Re: The CGI Thread
*SAVES THREAD FROM TERRIBLE FATE* A little white ago I made a Rubix Cube, and I was thinking of refining it. Any critique?
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*SAVES THREAD FROM TERRIBLE FATE* A little white ago I made a Rubix Cube, and I was thinking of refining it. Any critique?
So much for thread saving. Anyways, here's a picture of a chello I'm working on:
I've added a second chello in a bit farther back (same size though), so that you can see that there's a depth of field. I still have to make the orchestra chamber though, so there's no background yet. This was the reason that I kept it at the Blender default, because it would just waste time to put in some random color and it would achive nothing at all. 
Wow, that's a really cool design. I think that the plastic should be just a little bit more reflective though.
Yeah, I was trying to give it more of a soft feel (it's orchestra after all), but it kind of backfired on me and didn't come out the way I wanted it to. 
Anyways, here's the new version, with increased specularity (and a few other tweaked settings):
Are you going to have minifigs play on it? If so, have you tested it out yet? My cello from Apologize was flatten in order for the bow to reach around without stretching the arm.
I'm not sure if minifigs will play on it. I don't think I will, but I'm not certain because I'm in the early planning stages for my movie. My cello (I accidentally spelt it wrong before. That shows how much better band is 
) isn't really thick or anything, so it wouldn't be a problem anyways. I'll edit my previous post with another angle of it so that you can get an idea of how bulky it is.
How do you model a minifig in Maya 8.5?
How do you model a minifig in Maya 8.5?
Ouch.
Umm...
...what to say...
...learn Maya?
- Leo
How do you model a minifig in Maya 8.5?
Add and edit basic meshes maybe? Just a hint for if you want to do it without using something like MLCad.
I feel like I'm giving CPR to this thread. But, here's the dolly shot:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mn2dntk4dmm
I know about the stud sticking out in the back, I put a flat 1 X 2 tile on it to make it look more even and normal, I'm just too lazy to render it again and wait for half an hour.
Well if no one's going to see it, you shouldn't have to worry about it. It's an important thing to consider when you're doing CGI. If there's an element that's not going to be visible in the shot, why include it? This is more about size of the file/project and quality of interaction with the CGI software than anything else.
For example, a massive starship like the Imperial-class Star Destroyer can be difficult to set up shots with given the thousands of pieces that make up the ship, both inside and outside. Removing the interior frame pieces won't affect the ship digitally, but it would reduce the amount of vertices, lines and polygons that your animation program needs to process whenever you move the user camera.
Another reason for removing redundant and unnecessary pieces from your scenes is the rendering process. Take a picture of anything, a chair, your room, the outdoors. What do you see? You see only what is visible from the camera's POV. You don't see the other side of the chair, you don't see the bottom of your bed, etc. CGI rendering follows this concept. Why render the faces of a mesh object if those faces aren't going to be seen from the camera. It's called hidden surface determination. It's done in rendering so you don't have to remove faces from meshes but keep in mind that by including additional pieces that will never get rendered in the scene will just prolong the processing.
But what if the camera switches to a different POV and it's exposed that you deleted some peicies? I know it would be better to remove some vertecies inside the bricks that you can't see and never will see. But if you take of peicies that aren't unseeable from every POV and you camera angle includes it, then you'll end up wishing badly that those peicies were still there, and possibly even have to re-do the entire scene if you've gone too far to undo it.
I'm not saying deleting parts for certain shots, I'm saying deleting parts for all overall shots. If you're going to show the back side of the cello at some point, then of course you shouldn't delete the back side parts.
But what if the camera switches to a different POV and it's exposed that you deleted some peicies?
I often split different camera shots into separate blend files. I'll build the entire scene in one file, then when I'm ready to render, each camera shot gets saved as a new .blend file and I remove any unnecessary models or details and adjust the colour for each shot.
Hm, that sounds like a good idea.
Thanks for keeping this thread alive BGanimations! Your cello also looks really great! 
Anyway, here is a series of non-LEGO CGI tests that we have made. You can download it here! Enojy!
I got asked to help animate on a film for SIGGRAPH 2011 via my Clone Wars video. 
Those were some great tests BuilderBrothers!
And what's a Siggraph James? Is it some sort of company?
And what's a Siggraph James? Is it some sort of company?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGGRAPH
Basically the biggest CG conference in the world. The project I'll be animating on includes hobbyists and a few pros, including the sound editor from Battle for Terra and a former pro from the gaming industry who has credits on the Star Wars NES and SNES games! I'm totally excited.
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