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BigKOfJustice posted:Saw this blog floating around work, never thought much of it until I noticed that 1 or 2 other forums [including cgtalk] is deleting any reference to it on their respective sites. That company review site he links to in "The Mission" post is a great idea, but after browsing it for a bit, seems like it has just attracted angry people so far. Should be cool once it gets its legs and balances, though.
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Jun 7, 2010 01:46
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Odddzy posted:Trying to model a Galil, i'm currently having difficulties with two places that seem to smooth incorrectly. If I'm reading your image correctly, you're wondering why the smoothing is much broader there as opposed to the left side of the object where the highlights are tight?
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Jun 10, 2010 07:37
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BigKOfJustice posted:I'd extend that row of polygons right to to the end rather than have it terminate in a triangle on a very noticeable profile change of the surface. That's what I would say as well. Tri's can do some weird things during smoothing in any case, but your highlights get broad like that because of the way the smoothing algorithms average through edges. It uses math to draw through an edge as gradually as possible in order to meet the next edge as gradually as possible. The closer 2 edges are to each other, the straighter (less rounded) surrounding smoothed polys will be. Here's a crappy image I drew to illustrate:  The left version smooths gradually from one edge, through the 2nd and into the 3rd. The right image has more information, so it doesn't have to be so broad in its smoothing. https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
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Jun 10, 2010 18:53
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A5H posted:I'm confused as hell here. Smoothing would only do that if there were 2 edges on top of each other. How did you construct this and what's it made out of?
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Jun 10, 2010 23:39
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ceebee posted:Solution: Don't model in NURBS. Unless you want to work at Dreamworks 
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Jun 11, 2010 05:23
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For 75% of the problems I've ever run into in 3d work, it wouldve been faster and easier to solve if I had just started that section over again. Often trying to recreate a mistake I've made makes it disappear.
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Jun 11, 2010 20:23
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theta-ix posted:I know I'm behind here but jesus christ this is terrifying. Utterly terrifying. I can't decide whether it looks more like the Predator or one of the Achewood cats. Or maybe Birdo. The advice to stay in quads is mostly because tri's and stars create strange pinchings in the smoothing and especially in deformation. If you are modeling for games, this is less important. If you're high-poly modeling, there isn't really such a thing as "unnecessary poly density", but if you're modeling for games, you need to be a lot more conservative. Your model has some awkward halts to the edgeflow. Anywhere more than 4 edges converge on one point (your 3-point, 5-point, and 6-point stars) can cause artifacts in smoothing and deformation, and tri's cause haults in the edgeflow. Try to keep your model as close to 100% quads as possible before finding tucked away places to kill off edges with tris and such. In other news, I start a 10 week internship at SOE San Diego tomorrow. It still doesn't feel real. I guess I'd better go to bed...
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Jun 14, 2010 08:22
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ThreeHams posted:Posting a Quicktime version somewhere would really help - it's the easiest way to do frame-by-frame analysis. I hate Quicktime itself, more than anything else, but it's industry standard for animation WIP for a reason. They look like the Animation Mentor rigs, though I don't know what they're made of. That motorcycle comment is a good one. Throw one of those characters on it and have him ride around and then you can put some text "Animation and Motorcycle Model" on the side.
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Jun 15, 2010 04:26
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Octagon N posted:Hey folks. I wanted to see if any of you 3D goons could give me some advice on finding a job in a city that I don't currently live in and have little to no connections with. I'm currently in D.C., but as there are very few game/film animation opportunities, and coupled with the fact I've lived here forever and want to leave, I've been looking for a way out. Ideally I'm aiming for California, but I'm poor and flexible, so nearly anywhere would work. Since I'm attempting to be somewhat responsible, I don't want to up and move before I have a job squared away, although it is a possibility since I'm getting pretty antsy (and have enough money saved up for a move + a few months' rent). I'm sure many here will have a lot of advice, but I'll just say that you'd be surprised who will return your emails. Start digging and actively emailing HR people and artists at companies. Before you email, research the company and watch/play/look at their work, form opinions about it, and express them in your emails, and generally strike up communication. Here's a recruiter at ReelFX in Santa Monica to get you started: http://www.linkedin.com/in/robinlinn robin.linn@radium.com He started as a sculptor for Hanna Barbera, recruited for Sony Animation for years, and now works at Reel. His job is to email, network, answer questions, give feedback on reels, etc. Ask him the same questions, see what he says.
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Jun 21, 2010 23:30
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le capitan posted:SPACE WEEED: Nice reel! Just one comment, and this is being really nit-picky, but I thought it was a little fast. It works for the visual effects, but I kinda wish I could take a better look at your models and stuff. Then again that's more what a website is for anyhow. Showing smooth shaded models is good, but I'd overlay a wireframe for at least part of the time they're on screen. It's just nice to see for judging geometry and edgeflow. I'll throw up some poo poo as well: http://www.worthdayley.com Reel and link to higher-res vimeo is on there.
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Jun 26, 2010 10:29
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Boz0r posted:I suck hard at texturing as I can't really draw. I'm doing some sci-fi set pieces for a hobby MMO project. Does anyone know any good tutorials or books that could help me in this? Also, I normally just use 3ds max and Photoshop, is Z-Brush necessary for architecture? I've only ever watched their program training dvd's, but Gnomon's has a beefy environment and props design series. http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/category/44/Environment-Design
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Jun 28, 2010 19:39
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FidgetWidget posted:Does anyone have an opinion of RIT's 3D Digital Graphics course? Friends and professors alike have been practically throwing me at them for some time, but it can't hurt to hear a little more. I'm the exact same person as you, and you would market yourself as a Modeler/Texture Artist. If you're just interested in character stuff, you could call yourself a Character Artist. In a company, your official title would become something like "3D Artist" or something unless you go to a film studio where jobs are much more specific where you'd be "Modeler" or some such. That said, and as cubicle gangster said, the more you have experience with, the better. I'm an intern this summer and the only way I landed the position, which is a strictly modeling/texturing position on the Everquest 2 character art team (hey, a job's a job, right?), is because I had rigging in my reel. My boss told me that that put me above other applicants since I had experience rigging and could build models with that in mind. Emphasize in something you love, but dabble your way through as much of the entire production process so you can understand the common problems people in other departments run into so you can integrate their solutions into your end of the pipeline wherever possible. That is one thing that will help make you much more marketable than your average "Bachelors in Modeling for Games" 2-year grads who are floating around the market wondering why everyone else is getting jobs.
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Jul 1, 2010 19:06
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tuna posted:Lots of awesome industry mentors in AM, so that's great. Only real downside is probably that its very cookie-cutter these days. I'm so sick of AM reels and that loving AM rig doing the same goddamn "opening a locked door" test. Industry people that I've talked to have been very positive on AM (these are people from Dreamworks and Pixar), but I agree with the above. For the love of god, get some other rigs. Hell, Team Fortress 2 has their rigged characters available for free download, use THEM; anything. Anything but those "Oh, this is an Animation Mentor Reel(tm)" rigs.
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Jul 2, 2010 08:32
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Man, you guys are making me want to start the car project that's been floating around in my head for the past few months... THERE GO MY FREE NIGHTS, THANKS A LOT
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Jul 2, 2010 18:53
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Yasha From Russia posted:Where would someone find these? I haven't been at home all weekend, I'll find out tomorrow and post. You MAY have to download the Source SDK, but I'll check.
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Jul 5, 2010 23:41
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Yasha From Russia posted:Where would someone find these? I finally looked into this. First go to the Tools section of Steam and download the "Source SDK". I'm not sure if you need TF2 installed as well or not, but I don't think so. Once Source SDK is installed (you don't have to worry about the ones with "Base 2007" or whatever at the end), open it and a progress bar will pop up with "Copying files..." or something like that. After this bar finishes, go to your Steam directory and navigate to ...\Steam\steamapps\USERNAME\sourcesdk_content\tf\modelsrc\player In there is a folder for each character which includes .tgas of their texture maps and .ma files for their rigged models. https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
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Jul 9, 2010 20:48
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DefMech posted:Remember Sculptris, that neat little free sculpting program from a while back? It just got bought by Pixologic. If they were smart they'd pull a "Zbrush Elements" kind of thing and just update Sculptris with some cool features and keep it free. They'll probably just forget about it, though.
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Jul 24, 2010 23:07
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I can't imagine being able to make anything character related in 3D without 2D art skills. Edit: I suppose that's not fair, but it is true that one greatly improves the other. I wouldn't separate the 2 of them at all, personally, but I've never seen any blog or portfolio of an amazing sculptor who really stood out who didn't also have some at least competent 2d studies. mutata fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jul 26, 2010 |
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Jul 26, 2010 07:40
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Geared Hub posted:They're all digital now? I talked to a co-worker who used to work for them back 8 years ago, and then they had to sculpt everything manually, and redo it over and over again before it got approved. Oddly enough it drove him away from doing make up prosthetics and toy design, and pushed him into z-brush. I have no connection to that industry and thus no real knowledge, but I would assume that they were all done physically in the past because they need an original to cast a mold on. The advantage of zbrush nowadays is that you can do all your iterations digitally until a final is approved and then just 3d-print an original to cast. I would bet that it's the preference of the various companies at this point, though. I've seen some recent sculptors' websites where they're working on contemporary action figures in clay and such.
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Aug 3, 2010 18:44
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Geared Hub posted:Man I'd really like to slap a few of the people on Cinema Discussion. Erm, ok.
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Aug 6, 2010 17:33
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DarthJeebus posted:Thanks for those. I definitely will take advantage of the free stuff, I was just curious if any of the paid stuff out there went above and beyond what I can fetch via google. Depending on its purpose, all those tri's might be bad news. It's generally good form to avoid triangles, but everything else looks nice.
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Aug 14, 2010 00:46
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DarthJeebus posted:Yea, I was worried about the triangles but it seems okay when I render it. I honestly didn't know a good way to eliminate them from the cap of the cylinder I used. I suppose I could've manually cut in quads but oh well, this is just me learning/practicing. I scaled it up a bit too and further recessed the top, just trying to work out the best way to model the pull tab now. I'm up for suggestions because honestly I've been staring at this thing blankly for 15 minutes trying to come up with a way. (Insert lecture about planning here). This might be overkill for a simple pulltab, but often times people will draw or paint out their concept and then actually draw topology onto it. Maybe take a macro photo of it and then try drawing a wireframe over the top of it. Otherwise, start as simple as possible, which for a pull tab would be a block with 2 holes in it to make an 8 or B shape, and then work into your details gradually.
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Aug 14, 2010 01:48
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SynthOrange posted:Here's how I solve cylinder pinches. That gives you mad n-gons, though, but the concept is the same, yeah. Also, yeah, I wouldn't even stitch in the pull-tab. Stitching is always cleaner, but not always necessary, particularly for hard-surface models where nothing will be deforming etc. You can always just combine them into one "mesh" if you don't like having to move 2 models individually.
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Aug 14, 2010 04:58
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SVU Fan posted:Okay, so I'm pretty new to the 3d CG world, but I think i'm fairly profficient for the months worth of time I've been working on it. However, with all of the Zbrush talk, it's getting pretty overwhelming. My overall goal is to model and/or animate animated films, so it feels like I need to get familiar with Zbrush and the like. My question is, when did you figure out when your models are done enough in Maya and ready for Zbrush? I'm not quite sure how detailed the model needs to be before it's sculpted in Zbrush or any other similar program. Thanks for any info! That question is kind of personal workflow preference, as well as on a per-project basis. The primary thing is learning how to build your basemeshes with clean, correct topology. If you have good topology, you can import a male model and sculpt it into a sexy female or vise-versa, but then again, if there are specific details you want stitched into the mesh, then that should be done in a modeling package. http://www.scott-eaton.com/outgoing/TDW105_figure_sculpting_tutorial_Zbrush.pdf That tutorial is by Scott Eaton, and he has a great example of his basemesh in there. Flip through the pages and read what he says. He essentially explains his whole workflow from base to sculpt. Edit: http://www.pixologic.com/zclassroom/artistinaction/scotteaton/modeling/ Here's some more of his advice.
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Aug 17, 2010 02:46
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Izzy posted:Care to help a fledgling CG animator out? Just graduated and I'm looking for work in character animation. I have my demoreel here, and I'd love some critique and/or advice. From a reel logistics standpoint, I'd shorten the title cards at the beginning or take them out completely. The longer someone has to sit before seeing work, the worse your chances. Also, playblasts are fine, but I personally find the Maya grid distracting. You can turn it off, or just throw down a plane to cover it. There are more creative ways to show a ground plane and perspective. As far as the content, you just need to keep animating/analyzing your animations/getting 3rd and 4th parties to give you feedback/repeating. It's obvious you have a solid base, but your animations (as excellently stated above) need to convey the illusion of LIFE, not just the illusion of movement. Another suggestion that is 100% my own personal opinion, but I hate the Animation Mentor (or similar) models. I'd say use anything but those.
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Sep 16, 2010 04:24
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Izzy posted:Thank you both! I've been having a rough time finding people willing to give me honest and knowledgeable feedback. Kingsbury especially helped me figure out what's been "off" about my reel. It's rather painfully obvious now that it's been pointed out, actually. Thankfully, this is an industry that, for the most part, pays its interns. Also, I've found that for games, the more diverse your reel, the better. Diverse as in, if you show an animated character you animated but then note that you also designed, modeled, textured, and rigged it too, that will be much to your benefit.
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Sep 17, 2010 02:45
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I've been going through The Illusion of Life and getting a ton of ideas from that. Are there any good sites for getting animation feedback as an alternative to spamming this thread?
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Hazed_blue posted:Ugh. Starting my new job in a little over a month and I'm desperately trying to not mentally check out of my current duties. They're just... crushing my soul. A similar thing happened to me and some buddies from my year as we all got back from internships this summer. A guy interned at Pixar for 6 months and another at Blizzard for 3 months, and they both got back to school and crashed when they realized that they had to deal with classes and teachers' projects for another year before graduation. I was only at SOE this summer and even I felt the crushing pain of going from real studio experience to going to class. We all just want to get back to the industry. 
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Oct 19, 2010 02:03
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Edgar posted:Hey Mutata are you in the byu program or the UVU program here in Utah? BYU. I know very little of the UVU program except that they are putting a lot of money into getting it going. Edit: Also, UVU has a cooler campus.
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Oct 19, 2010 23:23
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SGT. Squeaks posted:Hey thats cool. I didn't know they had a program going at UVU. I was working at a studio there in Salt Lake, but just moved to Atlanta. BYU's program is pretty good. Worked with a lot of people that came from there over the years. Which studio?
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Oct 20, 2010 02:57
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Izzy posted:I went back to college four years ago and just got out with a degree in animation at 36. Hearing about this guy gives me hope. While I'm not sure when he got in the industry, at SOE there was a guy on the character art team who was pushing 50, I'm sure. It's all fair game as long as you got the chops.
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Oct 21, 2010 08:18
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Drlupinmario posted:Which is more preferable to use, 3DStudio or Maya? Or something else? Also, whats this about this Mudbox thing? Is it better then Zsphere? Because I really like Zsphere The answers to your questions are: Yes. Probably not. Yes. Yes and no. Also, it's called Zbrush.
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Oct 26, 2010 01:31
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Mazdrol posted:These are some short model turntables and a character animation clip I made for a modeling and animation course I'm currently enrolled in. These will eventually be in a short 30 second animation. Any thoughts or feedback would be useful to me, thanks everyone for your time. The whole animation is really floaty and even. It goes "foot-tap, fingers, look, apple, head down" etc. and all really evenly timed and spaced. Appealing animation has a much more varied timing, ie "foot tap and fingers... sudden look--APPLE TO THE FACE--head down..." if that even makes sense. Don't be afraid to drag out the anticipation more and then have the action play out as fast as possible while still remaining readable. Also, people rarely smoothly snake their head down if hit by something. If someone threw an apple at my head, I would snap my head back so fast out of shock. Video reference will help. Have a friend throw an apple at your head in front of a video camera and see what your reaction is.
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Nov 6, 2010 07:41
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KiddieGrinder posted:I thought so, but You should check out some of the trade mags like Cinefex. You have no idea how much CG they use in movies. I'd say that even for a movie where you're like "oh, these effects are so obviously cg", you're still only seeing 50% of the cg.
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Nov 12, 2010 20:49
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Rubber Slug posted:
Yeah, it looks awkward without the seams. You could probably just get away with inseams on the sleeves, but I think the legs need seams on both sides. Here's a (Pre) Dominance War entry I've been working on for the past few days (1972tris aka 1677polys):    She's modeled and unwrapped. I just need to layout the shells and then it's on to painting. My friend has been using 3dCoat exclusively for his hand painted stuff, so I think I'll try that poo poo out. https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
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Nov 21, 2010 11:58
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Paintin' dis poo poo! 
https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
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Nov 26, 2010 22:28
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schmuckfeatures posted:Nice. What packages you using? I modeled her in Maya and I've painted her entirely in 3d Coat so far. It's my first time working in that one. I've never used Bodypaint, but I already like it a bajillion times better than zbrush's polypaint. https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
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Nov 27, 2010 08:55
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ceebee posted:How is 3D Coat's texturing? I saw some guy on polycount who had an amazing character textured fully diffuse in 3D Coat, I haven't picked it up yet but I'm definitely considering it. Murph, right? He's my classmate irl here at university. It's great, if you can paint. It's essentially exactly like painting with a solid brush in Photoshop with transparency tied to pen pressure. The step up it has from zbrush are the layers, the direct .psd import/export (with layers and blending modes) and the fact that it's all per-pixel instead of vertex-based. ie, you can import a mesh and paint right on it without dividing it to millions of polys. It's great for extreme low-res stuff like this girl (she's less than 1500 polys which would just turn into a doughy mess in zbrush).I haven't tried any of its normal painting feature (you can set a depth to the brush along with transparency and such) because I figure I'd just do that in zbrush if I wanted to. It does have a sculpt section, though I haven't tried it. Retopo is quick and easy as well (though I admit I've never tried any other retopo program). But yeah, painting in there is about as common sense and raw as you can get. You pick a color, and then you paint that color on, no nonsense.
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Nov 27, 2010 09:36
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Crappy posing rig and a quick export to Marmoset. FINISH MODE GO https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
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Dec 2, 2010 10:49
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Mazdrol posted:The texturing job looks pretty nice man. Are you creating any additional bump/spec maps as well? It would be really nice to see this in the game engine with proper shaders, lighting, and AA. I'll be doing a spec for the D-War submission (they don't allow normals) but I'll be doing a normal for a class that I'm using her as a final project for. Hopefully I'll be able to pull off some non-crap normals. Edit: Thanks, by the way! mutata fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Dec 3, 2010 |
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Dec 3, 2010 07:29
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Sigma-X posted:What sort of building would he be animating that would be best as one mesh? Inception. 
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Dec 6, 2010 01:39
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