Car Crash WIP *Now with Video*
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Splendid composition with the latest. The split second when everything is silent.
Anssi
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Anssi
You nailed it on the proverbial head! That's exactly what I wanted with that image. This is something that I'm aiming for in this project - it's almost like taking candid snapshots of an ongoing scene. I don't want it to end up looking posed, perfect or static. It's a hard thing to do, but I'm getting better at it. In the beginning I felt compelled to show off every detail in each render - I wanted to show all the work I put into it! But now as all the images start collecting into a story, imperfections and cutting out the details add to the life of the entire piece. In the end, you will see most everything that was designed and modeled, but not all at once.Sort of like the film "Cloverfield".
Back to work! (writing this between imports and renders)
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so cool to finally see this coming together...and trust me, it does not look at all posed!
dont forget my offer about lettering
keep em coming. -
I finished up an animatic of the car crash scene. It's pretty ugly on youtube so I'm working on some streaming solutions on my web site.
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Thats pretty sweet, i like the soundtrack as well, very well done
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wow! that is really awesome... the sounds definitely help alot.
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Love it
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Thanks guys!
After I've stepped away from the video I thought I'd write up a mini postmortem. I'm considering building this project as a still animated film in addition to a book so this is a sanity check for me and how I should approach the process going forward. Some of this you've heard or experienced before, and some won't mean a thing to you. Maybe it might make sense.
Here goes:
- Naming Conventions - My simple system worked well at first, but it started to collapse under the weight of revisions and additions. My text document that kept track of all the shots became complicated. I'll need even more detail. The document is going to get complicated and time consuming - but necessary. 30 shots and 15 files for the video, and I think I need add more in the sequence.
- Shadow Render Bug - A known issue on this board for sure. This wasn't a terrible problem with stills, but it became a huge deal during camera moves. I spent plenty of my time dealing with rerouting cameras, realigning the sun to avoid the bug. Ultimately, some shots where severely compromised because of it (the last 2 shots for example). This makes doing Fuel & Fire as a mini film unbearable, and near impossible. Hopefully there will be a fix in SU7.
- Clipping on Large Models - I was forced to break up a lot of large area models, into smaller files just so I could get a camera closer to a subject. Messy way of doing things. I had both shadow and clipping problems in the crash sequence, and in the final render (after many many renders) still has problems.
- Posing - Posing the cars with the my rigging hack worked very well. I only wish I could do it with soft body meshes. Going from SU>Maya>SU was a bit of a chore. It was easy to pose in Maya, but took way too long to import the models back into SU. It took up to 1 minute to import a .dxf into SU, and sometimes 3 minutes to render a selection inside the imported .dxf to delete the extra blend shapes that do not belong in the scene. I've got to figure out how to cleanly export a Maya dxf without the blend shapes.
- Better Motion Graphics App - Premiere isn't going to hack it. I might have to make the move over to Final Cut and Motion to accomplish this.
- Anamorphic 2:35 - Being a cinematographer, I love this aspect ratio, and it was a joy to frame for this instead of trying to compose a page. My mind just works that way.
- Dutch Cameras - I wish there was a better way to do this, and maintain the tilt. In general I wish there was a better way to control the cameras. I'm sure there's some plugin script out there that would help. I'll have to check on it.
Okay, that's it for now.
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For those who are interested I made a new post on my blog, "Monday Morning Quarterbacking". It's yet even more pondering about this beast of a project known as Fuel & Fire. This time I consider what I need to do if I were to make this entire project into a "graphical film", much like the animatic in the youtube link in my earlier post.
My post:
http://www.giantmonster.tv/giant/?p=584#more-584I'd welcome anyone to read it and give me any feedback. Seriously, I'd love some feedback - I need feedback. Any and all critique is welcome. This is going to take some deep thinking, experimenting and a lot of research.
An excerpt from my post:
@unknownuser said:
Artistic Considerations and Building this Thing
Artistically this is still an interesting endeavor (otherwise I wouldn’t be writing all this down). So after all of the above, where does this stand?- Visual Details - I haven’t figured out what the final image fidelity will be yet. I do know that the direction I have in my mind will take more time to render. In short, it involves rendering several layers and comping them together into one visual style. That will add more time in Photoshop/Motion/Comp applications. Additional development time per frame is not something I’d like to increase. I’m going to have to research better tools for that, i.e. Shake.
- 3D Layers - part of making this a film would involve some additional layering and 3D camerawork with the 2D images. Another step, that adds more time. This might also force me to render on my MacBook Pro, since the PC version of the SketchUp doesn’t have the option to render an alpha layer.
- Tools - This is going to stress my current toolset. In a pre-emptive strike I’ve already purchased the Final Cut suite. I’ve been planning to do that for a long time now and here’s my excuse. Another piece of software I’d like to learn is Shake and I think that might help in automating the comp time with the layering process.
And in relation to all that I did some experiments with comping renders.
VRay and SU composite:
Podium SU composite:
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that is extremely subtle... but really nice justin.... question is..is it worth the effort?
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I would love to see a pure SketchUp render for comparisson, monsterzero.
and let me tell you, how much I am impressed by your work. such great modelling!!! and I really like the style and flair of your images
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hey, about your question about 3-d printing. unfortunatly, SU cannot send ot a printer because all of the objects are not solid, they are simply made of infinitly thin faces. the printer canot make things that thin, so you would have to export to a solids modeler like solidworks in order to print it. i know, so sad.
i heard of this place in the SF area at the maker faire 2008 called the tech shop. they have everything there to make things. even 3-d printers. you have to pay for it, but you can bring in a flash drive with the model loaded on it and plug it in and have it printed. its pretty cool. they unfortunatly dont have one close to where i live, so i have to drive for quite a while to get there.
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We do 3D printing from sketchup architectural models to a local reprographics shop here in Seattle. They have two options: 1) send them the SKP file and let their technicians tweak it into printable format, or, 2) use an STL (http://rpdrc.ic.polyu.edu.hk/old_files/stl_introduction.htm) conversion plug-in in SU to generate the file ourselves.
3D printers require STL files to print. Sketchup doesn't do this natively, and any conversion can take a lot of tweaking to get right.
On the plus side, the new 3D printers do color and can print your materials and textures directly into the model matrix. You can also create true moving parts if you model the thing in such a way that the pieces are not contiguous.
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Jason,
Yeah, I hear you on that one. I do think it's worth it. I personally like the added shaping the rendering provides. Regardless of what I decide to do, I want to add more tonal range to the images. I'm having a difficult time getting that range from the standard render in SU. This begs some sort of control over lighting, contrast and layers. This isn't going to be an easy thing to do. Most of these test renders are being done with regards to the concept of doing this as a graphic film. As a comic, I can live with my old render style.As for the 3D printing stuff. If anyone can supply direct resources to actual an actual business and talk about how their experience that would be helpful. Thanks!
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yeah...dont get me wrong..it looks awesome... its just the right amount of subtle shading to get it a level above the sketchup images... but yeah, i forget you're changing this to a film now.. so should be fewer frames with more detail, right?
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It's probably more frames with more detail (x30% and 100% respectively). In comics you tend not to show every movement (unless you dramatically want it) and in film you tend to show every important nuance. But in comics most writers do not write for that detail. A good example of that, is during a conversation sequence a comic tends not to have the characters performing complex actions as they talk (of course there are exceptions to this rule) but in a live action film you want your actors to be doing something in the scene to support, add subtext, or just add interest to a talking scene, especially if it's a long conversation.
It's all very subjective and subtle, but minding those things add a lot to any work. Story subtext work quite differently in comics and is difficult to pull off because the transitions and actions and expressions have be shown in frame. In film transitions are a major part of how things are expressed. This can range from scene transitions, to emotional ones. In film you just have so much more to work with. This project is somewhere in the middle of all that since it's still going to be still images for the most part yet, it has to have a sense of movement, emotion and actual timing.
Thanks for feedback. I'm still interested in hearing more. There's just plenty of smart people on this board and I hope I can tap into that brain power.
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yeah..there are.. i wish i was one of them.. lol.
keep amazing us
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Jason don't trip yourself up. I consider you one of the great brains in this forum, and am always eager to read what you have to say.
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MZ Blaster,
... Light it?...
Yeah, baby...
Light it up...
Light it up and run, you monkey monster...
This is a blow out bit of tumble weed.
Back it hard, and blast ahead.
0=00... Yeah.
Durant "one wire is missing" Hapke
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Justin,
I've been watching your work for a while now (since you posted your initial character images). It's very impressive and a testament not only to your artistic abilities, but also to your patience, attention to detail and logical process.
I suspect I can see some of your influences - tell me if I'm wrong:
- Cully Hamner
- Bart Sears
- Geof Darrow
Do any of these ring a bell (only three of my favourite comic artists).
Keep it up - it's cool as.
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