@all
I pulled down the other video and had to re-render.the new link is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qlJg2kO-tw.
Remember this is no where close to the final thing, we are just testing

@all
The next scenes are up dudes. No comments so far and remember, its test animation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_axxaQmd-M

@OKX
Howz ur launch going?I'm sure u r pretty swamped now but it must be pretty cool to have reached there. All da best man.

Should be putting in the next video tomorrow
@all
Where is everybody?been here alone for 4days now, Dont tell me u all just took off at once, Conspiracy.

But seriously guys whats up?

the animation is ok considering it's just a preview. it will let people know that d project is still alive

@Resichild
Yeah, saw your test videos. Pretty cool sha  - But I can do better animation anyways (Test or actual) 

Keep it up! Up your animation quality I mean.
Cheers

@Kemjisuper, bragging and not adding value to the project is not what is needed. If you indeed have the skills needed then join them and let people see.

sojioguns:

@Kemjisuper, bragging and not adding value to the project is not what is needed. If you indeed have the skills needed then join them and let people see.

@Soji
Thanks sha but I'm not bragging. Can't a simple guy criticise a weak 3d animation anymore? Here's one of mine before you ask me to proove anything.

WARNING: It's only a test too!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpL8TbAzYH0

Kemji, there's no character animation there o. . . na only camera movement I see. . . 

I really think you're better off using a more dedicated animation program. Poser should be secondary IMHO, or it could be something you 'switch' to after you have mastered a conventional animation program (Terrence Walker for example). For instance, file exchange might be a problem considering  the people involved in this project will be using Max, maya, XSI etc. . .

I am not really a Poser guru(never been a big Poser fan) but from my little experience, it doesn't handle animation like the other conventional animation tools, but this won't be a problem to someone with a good experience in XSI, Lightwave, Max etc. . .

Just my $0.02.

Good job fellas, just take your time and do a good job. . . spread the good gospel of Animation. . .

Kemji as grafikdon rightly said, there is no character animation apart from a blink and making a fist. Poser is not for professional work! Period. It aids in character building, that's all. I think the character rigging and animation by resichild is good but the problem seems to be with the meshes. Well like he said, only test render.
@ resichild, what's holding you guys back?

@Grafikdon
Yeah, I thought as much that those would be the exact comments I would get. That particular video was mainly for the effect of two warriors doing a face off before the battle. PS: I also mentioned its just a test too!

Try this too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKwU_DcbX68

@Sojioguns
I agree there wasn't much of animation in that video, but also note that the blink and the fist were not the only animations present. I guess it's the fault of the video compression. Anyways, here's a more animated character video.
PS: I also mentioned its just a test too!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKwU_DcbX68

@Sojioguns
I'm glad u asked. As u can see or have noticed, none of my core team members are reverting to this thread again. The only explainable absence is OKX who shud be knee deep in his animated tales by moonlight launch. Everybody else is unaccounted for.
Thnx for noticing the rig. U have a keen eye. I stated it right from time that the mesh was giving me problems. I even had to use the max default skeleton to get that animation up and running. Fitting the structure into that mesh and dealing with skin weights---- I had my anim down to the T. Right now, i need a well modelled xter cos my jobs taking me by the throat and i doubt if i'll be able to model except weekends. Basically, this is where i'm at

@grafikdon
Tnx for hitting my thread man. Always a treat wen u come around

@kemji
No one's actually pulling ur strings. They are giving u advice. I used to use poser and believe me the other 3D packages are a lot tougher to master but tthey give u absolute control and so u wont hav generic looking figures and samey animation. The time u spend trying to proove ur mettle wud hav been wiser spent on max or maya. Right now, i just downloaded Maya to start all over again.I dropped out at Maya6 for Max7 but now im going back again. Determination will get u there.

@rest o' my crew
A new deadline's been set. If u are still on the team, u gotta post here before this week runs out and start on a new task. By next week, i'm letting everyone off except OKX who has genuinely taken a leave of absence and neikid. Tunslike&Maxani are hanging.The rest, u have to proove u are still one of us.
Even if i have to go at this project alone, so be it.

Thanx for all ur support guys

@OKX please can i get a copy of the kunfu panda magazine? My email addy is bj007ng@yahoo.com. Am really interested in that field and am looking forward to learning a lot from you.

@reschild
I commend the efforts you have put in your project. Be not offended If I point out some few problems.
Your animation good as it may lack some fundamental animation principles. I know it is a test animation, but still from
your storyboards this principles should be addressed.
1. The line of action of the character is not coming through. You must put in your arcs for the spine and limbs.
2. You animation must show anticipation. From the sqaurting position your character should be able to show us the viewer
what is his intension, what is passing through his mind at that moment, etc
3. When you animate the arms, try to add offsets as the arms is made up of a couple of hinged joints. Just like break dancing where you move the shoulder before the elbow etc,
4. Your key frames for the character animation must show strong poses and silhoutte. Your key poses for your animation will either make or break your animation.
5. Try not to attach your camera to a spline while animating. Instead use jump cuts or dissolves. If you want to add the Matrix type camera moves the process is slightly involved but I will explain in another post.
I can see you are learning Maya. It is good as most production pipelines often uses a variety of 3D packages.
Lastly, take heart and don't give up on your dreams. Till the next post, take care and God bless.

@aphek
Why shud i be offended, infact i love ur analysis. Thats also why i hold OKX dear. Straight to the point, constructive and professional. truth is that rig was generic, thats i used 3D max default skeleton and tweaked it to meet the mesh. So the animation was actually me moving each bone. Would have taken more time but i needed the anim out ASAP. I will work on a fresh rig. But i wud like ur next posts and hey, if u are interested u can hop aboard.
Thnx

@my crew
Dudes really getting lonely here

@reschild
I am humbled by your kind offer and acceptance of my observation.Unfortunately, I am busy with office work but I can chip in
when it is convinient. Using 3DS Max default skeleton cannot give the flexibility you desire if you are relying on keyframe animation but it can be convinient when you are using mocap files or exporting your 3D assets to Motionbuilder. Furthermore, if you are building your own rig, think of incorporating a little squash and stretch feature on the model as this is useful when you need to hold extreme poses for a couple of frames.I am not suggesting the cartoony stuffs but just a stretch or squash as your character enters extreme poses ( e.g. raises up his hands and roar ). I dont know if your character will be talking but in anyway you must start considering setting up a good facial rig to express the character emotions as contained in your action sheets for him. I can only see his model sheets but no action sheets. Probably you you have somewhere and have not posted it.
For now, take care and God bless.

@Aphek
@resichild
Please permit me to make this request on your thread, though it's not related to this project. This thread is quite inactive for now.

@Aphek
You sound to me like a true 3d graphics pro. Your comments contain so much wisdom, I am also humbled by the advice you have given so far. I'm still quite a newbie in 3d graphics but I've learnt a lot in these few months since I picked interest in it. In my earlier post I also criticized resichild's test animation because it didnt look quite as appealing as a 3d movie made in the 21st century. I believe the ultimate aim of this project is to go public once its completed, I don't see how those animations would stand beside the likes of Shrek and others cos the expectations from viewers would be high.

@Aphek
Please do me a favour, help me take a look at these two animations I did and lemme know what I need improve on (animation wise).

1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKwU_DcbX68

2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpL8TbAzYH0

Thanks. Hope you're not too busy.

@Kemjisuper
Thank you very much for considering my humble contribution to this thread. First, I am not yet a 3D graphics pro yet. Although, I am a Maya/3ds Max power user, I am still a student. There are others on this forum like OKX, Grafikdon e.t.c who are greatly skilled. I will consider myself a professional when I am employed by Pixar or Disney.
Regarding the test animation of reschild, I agree we have been innundated by Hollywood cg movies and they have defined our expectation of how the movies should look but you must consider the fact that in such movies, they have millions of dollars to employ hundreds of professionals in each phase of the production pipeline,i.e Modeling,texturing,rigging,animation,rendering and post-production.
Even in a one-man production like the killer bean, it took Jeff Lew quite a while for him to make killer bean 2 a hit. Be patient with reschild animation.It was just a test to get a feel for the production pipeline. As soon as some basic problems are dealt with, the animation will come strong.
I have seen your animation. In Zorod vs Demigod,
1. At the start, when the camera was zooming in on the characters your characters were perfectly still; this is very bad. In a face off as this your characters should depict the tension of the moment, that moment when adrenalin is rushing through their body.This could show itself by the slight twitching of the fingers, the subtle shifting of the center of gravity and weight of the characters as they prepare to enter an advantageous position to fight. Imagine if two people were about to fight how will they be acting prior to the actual combat? This is what your viewers should see and this in animation terms is called ANTICIPATION.
2. The camera work was an overkill.It was horrible. The camera was just flying over the place. In such a scenario, the camera work should be slow, dead slow. This helps to build up tension. Surely you must have seen in movies before the protagonist and antagonist engage in mortal combat the camera is slow and you can almost hear the silence before all hell let loose.
In animation there is a term refered to as RHYTHM. You just can't animate in a straight, linear fashion. Your animation must have a rhythm. Just like in music, you have ups and downs and it is the contrast that makes it exciting.
3.Your characters only blinked once or so throughout the period.You should have focused more on their faces.The creasing of the eyebrows, snarling and curving of the lips as each character tries to make himself fearful.Surely you have seen dogs fight. But before they fight they growl and snarl at each other. All the lines of actions from the feet and limbs of the characters should all lead the viewers to the faces of the characters as this is where the primary emotions are displayed. This in animation is called ACTING. Aside from animating, your characters should be able to show personality and act. That is why pixar and disney animations are great. Apart from the great appeal their characters exibit, they can also act their part through skillful animation.

In the Zorod animation,
1.Just as I observed in reschild test animation, your key poses are weak. You should strive to make your key poses STRONG and DYNAMIC. Get a good book on anatomy and drawing. Study how the line of action passes through the body and limbs and how this in turn affects your poses.
2. There is no Anticipation.Read my former post.
3.In traditional animation, there is the animator and his assistant (the in-betweener ). The animator creates the key poses while his assistant fill the spaces between the key poses. In Cg Animation, consider your computer as your assistant. Your assistant cannot do better than the key poses you give to it. In addition to your key poses, you should insert additional breakdown poses as this gives you absolute control over your animation. You had problem in this area when your character was transitioning from the roar act ( mostly hand animated ) to the walk cycle ( from a library i guess). You were relying on pre-made animation (correct me if I am wrong) which you virtually had no control over. The contrast between the roar act and the walk cycle is quite obvious. Learn to do your own walk and run cycles. For instance, ( remember tu-face animated music video. do not mind my joke ) if you had already created your walk cycle from a library and the animation supervisor suddenly changes his mind and says " no I want a double-bounce walk-cycle" what will you do?
4. The transition between the walk-cycle and the run-cycle is too sudden. This happens when you have no control over your animation. Professional animators can spot this from a kilometer away. The head of your character while runing is too stiff. If you had done this run-cycle yourself, during the contact and passing positions the head should be bobbing up and down.
I guess I am out of time but if I may offer one candid advice. Stop rely to much on poser.It will not get you very far in the professional circle and it prevents you from going deeply into the nitty-gritty of modeling, texturing, rigging, animation techniques which is quite common across all 3D apps out there.
Lastly, go easy on reschild and contribute your own quota as you use to do. The Cg industry in Nigeria is just starting and we all need to make sure that it is here to stay.
If in any way you have been offended by my comments, pls accept my humble apologies.
Take care and God bless.

@aphek, Nice comments. So what is your availability like? Are you freelance or employed? I would like for us to meet very soon.

@Aphek
Gee, thanks man for the splendid advice. I'm now motivated enough to re-visit those animations of mine. I was just trying to do something quick and fast at the period. I'll fill in the blanks real soon. You'd make a pretty good animation consultant I believe. I give you my word,'you'll be be hearing more from me in the 3d animation world.

For Resichild, I still say he's losing steam for his dear project. I aint seen any new posts, sketches, props etc etc as was the case in the previous pages. Stuff like that usually makes visitors come back to the thread in search of updates. All this animation talk is blah blah to passers by but I believe if there were a healthy following to the project, even those involved would feel motivated to deliver. At least, that's what attracted me to this thread in the first, and I still visit this thread everytime I go online.

Just my 2 cents as some would say!

@reschild
What is happening man! Your thread needs your impetus.

@kemji
I admire your determination. That is one of the characteristics a true gfx artist possess. I am looking forward to see great
animations and graphics from you. But make me happy by trying to learn either 3ds max, maya, or softImage.

@sojioguns
Currently, I am emloyed. I am hoping to start freelancing but do not know the terrain very well. Perhaps, you could give me
a pointer or two about the freelance market in 9ja. I will be greatful if you can pass me your email address.
Thanks and God bless

aphek, my email is soji@601realtime.com. I can't believe you are this experienced and aren't freelancing yet.

@all u guys
been a ruff week. Lost my grand aunt so things been unsteady. Work kicked up also. Anyway, been seeing all u guys hav been spewing back and forth. Lets just say i'm beginning to gear my mind up for the lonely trip down this road. I should be starting the modelling myself then on to the rigging and all.
@aphek
thx for your input.gr8tly appreciated

@the rest o u guys who cant seem to get that anim off ur minds
that was a test and it no where represents half of what i can do nor 1/3 of the output of this project. That said, i wud start working on a new mesh for the project so just keep watching this space

Thnx all

@resichild
Does everyone else have similar challenges with moi?
Hope u got my mail on the what happened. I sent it to the project mail cos it was taking for ever to open the reply page on nairaland.


I am sorry, I havn't been able to see the anim. on youtube. my connection is not back yet, DONT GIVE UP, pal. Better days ahead.
KEEP THINGS UP.

@maxani
just saw the mail. Men tough luck, hope u get back on your feet quickly cos loosing data cant be devastating. Well no problems, we still here and aint going nowhere.

@everybody
It is quiet in here.

@kemji
Where are you?

@sojioguns
I have checked your demo reel. Pretty tight.

@aphek, THanks for the comliment. But you didn't answer my question. When can we meet?

@Aphek
I dey o my man! Just watching this thread to see if there's any improvement. I don't even see that commitment from resichild anymore so I don't really blame his team members.

While we're at it, I'll be throwing some 3d samples of my progress on the 2d/3d art gallery thread. Maybe you could check them out there and comment? Thanks

@sojioguns
Location matters. I am based in abj and I guess you in Lagos. Can you suggest a solution?

@Kemji
My modeling skill is moderate. I think I can be able to make comments on your 3D samples.

Abj? Hmmm na wah oh. I'm in Lag and I guess you dont come to Lag that often, or do you? You could email me at soji(at)601realtime.com

@sojioguns
I will get in touch through your email. Thanks

@kemji
no offense to u but i really dont like the way u talk about my project. U keep talking about my commitment but seem to forget that for the past three or four weeks iv been trying to get my people to work and there has been no response. All uv done consequently is challenge me even to an animation duel, . All im saying is now iv gne solo and its gonna take more time for results. I'm learning a new software package and everyone else out there knows thats not easy so pls my 2D maestro, cut me some slack all rite

@aphek
No one actually knows how quiet it is over here. I must admit it was really painful to see my thread not be amongst the top 3/4 like its been for months. Ayway, like i said, im working on the modls myself now so its gonna take some time but i'll get there. thanx for the support tho.

tnx ya all.

omigosh!

this is unacceptable!
have been swamped 4 weeks- havent been online in ages.

@ res
u gat staying power buddy! hang in there, i will create a free window next week- and we will get stuff done!

kinda surprising abt the demi model, i rigged him without issues.
i will post a sample animation of him next week- for now, i have to go back under the radar. we are behind schedule n our sponsors are going ballistic!!

u dont have to respond to everyones comments tho, if ur team slacks- find a way to motivate them, if u cant n they quit, then get a new team!
this idea/project is very viable, and all it takes, is to find the right people to work it. going it alone shouldnt be an option!

i dont think kemji means ill tho, a lot of ppl are pro'lly frustrated by our 'slacking'. this is a public forum afterall, and all opinions are welcome- even the irritating ones! lol

if the software ur learning is maya, i can courier some learning resources to u (if u need them)
keep ya chin up bro!

@ aphek
great analysis/breakdown! so why arent u onboard?,

@ kemji
take apheks comments VERY seriously.
animating means 'bringing to life'- thats very different from making a character move!
good going!