MEchanical arms - ripoff of adidas' mechanical arms advert

[anthonymcgrath]

no-one got owt to say or any thoughts and suggestions on it? :( I'm open to any ideas on this

[Dipscom]

Hello there!

I must say, don't have ideas to give to you as your exercise seems to be quite straight foward. Also, I like the way you're building the robot, with all the different layers of things working together.
All I could really comment is to remind you to pay attention where the robot's skin (the blue thing) ends, to me, sometimes they don't seem to link well together with the mechanical bits, they seem to be unattached to it.

Can't say much other than that. Just wait to see what you're going to pull out of it.

Don't stop, it's looking really good.

[anthonymcgrath]

well I dont wanna give too much away about the project but it involves a similar approach to the adidas advert - the robot being put through its paces in a laboratory like environment.

cheers Dipscom for your thoughts - yeah the skin pieces still need 'attaching to the robot' - I'm still trying to figure out a way of doing this lol! The front parts need a sternum-like centre section but I was thinking more a series of little braces that allow it to flex still but then its trying to figure out a way to attach them to the robot and have it look acceptable like it could work in real life.
I'm using the rivet script a shedload on this lol! Whoever wrote that is a genius as its literally helping to drive nearly all of this robots smaller functions- spine section movement, piston movement you name it lol!
gonna be off the project for a week though as I'm off skydiving hehe!

[Dipscom]

If you're not going to give away a lot, there is not a lot we can use to flame about, isn't it? :D

As I said, I'll nose in as much as my abilities let me but, you have to uunderstand I'm not pro here, just a wannabe with no shame to speak. I still need to get myself around using scrips as they help a hell lot. So, getting to see the rivet script and understand it would be great! At the very least see what it does.

Have fun on your skydiving. It's not the type of thing I'll be into. Falling on my own ribs from a back somersault was bad enough. Mind you, falling who knows how many feet from an airplane.

See you when you're back,

Pedro

[anthonymcgrath]

I think you can dig out the rivet script from highend3d.com mate - its a really cool little script that attaches a locator to a nurbs or polygon surface at a selected point. It then keeps the locator aligned with the surface which has been a godsend on this little project as its let me attach pistons to the skin surface and they then flex as the skin surface does. It allowed me to make the spine by skinning a simple nurbs plane to the spine joints then putting rivets up the spine and attaching the spine pieces. I could also duplicate a curve off the surface, TWEAK it so I get a more random shape, then extrude a circle up there to create a wire. I want to have a few of these making the spine look complex and connected :)

as for the idea of the project its gonna involve some martial arts.... cant go wrong with kung fu fighting robots!!! :D

[Dipscom]

Hey Anthony! It took me some time before I could come back here and reply your replies.

I'll be slowly dipping my feet into the ocean of scripts and MEL as time goes by. The script you said is indeed really cool and I'll probably look into doing something with it at some point in my life.

I hope you'll keep your little project going as I am intrigued with your promisse of kung-fu robots and a cool look. I'm into that sort of thing as you know from my capoeira experiment.

Speaking of the capoeira one (to save me from posting there as well). Fear not, I will start another one at some point and try to get a much better animation out of it. Wait and see...

[anthonymcgrath]

thought I'd post up a few new pics of the recent work I've done on this robot. Nothing massive but its well on its way again. Changing bits all the time as it goes on but I like the new colour scheme alot more now - the arms seem to play a much bigger focal point as they did previously where it was becoming a blur of easy-hdri and blurred grey shaders :/
anyhow see what yer think. Animation WILL be coming soon lol once I get the rest of the figure bits modelled up!!
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/wip/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_17.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/wip/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_18.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/wip/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_19.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/wip/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_21.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

hey everyone
well no response so far ...never mind - gonna keep going at it. heres the latest two renders with the figure posed up. Got around to finishing and fine tuning the arms and adding finer details like burnt effects around the wrist and elbow joint area.
I've also done a turntable of the figure as it stands at the moment - you can download that just here:
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/wip/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test05.mov
(quicktime movie approx 5mb)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/wip/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_24_hi.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/wip/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_25_hi.jpg

[Gaz69]

sorry posted 3 times ignore this post

[Gaz69]

sorry posted 3 times ignore this post

[Gaz69]

Great work Ant ! Had a look at the Adidas advert which inspired you to do this and thought cool then I looked at what you have done and thought Great ! I like the look of the robot as it almost looks like it's wearing one of those Adidas lycra tops all the top pro's are wearing. I also like the burn damage around the wrists of the robot and all the mechanics inside the machine too. Great work Ant ! keep it up mate and keep us updated on your progress :thumbsup:

[anthonymcgrath]

cheers Gaz - as you can see theres a swathe of ppl's comments in this thread - always the same on this site :/

I've stripped some of the rig down last night and started rebuilding bits again - mostly the skeleton stuff as when I was testing its movement last night it seemed quite limited in places with movement. Looks like its gonna be an evening of unparenting the various mesh parts, fixing the skeleton underneath, building a control rig (IK/FK arms setup) then parenting those bits back onto the rig again so not really gotten around to modelling any newer parts like the lower section as I need to sort that first. Was totally cabbaged last night though as I'd been doing rigging all day at work an me head was pickled so coming home an having a shot was a bit tiring lol!
Would like to try and get the model/rig mostly finished before me hols next week - it'll give me something to get fired up about once I'm home hehe!

[Gaz69]

lol...for some reason yesterday when I posted a message it wouldn't come up afterwards so I've posted three times by mistake trying to get the message to come up on this forum...lmao. Sorry about that. But other than that, all that work again? darn I bet that's a bit of a stinker lol arr well at least when it's finished you'll have something as good as the Adidas advert IMO. No pressure intended lol :)

[anthonymcgrath]

lol yeah its a nice thought.

I haven't lost any of the 3d work or driven animation in the wrists or owt - just need to detach a few bits, add some extra joints and controls then reparent the other bits back in and I should be good to roll.. just need a few hours to sort that out :D

[anthonymcgrath]

hey everyone
found a bit of time to work the lower portion of the body and get to work on putting control handles in the rig for animation. Heres a couple of update images...
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_26.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_27.jpg

you can also view my wip page here...
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/mechanical_arms_pg1.htm

[anthonymcgrath]

double post

[anthonymcgrath]

340+ posts and not one comment... no-one got any thoughts on any part of it? The design? Colours, shaders, anything? I know its in the animation forum and that bit is due to get started but any thoughts would be welcome they fire me up to push it further!

[pmoreira]

Hey Anthony,

Was trailing the CG site and came across some of your posts on FG and finally found your WIP. I am a modeller at heart so I can appreciate the work you have done.

I think overall you have a great model and the detail is great. Obviously once you have finalised your entire model it would look more compelling (love to see you finish it).

My Thoughts

Though I think you have done very nicely with your modelling already, perhaps a way to spruce it up a bit would be to ad some more human like traits (I know, I know...its a robot ,but as most robots aim to mimic human attributes or skills, this might push it to the next level) OK back to my comment > Perhaps adding some artificial arteries or veins with in the muscle structure. Another thing you may want to do is to mess around with the colours you have used to depict the muscles, I noticed you used blue and again that works nicely as it is a Cyborg type of character however maybe adding some pink/ red or maybe even orange to the muscles may portray the idea that it may be human or robotic? that's just my 2 cents worth though on that part.

Lastly for the WIP side of things maybe throwing in a litter backdrop may make the WIP itself a little more intriguingand eye catching? It is a WIP I know, but it might enhance the nice modelling you have done.

Love to see how you get along with the rest of your project -- keep it up mate :thumbsup:

Cheers
Pat

[pmoreira]

Dude, sorry I only noticed now (after reading some of the other comments and eventually your initial post re: Adidas ad) - sorry if my comments were too left of field based on your initial intentions for this project.

Don't know weather you would want to take this further, but if you would perhaps those comments might come in handy...maybe... :)

Cheers
Pat

[anthonymcgrath]

hey Pat

cheers for the comments - they're all really nice suggestions! I like the idea of using orange on muscle areas which would compliment the blue nicely I'll give that a go! Maybe little LED type spots around the arms and down the spine would enhance it what do you think?

I was trying to get artificial arteries and veins running through it earlier in the models development but they kept clipping through various sections of the arms. I'll try reworking them tho as I've learnt a bit along the way doing this too :)
I'll do some renders against a lighter bg too to allow a little more observation - the current renders are still quite dark

cheers mate
ant

[pmoreira]

Hey Anthony, looking forward to seeing what you come up with man :)

With regards to the veins/ arteries perhaps some smaller version of the membranes coming from a Sentinel (Matrix). Obviously they would need to be smaller but again playing off the idea that this might be a robot with human like features, it could convey a vein network or perhaps a more sophisticated corporal system beyond our comprehension? You could then start exploring textures and colour >> But again man this is just by 2-bob & some ideas to "push the envelope and so on" (Homer J Simpson as Max Powers) on what you have already done quite nicely.

Here are some Sentinel references: http://www.funshop.co.kr/vs/archive.aspx?no=1364263664

Cheers man.
Pat

[anthonymcgrath]

cheers for the reference Pat. I'll def give it a shot just been stupid busy really. I'm after getting a similar feel to the adidas advert done by digital domain
www.digitaldomain.com (http://www.digitaldomain.com)
then goto commercials/character then the adidas ad is on the bottom row 4th one along (sorry it doesn't have a direct link)

I've also got to start the environment which is something that is going to be quite white and bright and I want the robot to stand out against it. just not had a spare mo to touch it :(

[anthonymcgrath]

hey chaps
thought I'd do a few renders of the figure against a white backdrop seeing as the environment I plan to do is gonna be a fairly white setting now. Quite pleased with how it looks against it actually - thought the chrome would be very dead but seems to have turned out ok. Been doing some setup tests - getting the arms to jiggle after a punching motion and things like that - will get a test up next week.
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_28.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_29.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_30.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_32.jpg

[pmoreira]

Hey Anthony,

Looking good there mate, the metallic bits have come through nicely now and the transparency of the muscles are way more "punchy" <enter better description here>

Would love to see some FG renders and perhaps some GI to really get some "bling" <enter better description here> on that chrome - I know exactly what your going for now >> that clinical/ med-lab type of white background will look great.

Keep pushing it mate, its looking good.

Cheers
Pat

[anthonymcgrath]

first animation test. Fairly basic animation ...chain punch followed by a couple of other wing chun poses.
anim done just to see how it moves and what its like to animate (not the easiest at the moment tbh). Need to simplify some controls to speed things up a little when animating. I used to set up lots of controls but nowadays I tend to find animating the joints directly much faster.. easier to just pickwalk around the joints that way :p
anyhow animation below:

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test06.mov


http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test06.jpg

[pmoreira]

Looking good so far man... Love to see some follow through on the motions come about once you've got your rig just how you want it and also see some more fluid motion. But like you said first things first.

Good post man keep it up!

Cheers
Pat

[anthonymcgrath]

cheers Pat, heres a second test animation doing a couple more poses - again still feels quite mechanical - need to get the body/arm keyframe offset going to give the impression the body is driving the punching power and also need a bit more of a relaxed feel to it but it aint looking too bad I think :) Next test will also involve some dynamic wiring too - heres hoping!

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test07.mov

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test07.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

heres a test anim of the robot doing the same animation but with the wiring attached. Doesn't look too bad I think personally :)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test08.mov

also done a coupla images below explaining the setup.
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_33.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_34.jpg

[pmoreira]

Hey Anthony, mate hats off to you... this is looking real good.. the follow through dynamics on the attached wires and tubes look very realistic. I like the fact that you have not over done it with the amount of movement and follow-through.

So, what are the next steps man? working on the animation sequence or are going end up using your wing-chun sequence as final?

Cant wait to see some high-end renders of this and in an environment with sound effects (if you want some machinery sounds just let me know I quite a good industrial sound library I could share with you...

Cheers geezer...

Pat

[anthonymcgrath]

hey Pat
I'm in dire need of industrial sounds mate... servo motors and subtle bits like that... if you've seen the adidas ad you'll know what I mean but wouldn't mind getting some clunkier bassier (that a word lol?) sounds for high impact bits.

thanks for the comments too - yeah I'm really pleased to see it getting to this point as I nearly put it to bed a month back thinking it weren't going anywhere. With comments from yourself and my mate Gary (he's commented earlier in this thread) popping over to mine for the odd evening, its got past that plateau and is onto the next level so I'm really happy :D

Next steps are the environment bits. For the mo I'm sitting the robot down whilst I do this as it seems to not be too bad for animating with and the other bits work well in relation.

Heres a coupla pics of the strange device it will be animating with... I think I have to win a CGtalk prize for most surreal creation this year lol...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy01.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy02.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

slight update to this model.. added some hair curves for dynamic wiring and tweaked a few bits.

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy03.jpg

also got to work on some other environment props...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor01_01.jpg

I'm also aware that this is an animation forum so should really be posting animation up in it but just wanting to share the process with everyone really. Animation will be coming soon on the project - need to finish these bloody environment bits :/

[KevinKraeer]

Hey Anthony, this is looking awesome. The concept is very cool, can't wait to see this thing in its environment.

The only thing I notice is that, when suspended from wires, all that motion the robot generates would probably create some swinging movement on the wire back and forth, as in your early test with the coil, hair curves, and blocks. It might be cool if the bot *slightly* moved back and forth/side to side on the wire while decimating his target. I know you don't want to overdo that motion as the stance is known for its stability.

The motion of the punching itself though, looks pretty good. I do think that you could push the punching a little more, by maybe having each arm coil back a little more before each punch. It's gotta be hard to animate follow-through without the rest of body!

Anyway, looking great so far. Keep up the good work.

[anthonymcgrath]

hi Kevin
cheers for the comments & advice - good to get extra feedback from ppl :)

the robot wont actually be suspended off the wires - there will be a base in the environment that it will be situ'd in. The body will be connected via pistons and more wires (cant help myself lol!) The wires are there to provide power to each limb rather than actually hold the robot up.

I'll try to get the robot to follow thru more with the punch but its kinda hard as the body barely moves with wing chun chain punching but there should definitely be some as you say. The motion comes from the triceps and the snap of the fist (famous 1inch punch technique) mostly, but I think maybe a bit more hold before the extension of the arm/punch would help emphasize the power that comes from the snapping-out elbow.

I'm at me mates at the mo - tried to download yer latest 'drag' anim but it wont play back here - will take a look on monday at work ;)

[anthonymcgrath]

tweaked a few shaders, modelling parts and set up the rig to allow better control...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy05.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy06.jpg

also found a bit of time to get some more done on one of the monitor banks. Modelling, shading, rigging and got some time to make some animated screens in after effects.

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor01_02.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor01_03.jpg

here's the back where most of the rigging is more evident lol!

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor01_04.jpg

animations will be coming soon lol - just trying to get the majority of the modelling done first. I'm terrible for building a character then never having supporting objects of the same detail so I want to make sure the other parts in the scene are of similar quality for once! :)

[pmoreira]

Hey Anthony,

Man its coming along nice... very nice... texturing is starting to tell the tale on your project and its working out nicely.

One point only to mention, the wooden peice of geometry (the punching, block device used in martial arts) ... the wooden feel of the peice is a bit odd currently in the scene. I dont know if its the texture or the overall fish-out-of-water effect thats going on there, but perhaps you might want to change it to a plastic type or rubbery type of material? The color of the texture is also clashing to my eyes, but thats just me...

Anyway as always just some input.

Keep at it dude.. looking great!

P.S - I owe you some sounds dont I? Let me try to dig it up on my remote HD - if we are lucky I will still have em.

Cheers
Pat

[anthonymcgrath]

hey Pat

cheers for the crits there, yeah I think your right about the wooden texture on the dummy looking out of place. My original idea was to have the dummy be shattered with a 1 inch punch at the end, sending a shard outward toward the table on the monitor and knocking a glass of water over (realflow fun!!). The water would then trickle down and hit a wire which would make the robot overload before finally cutting all the power in the building (and continent lol!!).

I did want to create a more complex dummy which look more like it was made of perspex with a digital holographic HUD on it. I wanted to use expressions with textures so when it was punched it would create a digital texture 'ripple' impact point which would disperse. However I later thought with some of the speed of the punching that it'd get quite messy and I er... weren't all that sure about how to tackle the texture/impact effect based on the punching location.

Maybe if I created this perspex dummy, and made the holo-HUD a glowing orange (complimentary colour to the blue) and the monitor scenes the same complimentary orange it'd look quite smart against the blue robot?

I should definitely explore it tho what do you think? :)

cheers for looking for the sounds too - let me know if you get owt cool!

[Gaz69]

Hi ppl. I've had the honor of watching Anthony build this over the last couple of months and I'm just as excited about this as he is. I have to say it looks fantastic and I can't wait to see it animated just like you guys. I'm just glad he didn't give up on it because I think it's something he can be proud of. Keep up the good work mate :thumbsup:

[KevinKraeer]

Hi Anthony. This is really starting to come together. Love the monitor setup.

I agree with pmoreira; I think that the wooden dummy does feel slightly out of place. I would try either making it a blue/grey plastic or rubber material or pursuing the perspex dummy you had envisioned originally.

Keep it up, this is looking great!

[anthonymcgrath]

okay started work on another monitor bank, this one features more gauges. Building it using bits of the other screen as I dont want the feel of it to deviate too far from the ohter monitor bank. Here's a couple of wip's for the mo.
The gauges will be linked up to the motion of the arms (I hope lol!) providing speed and rpm readings. Hoping to get some tests running with that soon :)
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor02_01.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor02_02.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

quick update - worked a little more on some of the gauges for this second monitor screen. Not exactly exciting and as I said theres still no animation yet lol but having to build this stuff on me own before I can begin animating it all together. These renders aren't exactly the most interesting as its just default lighting but I think once I get the rest of the detail on this monitor board it should look the part :)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor02_03.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor02_04.jpg

[Gaz69]

Cool, you're getting there dude. Ooooh it's like waiting for christmas day...lol. Can't wait to see more of it dude :)

[KevinKraeer]

Looking great, I love the backlit texture work on the gauges. Reminds me of some of the gauges and readouts inside Anakin's pod racer from Ep 1. My only suggestion is that maybe the needles could be digital as well? They look great as-is, I'm just throwing ideas out there.

[anthonymcgrath]

cheers Gary - yeah its coming together quite literally one tiny piece at a time lol! Only last night I only got around to making the brackets to hold the gauges in place lol :/

Hi Kevin - yeah never thought that the gauge display is digital & the needle isn't. I was thinking initially of old steam style gauges when I sketched them on paper yet I've created this digital look hmmm.. but now I see the image again, I do like the look of them so I may as well make the needle a digital version too :)
I could try making the resolution of the gauges little more pixelated too which would be cool - not enough pixelly stuff and scanline-covered stuff nowadays someone's gotta bring it back ;)
I could create an image sequence of the gauge needle moving from 0 to full boost then link that into the arms somehow with an expression so as they're moving the needles move. should look cool :)

[CodeVeroby]

Wow ,awesome work man ! i'd like to see more of it !

[anthonymcgrath]

well thats the annoying thing - I would be able to show more of it and more updates but Fasthosts.co.uk have decided to reset my FTP password so I cant upload any new images into my WIP section. I've been trying to resolve this with them for the last 2 weeks and have had no luck just getting auto messages about how much trouble their having as opposed to simply emailing me a new login password. I'm completely furious about it now so if anyone can share any info on switching service providers then that'd be really appreciated.

cheers
ant

[anthonymcgrath]

amazing what happens when you nag the service providers enough!! They got back to me within the half hour I sent an email but still annoying that I have to threaten to leave their service to get any cogs turning there!anyhow... updates ahoy!! Here's the latest renders of my gauge monitor table thingy..

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor02_05.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/monitor02_07.jpg

and I'm done with that for the moment - I figured I'd best crack on with the environment which I've spent the last wkend working on along with some compositing tests...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab01.jpg

I started playing with lighting here... using final gather hanging off the strip lighting pieces to light the scene...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab03.jpg

then baking textures into the ground... which looked ok I guess.. also worked on some soft reflections in the wall detail

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab06.jpg

then after importing the other models in via referencing and doing a render I found I was killing my pc trying to render anything with final gather... in the end I broke the scene down so much I ended up with this basic pass... which forced me to reconsider my approach, my inspiration and also my darned slow pc!!

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab07.jpg

After that I then did some rendering passes to test if I could get any kind of better image out of my system...
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab08.jpg

...and got this after some quick comping in afx... bloody hell I need to re-assess what I'm doing here... it looks nothing like my original inspiration, the lighting is pap, the detail on my model just doesn't look convincing which is annoying seeing as I spent so long working on it.. the reflections all look the same, the shadows dead and devoid of any depth and a cheap-a$$ glow on the whole thing.
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab09.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

...so I took another look at my inspiration.. the adidas mechanical arms video... I watched it over and over... then decided I would need all the nice diffuse lighting this video incorporated and to adopt the way the scene is tackled geometrically - all the detail is in the focal points of the advert and further away from that is more and more basic... the background stuff is basically poly plane and primitives texture mapped up!
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab13.jpg

so with an extra 1GB of ram to hep rendering on my lowly P4 2.6ghz.. and some major re-working of textures, modelling, lighting & scene setup, I'm now starting to head more toward this kind of thing below... a much moodier, bloom saturated and final gather lit image. I'm reworking areas at the moment, re-texturing (still cant believe layered texture FINALLY displays stuff properly!), and doing my best to work the detail toward the centre and use lower resolution and better texture maps in the distance like the adidas ad used. I finally feel like I'm getting some way toward what I wanted to accomplish with this project so I'm mostly happy but still got a fair whack of work to get done with it all.
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab10.jpg

I like the fact I can get reflective objects to grab the irradiance nicely now...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab11.jpg

still too clean here - need grime, more detail and a bit more bump n scratch mapping methinks on things...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab14.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab15.jpg

hope you all liking it so far... i'm pleased I've gotten over my original problem and that was that I was being heavily inspired by a Chris cunningham video for Byork called all is full of love. The lighting and scene setup is totally different and I'd like to do something like this down the line, but I think I was letting this get into my head too much on my ultra-white objects and the like. Now I'm sticking with the original adidas inspiration I can see much more clearly what I want my animation to look like :)
http://defunktion.net/wp-content/2007/03/3_big_n.jpg


crits, comments, suggestions as always welcome :)

cheers
ant

[anthonymcgrath]

few more updates... reworked bg wall textures to make it feel more indoors (the windows up top help). Images still feel a touch dark but I'll see what I can do about those...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab17.jpg

pulled the lighting panel around to the side and I think it works better personally. Also moved it close to the robot to intensify the image.
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab18.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab20.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

finally an animation test - this is just the last animation so isn't finished as yet but in terms of rendering style and quality it isn't far off what I'm after now.
Basic beauty pass rendered with FG
occlusion pass
bloom effect added
motion blurred (motion vector pass rendered out prior)
recoloured to appear a bit more like the adidas advert with cool green tints and desaturation.

right click on the link below and save target as (qtime mov approx 2mb)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test09.mov (http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test09.mov)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test09.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

another quick animation render test:
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/robot_test10.mov

some more renders...
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab21.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab22.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/lab23.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

Here's my first shot playblast - Its nowt special just a simple camera move across the scene to establish the environment.
I used afx to animate the opacity on this playblast and give it a feel of the lights switching on along with the monitor screens. I'll use this info & animate my maya lighting setup to the same timing. With me using final gather to light the scene mostly I want to know that when I animate the intensity of my lighting objects I'll have the right timing so by working with the playblast I can block it out then do the final bit in maya and leave it to render which is currently taking about 20minutes a frame at 1024x576 pixels :/

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot01PB.mov

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot01pb.jpg

[H2]

hey dude, I had a chance to look through your thread and ur project looks very promising. The adidas advert is awesome. You have done a great job with the model if you can get the rendering and lighting looking really good it will really show off the work you have done so far.

I think you should beat up the wood thing so that it doesnt look so clean. Maybe some uneven edges/dents etc and a break up in the texture.
Very kool so far how did you do the bloom effect?

[anthonymcgrath]

hey H2 thanks for your thoughts :)

yep I had planned on beating up the wooden dummy so it starts out shiny n clean and gets battered & bruised. At the end the final 1inch punch from the robot splinters it into pieces.. one of these pieces is sent flying through the air and will knock over a glass of water resting on the table by the monitor screens in shot01 and knocks it over which is a shameless chance for me to play with realflow :D - this water will then short out the power in the room and the robot too.
I totally agree with what your saying about the lighting which I think is absolutely key to getting my scene to look like the Adidas advert - I think some of my last test renders aren't looking too bad at all but I can get it looking better. Most of my renders dont show the caustic layer pass which allows me to get some really nice light bounce off the robots shiny parts around the scene

The bloom effect is just a simple afx glow! I do a separate renderpass of the bright white areas with everything else as black. I then screen this renderpass over in my composite then add some glow - I can colour and tweak it as I wish then :)

my layers for most shots are now:

*beauty pass (rendered with MR and final gather)
*occlusion pass for nice subtle shadows
*caustic pass for light bounce off the robot on the floor and surrounding objects
*hotspots pass for helping me to get the bloom around the scene

those 4 passes are done for each shot although the renders I've done so far are only beauty and occlusion :)

[anthonymcgrath]

latest shots - these are from the animation sequence - will get an anim update on here soon

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/shot01_00100.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/shot03_00066.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/shot04_00001.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/shot05_00036.jpg

[anthonymcgrath]

hi all
happy new year to you all - hope santa has been good. I got socks and more socks lol!

been working on this sequence a fair bit when I could - heres the latest edit of the first few shots... basically setting the scene, the robot powering up, establishing a position and doing a chain punch. Comp'd lights and stuff into each shot.. see what you think...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit01.mov

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit01.jpg

[Gaz69]

oooh, looking great dude. More, more ,more !! lol, I know you're awhile off completing it mate but I want More :bounce:

[anthonymcgrath]

hey Gary

cheers pal - glad yer enjoying it - its starting to get there and I really think it'll look awesome once I get the various sounds on it.. mix of high speed servo's and clonks against the wooden dummy should sound really enhance the feel of the atmos in the scene.
shame no-one else has anything to say about it tho... good mind to not bother with this thread any more and just keep it to my website.

[mjdowswell]

Hey Anthony,

I think what’s happened now at CGTalk is that...

1) There’s sections of the site that are very very busy

2) There’s sections of the site that are very very quiet

And I think that they’ve possibly created too many forums...there seems to be LOADS of forums now. And honestly, its damaged it a bit I think. I think that people tend to like to go into the Application specific 3D forums and live in there (but I dont know)...I work in Cinema 4D and almost certainly 95% of my posts were in that forum. I posted my new animation WIP into there which is very very friendly and busy place which i love, but it seems to have been moved into here...which seems to be a very quiet place...lol...which i might add further, people may or may not be totally focused on the Cinema 4D forum and not go out of there much (but thats a assumption)

I do know that the Finished Work: Animation forum is quite busy, so when we're both finished we should get some feedback in there, but it's important to get feedback along the way too...

Your Project

I think its looking very very strong, your showing a lot of skills at work here. Technically its very impressive, the character animation is also very strong. Love the lens flare on shot 2. Lens flare is actually very hard to make look cool, but you’ve made it look very nice on shot 2. Its also very nicely edited.

[anthonymcgrath]

hi Michael
thanks for the words mate - yeah I think the forum is saturated with far too many threads now, an I guess ppl just dont look at an animation wip until as you say its in the finished animation section. I guess I'm guilty of doing that myself a little in the past lol.
glad you liking the animation of the character though, that was one part I were a little worried about an was also concerned I might be flooding each image with too much lens flare but maybe it needs more to bring a Michael bay camera-motion style to it in places or something hehe! As the action picks up in the scene I'll prob employ a more erratic camera to some shots :)

thanks again
ant

[Gaz69]

Hey Anthony,

I think what’s happened now at CGTalk is that...

1) There’s sections of the site that are very very busy

2) There’s sections of the site that are very very quiet

And I think that they’ve possibly created too many forums...there seems to be LOADS of forums now. And honestly, its damaged it a bit I think. I think that people tend to like to go into the Application specific 3D forums and live in there (but I dont know)...I work in Cinema 4D and almost certainly 95% of my posts were in that forum. I posted my new animation WIP into there which is very very friendly and busy place which i love, but it seems to have been moved into here...which seems to be a very quiet place...lol...which i might add further, people may or may not be totally focused on the Cinema 4D forum and not go out of there much (but thats a assumption)

I do know that the Finished Work: Animation forum is quite busy, so when we're both finished we should get some feedback in there, but it's important to get feedback along the way too...

Your Project

I think its looking very very strong, your showing a lot of skills at work here. Technically its very impressive, the character animation is also very strong. Love the lens flare on shot 2. Lens flare is actually very hard to make look cool, but you’ve made it look very nice on shot 2. Its also very nicely edited.



Yep, couldn't agree more :thumbsup: I've been a member here a short time and most people have nothing to say...It's like a doctors surgery, a couple of people talking in the corner, a few coughs here and there and when you want a little help you get nothing. Just like here, you ask for comments and crits and you get nothing; you'd have more luck shouting for help in the middle of the sea when no ones around or visiting your GP :sad:

[anthonymcgrath]

hehee cgwaitingroom.com :p

no updates on animation at moment - busy bee and work is taking it outa me at the mo! hopefully get to do some at wkend

[KevinKraeer]

Hi Anthony,

Sorry I haven't replied in a while, between the holidays and a monster freelance project I have been completely swamped. I must say that this has developed brilliantly. You've really sort of harnessed what made the adidas ad interesting and made it your own. That last rendered animation that was complete with editing was looking really strong.

I do still feel that some of the animations are a bit stiff, but because this is a robotic character I think they still work. It could just be a matter of personal taste.

I can't say enough though about the timing and composition of the shots you've created. It's really starting to come together.

[anthonymcgrath]

hey Kevin good to hear from you
cheers for the comments mate - glad your liking the overall effect of the project - chuffed that you can draw a comparison between my project and the adidas one although I still look at that and think something is sorely missing from mine (possibly the product hehehe!)
I'm trying to work on getting a less robot feel to some of the animation where I can but its proving tough in places - the punching doesn't work too bad but I think the initial first move feels quite stiff - I'll see how I get on as the animation goes further before re-doing it tho.
btw, didn't realise you did the robocop/ed209 animation dude - I remember following that yonks back - awesome bit of work :)
cheers
ant

[KevinKraeer]

Hi Anthony,

Yes, I think the punching works here because it's so rapid fire. It's the short movements before that, where the bot moves his arms in front of his chest before bringing them close that I think could use some offsetting or curves adjustment. Like, if there was an easing into the motion from where the arms are extended out in front, to where they're close to his chest, and maybe an easing out on the move before that, it would give those movements a nice fluidity.

Looking forward to seeing this one developed further.


P.S. Glad you liked the RoboCop piece!

[anthonymcgrath]

yeah that shot initially was slower and it does actually have ease-in-ease-out as it moves from pose to pose but I then speeded it up a fair touch (almost 50%) in afterfx and I think its killed some of it. I may revert it back to its original speed or I may redo that shot entirely - break it up into a few very short quick n snappy shots.

just working on the wooden dummy coming into the scene at the moment - gonna try and do a coupla hours tonight before my class - its really hard getting the bot to interact with it, and involves a fair few keyframes but I think it'll be worth it in the long run and I imagine when I get the audio impact sounds with it it'll work really well too. heres hoping!

[anthonymcgrath]

heres a new playblast of the latest shot I've been working on... I wanted to see what ppl think of it prior to me rendering it out.... is the camera move any good? Is the animation ok or is it even visible?!!
Thoughts and comments welcome at this stage before rendering - I want each shot from here to look powerful & dynamic.
For instance my friend suggested a great shot right after this one like Bruce lee films when he used to gesture with his fingers for the opponent to have another go at him! Its an awesome idea and at a perfect spot for the animation to then step up in speed so c'mon ppl throw the ideas forward!! :bounce:

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot09PB.mov


http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot09PB.jpg

[Abboy]

heres a new playblast of the latest shot I've been working on... I wanted to see what ppl think of it prior to me rendering it out.... is the camera move any good? Is the animation ok or is it even visible?!!
Thoughts and comments welcome at this stage before rendering - I want each shot from here to look powerful & dynamic.
For instance my friend suggested a great shot right after this one like Bruce lee films when he used to gesture with his fingers for the opponent to have another go at him! Its an awesome idea and at a perfect spot for the animation to then step up in speed so c'mon ppl throw the ideas forward!! :bounce:

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot09PB.mov


http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot09PB.jpg

Hey dude, this is looking very nice. One thing I would say in the edit01.mov, it feels like it jumps in to the animation too quickly. I think the whole thing would benefit from, say an initialising sequence on screen! So you see power going to the robot then some form of program that is telling the arms what to do... does that make sense?

[anthonymcgrath]

Cheers mate - yeah I'd discussed a similar idea with Gaz (he posted up on this thread earlier) and I was gonna put a shot like that in but felt it would drag the animation out in length. However I think a brief startup shot on a screen would work really well. Just want the main animation done first of the bot and dummy :) glad you liking the animation though - my main prob is wing chun is very quick and very subtle so the animation can be over in the blink of an eye doh!

[KevinKraeer]

Hi Anthony,

Looking pretty sweet. I like the camera movement at the beginning, it's very dynamic. But I think the camera should have settled, or be "almost settled" once the punching starts. It's hard to tell, specifically, what the arms are doing to the dummy in this blast. I think you might have keyed a cam move right as the bot takes his first swing, so the work that you've put into that movement is sort of difficult to make out.

I think you could do any number of dynamic and interesting moves for your establishing shot, but once you get to the crux of the animation, I think the cam should be done moving or move very minimally, save shot changes. Or, maybe a slow rotation from one side of the bot to the other, always aimed at the action.

[anthonymcgrath]

hey Kevin yeah I think yer right about this shot - maybe I should again do a 3 shot mini-edit effectively breaking down this 1-long camera move into a few shorter shots to give more of an idea of whats going on... thats the problem with Wing Chun is its so darn fast lol! The first arm position (known as Bong Sao) is barely seen its known as an intermediary position and flows straight into another position (usually Tan Sao which the bot does in this animation).

-First half of this shot where the dummy spins up to the camera (also wanna have it knock some boxes over.. dynamic/rigid body animation... its in the adidas mech arms ad where the feet knock the box off the top)

-Then a front shot of the dummy rushing towards the robot to attack (comes at camera)

-Then a close up (mostly side shot) of the hands blocking & returning the attack which then also pans left to finish in a similar position to the end of that last .mov

what d'y think? :)

[KevinKraeer]

That sounds like it might work. Though three shots may edit a bit fast for that length of animation. I think the best solution would be to blast each, put them together, and see how it looks.

[anthonymcgrath]

lol did that last night - ended up just using two shots which are comprised from the original playblast. A simple camera position from the start of the playblast then a shot looking right at the robot as the dummy moves into frame. You can see the block/attack motion much more clearly. Seems to work quite a bit more clearly visually. started rendering it out last night :)

[anthonymcgrath]

hey guys
I really haven't had much chance to tackle this project and get it alot further. Namely cos my wing chun instructor has added an extra class, theres skydiving to be doing at wkends and then trying to catch up with everyone between that. Trying to find a spare evening to sit down for a couple of hours and do a bit more animation is really hard!

I have had a right pigs dinner of trying to render it too!! For some reason mental ray seems to find it funny by leaving group nodes of geometry in place where the joints start at frame1 whilst moving others correctly in relation to the bone parent. this is really frustrating when you only find it out at 8am the next morning after leaving it rendering overnight :(
however have managed to re-render a couple of shots and do a little bit more so heres the latest update.

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit02.mov

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit02.jpg

I did a fair bit of recolouring in afx which I prefer and think is closer to the Adidas ad and tweaked the shots a little to always try and keep something moving.

From here though I'm gonna do more playblasts and get the rest of the animation working first as an edit before fighting with the rendering any more but I just wanted to get it to this point and see how it looks.

link is above the image (about 10mb 640x360 pixels qtime mov)... see whatcha think. Thoughts, ideas and comments always welcome.

ta
ant

[KevinKraeer]

Now that is pretty sweet. As far as the render style, lighting, and texturing, I have no comments whatsoever. Except maybe "Keep up that look".

As for the animation, I think it's much clearer than what you had before. I think that as far as the editing, there are a few small tweaks you could make but they might just be a matter of personal taste. For example, for shot 1, I think it would be nice for the camera to slow to a stop at the end, then hold for 1-2 seconds, to establish the environment and character.

I think the amount of time that shot 2 is on screen is perfect, but instead of the ease-out, and sort of fast camera move, I'd try making the entire shot just a slow translation from the camera start to the camera end. Maybe even make the final shot a little further back. So you're slowly creeping up to the hand for the whole shot.

I like shot 3 a lot, as well as shot 4; but it would be cool if the lighting was still sort of lingering around the arms while he achieved the first pose in 4. I dunno. Haha like I said personal taste.

The only other suggestion I would make is, well I'm not sure how much you want to exaggerate the action because it's based on real martial arts - but if you exaggerated those punches so that it really looks like they slam that wooden dummy, and added more flashes and sparks, or some sort of a brighter impact flash, I think that section would really "pop". You know the drill I'm sure, pull back the arms a bit further before the punch, create a moving hold for a bit longer than you've got, compressing the punch even more, then unleash the punch pose with some extra frames afterward for follow through.

At any rate, you've made quite a bit of progress here, and it's looking awesome. Looking forward to more!

[anthonymcgrath]

hey Kevin

woot big reply :D thanks!! Yeah I think your right about that first punch on the dummy it does kinda need emphasizing it feels a little soft at present. There is a bit of lighting upon impact but I think more would be better and I haven't added some denting on the wood or a few chips of wood either all of which should help. I'll add a bit more lightning on that shot where the bot starts its first movements too!
From here I'm just gonna do playblasts I think then render afterward so next edit will probably involve that. I think the style of the animation is all sorted but I'm having a bit of trouble with group nodes of geometry and dont know why. it playblasts fine.. it renders any chosen frame in software fine ..but mental ray batch seems to just leave half of it where it is and moves the rest. really confusing and annoying when you leave it overnight and jump out of bed early to see how it looks!
The only way to get about it is to bake the groups movement then its snapshotted for everything at every frame. I just wanna get it animated then I can set it rendering and deal with that chaff via a bit of mel (which I know nowt about just in case anyone gets excited hehehe!)
anyhow techy chafff and really boring lol but lots of ideas and thoughts there Kevin so cheers :D

[mjdowswell]

I just downloaded it dude. You've done quite a bit more there. Very nice animation, its coming on great, the movements in my opinion are very good, theres impact in them. and again, I really like that lens flare, its actually very very realistic lens flare...reminds me of the first Die Hard film :)

[anthonymcgrath]

hey all
been away from this project for a while due to just being silly busy at work & outside of work (skydiving is just too much fun lol!). I also got quite crushed with battling my bloody computers inability to do anything regarding rendering now so I lost a little interest. However I think thats just daft as I done so much work on it it'd be a shame to let it die off I think and I only need to animate a few more shots too!

I made a few changes - the main one is on the dummy which now has three arms like a traditional wooden dummy. This makes it far better to animate against the robot and fortunately I dont have to change too much on the first few shots too.
Also I've been doing alot of character animation at work now so hopefully that'll show in my latest playblast below... This animation will be more than 1 shot too - possibly some van damme style impact-repeat editing for effect dunno...

click on image to see latest playblast or click link below...

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot12pb.jpg (http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot12PB.mov)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot12PB.mov

[mjdowswell]

Dude, just had a look at this here now. I think its great...I think that the wobble of the wooden dummy at 00:00:02 is a very nice touch in there. :thumbsup:

Looking forward to seeing more.

[anthonymcgrath]

heyup mate cheers for that - glad your liking it! I think I'll try and get more power into the punches if I can and emphasize more of the wobble in a couple of more hits :)

[anthonymcgrath]

okies been working a bit more on this - think I'm getting the hang of the robot/dummy interaction now. I did another nice little bit where the robot snakes its hands through the top two arms then a fecking power cut made me lose it - thanks. I'll tackle that again prob tonight but for here's another quick shot that I worked on. This cuts into the edit really nicely too and I like the interaction. Thoughts n comments welcome... (click image to view anim)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot16pb.jpg (http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/playblasts/shot16PB.mov)

ps - to the regular viewers - Michael, Kevin & Gary :) I'll try get my nose into your threads later on today :)

[OgLuna]

Yowza - fancy bit o' modeling there.

Looking forward to seeing more... get going!

[anthonymcgrath]

cheers mate - its rendering at home as I type hehehe!

[KevinKraeer]

Yeah I must say, at the moment I have no crits. Looks solid. I really like the secondary motion you're giving the dummy, it's really selling the interactivity between the arms and the dummy.

[anthonymcgrath]

well here's the latest edit - this incorporates all the shots so far that I've animated. After that it is now the punch animation which breaks the dummy to do which I'm still figuring out - if anyone has any suggestions on animating a splintering block of wood that'd be cool.

anyhow here's the edit - click on image (qtime mov 10mb approx)
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit03.jpg (http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit03.mov)

thoughts an comments welcome as always

[mjdowswell]

wow, it's really getting there now man. I love the bit where the thing caused the paper to get flung up in the air, very nicely done...very nice touch. Looking forward to when the sound is added...are you gonna have motion blur on it?...I have a battle in my mind about motion blur, but then, the Cinema 4D motion blur doesn't seem to be too hot...these pixar folk have nice motion blur...

[anthonymcgrath]

cheers Michael - glad your liking it - I were sat about the house last night for an hour trying to figure out how to do some convincing splintered wood for the final couple of shots - its not easy!! :p

Glad you like the paper shot - I did a similar thing in my last car animation (cosworth vs gtr on youtube). The final piece does have motion blur yes - i do it as a post effect by using realsmart motion blur with motion vector passes in after effects. It seems to create nice convincing results too ;) I will probably enhance lighting further in post too by using normal renders of the robot and dummy so I can get some edge lighting on the model but thats all test stuff really - the main thing for me now is getting a nice splintering effect. Imagine the punch imacting the dummy and at the point of impact not much appears to happen but on the other side of the dummy it splinters massively as if the energy has travelled thru the block and exploded out the other side :twisted:

[anthonymcgrath]

hey all
heres the latest updates on my project - I were battling with ways of doing the wood breaking:


here's my first effort - just seeing what I can get from booleans - kinda effective but feels more like broken cement block than owt else really
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy_splintered01.jpg

here's a bit more of a compex boolean with some deformers - this seems far more promising...
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy_splintered02.jpg

and here's a few frames from the latest animated shot. I'm using the booleans to smash the dummy & deformers to bend the dummy. I also have use of the rivet script that allows me to bend the lower portion of the dummy and keep the relationship of the other pieces with it yet still allows me to animate them separately too.
In this sequence I'm also doing a kinda final attack repeated shot (think any van damme fight sequence where he does his final hit on someone ...its ALWAYS repeated 3 or 4 times from different angles for impact)
finally - there's another camera shot where a piece of wood flies out of the dummy, across the room and knocks a glass off one of the monitor banks in the bg - not shown here tho.
Once I get the shots finessed, playblasted and edited I'll post another update... too busy leaping from planes tho during my wkend :blush:
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy_splintered04.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy_splintered05.jpg

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/wip_images/dummy_splintered06.jpg

oh, miscellaneous fact - been working on this almost a year now (obviously evenings and wkends when I've got a spare hour... not full time or I'd hang up my hat!)

...Gonna really have to do something smaller next time :blush:

[mjdowswell]

hey man,

Those are looking really good, incredibly tricky thing to do, the top two images are looking great though.

oh, miscellaneous fact - been working on this almost a year now (obviously evenings and wkends when I've got a spare hour... not full time or I'd hang up my hat!)

...Gonna really have to do something smaller next time :blush:

yeah it's nuts, the years seem to speed up as you get older. I've got some projects on the go that are over 2 years old.

[anthonymcgrath]

hey all
here's the latest shot - its basically the same shot edited from different camera angles with slight differences - it gives it a kinda van damme movie feel - yknow the bit where he ALWAYS does the same spinning kick, but they have to show you from 3 or 4 different angles. Anyhow its a kinda nice editing trick really to emphasize impact so I'm using it lol!

This shot has taken a fair few passes especially the last shot which involved me having to do separate passes on the glass, monitor table, wooden shard, background and everything else in order to put it together. I'm getting a displace effect through the glass in afx using displacement maps which I think is quite effective.

I'm quite happy with the shot altho I do need to render the middle bit where it slows down at a super slow frame rate to get it really smooth - at present its just time stretched out in afx.

I also need to establish the glass a little earlier I think - maybe I should replace the slow mo bit with a cut behind the wood shard as it heads towards the glass then cut back to in front of it? Anyone have any ideas?

anyhow click on the image below to watch the shot - (qtime approx 3mb)

and PLEASE - share thoughts and ideas... I've had thousands of views and barely anyone has owt to say about it so its either absolute perfection or utter shat and no-one wants to say owt lol!
ta
ant
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/shot18_mini_edit.jpg (http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/shot18_mini_edit.mov)

[anthonymcgrath]

qtime mov 20mb approx - click on image to view..

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit04.jpg (http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit04.mov)

needs...

-couple of shots re-rendering at the start
-slow mo section the wood shard re-rendering at a slower frame rate as opposed to the current simple time-stretch in afx
-water in the glass
-audio

[anthonymcgrath]

full res shot of the gauges - made some adjustments to the lighting and the shot.
http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/shot14c.jpg

not one comment or thought on the project in eons - is it a naff idea or just poorly executed and no-one wants to say? :(

[mjdowswell]

Dude!...I didn’t know there was two more posts in here after your 90th post...I don’t think I’ve actually had a look at the quicktime there - but I’ll do that now!


---

[mjdowswell]

Ok I’ve had a look at that, and its FINE, except for when it goes into slow motion with that bit of wood, that was very, very jerky and I thought something was wrong with the computer playing the file. I know that there are types of slow motion that are jerky ie Lord of the Rings and Gladiator...but I think it was too much, too jerky.

THE GLASS

The glass looked a bit odd for some reason too, I’m not 100% sure what was wrong there are you putting the refraction to 1.6?...maybe the glass itself needs some slight curved edges?

THE REST OF THE ANIMATION

Rest of it is looking great, there’s a lot of work in here with all the movement going on, and you SEE that a lot has gone into this.

[mjdowswell]

Ok, just this minute downloaded edit04.mov and read what you had typed in post #91 and see that your aware of the problems and have listed them.

GAUGE SHOT

Really loved the split focus gauge shot, I know I’ve said this before but I’m still stunned at the lens flare or camera flare or whatever the heck its called...lol (never managed to figure that one out) really is nice though.

GLASS SHOT

A really like that the glass shot, (love the idea also) and love that it’s like a partner to the papers scatter shot, I think that’s great.

OTHER PLACES TO UPLOAD YOUR WORK

I don’t know if I’m aloud to mention other sites inside cg talks forum but other places you could spread yourself out to to widen the crit feedback are http://www.flightcomics.com/forum and http://forums.awn.com I only visited awn yesterday to have a wee look (hadn't been there in ages) some interesting stuff comes up at that forum...I found a link that I think you would be interested in, it was awesome…

I thought to myself...Anthony would love this!...here it is http://www.tsnstudios.com/Demo_Reel.aspx


---

[anthonymcgrath]

hey Michael,

I've been away to barcelona with the gf for a week to visit her family and sightsee around the country - truly stunning place - even thinking of moving out there next yr as Its the 3rd time I've been in the last year lol!

thanks for the comments there - glad your liking the updates to the animation - I've since done another one with a few changes but nothing massive as I haven't had a chance to really sit down with it and my own wing chun grading is coming up (next week... brown belt eek!) so I've been practising for that. Here's the latest animation update... (about 26mb)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit06.mov

here's the link to the animation anyways - my main concern was the liquid and you'll see I changed the fluid to be more milky (think Bishop in aliens... that milky substance he bleeds out!) and re-animated it in the glass as the edit04 liquid is VERY glassy, flat and not even watery either (more like leaded mercury or something lol!). I think this looks much better now and because the animation is twice as long you can see whats happening clearly.

I may force the liquid to rotate a little as it comes out the glass so that it hits camera and splashes over it too but I'll see how I go on with time as I want to work on something else now really - this project has been about a year on and off!

Yes your right the wooden shard is very slow and is also very dark - i'm gonna re-render this bit so its much smoother as it spins... at the moment it is only a simple time stretch in afterfx really but thats gonna change :)

Also at the end I've added the logo for Reebok and a chinese symbol which literally translates as work, train, practise (so I'm told hehe) so I put that in. I'd be interested in your thoughts on this... I personally like it but I think I may have to redraw it as the hand-drawn feel of the symbols looks strange before the geometric Rbk logo.

finally you'll notice on the edit theres some sound fx in there. They are VERY VERY early days yet hehehe but I think they help give a feel of how it'll look overall once its finished.

glad you like the gauge shot... ironically as simple as it looks that actually took the most render layers to do as there's numerous lens effects, mist/smoke, and passes for background and foreground just to do that pull-focus effect! I tried depth maps but the blur effect that supposedly uses it in afx is rubbish so I did it manually lol.

that TNS showreel is amazing - man I wish I had that software they're using lol - the shot near the end where the block of wood splinters is exactly what I would have liked to play with doh! beautiful stuff tho - thanks for sharing :)

[mjdowswell]

Hey man, that was awesome. Sound makes such a HUGE difference doesn’t it?...it always amazes me that whole thing.

Loving the sound design very much, it’s a really nice slight echo you have on it giving a very nice atmosphere to it. Makes it feel large...the FEELING in the room is exactly how it should be in my opinion. And the end logo and sound is spot on too.

Good luck with your grading dude!, hope it goes well.

[anthonymcgrath]

just a small update but its been quite a pain in the butt to do - I've re-rendered the shard of wood slow mo bit which is now super smooth instead of the jerky simple time stretch it has been up until now. I also rendered it at 800pixels wide so you can all see a bit more detail :)

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit07trim.mov

[mjdowswell]

Thats much better, theres a part where the liquid in that glass when you slow it down looks really nice...but it gets a bit too spherical partically towards the end or the spill?...I have no idea on this stuff though, only just learning stuff like that myself...is that the final on the liquid?...I still think its impressive though, and your timing on it is spot on.

[anthonymcgrath]

hi Michael

Yeah I know what you mean - the droplets become very blobby towards the end - I might have another go at doing a super hi-res realflow calculation. By default the water resolution is 1 in the software but I set it to 2 to get a slightly better effect. Maybe I should crank it up to 50 then go out.... for the wkend whilst it calculates it hehehe!

[anthonymcgrath]

hey all
this is an 800pixel wide render of the full animation - I haven't gotten any further on the sound but I've got the slow-mo effect sorted on the wooden shard near the end. Next thing (when I find the bloody spare time) will be to sort out the audio and ...dunno if anyone else has noticed but the dummy miraculously grows 3 arms after its been hit for the first time!!! :) May need to sort that one out hehehe!

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit_07.mov

[mjdowswell]

hi Michael

Yeah I know what you mean - the droplets become very blobby towards the end - I might have another go at doing a super hi-res realflow calculation. By default the water resolution is 1 in the software but I set it to 2 to get a slightly better effect. Maybe I should crank it up to 50 then go out.... for the wkend whilst it calculates it hehehe!Would love to see what it looks like if you go all the way up to 50 on it, I think it would be worth it.

[ssebastienn]

I watched your thread! :)

That's pretty good! the amount of detail you've put on the model is quite impressive! I love the mixture of metalic structures and that rubber-blue-muscle thing! It's very nice! I then explorer you thread a little futher. And your animation, tests, and early test render are pretty good!!! :)

Best luck on the next step!!! I'll keep an eye on your thread! :)
Nice work!

Sebastien LABAN
www.sebastien-laban.com (http://www.sebastien-laban.com/)

[anthonymcgrath]

hi everyone,

Here's the latest edit of my animation. I've re-rendered a couple of shots at the start and worked alot more into the audio along with some other bits n bobs. I got hold of some good video footage of wooden dummy forms and trimmed and edited the audio from it to fit my animation.
There's one last shot I want to add on the very end, but other than that I think I'm about done on it now. Its been a year of evenings and I'd like to do something else now lol (its already in the pipeline so that will go up as a wip soon too!)

I'm going to put this up in the finished animation section soon but I'd appreciate any final thoughts on it.

click on the image to download movie (qtime approx 30mb). Its 1024x576 pixels so its not a small movie lol!

http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit_10.jpg (http://www.anthonymcgrath.co.uk/WIP/wingchunrobot/shots_for_final/edit_10.mov)

To the guys who've posted regularly on this thread - thanks for all your support and help on it - hope you all get your projects completed and I'll keep my eyes out on them :)

ta
ant

[mjdowswell]

Hey Anthony, just downloaded it now!

Nice to see this with all the sound and in high res, its really nice that you chose to have just environment sound with no music. I think that makes it more documentary and can imagine it working very nicely in a cinema with the sound pumping out really loudly at the people as they sit in a giant dark room. That kind of thing I’m absolutely 100% positive keeps peoples attention.

I think the piece is a great achievement and it shows a hell of a lot of skills at work here.

Looking forward to seeing the new WIP thread on your next project.

Mike

[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.