Characters for animated music video

[kenny]

Hi everyone,

I am making an animated music video for an inde band, attached is the character design and stills from the video.

Please give me some comments on it!
Thanks!

Kenny

[Andrew Lee]

hi kenny,

is me andrew again, just got ur message then come to see ur work, BUT cant see anything bor, just shown the same image bor, i think it is the logo of the web site, could you fix it?

andrew

[Andrew Lee]

oh, i can see the images now, maybe it was problem only, ok

[kenny]

sorry andrew,

i got the problem fixed now.

Kenny

[Andrew Lee]

cool, kenny, it looks like an animation, have u finished it? r u going to post it here later on? looking forward to see it,

did u use maya and after effect?

andrew

[kenny]

Yes, it is a piece of music video animation. I will post it here after it is finished.
All the stuffs are just done by Maya and After Effects. Poor long-rendering time...

[xtu6io666]

wor...........i think u have render long time just becos of using fur, i think you only make the draft texture/shading right??

the character design seems funny

[kenny]

yep, some of the texture and shading is not yet finished (e.g. the pants of the boy, etc...)
For the hair of the boy, I have used paint effects to do it, faster than fur but still slow for my machine.

[Andrew Lee]

kenny,

how come it took u long time for rendering?? apart from the hair, ur animation doesnt long complicated bor, is it becos the speed of ur machine?

did u use fur simulation? if i were u, i would avoid to make the hair that high density, cos ur animation is not realistic style, i would just use poly plane with transparence mapping, it will save more time to model and render, the final result wont have much different, and the most important thing is the overall story line, animation.

and also, if u messy up something or made some mistake, (u should expect this will happen all the time), it wont take u long time to render again, then u wont afraid to correct or modify ur work

did u use render pass or layer? i guess u did, right? cos u seem familiar with the post-prodution. did u render the hair separetly?

the overall style is quite nice, very cartoon style, (from the still image only), it looks a bit dark for this style, i dont know what do u want, maybe this is what u want, need to see the whole animation,

u got more strong shadow on the last few image with the black background, the shadow in the first two pic seems a bit weak, it doesnt look 3 demension enough, for example, look at the candle, it feels a bit floating without stronger shadow, (again, maybe this is what u want),

looking forward to see the whole animation

andrew

[kenny]

andrew,

Thanks for your comments!
I think is the problem of my system and machine, I will need to find some time try to fix it.

For the hair, I have tried several methods, including the transparancy mapping, but it just cannot achieve this layer feeling and cannot match my orginal sketches as well.

I have tried render the scene by pass to increase flexiblity in compositing, however, I dont have time to do it this time cause I have to hand in this work to the band soon.

For the lighting/shadow problem, I will try to modify it.
It is quite difficult to make it consistance, since the story happened at night, and every different camera angles have to set a different light set to maintain the "night feeling"

I think I cannot finished a really fine and polished version of animation that soon, since I have to write my final dissertation throughout this easter, But I can upload a draft version as soon as possible for you guys to crtique!

Thanks

kenny

[cwoandrew]

Kenny

我很喜歡這類很卡通的 style
我覺得個公仔有小小似你 tim woo
haha

末知你個故事講乜～所以不說內容啦
單眼的 ( 疆屍？) 皮膚好像太返光～

另外～環境好像很暗～
射光的光比較似在舞台～
如果～用 d 偏藍 d ga 燈可以好 d ( 唔知呢？ )

很期侍你的大作
到時要 send 給我看呀

[kenny]

Thanks Andrew! (cwoandrew)

Glad to hear for your comments!! You think the character look like me? You mean the "single-eye one"? hahaha

For the shading and lighting, I am now working hard on tuning it.

Draft version will be upload soon, the fine and polished version have to wait unitil i finish my final dissertation.

Really happy to your comments here!

Thanks aigain,
Kenny