Character: Buck the Bastard Landlord

[frameless]

hey Rob !
Very cool character, especially the boots and the steel arm are great. The facial expressions look wonderful:thumbsup:
Can't wait to see the animation;)

[gnarlycranium]

Everything looks fabulous, except... um.......... what's with his pants?!! :surprised

[nanabaky]

yep nice model, cool expressions ;) no other face morphing test to show ? or animation tests maybe...

[Rob]

Ok, this is an early animationtest...
The sound is from one of my favourite movies "Casino" feat. Joe Pesci.
The monologue is kind of something that would fit for the character to say, but it´s only a test.
As it´s Joe Pesci it obviously includes some profanity.



Download animationtest (sorensen, 3.18MB) (http://www.protoon.com/buck_WIP.mov)

hope you enjoy!
Rob

[Witchy]

Nice style. The dialogue seems to fit; although he's a bit 'bigger' than the voice, the contrast might work well.

[Rob]

Thanks for all the kind words everybody. I will check the pants...

Regarding the voice:
We have an actor who will do the voice of Buck later on, and I guarantee that it will match the size of him...
But since I wanted to try out the blendshapes and stuff I couldn´t wait until then and did this little test.
Focus on the visuals and disregard the actual voice of Pesci since it isn´t representative.

/Rob

[Rage2k]

what's with his pants?!!

You mean, whats the bloody h*ll in it? ;)

Great character btw! :thumbsup:

[Frank Dodd]

Brilliant piece of work. A great style and very expressive character. I think the crotch of his pants looks a bit low though other than that i dont think I could fault it. Very well done.

[Colin de bink]

cool I love the eyebrows

[Rob]

His body is supposed to be exaggregated, but I agree that it looks a bit weird in the above picture.
If you look at this old picture you can see how it works better when you see his fat belly hanging out.

http://www.protoon.com/buck/body.jpg

/Rob

[prayas]

what a wonderful character! Like the arm and stuff round his feet!
In your WiP model the pants look quite better than in the tex version!

downloading your animation right now

P..:

[Revilo]

*just a random and useless fact*

the messed up arm and the bonsai thing remind me of Jet from Cowboy Bebop

I like the character ;)

[Grimreaper1981]

Originally posted by Revilo
*just a random and useless fact*

the messed up arm and the bonsai thing remind me of Jet from Cowboy Bebop

I like the character ;)

That was also my first thought :D; very cool anime on MTV; but your char is unqiue too (i think, there are more people out there loving bonzais like Jet :D

[BiTMAP]

quite funny, although his teeth don't really move... kind made it hard to lip read, which i'm learning as i'm slowly growing deaf... his jaw needs to move with the lips, but as a seperate control.

[Rob]

Well... it´s the same soundclip as before, but new, better render and I fixed some other stuff as well.

Download it here:
Coma_SOR_500.mov (7.33 MB, Sorensen) (http://www.protoon.com/buck/Coma_SOR_500.mov)

I haven´t seen cowboy Bebop, but I will sure check it out!

/Rob

[Mithrandir315]

Dude!! Your character ROCKS!! :thumbsup: I've got a question for you, if you don't mind though. Did you use Maya to create him, and if so, did you use polygons? It looks to me like you used Maya paint effects for the eyebrows. I'm trying to texture a polygon character, and I'm wondering if there is a way to use paint effects for his eyebrows. Anyhew, just curious how you did it, the animation looks great by the way.
Jesse

[Rob]

Mithrandir315: Thanks for the kind words. I used Maya subD:s and polys. I converted the head from subD:s to polygons and used PaintFX for the eyebrows. Pretty simple stuff: I used Curve on Poly to get a curve that I could attatch the PaintFX-strokes to.

I still have some tweaking to do in that area, but I think it´s a pretty good way to do it.
I also used this for the main characters eyelashes:
http://www.protoon.com/buck/eye.jpg

so long
Rob

[Mithrandir315]

Thanks for the info Rob. Umm.. forgive my ignorance, but I'm not quite sure what you mean by the 'curve on poly' too. I tried making my poly object 'live' and creating the curve that way, but the curve doesn't stay on the object when I move it. I'm completely new to texturing polygons, so you're patience is much appreciated. I like your other character, her eyelashes look perfect!
Jesse

[Rob]

Sorry for the confusion...
The "Curve on Poly" is a MEL-script you can download from AliasWavefront.
Follow the link below for their excellent tutorial on how to make long hair with PaintFX. The script is available there.
Hairtutorial (http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Tmpl/Maya/html/index.jhtml?page=/en/Community/Learn/how_tos/paint_fx_fur/paint_fx_fur_m.html)

Then you just pick your edges and execute the script. A curve will attach itself to the selected edges, and you can select "Attact to Curve" from the paintFX menu.

/Rob

[Mithrandir315]

Sweet! Thanks a lot Rob, I'm about to do the tutorial, this looks like it's going to save me lots of headaches! :)
Jesse

[tenl]

Awesome Animation!

I've been dabbling for the past few months trying to decide whether to purchase maya or max...

Do you consider Maya being easier? How long did it take you to model, rig and animate this piece?

Excuse the many questions, I'm really siked about getting into animation and want to make sure and go the right way...

TENL

[malleus_46]

Good stuff!
Some suggestions, if I may..
Camera: It's an emotionally charged bit of dialogue, but your camera is a locked off long shot, not the most dramatic choice you could make. I bet the scene in Casino has Pesci's face nice and big in frame, so you can read his expressions. You don't have to go into a close-up, but the model/scene deserves a mid-shot at least. Likewise the lens looks fairly narrow, like a 50mm. Open the lens up to like 20-25mm and push the camera in. You'll get a lot more drama, like when he steps forward he'll get bigger, when he swings the bat around it'll get bigger as it gets close to the camera etc.

Animation: The left arm hangs a bit dead towards the end, just give it a little something to do, like scratch his ass or maybe just clench the hand a bit, something small. Also watch your beats, you've got all the gestures happening in synch with the dialogue, this is a big no-no. Use physical gestures to reveal what the character is feeling, not as an accessory for the dialogue.

Lighting: add just a tiny bit of fill light, you've got all the light coming from above, so the areas in shadow are pitch black, and therefore unreadable. A nice bit of back light would do nicely to define his edges and fill out the volume. Oh and the baseball bat is in darkness most of the time, even when he's hefting it menacingly, keep it lit, visible and scary.

Phew! lot's of stuff there, but don't think for a second that means what you've got already isn't really good, the stuff I'm talking about is polish on an already nifty piece of work.

M

[Rob]

Lots of good stuff there!
Thanks for the excellent feedback. I will defenitely go back and put some more hours into this and try to make it better.

Check back soon with the result!

/Rob

[Rob]

tenl:
I haven´t really worked with Max enough to make a fair judgement, but I really enjoy working in Maya. It isn´t perfect, but what package is?
If you´re aiming towards the gaming scene, then perhaps you should go for Max, since it´s very popular there.
Otherwise go for Maya if you can afford it. It´s a wonderful software.
Try out the demoversions of these softwares and I bet it will be easier to decide.

The timeline for Buck is approx. 40 hrs modelling and 20 hrs animating.

so long
Rob

[Psycholink]

Very cool and very good model ! Good Job!
:bounce: :bounce:

[JIII]

hey nice pic but i swear he has an butt where his crotch is.

[Rob]

Dude, that´s not a butt.
Just some old socks he stuffed in there...

But seriously does it look that weird? Is it the texture or the geometry that keeps bugging ppl?

So long
Rob

[Rob]

Okay, new animation is up now.
Tweaked it a bit, moved the camera closer and fixed some other things you guys pointed out...

New animationtest (Sorensen QT, 5 MB) (http://www.protoon.com/buck/Coma_SOR_500.mov)

Enjoy!

Rob

[fester]

Rob -

sweet. great character. great attitude. love the style. nice job. I noticed you're posting up quicktimes. Are you doing this on Maya for mac? If so, how do you like? I currently use Lightwave, but I'm always interested in other options, you know?

anyway, great work.

[Witchy]

Really great! Love the new angle.

The crotch is a little odd, perhaps you could move it up a little bit?

[Rob]

Thanks guys!

I work on PC, but some people in my pipeline use Mac/Final Cut and that´s why we go with Quicktime.
I have no idea how Maya for Mac works, but I used to work on macs and really love the feel to it. It would be great to go back someday if Apple could just get their act together.

About the crotch: I can see that some of you think it´s too low, but I think it fits the character and design so I will probably stick with it.
But thanks for the input, it´s always useful to get some second opinions.

/Rob

[facial]

Intresting character design, I love it. Post up more. :thumbsup:

[Rob]

Hey guys!
Just finished a new little animationtest. This time the soundclip is from a movie called "The Man who Wasn´t there" by the Cohen brothers.
Nothing special about the animation, just trying to improve my skill.


Dough.mov (sorensen 2.45 MB) (http://www.protoon.com/buck/dough.mov)

So Long
Rob

[bigbad]

Really good. It´s movie production quality. Serious. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

How long did it take to do this clip?

[Rob]

Thanks for the kind words!

The clip took about 20 hrs to complete, and an additional 6 hrs to render.

So Long
Rob

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.