• Location: Earth Prime
  • Joined: December 28, 2008

Topic: Short BIONICLE test-film-thing

Clickity click.

The reason why I haven't put this in Releases is because to me it still doesn't feel like a short film in itself. Basically, I wanted to do some effects tests after talking to this guy, who constructs his sets digitally and only ever has his characters against a green screen - no physical sets involved ever. The more we talked about it, the more I wanted to give it a go, and here we are. While it has a narrative, I still see this more as a collection of tests, so it's in this thread.

BIONICLE canon note: the character in this is Iruini, whose mask lets him teleport to anywhere within sight (hence all the short-range teleporting).

Now that I know this works relatively well, I'm going to give it a go in future BIONICLE animations too, and I have a few planned over the course of 2015. It's quite freeing to be able to key in backdrops this way, and though I still have a way to go in making it look anywhere as good as MNL's stuff, I think I'm on the right track.

Feedback would be appreciated. I'm not going to be going back and remaking this but there's another BIONICLE short I want to do, probably around March, so any feedback would be a great help for when I get around to that.

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ZoefDeHaas/stuff/sig1.png
"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

jampot's Website

  • Joined: February 25, 2011

Re: Short BIONICLE test-film-thing

Since this feels like a full film, I'm just going to comment on it as one rather than a test. mini/tongue

That was pretty good! The voice didn't really feel right, I think it was mostly because he didn't move at all when he talked, so it felt unnatural. You did a really good job with sticking the characters into real scenes, they felt like they fit very well. The animation was really good considering the figures; you're definitely getting the hang of animating them. The story, though short, had a very LEGO-sponsored animation feel, especially that ending. Good job on this!

TobyMac - Lose My Soul music video - in LEGO!
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Mighty Wanderer's Website

  • Joined: March 28, 2014

Re: Short BIONICLE test-film-thing

That was cool! What program did you use to construct the set digitally? Was it all 2D construction, or did you throw some 3D in there with it? A little depth of field and perspective-camera-movements would have helped some, but I understand how this is your first test.

Personally, I like to do most things in-camera, with very few effects, but yours was good, I still liked it. I don't know many other ways of animating Bionicle characters unless you have a huge amount of bricks where you can build sets, because Bionicle characters are so large, it's kind of impossible to build sets for them. mini/tongue

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https://bricksafe.com/files/rioforce/internet-images/RioforceBiMSig.png
"Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31b

rioforce's Website

  • Location: Earth Prime
  • Joined: December 28, 2008

Re: Short BIONICLE test-film-thing

Thanks guys!

I actually only decided to add the dialogue in during the edit, so I can see what you mean.

rioforce wrote:

That was cool! What program did you use to construct the set digitally? Was it all 2D construction, or did you throw some 3D in there with it? A little depth of field and perspective-camera-movements would have helped some, but I understand how this is your first test.

I used After Effects and composited everything in 3D. I did experiment with the depth of field function, but for the way I'd built most shots it wouldn't have worked. There were some where it shows though, but it's definitely something I need to work on if I want to sell that level of realism.

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ZoefDeHaas/stuff/sig1.png
"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

jampot's Website

  • Location: Earth Prime
  • Joined: December 28, 2008

Re: Short BIONICLE test-film-thing

Bit of a bump, but I've decided to put it in the Film Directory (thanks to Mighty Wanderer's encouragement), so if you liked this brickfilm, or not, please take a moment to give it a rating. Thank you!

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/ZoefDeHaas/stuff/sig1.png
"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

jampot's Website