Larry the Liger - just sort of fooling around
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Amen,dreeko13 wrote:it would be really nice if you could post your "as" files for the community to pick at
explaining your method is good but you cant beat the hands on experience to see how something ticks!
I learn much more visually. Question? Would the Halo styles you talked about (somewhere??) be embedded in the Anime file? I haven't quite got the jist of that yet and would like to SEE how you did that.
Heyvern, without you this forum would be lacking so much. I also appreciate seeing your progress even while you're in "the zone". More! More!
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LittleFenris
- Posts: 246
- Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:29 pm
- Location: USA!
Haven't done a ton of stuff on this lately. I picked up a web site and corporate logo/identity job which is consuming me at the moment.
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Some changes to this project....
I have gone back and revisited my "style". I need to simplify it much more. All those "hair" shapes slow animating down to a crawl on my weak machine.
I figure if I went 2D from 3D to "simplify"... I should go "all the way".
I have been playing around with completely "flat" no shading type looks. Very minimalistic. The basic design of the character is still there, but I eliminated a lot of the shading and "hair".
All the detail in the characters is interfering with the "fun" part... bringing them to life. With the current style I used for this, AS is slower to animate than a 3D application. I think I just have too many points.
Funny thing is... they still render really really fast. Each frame renders at NTSC resolution nearly instantly. But animating is useless. Takes too long to refresh the screen. I can't "see" the animation timing unless I render.
With 3 very hairy main characters this will just get worse as I go along.
I am deleting shapes one at a time till I get to a point where animating is quicker. That will be my zone of comfort. Instead of 8 shapes for his mane, maybe just 2.
-vern
-----------
Some changes to this project....
I have gone back and revisited my "style". I need to simplify it much more. All those "hair" shapes slow animating down to a crawl on my weak machine.
I figure if I went 2D from 3D to "simplify"... I should go "all the way".
I have been playing around with completely "flat" no shading type looks. Very minimalistic. The basic design of the character is still there, but I eliminated a lot of the shading and "hair".
All the detail in the characters is interfering with the "fun" part... bringing them to life. With the current style I used for this, AS is slower to animate than a 3D application. I think I just have too many points.
Funny thing is... they still render really really fast. Each frame renders at NTSC resolution nearly instantly. But animating is useless. Takes too long to refresh the screen. I can't "see" the animation timing unless I render.
With 3 very hairy main characters this will just get worse as I go along.
I am deleting shapes one at a time till I get to a point where animating is quicker. That will be my zone of comfort. Instead of 8 shapes for his mane, maybe just 2.
-vern
I really dug the ultra detailed look you had. I t was almost 3D, but I totally agree with simplicity in the 2D world. One of the reasons I gravitate more towards 2D is because of results. You see what you are doing very quickly and feel more like you are creating rather than doing a load of technical grunt work before you get to see anything.
If simpler makes it fun for you and we get to see more animation, I am all for that!
If simpler makes it fun for you and we get to see more animation, I am all for that!
----
Terrence Walker
Studio ArtFX
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Terrence Walker
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LEARN HOW TO Make YOur Own Animated Film!
Get Video Training to Show You How!
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LittleFenris
- Posts: 246
- Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:29 pm
- Location: USA!
I agree completely. I got so tired of all the technical junk you had to do in 3D just to get a scene to look even half way decent, not to mention all the time to learn the tools to make your character, then rigging in 3D, etc... It just got to be more tech and less fun the more I wanted to do. I haven't touched Lightwave or any other 3D prog in probably 6 months. I got more done in a day with Flash and/or AS Pro than I could have done in a week in Lightwave. The end result I was going for in 3D was a 2D look anyways, so why not just go 2D in the first place?!artfx wrote:One of the reasons I gravitate more towards 2D is because of results. You see what you are doing very quickly and feel more like you are creating rather than doing a load of technical grunt work before you get to see anything.
Thanks for the support!
It breaks my heart to lose some of the detail but in reality I didn't have to lose as much as I thought, and it still looks great. It also makes everything exponentially simpler, less points to deal with.
Basically I removed a whole bunch of the zig zag "hair" points. They add up and I didn't need so many of them to get the same "look".
Overall I think the "3D" sort of look will still be there... a bit... just not as pronounced.
I also agree that 3D takes a lot of work. I love 3D and I think I am pretty good with it... I plan to do some detailed backgrounds in 3D. But I need results with the character stuff. I can get faster results with 2D.
Not touching the mouth. I love the mouth and it isn't complex. I find that the slowdown for me comes specifically from too many points not the number of shapes or fill effects.
-vern
It breaks my heart to lose some of the detail but in reality I didn't have to lose as much as I thought, and it still looks great. It also makes everything exponentially simpler, less points to deal with.
Basically I removed a whole bunch of the zig zag "hair" points. They add up and I didn't need so many of them to get the same "look".
Overall I think the "3D" sort of look will still be there... a bit... just not as pronounced.
I also agree that 3D takes a lot of work. I love 3D and I think I am pretty good with it... I plan to do some detailed backgrounds in 3D. But I need results with the character stuff. I can get faster results with 2D.
Not touching the mouth. I love the mouth and it isn't complex. I find that the slowdown for me comes specifically from too many points not the number of shapes or fill effects.
-vern
Have you ever considered exporting Larry with his predetermined animations as a Movie millions of colors+ (ie,Alpha channel no background) and importing him back to inter-act with the rest of your animations. Movies can be resized, moved, faded, placed on the time line, or even distorted with bones. So I thought perhaps that may be an option to cut down on CPU strain. Just a thought.heyvern wrote:I have gone back and revisited my "style". I need to simplify it much more. All those "hair" shapes slow animating down to a crawl on my weak machine.
I am deleting shapes one at a time till I get to a point where animating is quicker. That will be my zone of comfort. Instead of 8 shapes for his mane, maybe just 2.
-vern
I hate to see Larry the liger bite the dust after all that work.
Have you ever considered exporting Larry with his predetermined animations as a Movie millions of colors+ (ie,Alpha channel no background) and importing him back to inter-act with the rest of your animations. Movies can be resized, moved, faded, placed on the time line, or even distorted with bones. So I thought perhaps that may be an option to cut down on CPU strain. Just a thought.heyvern wrote:I have gone back and revisited my "style". I need to simplify it much more. All those "hair" shapes slow animating down to a crawl on my weak machine.
I am deleting shapes one at a time till I get to a point where animating is quicker. That will be my zone of comfort. Instead of 8 shapes for his mane, maybe just 2.
-vern
I hate to see Larry the liger bite the dust after all that work.
Larry won't bite the dust! He's lookin' fine!
You have to ANIMATE before you can EXPORT. With the original version of Larry the lag time when scrubbing frames was so long it was like watching grass grow. It was nearly impossible to see motion.
I removed more than half the points... and I am back to a comfortable speed. He doesn't really look that different. I found I could leave most of the shading effects in. It was just a matter of simplifying the vectors.
-vern
Couldn't "export" as you described... chicken and the egg.Have you ever considered exporting Larry with his predetermined animations as a Movie millions of colors+
You have to ANIMATE before you can EXPORT. With the original version of Larry the lag time when scrubbing frames was so long it was like watching grass grow. It was nearly impossible to see motion.
I removed more than half the points... and I am back to a comfortable speed. He doesn't really look that different. I found I could leave most of the shading effects in. It was just a matter of simplifying the vectors.
-vern
love to take a look at the "as" hands file heyvern..........any chance you could post it??heyvern wrote:I started experimenting with the hands.
This is a very rough example but I think it might work;
http://www.lowrestv.com/moho_stuff/larry_hands2b.mov
It is a switch layer with bones to translate the fingers and two layers, one for the inside of the hand and one for the outside. Basically slight point tweaks and major reordering of shapes.
-vern
Vern,
This is an old but good thread. It shows you trying to push the limits of complexity in character detail and then backing off.
I think you ultimately decided that more simplicity was good not only for technical but for artistic reasons. And even with less detail, you're probably still pushing the limits both of the rendering framework as well as the artist workload.
(1) However, this image as a vector texture feature in 5.6 -- does that make your project more feasible?
And this is the REAL point of this post:
(2) Where can I study the nuances of drawing body hair like this? I have so far only found only one good example elsewhere on the Web.
Here are the things I want to study:
(a) How to balance the sawtooth edges with the straight edges--as you do on the limbs. This is really important.
(b) Determine the optimal number of "teeth" in a hairy patch. It generally seems to be more than two and less than seven.
(c) Learn how the teeth are slightly curved and how they fit into a larger, gently curved envelope. There is a certain grace to it. The other example is slightly more graceful than yours, because the teeth are slightly less random.
(By the way, this is beautiful work--optimal lines, pptimal colors, all quite graceful. I'm not a fan of the bug eyes but I guess that makes them expressive when animated.)
(This is addressed to Vern, but there are probably plenty of you who can respond.)
This is an old but good thread. It shows you trying to push the limits of complexity in character detail and then backing off.
I think you ultimately decided that more simplicity was good not only for technical but for artistic reasons. And even with less detail, you're probably still pushing the limits both of the rendering framework as well as the artist workload.
(1) However, this image as a vector texture feature in 5.6 -- does that make your project more feasible?
And this is the REAL point of this post:
(2) Where can I study the nuances of drawing body hair like this? I have so far only found only one good example elsewhere on the Web.
Here are the things I want to study:
(a) How to balance the sawtooth edges with the straight edges--as you do on the limbs. This is really important.
(b) Determine the optimal number of "teeth" in a hairy patch. It generally seems to be more than two and less than seven.
(c) Learn how the teeth are slightly curved and how they fit into a larger, gently curved envelope. There is a certain grace to it. The other example is slightly more graceful than yours, because the teeth are slightly less random.
(By the way, this is beautiful work--optimal lines, pptimal colors, all quite graceful. I'm not a fan of the bug eyes but I guess that makes them expressive when animated.)
(This is addressed to Vern, but there are probably plenty of you who can respond.)
