Fun Animation Experiment

[Per-Anders]

that little thing has one of the most gross textures i've seen in some time. hehe, good work, will look good once you get a more fluid motion on the camera, maybe also use a more translucent material on the motes (particles).

[JoelOtron]

yeah--pretty sick looking!

Thanks for the complement Mdme S.

Want to ease in on the last camera move at least, which is an easy fix. Theres a lot of flickering on the surface, but i think that can be fixed in the delta/attenuation settings in SLA. I just always forget whether its lower values or higher values that fix this.

Want to get some better lighting on the "creature", or cell, or whatever you want to call it, and have it cast a shadow.

maybe add some refraction/distortion to the entire scene in AE. Maybe some DOF blur too.

Using lights as the emitted particles, but might be nice to make the lights bigger and add noise to them, and make them softer.

[JIII]

now that is a cool looking thingy you have there. man if you could get the whole enviorment to look wet and sticky that would totally rock.

post this in finished work gallery when your done with it it. ;)

[LucentDreams]

I agree with JIII this is an awesome piece for the finished gallery

[JoelOtron]

Thanks Kai!
:)

I'll keep picking away at it...

[squidinc]

lol. cool, that thing looks disgusting, I really like the little lights that fly past :thumbsup:

[AdamT]

See? I told you it was cool!

[JoelOtron]

Thanks a lot guys.

Maybe you were right Adam :p
Still not quite there yet though...

And Adam, have you noticed your approaching 1000 posts?!

And thats just THIS forum.

[randyrives]

Very cool. I sat and watched it at least 10 times back to back. Gross and yet mystical. Those lights flying by just captivated me.

[flingster]

very cool i love this sort of post....

i loving seeing stuff that people are experimenting with...because it helps people formulate ideas...and the exchange of info from others helps both the thread starter and those on the forum. I find it hard to believe everyone always gets to the end point without any middle ground experimentation....and would encourage others to post tests/experiments etc.....so good on ya for posting this....i love the results.....but please tell me that isn't what my friggin intestine wall looks like!!!Oooh my god...i'm an alien....(no wise cracks either people!)

[JoelOtron]

Thanks Randy and Flingster!

Some of my most enjoyable excercises come out of simple "brain farts": "hey what if i try this....?"

Its the stuff I HAVE to do that always seems the hardest.

And I wouldnt worry flingster--unless you swallowed a string of xmas lights and didnt quite cook that chicken you had for dinner all the way through, I think you should have nothing to worry about :)

[AdamT]

Originally posted by JoelD
Thanks a lot guys.

Maybe you were right Adam :p
Still not quite there yet though...

And Adam, have you noticed your approaching 1000 posts?!

And thats just THIS forum.
Sad, isn't it? :) But I'm still a distant 4th behind Kaiskai, ThirdEye and mdme_Sadie!

[ThirdEye]

Originally posted by AdamT
Sad, isn't it? :) But I'm still a distant 4th behind Kaiskai, ThirdEye and mdme_Sadie!

ehm... you're 5th, Grey's more posts too :p

[AdamT]

What ever happened to Grey anyway? Is he still active in other forums?

[wesware]

Hey,

Nice animation:

I would
1. soften the camera movements (and perhaps child it to a null that has a vibrate expression to give the camera slight undulation)
2. Definitely needs some translucency to the villa and the blob. Perhaps a slight bit of fog on the terrain to make it more creepy (if that can be done :) )
3. Could you perhaps get a little bit more dynamic movement in the villa by adding a Nickl deformer as well as the flag. Perhaps with a vertex to limit the movement at the base.
4. Definitely figure out the solution to your flicker in the texture.
5. about the blob... the movements seem a little harsh compared to the enviroment. I would slow it down ever so slightly. Also lose the extreme points that jut out from it from time to time. Can they be rounded a little? I would also comsider looking for a solution the the poly intrusion at the base of the blob... it would be really coolif you could get the base of the blob to look like it is resting on the surface rather than passing through it That might be able to be done with the new "soft body" solver in Dynamics (if you have it) A better solution might be to create your scene perfectly flat, then use wrap and bend deformers to get the spherical look to the surface. This way you can better control the way the blob travels and interacts with the surface except for perhaps where the villa extend out, raising the surface around it. Maybe proximal can help there, not sure.
5. Slow down the lights above slightly, they really pull my eye away from the surface.

Sorry for the long post and the redundancy of some of the other c&c's but I think this could be really cool (cooler than it already is)

I am just coming off working on some underwater and beach scenes so I have been in the world of fluids and transparency, and I am about to dive into the microscopic so I am really interested in your work here.

Good job!

[JoelOtron]

THANKS WES!!!

I'd love to see how the beach thing turned out--I know that was a real toughy by your posts!


1. Most definitely. I totally intend to do some ease in ease out with the camera. That last camera stop really bugs me. Vibrating a null is a great idea--done that b4 on other projects, but didnt think of it this time.

2. Dont know about the translucency--thought about some fresnel "inner transparency" but the villi are kinda dense I believe. But then this is more about making stuff look cool so I'll try it.

3. Actually tried the Nickl deformer for my first try, but this was making the villi bob up and down more than anything. They really do have a pretty regular sweepng motion (back and forth). I am actually using a v. map with restriction of the deformer to only the top polys of the extruded villi (in a HN object). Thats why the floor is stationary.

4. Yep--really ugly flickering!

5. Agreed--- on every issue. Those "horns" are a mistake. Pulling it into an HN object will smooth it. I am using Nickle with World deform selected so the object MOVES through the deformation (a cool trick I stumbled across!). So slowing down the objects motion will slow the ripping of the surface. Dont have Dynamics--that would be the best solution I suppose, but also open a can of worms. I think soft shadows might help "cheat" the surface overlap issue. I have the "melt" deformer on it too to have it widen at the base of the creature thingy, but need to play a bit more with it--not obvious. Proximal is a GREAT idea for reverse-bump/displacement buckling of the surface beneath the blob!

6...
I love the microscopic world. Lots of fun to visualize. Please share your results on you project too. And as I think i posted b4 on P.F., check out Heaven and Earth at your local bookstore. brilliant resource for that kind of thing!

[anobrin]

Consider Submiting your reel to the "Discovery channel"
they often have complex computer simulation of invading microbes in the Body etc. ,in their medical series.

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by anobrin
Consider Submiting your reel to the "Discovery channel"
they often have complex computer simulation of invading microbes in the Body etc. ,in their medical series.

might want to find out what studio they hire to do it. Also might want to talk to Jeff johnsons he does a lot of medical animations using C4D.

[JoelOtron]

Originally posted by anobrin
Consider Submiting your reel to the "Discovery channel" they often have complex computer simulation of invading microbes in the Body etc. ,in their medical series.

Originally posted by Kaiskai
might want to find out what studio they hire to do it. Also might want to talk to Jeff johnsons he does a lot of medical animations using C4D.

Thanks guys.

That sort of thing is the goal but I have a ways to go I think. I've done animation for pharma clients where the specs would be like "think discovery channel" so thats the closest I've gotten yet :)

There is a local animation house I am in talks with that does do broadcast medical/science stuff so maybe soon.

Jeff Johnson's studio does incredible work thats for sure. He's one of my heroes. I open up Scientific American every month looking for his work--its usually right there on the cover!

JeremyW, Alec Syme (fluke studio), and Tim McGarvey (all C4d-ers, or at least were) are on my list of awesome science/broadcast animators too.

I never know how a fellow artist/animator would react to another artist in there particular "niche" field asking for advice, so I've kept my distance. Some tend to be a little guarded (considering they might be giving advice to a potential competitor) where others are really open and friendly.

Jackals Forge (Richard Morris) is one of the top dogs, Stunning work. Check out the links below if anyone's interested:

http://www.jackals-forge.com/htb.html

http://www.jackals-forge.com/bodystory_intro.html

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