New Series I'm Working on.

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Sun Apr 18, 2010 7:44 pm

Did you use AS particles for the glowing dust in the beam of light in your intro? I am trying to make a sun beam with a calm shining particles effect, but my particles are out of control. :D

[edit] I think I figured it out now. :D Thanks for the inspiring use of special effects!

neomarz1 · Post by **neomarz1** » Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:45 pm

lwaxana wrote:Did you use AS particles for the glowing dust in the beam of light in your intro? I am trying to make a sun beam with a calm shining particles effect, but my particles are out of control.

[edit] I think I figured it out now. Thanks for the inspiring use of special effects!

Well I have tried the particles tool, but a lot of times its to much. For that scene your talking about, I actually painted them dot by dot, saved as a PNG. file, then moved them bottom to top, with a starting Opacity 100% to 60%, the duplicated and ran another over the top of that, at a different rate. between the two I think it sort of made a twinkle effect. I may use particle effect on something, but the render times get crazy. marzout

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Mon Apr 19, 2010 4:43 pm

Hmm... it sounds like your method works better than particles in this situation. I set up my sunbeams with particles and the rendering was definitely slower than usual. And the particles are not as evenly spaced as I would like them to be, despite specifying even spacing. Since there is a "tool" named particles, I start working with the assumption that it is the only way to create particles! Thanks for explaining how you did it. :D It'll give me a nice alternative if my current dust particles don't capture the right mood or slow down the rendering too much. Thanks again! :D

neomarz1 · Post by **neomarz1** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 1:27 am

lwaxana wrote:Hmm... it sounds like your method works better than particles in this situation. I set up my sunbeams with particles and the rendering was definitely slower than usual. And the particles are not as evenly spaced as I would like them to be, despite specifying even spacing. Since there is a "tool" named particles, I start working with the assumption that it is the only way to create particles! Thanks for explaining how you did it. It'll give me a nice alternative if my current dust particles don't capture the right mood or slow down the rendering too much. Thanks again!

Here are some specifics. I usually use photo shop... Just do a clear layer with little white dots. Copy and paste all over a long band (for moving the layer in AS). Some times I will use the airbrush tool to do a quick glow spot over the dots, if I want a glow effect. Like I said, animate the motion (Use a wavy bone if you want them to have a waving effect) and start out with low opacity to full opacity, animate two or three layers at different starting positions, to get that twinkle. I actually made two back grounds, one with a hole in it (for the spot light), and one behind that with no hole. I ran the particles between the two layers. I imagine you could use a "mask" for the same effect. I just used what I was familiar with (old school). Marzout

I think the particles are cool, but usually there is a way to creatively do the same thing. Perfect example is the fire and smoke I made in my "In the begining clip".

Oh, another suggestion. You might want to throw a lense flare for your sun. If you need a lense flare, I created a pretty cool one. It's in my planet scene. I can send it to you if you need it.

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:07 pm

I don't have the sun shown in my scene, but thanks so much for the lens flare offer! And the information is very helpful. I probably will use your method to redo my dust particles. It will be nice to have more control over the movement. And vectors work fine with my style so I will be able to reuse the shapes in my particle group and also reuse my masking setup. :D

neomarz1 · Post by **neomarz1** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 1:04 am

lwaxana wrote:I don't have the sun shown in my scene, but thanks so much for the lens flare offer! And the information is very helpful. I probably will use your method to redo my dust particles. It will be nice to have more control over the movement. And vectors work fine with my style so I will be able to reuse the shapes in my particle group and also reuse my masking setup.

Yeah, I took your advice, and just re-rigged Eve with Masked eyes. The results are pretty good. It should be easy enough to re-rig the other characters. I had to come up with a pretty funky layer setup, but it works.

neomarz1 · Post by **neomarz1** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:36 am

Just ran into a wierd problem. I was rendering the dialogue for one of my scenes, and the dialogue had somehow shifted, so that it did not match at the begining of the track. It eventually caught up to the mouth sinc. Has anyone had this problem?

neomarz1 · Post by **neomarz1** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 4:32 am

Wow, my brain hurts! Ive been working overtime to get this up. It's about 50% of the Dream Walker Scene. The voice work is remarkable, Laura Post is really good, and it made it much easier for me to animate the emotions. Hope you all like, I'm afraid to ask anyone what they think. I've put insane amount of time in this. I'm not totally happy with it, but I usually feel better about the work a few days after. Yes, tell me what you think. Took Iwaxana's advice on the Eyes, and it definately paid off. Thanks. Mars out

Dream Walker 50%

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17kqR4nzq5w

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 5:37 am

Awesome! The green strands on those zombie guys look really cool. And I really like the part where they start lurching forward. That's when they really start to feel scary and threatening. And it makes you feel afraid for Eve.

My only suggestion would be to really milk the tension in this scene for all it's worth. If the main idea is that she's scared of these zombies, you could heighten the tension by making her consistently afraid. Right now that one zombie almost comes off as a father figure or a confidant. But you could also go that direction and have the zombies lull her into trusting him and accepting death before they lunge at her. If the scene is mostly about the torment and conflicting emotions, you could heighten the tension by making it seem like she's actually considering joining them. If the audience feels that Eve is really in some kind of danger (physical, moral, emotional), you'll have them wrapped around your finger! :D

Really nice work! And the eyes look great!

lwaxana · Post by **lwaxana** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 6:12 am

Btw, those ideas to heighten tension could be done with small adjustments like framing in on his hand as he grabs her shoulder, or changing one of Eve's expressions to look more tempted or conflicted or horrified. I wouldn't make any big changes because it's a very strong scene. The suggestions are ways to build on what you already have going. :)

neomarz1 · Post by **neomarz1** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:59 am

lwaxana wrote:Btw, those ideas to heighten tension could be done with small adjustments like framing in on his hand as he grabs her shoulder, or changing one of Eve's expressions to look more tempted or conflicted or horrified. I wouldn't make any big changes because it's a very strong scene. The suggestions are ways to build on what you already have going.

I like your suggestions, especially because I get them. Yeah, I think these are great ideas. I know the scene could be stronger. The fear thing, its not as interesting as the temptation thing you suggest. I would like to play off that. Maybe you have a more detailed suggestion? I like that you kind of understand the purpose of the scene. I'll give it some more thought. Thanks Iwaxana!

neeters_guy · Post by **neeters_guy** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 11:42 am

neomarz1 wrote:I'm afraid to ask anyone what they think. I've put insane amount of time in this.

The beginning is exciting...it has a scene change every few seconds and a variety of camera angles.

The scene between the zombie and Eve is a little static...it's over a minute long of talking heads. I'd suggest a couple more camera cuts and strong poses (like when Eve finally pushes the zombie back) to punctuate the dialogue. Also, the dialogue ends with a reverse angle, which I think violates the 180 rule.

I totally understand how much more work this is, so you may consider the feedback as you see fit. As usual, I think your work is fantastic.

neomarz1 · Post by **neomarz1** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 2:51 pm

neeters_guy wrote:
neomarz1 wrote:I'm afraid to ask anyone what they think. I've put insane amount of time in this.
The beginning is exciting...it has a scene change every few seconds and a variety of camera angles.

The scene between the zombie and Eve is a little static...it's over a minute long of talking heads. I'd suggest a couple more camera cuts and strong poses (like when Eve finally pushes the zombie back) to punctuate the dialogue. Also, the dialogue ends with a reverse angle, which I think violates the 180 rule.

I totally understand how much more work this is, so you may consider the feedback as you see fit. As usual, I think your work is fantastic.

Yeah, I was pretty good at violating a lot of rules in comics as well. LOL... Like... Never having a good "Establishing Shot". This is the same, and It's something that I was worried about. By the way... Whats the 180 rule? I changed the angle, because I wanted to allow for a new perspective with the zombie's close in intensity shot. Thanks Neeters, a lot of good points. I need to hear these things. Even if I dont use all the idea's It's away for me to learn for upcoming scenes. I may make the changes you suggest just need to let my "Brraaains" heal (In a zombie voice).

Just a quick question, do the emotions register well? Thanks friend, Marzout.

sequental · Post by **sequental** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 3:39 pm

10 pages of post, you are sky rocketing these days

DELETED · Post by **DELETED** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 3:55 pm

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