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mgkaplan
03-20-2009, 06:11 AM
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/459/triowzz.jpg

This is a little animation I did for my final in my 3D class. It's stereoscopic but I figured that not too many people would be able to view it that way (I can't from my personal computer) but this is a link to the left camera render. I would actually love to send it to anyone that can view video in stereo using side by side format so let me know if you can. Anyways, I really enjoyed making this little animation and I think I want to work on it some more (our critique/final was yesterday).

I'm pretty new to 3d and animation in general so no doubt there are a lot of mistakes I've made. I started working on this about two weeks ago in Maya 2008. I used mental ray to render it out (this past week I typically worked on it a bit during the day and then rendered out a scene while I was sleeping).

I hope you enjoy and I would love some feedback. Any sort would be great, even scathing because it helps me improve and learn a lot. The class hasn't really been technically focused so I have no doubt that I've committed some horrible animation crimes so please point out technical problems.

http://vimeo.com/3759038?pg=transcoded_embed&sec=3759038
Tad Ghostal
03-21-2009, 07:53 AM
The look of it's great, it reminds me of the Tool videos from the 90's. Animation wise there's a few spots where the back leg pops and gets hyper-extended. And when the head finally drops down there should be some settle in.
mgkaplan
03-21-2009, 07:55 AM
Thank you very much Tad! How do you feel about the brightness of animation? Do you think it's too dark at some points?
Tad Ghostal
03-21-2009, 08:02 AM
Overall the only part that i think might be to dark is the 5th shot I think, the one on the close up of what is being pulled. It is kinda hard to see what the object is, so that might be able to be lit a bit better.

And props for having student work with no super-crazy all over the place camera movement.
GrogMcGee
03-21-2009, 12:56 PM
It's really nice - it is a bit dark in general I think - what was your lighting setup?
mgkaplan
03-21-2009, 10:03 PM
Thanks guys! I think I'm going to relight the darker shot where the baby horse is being pulled (if you can even tell what it is). Right now I have a point light where the lamp's bulb is located, a very dim red fill light opposite of the clay structure, and then a directional light linked to a few different things like the wall I think and the baby horse because you really couldn't see it otherwise. I might try doing something with caustics on the glass now that I don't really have a deadline for anything.

About the rear-legs popping: how can I fix this? I smooth-bound a skeleton and then put some ik handles on the feet up to the hips. It's actually been a fairly big problem I've faced is having the horse do really weird things like when I want him to turn his head he does some weird exorcist-style movement where it spins around the opposite direction. I tried limiting the joint rotation but it still acts weirdly but instead of it being smooth it jerks about.
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