12 lot-tech robots in 1 handy box

[ivanisavich]

HOLY SWEET AWESOME MOTHER OF MYSTERY! The screens look amazing!!!

Downloading the animation as we speak...but just thought I'd jump in and make the first post :D

[ivanisavich]

Ok...well I just saw the animation and I must say....YOU ARE THE FREAKIN MASTER!

That was one of the coolest animations I've seen in a LONG time!

If I had one thing to critique...it would be the camera movement though....I definitely like the "home video" feel it had to it....but in some parts it was a bit much...especially when you do the DOF change during the pencil poke part....right at the point where you want to see what's going on everything gets blurred out and it takes away from it a bit. That's a very minor critique though since everything else is ace!!!

Would have given you 100 stars....but 5 is the limit.

:thumbsup:

[AlexC]

Woah, great work pgland that's amazing! :thumbsup: 5 stars

btw, you may want to add a file extension to the links/files - mine didn't download with any.

:bounce: amazing

[eightgr]

Amazing, surely one of the best sequence I ever seen ! Wooooww !

[tiny_swallow]

funny robots!

[Dreamstate]

The modelling, lighting and texturing are spot on IMHO. Great idea for a short!

I think the animation needs work, the objects move too slow in parts. It looks like gravity has been lowered as well. The camera shake adds realism, but needs to be toned down a tad.

How long did this take? How many people were involved?

[Coaster]

congratulations on finishing it! ten stars! **********

Front page! Front page!:bounce:

[koyimaold]

really nice
awesome rendering and modeling and animation

5stars from me

[pgland]

Awesome! Glad you all like it so far!

ivanisavich - yeah buddy, I see your point, I maybe over-did it a bit. I was trying to mimick a real camera defocus, and I think I went a bit far. Ta for the crit.

AlexC - Thanks, I hadnt noticed that, I`ve renamed the files now and updated the links.

Dreamstate - Yep. I`m a complete novice animator, this is the only animation i`ve ever done, so I knew it was the weakest bit of the project. I did mess with gravity a bit because otherwise the robots moved offscreen too quickly.
I really wanted lots of camera shake, as the guy holding the camera is supposed to be the guy who built the contraption, so he is a bit over-excited!
It was just me that worked on the project, went a bit lone-warrior on this one!

Coaster - Ta buddy! I expect to see some of that tremendous transformer action in here soon!

[kr3ml]

This is seriously good and definitively frontpage worth, good job buddy ;)

what did you render it with?

the shaders look terrific btw

[rpena21]

Nice work! Yes, what program and renderer did you use?

Great stuff!
Ray

[Silverwing]

Awesome! Absolutely awesome...
Really one of the best shots i have
seen here for a long long time!
It looks lika a real video... Amazing!

I would give you more stars then 5
if it would be posibble...

Really great stuff and FRONTPAGE!
It´s worth it!

[Seemoo]

Wow, amazing work. 5* for sure and Front Page material.

[QUOTE=pgland]
Yep. I`m a complete novice animator, this is the only animation i`ve ever done, so I knew it was the weakest bit of the project. I did mess with gravity a bit because otherwise the robots moved offscreen too quickly.
QUOTE]

Just a quick question tho. What do you mean with "I did mess with gravity a bit..." Is it not key frame animation?

Keep it up!

simon

[3dcga]

Kickass stuff!

[Cowboy3D]

Man this is really good. Nothing else. C:eek:NGRATULATI:eek:NS . 5 stars from me too... Keep it up

[Ranimate]

So good man, so good.

:applause:

Ranimate

[Sheldyn]

One word...'AWESOME'
This is the reason i'm starting to learn 3d and animation.As a learner i must ask which program(s) and Graphics Card do you use?

[Scob]

INCREDIBLE WORK...
Totally amazing..:eek:
Nothing to say , just ,:) , for me the camera move a little too much..

sorry for my miserable english i am french..

[Chris Bacon]

great stuff dude...the camera does move abit to much, I know its ment to look hand held...tha animation looka alittle floaty in places....but its COOL



5 stars

[pgland]

Thanks again for the replies and the stars!

Ok, all work was done in maya, rendered in mental ray. It took 2 months from start to end. Composite was done in After effects.

Seemoo - Some of the animation is hand animated, but large parts were blocked out with dynamics first. Then I have control over the gravity. Usualy, I planned something with dynamics, which got close to the motion I want, then I keyframed over that so things landed in the right place.

Keep the crits and ideas coming, it`s good to hear what you all think about this!

[Bleen]

Two months full-time? how many hours per day would you say you've given to this project?

Anyway, congratulations on an awesome job! 5 stars from me. Pity I'm not a mod or I'd plug this :applause:

[Gargoyle888]

I've watched this dozens of times now.

This is excellent work. I have to agree with those who say that the camera jitter is a bit more than it should be expecially when the pencil comes in to poke the top. But that is my only criticism.

The motion and the detail are very impressive.

*****

[fattony1982]

Man...thats amazing. So realistic :) More than 5 stars. The camera movement and pencil make it that much more believeable. Do u have any WIP stuff to show for it?????

Overload

[SeHZaDe]

Wouw really amazing...
Good Work...:cool:

[mahmoudcg]

your render is unbelievable, superb job

[Wei2k]

wow man, this looks awesome. this is definitely front page stuff

[pgland]

Bleen - hey buddy. Well, I worked on it quite hard, its hard to say how many hours a day, but it must have averaged at about 5-6.
You might not be a mod, but if you want to plug it, you could always pm one? I think thats how it works.

fattony1982 - I do have a WIP thread over in Wip 3d stills. There isn't alot in there, but there is a breakdown of the lighting passes. Im not on my home computer, i'll post a link when I get back home, its easy to find though, just do a search for handy box or something!(The title is the same as this thread but not spelt wrong!)

Thanks for the replies guys! And to everyone who thought it should be a frontpage, i've got my fingers crossed!

[Bleen]

pgland, I didn't know I had to PM a mod... I just did :-)

Good luck! :-)

[RobertoOrtiz]

Ok great work
Plugged..
-R

[jakiloblanco]

Whoa!! Unreal!

I'm gonna send this to my brother; he's an electrical engineer and I'm gonna see how long it takes t'ill he asks me if it's real or not :D

Great work!

[MrPositive]

Hey Dude,

It was awesome chatting with you before! I knew this was destined for frontpage eventually. Your work is totally wickedly splendid. :)

[tamahoma22]

Crazy cool stuff... argh so GOOD!

Great job!

http://strugglefest.com

[paconavarro]

WOW!!! great animation, great concept... The only thing to me is that the camera movement was disturbing... always moving, for me is too much :)

[slipknot66]

Really cool!:thumbsup:

[phoenix]

Very nice work man .... freakin coool

[salokcin82]

Great Work!

My only 2 crits are the camera movement is a bit too much at the beginning and the snake robot that is shot out looks a bit awkward. It looks like its hitting the other piece and bouncing off but its not reading as clear as it could.

Aside from that its flawless! 5 Stars! Cant wait to see it with some sound.

[otacon]

Wow. So much to look at you have to watch it more than once. Great work.

[erilaz]

Fan-bloody-tastic. I beg for a breakdown of how you put that little blighter together! Technically accurate and very fun to watch. :)

I would extend the same crit as Tyson though, the camera needs a little work to be more believable.

Lovely.

[ts-falcon]

wow, holy crp, wow, beautiful rendering, would love to see a making of!

[Tad]

errr.. How??

[MrPositive]

errr.. How??

errr....Elbow Grease

[-X-]

Stop posting REAL videos. http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/icons/icon12.gif

[mzee]

so, so cool!!!

[wybl]

yeah, its awesome

I have another critique than the camera movement. The movement of the in the image marked object is very unnatural. And there are one or two more parts that move like this. I know it's nitpicking but i grabbed my attention the very first time i watched the sequence.

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/2408/impossiblemovement2oh.jpg

[Angryman]

I love the textures... i love the image at all... great work.

[bleumoon]

Fantastic job Pineal. I saw this when you first posted your WIP. I knew it was going to be great back then . . . and guess what? I was right :). I really like mechanical things like this, and your renders are absolutely stunning.

[ZeroNeuro]

This is really good work. What I especially liked was the amount of detail that you put into each individual piece.

The animation was a little off, but not by much. There are just a few points that could be improved. Yet I think you did very well. A little more friction here, some more sense of weight there. Etc.

Lighting wise it was pretty good. Final Gathering with maybe a touch of HDR IBL? The grain added to the realism of the piece and I think that was a good call. A lot of people try too hard to get a clean look and it turns around and makes things look plastic. Some of the contrast is a little too high but again, doesn't need too much tuning.

I have always had a soft spot for robotics, machines, and mechanicized things. (Which is probably obvious to anyone who has seen some of my work! :D ) So I may be a little biased. Overall I think that it was really good.

Congratulations, PG.

-Ritchie L. Roberts

[Jadetiger]

:eek: AWESOME! .... seriously wow... omg... head caving in... so cool...

[Fernando Lucas]

I'm not a animator or 3d designer, but this is a great job, no thought...
just one thing, where the cylinder goes? through the wall?

[ricky13]

Amazing! I studied Mark Tilden's BEAM robotics a few years back, and you did a very good job of capturing their characteristics.

Very inspiring animation

[Banshee]

Can´t download it!
Is the server down? Are there any mirrors? :-/

[PhuongDPh]

ahem, sorry, I don't know animation but your models and textures are awesome
love your render - high quality realistic
Thanks !

[FGP1187]

I saw this way back in the beginning stages, i loved it then and i love it now. the sheer attention to detail just astonishes me, the subtle focus and defocus of the camera. And obviously the detail in the models. Amazing work! and i'm just hoping i'll be able to do something this astounding some day. Keep it up.

[Barbatruuk]

That's a great animation, one helluva job!

But there was one thing that bugged me though, look at this. (http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ehrutjes/anifout.jpg)
That piece seems to be...submerged?

[pgland]

AWSOME! Thanks for the plug, I never thought I'd make it to the frontpage! Cheers, I'm well pleased!

I'm abit worried about the massive attack my bandwith is about to take, so I appolagise if the BIG version suddenly disappears.

Heh, you guys have all been spotting the mistakes now! So far, i've only read things I knew about already. I'll try to answer a few of them

The Snake has a wierd motion coming out of the tube because there was supposed to be a tether which snapped it back. I was using maya hair for the tether and couldnt get it right. As no-one seemed to mention it in the WIP, I thought i'd try to slip it in under the radar. Well spotted.

The large part that starts under the floor I expected to be too dark to notice, but the anim got changed at the last minute and I confess I forgot to sort it out, which annoyingly would have been an easy fix

The can bot does go straight into the wall. Luckily, I move the camera so you cant see it. I think you are supposed to assume it stops when it hits the wall.

Thanks for all the comments, and of course the frontpage!!

[pearson]

Very nice detail, and very nice rendering. I really love the movement of the last machine seen in the clip. Its animation is nicely segmented and has great anticipation movements just before each lunge forward.

The weakest part, imho, was the hopping; non of them fell fast enough to really look like a hop. I thought they had hidden legs and were inch-worming along.

[BlackNull]

Definitely a cool project, I watched it over an over to really see what each lil robots was doing. It's so much fun, well deserved plug :thumbsup:

pierre

[KaDDD]

WOUHAAAAA. . .. .
very nice job PGLAND...it' s so good, we can forget all we have see in robots !
this one of the most original projetc who i 'have never seen...

since the first thread on the wip , i 'm fan of this , but , in render this kill all
perfect PERFECT job , very good animation and dynamic , and i plaind you for made a so hard ringging .. .

150 stars for this amazing work , 150 for the originality , 150 for the render, 150 for the animation
for a total of 600 stars ! !! !yeah !! ! excellent !!

KaDDD

[NunoNisa]

Absolutely an awsome job! No crits at all, perfect lighting, animation, model, textures, and so on and on...

Congrats! Keep it up

[Staszek]

umbeliveble! greate aniammation and render and models - congrats!!

[optimonkey]

amazing... the only word to describe it

[ttiotx]

Oh my god thats really wonderful:D

[Slurry]

Tremendous work. Fantastic quality.
If I had to crit anything it would be that some of the component's (sqaure, black, clip-looking things) animation is not varied enough. Almost as though the same values were set for each key'd cycle and then set on a path.
Also, if the camera has the shake (hand held) wouldn't the camera person follow the action and not leave it pointed at the same spot on the floor?
But some serious kick butt animation and renders.
5 Stars from me! ;)

Art

[BarryLegg]

Fantastic work - made my day.

Like others have said - I too have a soft spot for robotics and complex mechanical systems, so this was always going to be a winner.

I'm actually going to say that I don't think the camera moves / cuts are too much. I think they're about right and lend a human aspect to the piece.

The DOF change however, yes, I think this is a little 'tricksy'. Slightly unnecessary and kind of looks like it was just put in for the sake of it as modern DV cameras rarely shift focus like that (unless the inventor of the robot was using an old 16mm film camera).

One thing I'd change though, is the colour of the pencil - not for any aesthetic reasons, I think the blue and black one looks great - its just that all those old science films that you'd get shown at school, always featured yellow pencils poking things about on the screen. Every time - yellow. And they were always incredibly sharp, presumably so all the kids at school would get the impression that the person holding the pencil (a failed scientist) was really organised.

Yeah - yellow pencils man, nothing says 'science lesson' quite like an unbelievably sharp yellow pencil.

5 stars - hope you get your dream job, like tomorrow or something.

[slangford]

Fantastic!!! Im glad you finished this beast! I was afraid it my be lost some where along the way.... but you pulled it off! great Job!!:applause:

[Cernunos]

i dont have words to discribe this job

[mv]

Hey, that was awesome! I definitely think the camera shake was overdone though, being that strong doesn't add anything imho.

[monovich]

I don't think you'll have much trouble finding a job. :)
Very cool work! It's so curious. I'd echo some of the critiques of others, especially the one out of focus bit, but it works overall and if you are handholding in real life, stuff like that happens.

I love how the CG industry works: Make something really cool, show it around, get a job. :)

[Hoser]

Wow that's awesome. Nothing really to add that hasn't already been said. The DOF didn't really bother me. Yeah, some of the animations were off a bit, but excellent job anyway!

[coldfuse[ofX]]

Well apart from the nic picking like pencil colour and stuff which is not really that important. I am here to talk about two things.

The first is the snake, though someone brought it up already (thought i was on to a winner there) basically yea the fact u have compositied it in, doesnt show which is good what does is the snap back (which u noticed) it doesnt hit the robot at all, and the last link stays in the air for a good 1-2 seconds before dropping making it very unrealisitc. So sort that out, especially the last link staying in the air then suddenly dropping.
http://www.stickied.net/files/49de4c7b715511524ee2b5b22b59c650.jpghttp://www.stickied.net/files/22c08aad00c3cf65bbdcdcaf5420844e.jpg




Next another point about the robot piece at the end which has exactly the same moition as a piece by it. That kinda jumping motion. Not only do they do the same they look the same. The fact the objects are really close together kinda i dont know really makes it stand out, like u have alot of viraty going on, and the fact u have to exact objects and motions going on by the side of each other kinda dissmays me with all the work. Maybe mistime the animation like make one slower, or make them look a little different.

http://www.stickied.net/files/b653908e1b7a5c285153cd74d54957fb.jpg
http://www.stickied.net/files/fafc5879af9f6b6eeb75be9db33a3227.jpg

Other then that, wonderful piece if ur not very good at things then i expect u to be the most richest man in the world within the next few years...Good job :)

[khaleghi]

that is very nice,I love these robots :)

[DDS]

insane man! 5 stars for the hard work that pays off

[Coaster]

Congrats on the front page!:buttrock:You deserve it, a fine job well done. That cheeky snake is still my favourite.

[Deletedaccount]

Damn, that looks so asome!!

5x* from me :)

[Djampa]

Your first animation ?

Wow, you did a lot of effort then. It came out great. Front page !
Congratz !:thumbsup:

I loved the way you light the scene, the render is awesome.

Crits: :hmm:
Well, agree with Ivanisavich, camera shakes, altough like your direction, thinking of excitement of the camera holder, it´s ok.

About the gravity stuph, well, really better if you forget dynamics sometimes, maya, max, XSI whatever dynamics really help us at some points, when you don´t have much time to do it ´by hands´, or it comes out too complex to animate ´traditionally´ , but nothing surpasses the basis of traditional animation, the 12 rules and so on, the job you made is great, imagination is incredible, render perfect, animation needs a lil polishing here and there, to make it ´believable´ the gravity feeling and apliance of some lil antecipation on some movents would enormously improve it.
To help you out try getting similar pieces on real life and bounce them to table, floor, whatever, and watch and rewatch how they react, specially if you record it, play back and study frame by frame. Then apply some of the 12 rules, specially I really miss a lil of more of antecipation when they start ´walking´.

Anyway, if you say this is your first anim... I want to see what´s next :)

You are on right direction, if you keep up with this high quality material and listening to crits, you end up among the best of CG market, if you aren´t already there ;).

Best wishes,

[effstops]

I remember your WIP - I love the addition of the little wires - very, very nice detail! The render quality is insane, and the animation is just superb. Extremely realistic.

Amazing job, man! Keep it up!

--Colin

[pentool]

Absolutely stunning work! :bounce:

[Fierras]

that was amazing. the only thing that bothered me as some people have stated above was the camera movements sometimes. one of the parts at the back kinda floated there for a sec which made it a bit unrealistic. but still... this was great work.

[M-TICO]

Wow .! quality

[pgland]

Hello everyone.

Thanks again for all the replies. Theres a few too many to answer individually! So I hope I catch all your questions here.

I agree with pretty much all the crits on the robot animations. I didn`t really have enough animation know how to attempt something this complex. But I though i`d just give it my best shot and threw caution to the wind, not having a clue how it would turn out.
In the end, I think that created alot of errors, things i`m really unhappy with, but it taught me way more than if i`d played it safe, so i`m glad I tried.
The floaty thing that alot of you has mentioned was something that bugged me to the end, but I gave myself a tight deadline on this project, or else I think I would never have finished. I certainly wasn`t happy with it all when I pressed the render button.

Djampa - Thanks for all those ideas, i`ll certainly bare all that in mind on my next piece

It seems the cam shake, at least to the level I did it, was a bit of a mistake. All I can say about that is that it dosent really bother me, I was pretty happy with it, though I agree about the out of focus on the cam move, I did go way over the top with that!

Unfortunatly, i`m not going to patch this. I`m leaving this as the finished version warts and all. I`m working on some new stuff, and hopefully i`ve learned lots about animation that`ll help me.

Thanks for all the crits and replies!

[Solace9]

I imagine this would be a great subject for and look excellent with the Maxwell renderer.

[andy_maxman]

hey pgland...good work...keep at it...
congrats for the plug! :)

just in case - www.pepeland.com has an animation called pepe....that's where i saw the first ever handheld cam move (i totally love the move)...it totally hooked me and is one of my earliest animation inspirations...

haveFun!!

[yolk]

I like this one !!! :thumbsup: 5 star,,,,,,,,,

[amannin]

even though you say its done --- i would really love to hear the background as the person holding the camera --- saying random things, making random excited sounds ---- would add so much to it.

make it sound as if it was recorded by the camera being used -- picking up all sorts of sounds ---- anywho,

AWESOME!

[LukaStellwag]

Awsome work, really great animation. I've been watching it now for almost 10 times and can't get enough.

What programs did you use?

L.

[Goul]

Haha, this is crazy... Cool job man:thumbsup:

[MVP]

Fantastic work, would love to see any WIP models etc you have and any inspiration.

[Crayox]

Wow, it's awesome, the stills I mean, I have Win XP 64 and QuickTime doesn't work on it :rolleyes:

Anyway, Maya uses Mental ray as default renderer? Similar to MAXes scanline?

Cos Mayas render always look so real, don't know if people that make those are pros or is Maya (mental ray) just better than vray.

I tried MR on MAX, didn't play too long with it, but just couldn't get it to work as nice as vray.

[meta_Nerd]

First Animation, Damn, very impressive.... If I had an animation studio, I would snatch up your talent today. Getting front page, well, I am sure you will get something soon. I would suggest posting what software you used for everything... 3D and 2D (not that is matters, but people get excited when you use the software they use =).

Since everyone is giving giving their crits I guess I will add my 2 cents.

The first thing I noticed was I couln't tell what the floor was made of. It has the texture and feel of polished concrete, but doesn't work with the lighting. I suggest this, because I think it would give you a simple contrast you are missing if it separated from the mechanical pieces more. Also the wires seemed to move waaaaay too much, I know it sounds nit picky (and is) but it is the first dynamics that are encountered and made it feel very CG to me. I see a lot of crits about the cam motion, but not alot of suggestions of how to fix it. So here is mine:

As for the camera motion, I don't think it is all that bad, it just needs to be a bit more controlled. I would suggest giving a bit more variety. Let it hold steady once and a while with the occasional wildness before and after deliberate movements. Basically think of it as when the camera wo/man has to think of where their next move will be, or next step to take, they are distracted. It is during these distractions that the camera will give the most shake. And right after the position changes, they would most likely hold quite still trying to focus in... only to be overcome by those funny nerve twitches that happen when you are trying too hard.

Overall it is a great piece, reminds me so much of my first animation. I saw someone post mentioning pepeland - it too was my inspiration (don't recall the name, just the clay figure and the white robot that attacks the camera).

Thanks for sharing and best of luck (which I don't think you will need),

Chris Reid

[kerr]

top-stuff! congratz! the Camera DOF is perfect, textures, photoreal render... awesome work... the animation is funny too... hehehe congratulations!

[nemirc]

cool! very nice

[Finotti]

Amazing !!! No posts

[Crayox]

Wow!!! This is unbeliveable! I just managed to open the animation too!!! Dude, how long did that render and on what system? I mean, I see you use focus also. Where did you learn to animate like that? Hm, now I wanna post my animation here hehe, it's nothing like yours but...

[pgland]

Hello, I used maya and mental ray.

meta_Nerd - The floor was meant to be a dirty thich peice of card. I agree the texture is weak. I must admit it was my intention to change this and add a detailed background, but all my tests found that it was just taking away from the robot so I left it as it was. I was never really happy with it.

I struggled with the dynamics of the wires alot. I just couldn`t quite get them to act like these types of wires. I weighed up the fact that I liked them as a detail, against the fact the I couldn`t get them to move quite right and decided to keep them.

Thanks for the advice on the camera. I`ll try that next time.

Crayox - Post your`e animation! I`d love to see it. I wasn`t sure if I wanted to post this, but its been loads of fun! I think you are never happy with your`e own work. But thats a good thing in the struggle for perfection!

[adrencg]

Looks great...the concept is the best of all. The only negative is that the "hand held" looks extremely forced.

Mike

[wtoddk]

fantastic work! Congrats!

[Juiceman]

WOW! absolutly amazing dood, I espeacially love the way you had the camera act as if it were being handheld, amazing idea to have the whole robot come apart, you have truly inspired me, great job dood.

[Ekarat]

Thinking of comming to work in Thailand?

www.colorzync.com

[akin]

wouuu thats crpy buddy. transformars act

[PabloG]

LOVE the camera!




WOW! absolutly amazing dood, I espeacially love the way you had the camera act as if it were being handheld, amazing idea to have the whole robot come apart, you have truly inspired me, great job dood.

[Nick Smalley]

A nice job. As some other people have mentioned, the animation could be improved, but everything else makes up for it. And one doesn't necessarily notice it the first time because there's a lot to look at.

Wicked lighting too.

[cgoz]

wow, your inbox must be full now with "join us!" :) great job

[petersen3d]

This is AMAAAAZING !!!
a shame that has no sound man, you could used anything at least

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