HARDCORE MODELING!: 80's Cartoon: Danger Mouse

#61

I am enjoying the pace that you are working. You display speed but the quality doesn’t get affected or sacrificed. Keep it up! I am enjoying your thread.:slight_smile:

#62

Looking good. I really like the renders. No crits from me! :scream:

#63

Thanks guys,

Just having been for a 25 mile bike ride I’m feeling pumped again :slight_smile:

I started UV’ing the environment yesterday and just added the railings today, no instances as I was planning on taking the scene into LW. I am now thinking it might be more hassle than it’s worth! I might keep it where it is as I’m quite happy with the render style, well apart from the environment, I’m thinking that I might add some stroke lines to give it a drawn look!? Might try a test a little later but for now :-

Lower left window is unsaturated by 50%, hmmm I’m not 100% sold myself as I think cartoons should be about vibrancy. Oh and DM is still in porcelain mode! I need to finish him off or to a level of the others…

#64

looking good mate …

i think the scale is a bit off for the characters though.
in most scenes penfold only seems to reach about DM’s shoulder height at most.
Greenback appears at least as tall as DM, if not slightly bigger, and Col K (although ive only seen him on the TV screen) appears to be a lot bigger (he is a walrus i believe after all)

you’ve probably got that in hand though, so i’ll shut up now … :smiley:

#65

Thanks Simon,

I had realised the scale was a little off but I was feeling lazy! However I have been playing around with rigging for a good while now and I’m still not happy! Might show a test tomorrow but it’s not very inspiring and there are problems…

Decisions as to whether I remain in modo as I don’t want to waste another day trying to get a rig to work for some simple poses! Here’s where I am so far :-

I had no idea Colonel K was a Walrus, I thought he was a rat, hence the front teeth!? I won’t have him set in the same scene anyway so I hope the scaling of GB/DM and Penfold are a bit more to the original cartoon scale…

#66

Scott, you’ve come a long way since last I commented. I love your character styles and even though you’re not happy with the environment, I find it to be very nice and well laid out. Simple and convincing. Instead of drawing strokes you could allways try some of the stylized filters in photoshop. Some of them can be quite convincing.

I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

-Rage

#67

I agree, regardless of scaling issues the scene and models look very sweet. Great work!

Rigging can be a pain, that much is certain, but it’s so rewarding to see the characters finally come to “life” out of the default bind pose. This is gonna be a great entry for sure.

Cheers!

#68

Thanks guys,

I am wondering if I’m spending too long on the rigging (well using the default bi-ped Maestro2 rig). I spent nearly a full day tweaking bones here and there and I’m still not happy, I don’t think I ever will be! If I stay inside modo, I will be able to use instances, pose the figure as needed quite easily. I’m still debating this…

Anyway here’s the DM rig, again not happy but after lot’s of tweaks it’s as good as it gets, for now :-

DM turntable - if you click on the image you will see my previous GB turntable effort, again using the bi-ped rig…

#69

that’s a really neat turntable. What tools did you use to get that done? Anyway, There’s stretching and squishing, but over all it seems decent. If it’s just for a pose, then why not rig 'em all and then edit. I was able to get my old student edition license to work on xsi 6, so I think I’ll rig my smurfs to pose them all.

Keep it up!

-Rage

#70

Its looking pretty neat mate. I think maybey some lighting tweaks could bring it out a bit.

#71

Renders and characters are looking great and I like the scenery. As an aside I think a shorter lens will add a lot to the final shots.

With the rig, I think the weighting is fine. To me it looks like you’ve got stetchy bones though which are always going to look a little weird if you don’t have your character doing over-done actions. They’re very cartoony but should be used in a cartoony way IMO.

I certainly think it’ll be fine to get into poses … then you can always detach the skin and tweak it a little for effect :slight_smile:

#72

Really loving everything except the old guys beard. Looks too clumpy right now.

:slight_smile:

#73

Long time since I’ve done any challenge work, as it’s nearing the end I thought I’d get back into the swing of it.

A mock 3D sketch as I can’t draw for toffee!

You’d be forgiven to think it’s a bit Austin Powers! Or even one of the Bond films, Dr No maybe!?

edit

I won’t be rigging the characters, I’m going to keep to modo for my final submission.

#74

Update for the day :-

 [img]http://www.plop.info/CGT/DM/Env_4.jpg[/img]

I need to get sculpting some rock formations into the GB den and applying some loose rocks around the entrance. Also for the final render I will most likely use internal DOF.

Not happy with the DM pose, left hand looks cack handed and also not sure about the Surfboard entrance (maybe an impression of speed will help)!?

#75

Hi Scott - I’m a huge Dangermouse fan so it’s been fun watching your progress!

Few things on your composition, in the cartoons Penfold is substantially smaller than DM, almost half the size. He looks a little large in your scene at the moment. It might look more dramatic if you have DM & Penfold actually riding a wave, so you could curve the sea water up towards the left of the image.

Also in the cartoon Dangermouse apparently had severe liver problems, as the white of his eye is actually yellow…

:smiley:

#76

Didn’t DM have longer legs? That might explain the height difference.

#77

Thanks Alex, wow you certainly know your DM background! Thanks for that link, the proportions certainly were out!

I did contemplate the wave effect but I didn’t think it would work! However a little input pushed me to try it and I think I could make it work. Makes sense as a perfectly calm sea just looked sooo wrong.

Wyatt, the legs are about right, I used the reference as a background template to base my model on. However in the initial stages I did model DM a bit on the tubby side!

Here’s the latest, I couldn’t resist and it’s too light to be playing Far Cry 2. Initial water test, still needs some work and I don’t want to go too mad as I don’t really want to alter the camera view too much, maybe go from a 35mm to 28mm shot, we’ll see…

#78

This is definitely cute. :smiley: Love the cave thingie! Do you intend to add breakers of some sort to the wave?

#79

Great to know you’re still working on this. Your latest update looks very cool.
DM’s pose looks rather stiff though.

Cheers!

#80

Thanks guys,

Yeah I’ve come back to it after a long break, having to learn 3DS Max amongst the nice weather and lot’s of cycling :slight_smile:

@Richard, I’ll try and add some jet wash to the back end of the board if that’s what you mean. I want to keep the sea relatively calm as big waves would mean me changing lot’s of elements for the final scene, ie. very little BG as I would have to concentrate the camera on the characters riding the big wave.

Good to be back anyway, and Felix I’ve loosened up DM a little, he now has some flappage on the ears, a bit C of G (Centre of Gravity) friendliness.

cheers