vehicle: F-117 animation

[that damn kid]

i cant watch .avi movies:annoyed: but it looks really nice:thumbsup:

[Flash FROG]

I downloaded the divx 5 codec just to watch the movie, and it was worth the wait. I love the sunset it looks really awesome. Except the movie just stopped half way through.

[Maya Ayanami]

Nice but for the animation part you should give a better sense of speed. like you see in movies and racing games.

you know. the object goes right by the camera really fast.

[aenema]

looks good, though it might be a tad more exciting in the beginning if the plane was turning or doing some kind of maneuver :) :thumbsup:

[FFNeX]

My only beef with it is that I don't know what the heck it is dropping those bombs on, there's nothing else on the scene for miles. Other than that it's super good, I love the sunset as well, and the overall feel of the animation is nice and smooth :beer:

[l7d]

Same gripe as above, and also that the planes detail seem a little 'painted on' if you know what i mean, it looks like more bump maps then geometry on the plane. Otherwise is a beauty, great sunset and modelling

[jussing]

Hi guys, thanks for your comments! :beer:

I should mention that the sunset, and the rest of the horizon is from Binary Bonsai's skyboxes (http://www.binarybonsai.com/gallery-skyboxes.php)...

So I can't take any credit for that.

The clouds below are volumetric clouds rendered in 3D Studio Max, though.

Maya Ayanami: You're right about the lacking sense of speed, technically the model is hovering in mid-air, but I was trying to achieve the look where on plane follows along with another plane and films it, where both planes seem to hover, because they're high above the ground, and there's nothing to WOOSH by... hm... I could have added some clouds right below it, of course, and have it woosh by them... :shrug:

FFNeX: yeah, you're also right about that... I was hoping the altitude, plus the fact that we never look vertically down would "hide" that, but you're right... there's nothing down there... ;) Maybe he's bombing whales...

l7d: right again - it's a very lo-poly model. The total mesh is 397 faces (the bombs are 336 each...). Why make the entire plane almost as lo-poly as the bombs? Well, that was the purpose of this little experiment, actually... I selected the F-117 for its "polygon look", to see how low I could go. ;)

Well, thanks again for all your commments!

Cheers,
- Jonas

[DrSchille]

Originally posted by Maya Ayanami
Nice but for the animation part you should give a better sense of speed. like you see in movies and racing games.

you know. the object goes right by the camera really fast.
I don't think so.

In my opinion the way you did it is the best way. I think the animation is great! Don't get me wrong, I too like animations where u get the right sence of speed, but the F-117 just isn't that kind of airplane.
The F-117 "stealth" allways fly high above the skies. (Maybe not as high when dropping it's bombs.) But my point is, when flying so high u don't get much sence of speed.
Pluss, the F-117 "stealth" isn't a fast airplane but a subtle bomber which sneaks unnoticed in to enemy aerospace, and takes out exactly what it wants. :cool:

The only thing I'm not so sure about is that it's turning right after it has droped the laser guided bombs. Usually they stay on the same course making sure the laser allways points at the same target after dropping the bombs, until the bombs reach the ground. :shrug:

But for the sake of the animation, it looks tariffic! :up:
Maybe as fakie said it would be even a little bit better if the plane comes in from a bit far away with a same kind of manouvre as the on at the exit.

Anyways Great work with the model and textures. ;)

[unclebob]

cool animation and realistic too.

fwiw: the a/c doesn't hafta remain on course with todays stand off weapon systems. Todays "smart" munitions are a combo of inertial and GPS navigaion, so it can be released and the a/c can depart the area. During the 80's and early 90's this was also true to an extent depending on the a/c. The systems were laser guided and weather had a role in the delivery in that the laser had to maintain a lock on the target in order to assure a direct hit.

regardless.. a good ani with good graphics too.

great job

[jussing]

Hey, DrSchille and unclebob, thanks!

I actually had no idea modern weapons systems were that sophisticated... I just thought the animation would be kinda boring if we had to wait 1 minute for the air craft to pull away... ;)

Anyway, I also think the bomb doors would be torn off by turbulence, if they were still open during the turn...?

Cheers, folks!
- Jonas

PS: "uncle bob" - is that meant to be a T2 or a Nikita reference? :)

[unclebob]

LOL... niether. unclebob is the nickname I had while I was in the USAF that and I really am an "Uncle Bob" :)

on the matter of turbulence, it doesn't effect the bay doors. The doors are closed after release to "regain" stealth status.

[Danoku]

Another thing about the Bay doors, while they are a litghter color inside it almost appears to be as if there is a light coming from the bomb bay. Also the 117 is a weapons system that often makes use of GLIDS (groundlaser indicators) even stealthier becasue there are no emissions from the a/c whatsoever. Seals put a a laser on the door at a specific time ac hits it. I have shot refuelings of 117 at dusk beofre the only thing that kinda hits me is that it seems to be an overall tad too grey. The shot flows very nice tho and is pretty accurate. Its a very nice piece i would be proud to have it on my reel.

[jussing]

Hey, thanks for the nice words, Danoku!!

You're right, there's light coming from inside the bomb chambers... 4 omnis, 2 in each chamber, to be exact. ;)

Reason? ...Either I generally suck at lighting, or my patience had run out during modelling & texturing, because I just couldn't get it right... Putting lights in the bomb chambers was a last effort to make the details of the bomb doors and the bombs visible, while not screwing up lighing in the rest of the scene... :blush:

Cheap, I know, but at this point I just wanted to get the damn thing done...

You said you've photographed refuelling F-117's? :eek: For real? Wow... that must be quite a sight...

Cheers,
- Jonas

[wedge]

much too smooth. it looks nice, but planes wobble.

[Danoku]

Lol i Totally understand and i dont think it takes away from the scene, hey we can take artisitc license!

----------
I dont want it good i want it tuesday.
D.W. Griffth

[Skyraider3D]

I like it :)
Some bits are more realistic than others. I like the 'middle part' best, where you move around the back of the aircraft, until it drops the bombs.
The other bits need tweaking a bit.

About the wobble mentioned before, and the animation being to smooth... I disagree! Modern air to air camera work is really smooth - near perfect. They use a special system for that, but obviously I forgot the name :) Not sure if the system allows 360 degrees freedom though, to be able to pan around and over and under the plane as you do. A wise idea would be to insert a few (two or three) cuts in the animation for added realism.

[xynaria]

I think in many ways you've done a really good job on this.. the lack of polys doesn't show and the texturing works well especially the cockpit.I really like the camera move too until you drop the bombs. All footage I've seen of F-117's don't betray much sense of speed and at high altitudes as most shots are taken by other aircraft, they wouldn't so I think on that score you've got it right. However IMHO you really didn't need to overstate the bomb drop.. the light inside kills the scene.. you only need the shillouettes.. which would be far more threatening. Again after the drop, what was an involving but unselfconcious camera move suddenly becomes a really overstated ..look the plane is turning and so is the camera.. and kills what had been a fine piece.
That said I still think especially the first half, it's a really nice piece wrought out of little. Good stuff. :)
:beer:

[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.