Transformer Train

[Whitmire]

Wow, nice work Dan!

Loved the turn going into the punch after completing the transformation.

Very cool.

[ivanisavich]

Holy shit that was awesome! Very cinematic!

5 stars :D

[vvkonline]

that's crazy, is he breaking some other transformers face? : P

[Sova]

Very nice i like it 5*

The face is looking very similar to ironhide's :) but anyway great work

[dandeentremont]

Thanks for the nice words guys :)

[pixeleader]

awesome
great job dandeentremont (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=318497)
:applause:

[detached]

That was awesome. Could you provide a quicktime? I'd like to watch this frame by frame.

[Helgi]

Damn! That was sick! My only crit is the camera, it could have been a little more 'exciting' but it's still a sick animation.

How long did it take you to do this?

[midduke]

wowowowowow. That was awesome.

[djart73]

AWESOME, please tell me you work for Micheal Bay and this is an unseen rendertest you created with a team of many 3d-artists, or i will never sleep peacefull again :-)

Is there a wip thread somewhere or a making off?

Need more input... :-)

Thx for sharing this, best regards, djart73

[agep]

Awesome! I had to watch it several times

[dandeentremont]

That was awesome. Could you provide a quicktime? I'd like to watch this frame by frame.

If you go to keepvid.com and type in the url of the transformer train, you should be able to download it in either flv or mp4.

[Animator-K]

it was so awesome everything!

[KielFiggins]

Very cool anim man. Love the rails going hot on the slide. Only real crit would be giving a bit more heads up on the other robot coming into the scene, or giving more time at the end to sell that character a bit more.

Again though, really cool!

[Jet-Black]

killer moves man...that was one fab work...really appreciate it...keep it up..

[RhythmOfLine]

I don't know how you did it but man, oh man, does it look amazing! :bowdown:

Can you please explain your process or post a breakdown? Also,
how did you do such convincing looking steam?

[dandeentremont]

As far as the process goes, I'll paste what I wrote on the newtek forums:

-Modeled a train
-Cut it up into pieces
-Gave every piece a weightmap (usually named with the body part it would attach to)
-Went into Layout
-Made a "skeleton" of the main bones (upper arm, upper leg, chest, etc) and rigged it with constraints and IK and such.
-Gave every piece a bone with the same name as it's weightmap.
-Made each piece a child of the appropriate "main skeleton" body part
-Went to frame 20 or so and placed all of the parts into their transformed position and rotation, so it looked like the transformer in it's final transformed state.
-After I was sure that the humanoid form looked good, I began to animate.
-Texture, lighting, rendering, comping, etc.
-????
-Profit!

A large amount of the FX were actual effects plates that I put on top of the train in After Effects. I like to use plates whenever possible.

[Kristofferic]

that was great

[ErikE]

wow that was really great

[shahabsy]

hey great work. really like it. :)

[KeithLarkin]

Fantastic work my friend, can you give a rough breakdown of how long each componant took to create/animate please.

[blz]

awesome work.

[ShenRui]

very very very very very cool

[RustyGray]

Man talk about inspiration! Thats the type of work thats makes you foam at the mouth to animate.

[AsaMovshovitz]

great great great, loved it:) 6*

[Goor]

crazy and awesome

[turx]

awesome man!

[Pete2003]

Bloody hell! That was crazy!

I agree that the camera animation could have been a little more dynamic BUT... its soooo nice to actually be able to see that transformation in all its glory.

Someone put this on the front page! :buttrock:

Pete.

[dandeentremont]

Fantastic work my friend, can you give a rough breakdown of how long each componant took to create/animate please.

In totality, I made the animation over a 5 month span, but there were some weeks where I didn't work on the train at all. I think it would have been 3 months if I wasn't so lazy :)
I think the part that took the longest was the rigging of the train (maybe about half the total time). The modeling before and the animation afterward was easy as pie compared to it. I feel i rushed a bit in texturing the train and the terrain (all procedurals, no UV's). I worked at Dilated Pixels at the time and PJ Foley graciously allowed me to use the render farm to render the passes in HD.
After showing the first, crappy smoke version, I re-rendered them and did a lot of comp work with real FX plates.

[Larry_g1s]

I saw this on the LightWave forums...absolutely amazing! This needs to be plugged on the front page. :thumbsup:

[Soon2bAnimator]

That was AMAZING!:bowdown: where did you get the audio for that?

[KeithLarkin]

In totality, I made the animation over a 5 month span, but there were some weeks where I didn't work on the train at all. I think it would have been 3 months if I wasn't so lazy :)
I think the part that took the longest was the rigging of the train (maybe about half the total time). The modeling before and the animation afterward was easy as pie compared to it. I feel i rushed a bit in texturing the train and the terrain (all procedurals, no UV's). I worked at Dilated Pixels at the time and PJ Foley graciously allowed me to use the render farm to render the passes in HD.
After showing the first, crappy smoke version, I re-rendered them and did a lot of comp work with real FX plates.
Well again great work, i would love to be able to create something like this in the future..
Kudos my friend.

[dandeentremont]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK3QEueCqOI&fmt=18
I finally got this video up on youtube. Obviously has a lot of work to go (including animation). Besides that, I think the camera crosses the forbidden line.

[KeithLarkin]

Dude that is seriously good.

[renaissance01]

Awesome work dude! Very Cinematic, love the timing and lead up to the punch :thumbsup:

[Pete2003]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK3QEueCqOI&fmt=18
I finally got this video up on youtube. Obviously has a lot of work to go (including animation).

I seriously cant wait to see the full shot with both parts stitched together.

Pete.

[MusaX]

Hiiii my friend.Really great working.İ from me 5 starss.congrast.But my one question will be.are you this is turn doing separateing pieces?or else are you use particle?Do you explain?

Thanks...

[Matasorapit]

Really nice animation. Leaves me playing it over and over wanting more. Great job.

[simyevil2010]

wow great u a strong :thumbsup:

good lake 4 u

[matheboy]

Is a shame that the take is only 12 seconds long. I want see more! 0.0
just very good !

[Intervain]

awesome job - I wanted to see more too :)

[KyoshiB]

Very well done. Was the locomotive based off a Pennsylvania Railroad K-4

[dandeentremont]

Very well done. Was the locomotive based off a Pennsylvania Railroad K-4

According to a few train nuts on youtube, it's an M1a 4-8-2

[alfamike88]

wow man good job!. how did you go about taking on the animation? where did you get our ref? and do you got any tips?

[dandeentremont]

wow man good job!. how did you go about taking on the animation? where did you get our ref? and do you got any tips?

My reference for the train was a high rez picture of a train, which I can't seem to find at the moment. For the transformation, I watched clips from the transformers movie over and over and over again. My first completed transformer (a pirate ship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dye78xaQy-c&feature=channel_page&fmt=18)) was not as thought out as the train. Also, a large amount of the pieces were cheated (plus, I didn't have access to a render farm).
I would say to make a smaller test transformation before tackling a larger one (I made a really crappy pirate ship test before the final.) That way, it can help you see if there will be certain issues in the transformation early on.

[alfamike88]

cool thanks ;)

[KSteineman]

Short and sweet, just the way it should be; makes me want to see more :) hehe great work!

[narenn]

0_o

whooooaaaaaa

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