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Rogue
11-17-2002, 04:29 PM
Hi guys. This post is two-fold. One reason is I just got some web hosting and I am testing the server and the links. Don't have a website yet but I'll be linking to the stuff directly. Let me know if you have any problems or if it's slow, or whatever. It's guarantees good bandwidth, so please, click away and let me know.

The animation was done where I work (Magneticdreams.com) and was done for the Armed Services Network. It's a 30 second spot about nicotine replacement products. The character was designed and modeled by someone else at work, but I did the rest of it. I think the challenge of this spot was the tight deadline and making something interesting out of an otherwise boring concept. You should have seen the storyboards. ;) Since the deadline was so tight, I cheated alot of it where there wasn't alot of complicated animation.

This was also my first attempt at cell shading. Lightwave was used for the project and was entirely self contained. Not even an image map. Big Eyes Small Mouth was the shader used. I had a lot of fun with this project and thought I'd like to share. Although the project is done, any crits will still be noted for future reference. Thanks

Hope you enjoy (and hope the links work).

Quicktime (http://www.roguesplace.com/animations/SBSmall.mov) ; Sorenson3, 3.2 megs, half video res

DivX5.02 (http://www.roguesplace.com/animations/SBSmall.avi) ; 3 megs, half video res

Pic:http://www.roguesplace.com/animations/SB.jpg

P.S. Any compression tips would be appreciated. This is as small as I could get them and still maintain a little bit of quality, but I think they could be smaller.

P.S.2 The audio is not the final audio. They contract some else for that. The voice over is the correct one, but the sound effects is just stuff I've downloaded over the years.
AWAKE
11-17-2002, 06:40 PM
The only comment I'd have is that the shader looks a little swimmy. as the character turns around the shading reminds me more of a reflection map than a cel shader. besides that, It's pretty sweet.
Marc Andreoli
11-17-2002, 08:20 PM
cool !
But I agree with AWAKE, the cel render looks a bit 'busy' (too many bands ?). I'd stick to 3 colors (plain object color, highlight and shadow) if you don't want any smoothshading at all. One way to achieve that is to align a parallel lightsource with the camera (flatten the colors) and to add a shadowcasting lightsource from wherever the main light is coming from. Make sure the shadow is not too opaque (black).

like his expressions :thumbsup:
And the download was fast (80-100k/s)
Joril
11-17-2002, 09:04 PM
I hope it makes the world a better, and healthier place to live in...
Well done.
Rogue
11-17-2002, 10:44 PM
Thanks for the comments gentlemen. Glad you enjoyed it.

Yeah, the cel shading was 'swimmy'. I like that term, it describes it well. I noticed it early on after rendering some animation tests and thought, "that looks weird". However, I didn't get back to it. I think I just sort of let it slip away as the deadline got closer. :)

Marc Andreoli: Yeah, I changed most of the surfaces to 3 bands, I liked it better that way. But his skin had 4. Couldn't tell you why I did that. It's possible that is what caused it. I also think I may have too much contrast in the colors. Hopefully, we'll get another cell shaded project in and I'll try the technique you described. That's some good info. I think I'll also try the smooth shading as well. And thanks for the speed info!! I'm happy of that.

Thanks again for the comments.
Rumors
11-22-2002, 07:03 PM
Looks like you had a lot of fun animating that!

^_^
Ejecta
11-22-2002, 07:04 PM
Of course if that was a Maya cel shader it would have been better. Plus then you would be a "real animator".

;)
proton
11-22-2002, 11:44 PM
Great work....love the character animation in this.....
CIM
11-23-2002, 12:58 AM
Of course if that was a Maya cel shader it would have been better. Plus then you would be a "real animator"

If you were a brain-dead moron--oh wait, you are. ;)
CTRL+X
11-23-2002, 01:29 AM
If you were a brain-dead moron--oh wait, you are.



Oh I was about to write that very same thing, but then I noted you already had,,,

so I ditto what CIM said.
Abe
11-24-2002, 07:08 PM
I like it a lot interesting and gets the message across well:thumbsup:
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