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Kerbal show; 3D animated series i make.(Yes, actually an episode... part)

rewdew2

By rewdew2
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rewdew2

rewdew2

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So. weekend already? wow that was fast. anyway. i got an ACTUAL Episode (part) out this week.

Unfortunately, i could only get one scene of the four (or five) scenes planned for this specific episode (render times and such).

So, i just have this to show for a week of work,

but the next episode i would have to make walk cycles for and such.

And without further delay and making you read all my thoughts and such, here you go!

Remember, you MAY reply to this thread, it won't bite you.

Edited by rewdew2
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rewdew2

rewdew2

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His fingerbones look a bit rough dont you think?

AND at 0:26 you can see the fingertips are CUT OFF.

HOW DARE YOU GIVE VIOLENCE TO THE COMMUNITY

Well, that reasons they looks like that is because kerbal's have flat tipped fingers.

and i'm guessing they look that way is because... it's not a perfect rig.

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Aetherdyne

Aetherdyne

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You know what i find funny, the threads i post get about... 100-200 views. but the video only have 19... care to explain guys?

That's not unusual; people will open a thread but not watch the video for many reasons. They might simply wish to see what the thread is about. They might realize they don't have time to watch a video right then, and make a note to come back and do so later (if it seems interesting). There might even be people who clicked the thread by accident. And not everyone coming to a thread is a new reader: they may have already seen the video, and simply be back to read the discussion.

Some observations, which I hope will help:

- I think your kerbals would look a bit better if they were a paler green, possibly with a more yellow tint. At least, that's how the official kerbals look to me.

- I'd agree with the audio balance comments earlier ... the music is too loud relative to the dialogue.

- I would speed up their motions a bit (limb movements and such) ... not necessarily make each motion take less time overall, but rather to make each motion start and stop faster. It would tend to inject a bit more life into their movements.

- It appears (based on the specular highlight on their eyeballs and on the shadows) that you are using a single light located in front of the scene with some ambient light; this makes everything look flat and the shadows very harsh. You should probably kill any ambient light in the scene and use a three-point (studio) light setup if you aren't using Global Illumination. And since there's a large window and it isn't completely black outside, maybe a faint bluish backlight coming from outside the window. Your lights should also have a falloff (so they aren't the same brightness to infinity). In particular, this would mean that the patio outdoors would have much more of a blue tint due to the sky outside affecting them more than the light on the Kerbals does.

- The window itself looks like dull grey plastic at the moment, which is mainly an issue with that large specular highlight on the material. Specular highlights are mostly just "cheats" for the reflections caused by very bright light sources. They are large and dull like this where the surface is rough on a microscopic scale and scatters the rays randomly, but not so rough and so random that a highlight is completely indistinguishable. Glass is not like that; unless it is frosted, dirty, or cloudy, it doesn't scatter reflected light much at all ... window glass in particular tends to reflect a fairly clear mirror image, when it reflects at all, otherwise it is transparent. So the window should either be very obvious (small, bright reflection of the light source, with the rest of the objects in the scene reflected too), or it should not be visible at all (no highlight, no reflections). I'd lean toward making it mostly invisible, but realistically in this scene it would be acting a lot like a mirror given how dark the exterior is.

- You shouldn't use camera motion to switch from subject to subject like this, at least not often. It's certainly a valid technique to change focus to a different subject, but this is generally used more sparingly and for one of a few particular reasons:

* To establish the overall scene before you begin. Look at the first fifteen seconds of the

. The camera starts out focused on the text on the side of one of several crates, then gradually moves to focus on a kerbal rooting through a different crate.

* You are introducing something completely new to a scene, often for added drama. Imagine a furious space battle against desperate odds; after the last explosion, you see the hero's ship has (barely) survived, and someone on the radio says "Thank god, all enemies have been destroyed. We are now safe" ... and that's when the music picks up again and the camera turns to show the arrival of the *second* wave.

* You are drawing attention to something that has been present in the background all along (or at least for an unknown amount of time), or the effect the scene has had on something in the background. Two Kerbals are sitting at a restaurant table eating lunch, talking about some cute kerbalettes that were flirting with them at the counter. They get up and leave, and instead of the camera following them or immediately changing scenes, you pan over to reveal that one kerbal's girlfriend was sitting at the next table eating her own lunch and now looks very distressed ... uh-oh!

If you use camera motion instead as your primary means of changing camera angles, making each scene one long continuous shot with the camera pausing and then moving from angle to angle as new people talk, it will feel very computer animation-y, and sensitive people may even get sick from all of the camera motion.

I don't know which software you are using, but most of the packages I'm aware of allow you to add multiple cameras. You add a camera for each (usually static) angle, and render the frames for that segment separately. Then you assemble them in your editor (no fancy transitions, just a cut to the next camera). In the steam announcement video above, for example, there are cuts to new camera angles at 16, 18, 22, 28, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, and 41 seconds. The camera only moves between those points for two real reasons: dramatic effect, or to track the movement of a kerbal within the scene.

Alternately, you can just move a single camera from position to position in the space of one frame.

Edited by Aetherdyne
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rewdew2

rewdew2

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That's not unusual; people will open a thread but not watch the video for many reasons. They might simply wish to see what the thread is about. They might realize they don't have time to watch a video right then, and make a note to come back and do so later (if it seems interesting). There might even be people who clicked the thread by accident. And not everyone coming to a thread is a new reader: they may have already seen the video, and simply be back to read the discussion.

Some observations, which I hope will help:

- I think your kerbals would look a bit better if they were a paler green, possibly with a more yellow tint. At least, that's how the official kerbals look to me.

- I'd agree with the audio balance comments earlier ... the music is too loud relative to the dialogue.

- I would speed up their motions a bit (limb movements and such) ... not necessarily make each motion take less time overall, but rather to make each motion start and stop faster. It would tend to inject a bit more life into their movements.

- It appears (based on the specular highlight on their eyeballs and on the shadows) that you are using a single light located in front of the scene with some ambient light; this makes everything look flat and the shadows very harsh. You should probably kill any ambient light in the scene and use a three-point (studio) light setup if you aren't using Global Illumination. And since there's a large window and it isn't completely black outside, maybe a faint bluish backlight coming from outside the window. Your lights should also have a falloff (so they aren't the same brightness to infinity). In particular, this would mean that the patio outdoors would have much more of a blue tint due to the sky outside affecting them more than the light on the Kerbals does.

- The window itself looks like dull grey plastic at the moment, which is mainly an issue with that large specular highlight on the material. Specular highlights are mostly just "cheats" for the reflections caused by very bright light sources. They are large and dull like this where the surface is rough on a microscopic scale and scatters the rays randomly, but not so rough and so random that a highlight is completely indistinguishable. Glass is not like that; unless it is frosted, dirty, or cloudy, it doesn't scatter reflected light much at all ... window glass in particular tends to reflect a fairly clear mirror image, when it reflects at all, otherwise it is transparent. So the window should either be very obvious (small, bright reflection of the light source, with the rest of the objects in the scene reflected too), or it should not be visible at all (no highlight, no reflections). I'd lean toward making it mostly invisible, but realistically in this scene it would be acting a lot like a mirror given how dark the exterior is.

- You shouldn't use camera motion to switch from subject to subject like this, at least not often. It's certainly a valid technique to change focus to a different subject, but this is generally used more sparingly and for one of a few particular reasons:

* To establish the overall scene before you begin. Look at the first fifteen seconds of the

. The camera starts out focused on the text on the side of one of several crates, then gradually moves to focus on a kerbal rooting through a different crate.

* You are introducing something completely new to a scene, often for added drama. Imagine a furious space battle against desperate odds; after the last explosion, you see the hero's ship has (barely) survived, and someone on the radio says "Thank god, all enemies have been destroyed. We are now safe" ... and that's when the music picks up again and the camera turns to show the arrival of the *second* wave.

* You are drawing attention to something that has been present in the background all along (or at least for an unknown amount of time), or the effect the scene has had on something in the background. Two Kerbals are sitting at a restaurant table eating lunch, talking about some cute kerbalettes that were flirting with them at the counter. They get up and leave, and instead of the camera following them or immediately changing scenes, you pan over to reveal that one kerbal's girlfriend was sitting at the next table eating her own lunch and now looks very distressed ... uh-oh!

If you use camera motion instead as your primary means of changing camera angles, making each scene one long continuous shot with the camera pausing and then moving from angle to angle as new people talk, it will feel very computer animation-y, and sensitive people may even get sick from all of the camera motion.

I don't know which software you are using, but most of the packages I'm aware of allow you to add multiple cameras. You add a camera for each (usually static) angle, and render the frames for that segment separately. Then you assemble them in your editor (no fancy transitions, just a cut to the next camera). In the steam announcement video above, for example, there are cuts to new camera angles at 16, 18, 22, 28, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, and 41 seconds. The camera only moves between those points for two real reasons: dramatic effect, or to track the movement of a kerbal within the scene.

Alternately, you can just move a single camera from position to position in the space of one frame.

Well, first off. Thank you for the LOTS of creative input (and criticism)

i've know the kerbal color is a bit off, and i'm still working on it.

Sorry about the music being to loud, there were some issues with it.

Well, seeing as this is my first time animating for public uses, stuff is still being worked on....

The lighting here is that way because it's in apartment set. not a studio.

I would have the mirror reflect but, i'm on a family computer, and i can't tie it up all day on one render, which is also why there are certain quality issues, i had to turn the render settings down because it was taking a minute per frame.

Well, like i said, still working on the look of this, and the animations.

But seriously, i'm still working on most this stuff,

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Aetherdyne

Aetherdyne

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Well, first off. Thank you for the LOTS of creative input (and criticism)

(...)

But seriously, i'm still working on most this stuff,

Oh, sure, I know how that goes. I just figure that feedback will be more useful early rather than when you are already done.

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rewdew2

rewdew2

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Gold Bar Chocolate? Who invented this and when? (In Kerbin Date) :D

No... no no no. it's the hold bars that are normally on the table, only i had to resize it to make it fit in his mouth.

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