out of curiosity, what exactly is adaptive sampling?

Thanks for the help guys! I'll let you know how it goes later today,

Merlin

Merlin

07-17-2002, 06:02 PM

okay, quick break from the room scene. I've been trying ever so slowly to start a landscape that I like. This is very, very WIP, so please don't go off on it, I'm just posting this cause I think this scene will be funny, if I ever get it right. This is the big grape singing sort of a heart broken love song. Haven't decided what song, maybe Whitney Houston's "I've always loved you." That'd be funny. A big grape with an axe singing really badly "And Iiiiiii-eeeeee-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii've always loooooooooooooovvvvved yoooooooooouuuuuuuuu!" ... maybe not.
Merlin

Merlin

07-17-2002, 06:03 PM

wow, that looks terrible! Definately not the picture I thought I was posting.... hmmmmmmm....

merlin

Yiorgz

07-17-2002, 07:30 PM

Adaptive Sampling basically selects parts of the render where there is an edge between a light and dark area and smooths it out by inserting shades between the two.

Creates the illusion of a softer line. Soft filter does this kind of thing.

It all depends on where it is going to wind up. For test renders, turn it down.

The difference between Adaptive Sampling with Enhanced Low AA versus Adaptive Sampling with just Low AA is this.

This was measured "visually" ie experiment and see.

The Adaptive Sampling does not appear to have much effect (to me) when you use Enhanced Low because LW appears to render your whole object 5 times.

With Low AA and Adaptive Sampling, only the white areas (of the show render progress) will be re-rendered by LW for each render pass.

Some scenes can result in render times that are half or even a quarter or the time it takes to do Enhanced Low AA rendering.

Again, comes down to you. While you're tweaking, do it low. When your animation is done, take a look at increasing the Antialias and use ScreamerNet to batch render all your scenes while you rest.

Merlin

07-17-2002, 09:20 PM

The mystery is solved! Thanks, that makes perfect sense. I've been working on getting rid of a lot of the procedural textures by using images/UVmaps with some photoshopped files. Nothing to brag about yet, and it still hurts me to get rid of some of these textures, but for right now, like you said, these are all just tests, I can go back and add them back later. Next question, what's Screamer Net and where can I download it (cause it sounds damn handy.) ? I gotta go to work soon, but I'll try to post another pic for you all to disect before I go. Thanks again,

Merlin

Merlin

07-18-2002, 06:20 PM

Hey, guys, here's another pick of the doodoo brown landscape, except this time, we see for the first time, The General of the Grapes! His feet need work, and I desperately need to weightmap his fingers to get rid of all that warping, but other than that, I like him. I went for a sort of Navy-esque look, keeping the general form of all the other grapes, but altering the colors of his uniform and skin. Right now, he's pretty much the same model just a different color. Tha will change soon,_I promise!

merlin

Merlin

07-18-2002, 08:15 PM

Here's a pic of the newly designed room. The windows finally look like windows!!!!! I'm also happy with the walls. The carpet looks funky, but I'm fixing that as we speak, as well as the lighting, moron me forgot to move the lights when I moved the scene around. More updates coming.

merlin

Merlin

07-18-2002, 09:51 PM

tweaked

Merlin

07-22-2002, 02:42 PM

Hey, here's a brief test of what the museum is going to look like. I screwed up the placement of one of the pictures, so ignore that... but other than that I like it. I've decided to name the leader, General Pinot, after the wine. I'm going to research grapes and wine and get some more ammo for this story, even though, the actual production of this will probably be maybe 30 seconds. This render is done with Low AA and a soft filter with adaptive sampling at .2. This has taken the render time down to about twenty minutes, which isn't bad, condsidering the amount of textures. Let's hear some crits!

Merlin

Merlin

07-22-2002, 05:58 PM

hey, here's a clopseup shot of General Pinot and Colonel Zin Fadel. they're standing directly infront of a bay window, which is the cause of the weird distorted lighting on Pinot's face. I like it, you? patiently awaiting comments, suggestions.

Merlin

Merlin

07-22-2002, 06:05 PM

and here's a closer view of the museum, thought I had helped the lighting by switching the positions of some lights, now it looks as if they live on the sun, more updates soon, and hopefully a short animatic of what this story is going to be like.

Merlin

Merlin

07-22-2002, 08:31 PM

here's a lighting update.... not much new here, trying to figure out which light is targeting the statue and back wall, none are pointed at it, but I think it could be the back drop color showing through the windows... maybe? Suggestions? anyone, anyone... bueler? anyone?

merlin

Merlin

07-23-2002, 03:06 PM

okay, guess everybody has given up on this thread, oh well.

Anyway, in case someone is lost and ended up here, maybe you can help me out with this one. Last night, I rendered out an animatic to see camera movements and shots, and what not. I rendered with the Animation Compressor, at 15 frames, with Millions of Colors+. and the movie is terribly choppy, as in it won't play all the way through without skipping over 30-40 frames or so. I can use the slider and drag through it, but other than that, it blows. I've had this problem before, but never with the Animation Compressor, and absolutely never with rendering with the speed at 15 or 24. Today is not a good day. too many headaches, too little time.

Merlin

Merlin

07-23-2002, 04:53 PM

You ever have one of those days where you sit at your computer tearing your hair out, ready to throw it off your desk because it won't do what you tell it do, and know that it can do, but it just won't do it. Then, you mention the problem to a friend or professor passing by, and they look at it and "go that's weird, did you do so and so?" and then your head explodes because you completely overlooked an obvious error. Today is that day, I rendered out the camera scene to look at shots and movement (most of which was bad, but that was expected), but I couldn't figre out why it was so choppy. Well, our computers are networked. So, it's a good place to store your files on the network, but a very bad place to try and play a movie off of!!!!! Ugh, I am the dumbest man alive.

Merlin

Ryan-B

07-23-2002, 05:51 PM

Merlin, I find your Grape-Men far more disturbing than any monster I've seen on these boards.

Merlin

07-23-2002, 07:06 PM

Ryan B- Hey Thanks! I'll take that as a compliment!

In other news, I think I've pretty much figured out what I'm doing for a storyline, atleast for now.

It starts with the classic trailer preview screen, all bright green with tiny white text. Then, fade in to a black screen, dramatic text and voice, "Coming soon..."

Fade in to a dark descending corridor, the camera is set as the Point of View of a very scared/out of breath person slowly going down the corridor. Voices can be heard, "Find the Human, I want his head!" With it's "back" against one of the walls the camera slides down to the doorway of the corridor which leads out into a large open room. With a large portrait and a doorway on the far wall, (close up of portrait, then of door way, then of exit sign buzzing above the doorway). More voices are still heard, as the camera turns away from the door way back to the wall it's "back is against" and slowly, hesitantly peaks around that corner of the doorway to see ...

General Pinot and his grapes. "You find him, now! Bring him to me!" Close up of the general's sword. Then, the camera begins to turn to look at another closeup of the exit sign, but suddenly, new voices are heard, as the camera turns to look back up the corridor to see shadows coming down toward him.

"Dude, did you see Sally today? She cut her stem way down, she's so hot now!" "Yeah, I'd like to germinate with her, definately"

It turns back around to once more peak around the corner to look at the general. The General and his grapes all turn to walk down another hallway, so the camera makes a mad dash for it. Ten feet from the exit, "HEY!" The camera freezes in terror and turns to see the large green grape staring right at him, "GEEEEEEET HIMMMMM!!!!" He yells as four solider grapes waddle past, and the camera turns for one last mad dash for the door, four feet from the door, two feet, fade to black.

A large booming voice is heard, "Planet.... of the GRAPES!" and then quick flashes of images and white light are seen, ending with a close up of a large grape statue, a comical voice is heard as we fade again to black, "Mmmmmmmm.... that one's a sour grape."

The end.

In my mind, this is completely doable and well on its way, most of the time consuming lip synch is seen from far away with maybe one exception. It may seem like one long stupid POV shot, but it's actually broken up into short POV's with a lot of emphasizing close ups on things like the door way, portrait, exit sign, axes, grape's teeth, etc. Sound is going to be important, but I can handle that and all the voices no problem. The hardest part of this is going to be handling the camera bounce to establish the Point of View feel. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? let's hear them.

Merlin

PS I've storyboarded all of this in case anyone wants to see.

Merlin

07-24-2002, 02:13 PM

Wow, no responses, and i'm thinking this thread is on its way into thread purgatory if that continues. I'm at work in Atlanta now, so there won't be another update until I get back to school on Monday. In the meantime, people rip me apart here! I've been waiting but everybody keeps quiet.

Neal

Flypaper

07-24-2002, 07:22 PM

Ok, You've got your storyboards, You've got your general rigging (Or what looks like general rigging in the feet and arms), Now it's time to to define each of the characters a touch more. Start with walk cycle animations and facial responses. Your going to be at quite a disadvantage for facial animation because your skins are so dark. Much of what animation will be done in the face will be lost. I would suggest lightening up the purple grapes a touch. DO a shot list of your face morphs (OR however you will be animating the face), Create all your phenomes , List them beside each other, define problems that will need to be fixed, Come up with a style for you characters. They all look the same. Add something a touch more. Get your grapes all working dynamically - THEN work on the textures. Make sure when your doing all of this stuff your working on the smooth untextured model. If you try to start fidelling with facial animation on those textured models, your not going to be able to see what your doing. When creating your facial poses "HAM IT UP!" Exaggeration will also help combat your dark textures.

When you've got your walk cycles and facial animations, please post them. My best advice is to boost the lighting in the scenes dramatically or lighten the grapes textures. It's going to be the only way to convey accurate animations.

Merlin

07-24-2002, 08:02 PM

Hey, thanks for the solid advice, Flypaper. You might've noticed that texturing isn't exactly my forte, to be honest I'm not sure what is, but whatever. I'm just going for it to look as good as it can.

I've started to define the large green grape and the General Grape, though you really can't see it on either yet, due in part to the lighting that you mentioned. The hands have yet to be weightmapped as I got a massive case of procrastination when dealing with them. And lately, I've started to notice some problems with the leg IK setup, which is more than frustrating. I used www.evil-plan.com 's tutorial for their new IK, but with very short legs like these I had to alter things a bit. I think I've almost worked it out, but if I hit a major road block, I'll let everybody know.

The soldiers I really should define more. The general is going to have this sort of weathered, slightly wrinkled face. The Green grape is the sort of overly masculine grape. But the soldiers... I don't know for a while I guess I was just treating them as drones, which really doesn't make too much sense. I'll definately work on it. And i don't know why, but I want to do a really fat grape, with roles of flesh on his face and arms, but I don't really know where to stick him in the scene or if he's a soldier, politician, what? Idea's?

As for the walk cycles and facial endomorphs, those WILL definately make an appearance here. I promise.

thanks again for the advice,

Sincerely,

merlin

Flypaper

07-24-2002, 08:11 PM

Well you could throw a shot into the plot of some sort of councel, with the old guy, The actual councel could be a whole cluster of grapes hanging off a vine in a group... might be pretty funny!

Ryan-B

07-24-2002, 10:07 PM

That's not much of a story.

Why do the grape-men hate the human? What did he do? Does he squish them into wine? Does he turn them into raisins?

What's the point of the grape-men living in a world with corridors and walls? Why not a fridge, kitchen, or outside?

Do they kill the human, or does the human kill them? What's the conclusion? Who wins? Who lives happily ever after?

GRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPEEEEE MEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNN!

Yiorgz

07-25-2002, 01:21 AM

Originally posted by Merlin
Next question, what's Screamer Net and where can I download it (cause it sounds damn handy.) ?

ScreamerNet is part of LightWave. It is for network and batch rendering. You can find out more in the help files or online.

Merlin

07-25-2002, 03:00 PM

Originally posted by Ryan B
That's not much of a story.

Why do the grape-men hate the human? What did he do? Does he squish them into wine? Does he turn them into raisins?

What's the point of the grape-men living in a world with corridors and walls? Why not a fridge, kitchen, or outside?

Do they kill the human, or does the human kill them? What's the conclusion? Who wins? Who lives happily ever after?

GRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPEEEEE MEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNN!

Okay, well, first understand this is designed as a movie tralier, so there's not going to be much of a linear story, just hints of one.

Also, it's a parody of the movie(s) "Planet of the Apes," (leaning more toward the Tim Burton version rather than the original). In Planet of the Apes, a space pilot crash lands on a planet where Apes walk, talk, and hate filthy humans that they see as lesser beings. So in this, the Grapes see them as that as well.

Why no outside, kitchen, and etc? There is, I just haven't designed those yet. One of the main lessons I've been taught at school here is, if the camera's never going to see it, don't spend your time modeling it. Does this mean there will never be a shot of the Grape Palace/World. No, of course not, but for this particular "story" (if you can call it that), I've tried to keep things as simple as possible. The original draft of this had it lasting well over a minute and had such complicated things as a spaceship crash, a sword fight, and all sorts of closeups with lip synch involved. Needless to say, most of the got axed real quick.

Who wins? Who Lives? Is there a happily ever after? These are all questions that this is designed to make you ask, to sort of wet your appetite for more. So I guess it worked.:p

Flypaper- Grape council, ohhhhhhhhhh, so many ideas, I also thought of maybe a grape nursery, where the grape children are still growing on a vine, as a motherly grape watches over them. I thnk a shot of the grape council is doable... to the drawing board!

Yiorgz- I should've posted that I went and did some research on ScreamerNet after you mentioned it. It's not up and working at our lab as of yet, (it was completely reworked/designed last month, so somethings aren't up to par). Thanks anyway though!

Two-Three days a week I goto Atlanta for my internship, so that takes me away from the project, and thus, no updates. Sorry, there will be updates on monday I promise!

Sincerely,

Merlin

Merlin

07-29-2002, 04:49 PM

As promised, here are the expressions that I have so far for the big green grape, Zin Fa Del.

Merlin

Merlin

07-29-2002, 04:52 PM

and here's some more.

Merlin

07-29-2002, 05:39 PM

General Pinot's face, expressions coming soon.

Merlin

07-30-2002, 06:55 PM

Okay, so here's an updated pic using the endomorphs. So the General would be saying one thing while Green Grape would be noticing something else... maybe a filthy human... or maybe a sexy girl grape.

Merlin

Merlin

07-30-2002, 07:01 PM

Quick question for those rigging guru's out there. Where is the modifier that allows you to link or chain bones together? This would be used for fingers or a scorpion's tail, where you rotate the base bone, and the subsequent child bones also rotate in producing a curl in the chain. I've seen this done, I just am blanking on where it is that you put this in. Motion Options? Item Properties? ARGH!

Or... what's the best way to rig a hand with fingers? I've seen all sorts of hand modelling tutorials, but never any hand rigging. Anybody out there know of any?

Merlin

Merlin

07-30-2002, 07:02 PM

PS I'm in Lightwave.

uncommongrafx

08-12-2002, 12:28 AM

Merlin,
Just on this board and had a read through this thread.
Fun stuff you are working on. :scream:

On Render times, did you ever think to bake all that texture stuff to lower the render times?

Nothing really to add.

I guess I do, on second read: use follower in the motion panel for those fingers.
For more on this, though a bit more convoluted that I just stated:
http://www.digitalberet.com./feature.html

And this is the one I learned when I first got LW:
http://www.geocities.com/rgkovach/sdk_tut.htm

Good luck and let us know where you are. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Robert Wilson
UnCommon Grafx

Merlin

10-29-2002, 02:48 PM

Started baking surfaces today again, the render times aren't bad, 16 min's a frame, but they could be better. Do you normally bake the lighting into the surface as well? I did earlier and the image it gave me looked horrible. also, when UV mapping a huge hallway, do you ususally make an Atlas UVmap or ? Thanks,

merlin

uncommongrafx

10-29-2002, 03:02 PM

For such a planar object, I wouldn't; I would use projection. Seems you can get more than one projection map into a UV, if that makes sense. It didn't make sense to me the first time I heard of it.

Keep on having fun!

Robert Wilson
UnCommon Grafx

Merlin

11-04-2002, 01:16 PM

Believe it or not, the first scene of animation is mostly done. i think it still needs some tweaking, but I've gotta move on to other scenes that are in dire need of work right now. Here's the link:

http://jake.drama.uga.edu/~nholman

Go to the Movies folder, and select WindowKingScene.mov

Critiques are welcome (I don't like the belt buckle)

mackw

11-04-2002, 05:56 PM

:buttrock: :applause: :beer: :applause: :buttrock:
Merlin you are awesome! Teach me the ways of the Grape!

slaughters

11-04-2002, 07:37 PM

The facial animation is nice, but you need to have the bodies move a little more naturally. The head/body of the king just seems to rotate without any up and down motion. It also looks strange that his stance does not change. His legs should shift as his center of gravity shifts.

Merlin

11-04-2002, 08:32 PM

Slaughters- this is so weird, a friend of mine said nearly the exact same thing word for word. Thanks and you are both definately right about the rotation of his body, I'll tweak it this week and render it over the weekend, thanks again,

Merlin

Merlin

11-13-2002, 12:14 PM

got really tired of fussing with lighting in the POV scene, so I started messing around in modeler. Magic bevel is addictive. Ended up with a decent tree, so I created a scene for it. Yes, there's a thousand problems with the pic (grass, tree texture, etc.) I think it's sort of funny though, If I have time, I'll fix all the kinks and throw it in at the end, a sort of dramatic Oscar moment...

"Why can't we all just.... get along... (sigh)"

or something like that.

merlin

modernhorse

11-13-2002, 05:16 PM

Merlin -
That is funny. I love to see this character 'whining' .... ;)

garbagemonkey

11-21-2002, 02:34 PM

I don't know what proplr were whining about in the beginning of this thread-do they not remember those singing and dancing sensations, the california raisins. If raisins can have arms legs and faces-so can grapes. Maybe they're grape-ist. Well, I think it's looking kick-ass, and the only thing that I mildy dislike is maybe the texture on the stem. but it's not a big deal, and I know it's getting close to the deadline.
but looks awesome
talk to ya soon,
Anna:bounce:

Merlin

11-22-2002, 01:26 PM

the lip synch is off, but oh baby the grass and water move!

merlin

http://jake.drama.uga.edu/~nholman/Movies

click on GrassDraft3.mov

Merlin

11-25-2002, 05:43 AM

Updates of the initial POV scene, this is where the camera/main guy is sneaking out of the grape compound, this is what he sees after sneaking down a corridor that opens up into this hall, as he slowly sneaks out of the passage into the open, he's going to hear a menacing laugh, the lights flick on, and there's the baaaaaaad general, "You're mine."

Neal

Merlin

11-25-2002, 05:50 AM

and what the???? who's this??", you ask. This is what I did Saturday rather than go out, my social life is officially over, The dress needs work, and that's all basic surfacing, no heavy duty texture maps yet, but there will be if I have time,

Neal

Merlin

11-26-2002, 05:48 AM

Here's a pic of her, "I dream of a world, where humans and grapes live in peace, scene" very early stages, but I'm liking the lighting thus far,

Neal

Merlin

11-27-2002, 03:34 AM

here's a much better pic of her scene. My lighting skills aren't great, obviously, but they're slowly improving, no? Coments are welcome... please,

merlin

Merlin

11-27-2002, 03:44 AM

sorry, having trouble uploading image,

neal

Irie

11-27-2002, 05:02 AM

Whoa, thats really coming along nicely man! Did you use negative lights at all in this one like you said you were going to do? That light pouring in is very convincing, perhaps you could creat a dusty cloud hovering above the floor? just enough to show the dingyness of the cell?

That is really looking nice man.

impressed!

matt

P.S. maybe you might think about starting a new thread.. put all your final rendered images taht you wanna show off into a new thread that is fresh and easy to access (5 pages is starting to push it,... hey, we're lazy). I dunno if its against forum rules... but I bet you would be getting much more feedback. I mean, who can resist that hot grape chick?

AJE

12-24-2002, 10:59 PM

Merlin.... this is a great idea... I'm usually pretty mainstream in my taste, but this is quirky-cool...

Keep plugging away, get help if you need to to help it move along faster. I think the concept is much better than the 'Killer Bean' series, and that guy just finished working on Matrix 2...

Merlin

12-25-2002, 04:10 PM

AJE- Hey, thanks for the kind words! Plaent of the Grapes is an ongoing endeavor, however immediate progress has slowed due to the holidays and the fact that my deadline is passed. Any work on it now is solely for my personal enjoyment, but rest assured, the project will go on.

I'd posted this link before, but apparently it was erased when the server was having some problems, you can check out the latest version of the trailer here:

http://jake.drama.uga.edu/~nholman/Movies/Planet%20of%20the%20Grapes/

These are all the same files, some compacted into WinRar or WinZIP, some just straight quicktime files.

NOTE TO EVERYONE: I was somewhat naive to say the least when compressing all the files, so the end result is a rather long download if you're using a 56k modem.

Realize this is only a minute's worth of animation WITH text, so if you're on a telephone line, keep that in mind before you begin to download. I don't want anyone to feel "Cheated" because they were downloading this huge file and expecting 5 minutes of animation.

Thanks and any comments as usual are greatly appreciated,

Sincerely,

Neal

sanhueza

01-08-2003, 12:01 AM

I love this stuff, keep it up!

- Me

www.sanhueza.com

ZVAN

03-03-2003, 10:09 AM

i dont think these are good character designs, try making cartoons faces into the grapes instead of realistic features.. inside.. doesn't match, and there are no humour in it.. looks tasteless.. :rolleyes:

Merlin

03-03-2003, 02:47 PM

Well, I'm sorry you don't like the designs. I don't see how they could be considered "tasteless"... do you mean they're offensive and in bad humor? If so, uh... sorry that I offended your sense of grape...ness....

The design of the overall grapes was this... I started as you suggested, making the faces come from the actual body of the grapes, the results were very very pac-man-esque, and looked very cheap (yes, I know the way the look now doesn't exactly look like a million dollars, but it's an improvement I can assure you.)

Then, I began messing with giving the grapes more human attributes, and the final design came from that, basically human parts emerging from the surface of a grape.

not sure what exactly you mean by cartoon faces on the grapes, but if I wanted it really cartoony, i'd either put a cel-shader on it or do it full on 2-d.

"there are no humour in it"- Okay. Sorry you don't find it funny. Do you atleast get the joke/parody? Have you seen Tim Burton's movie "Planet of the Apes?" Me personally, I find it very funny, but different strokes for different folks.

Sincerely,

Neal

PS if anyone's wondering, this project is basically dead in the water, until I can find time and go back into it.