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Sword Fight
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Sword Fight // Work in Progress
Post by 2much4U // Nov 6, 2006, 5:15pm
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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I'm currently working on 3 different projects, all animations. The first is a story in the development, the second is yet another "Star Wars Kid video."
(Just look up "star wars kid" on google and you'll get immediate results.)
Both of the above projects are originating from another thread. This thread is mainly for my 3rd project.
This project, yet another animation, is a full fledged battle between two combattants, who evolve as the sequence takes shape.
The sequence contains 9 stages.
Stage 1: Main Titles
Stage 2: Characters start forming themselves out of thin air, they will be rendered as wireframes.
Stage 3:Characters start battling, but are standing on nothing but air. Everything is black except the characters, who are only in wireframe.
Stage 4: Both characters start battling with swords. Still wireframe.
Stage 5: One character throws his sword, which plunges into an invisible surface. Then, as the characters continue to fight, scenery is forming itself all around them. Still wireframe.
Stage 6: One character is thrown on his back. There is a blast of light, and he becomes a fully rendured character in a wireframe scene. Everything he touches starts to turn into fully rendered objects.
Stage 7: Both characters, now fully rendered, fall off a ledge. They tumble down, survive the fall, and continue fighting.
Stage 8: One of the characters wins the fight, killing his opponent. Everything turns back into wireframe, and then disappears.
Stage 9: Ending Credits
The backround music for this will be the score from the "Burly Brawl" sequence in "The Matrix: Reloaded."
I am currently modelling the characters, starting with the feet. Here's what I've completed so far.
It started off with a simple cube...
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/attachment.php?attachmentid=2884&stc=1&d=1162868808
...and was thinned out...
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/attachment.php?attachmentid=2885&stc=1&d=1162869004
...then sweeped out a few times...
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/attachment.php?attachmentid=2886&stc=1&d=1162869004
...until it was good enough to shape out a bit.
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/attachment.php?attachmentid=2887&stc=1&d=1162869004
I then did some more sweeping.
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/attachment.php?attachmentid=2888&stc=1&d=1162869004
So basicly, what I currently have is a low poly version of my big toe. |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 6, 2006, 5:18pm
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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here's some more that I've done:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/attachment.php?attachmentid=2889&stc=1&d=1162869494
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/attachment.php?attachmentid=2890&stc=1&d=1162869494 |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 6, 2006, 5:21pm
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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And now all I have to do is create the other toes!
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/attachment.php?attachmentid=2891&stc=1&d=1162869658 |
Post by Freaky42 // Nov 6, 2006, 6:49pm
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Freaky42
Total Posts: 28
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Heh heh, a big toe huh? Reminds me of when I posted a arm in here. I have this whole wonderfull laid out plan for stuff I want to do and right now I have just the arm done. Of course with the way animation is working in 7.11 I couldn't get my arm to animate without shredding itself. Is there a polygon limit or something. I don't know. I just know that even with a simple,singular joint It won't animate without causing chunks of the arm to move away from everything else and a few other, uh, kinks would happen. I'm waiting on 7.5 to renew my hopes for the animation section of TS.
Well now. That is indeed a nice big toe and I hope to see it, and the other toes soon. Probably sooner than my own projects *sigh*. Good luck |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 7, 2006, 3:09am
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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I did'nt know that was the case with TS 7! In fact, I had the idea that it had better functions (I'm still using v6.6). Hmmm, maybe I'll wait until TS 7.5 comes out before I post this in the gallery....because if one of my projects is to be deemed winner, I plan on choosing TS 7 as my prize.
Also, to everyone else, just so people don't get too caught up with the feet I'm making, this project is still going to be an animated sword fight. Once I complete this foot, I will move on to the ankle, shin, knee, thigh, abdomen, chest, and neck. (I plan on doing the head later) Once I do this, I will mirror it off, then perfect it, and make it less symmetrical.
Animation will begin at some other point. Once I do that, I think I will begin compositing the layers into video clips, which will be put together in Sony Vegas. |
Post by TomG // Nov 7, 2006, 6:23am
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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"It won't animate without causing chunks of the arm to move away from everything "
Sounds like it is the vertex assignment - you can modify that to get the desired effect in tS7 (and in tS6.6). When you create a joint, the program automatically assigns each vertex on the mesh to the various parts of the joint, so that the mesh deforms and bends.
Being an automatic process with no intelligence, it sometimes doesn't assign those correctly. Sometimes, areas of the model are too far away to be assigned to the joint, when you want them to be in your particular case. Either way, you just step in and manually change the way the vertices are assigned.
"I did'nt know that was the case with TS 7! In fact, I had the idea that it had better functions (I'm still using v6.6)."
Animation in tS7.11 is the same as in tS6.6 if you are talking about bones and skeletons. Physics animation, real-time animation, and procedural animation are all improved and new.
The IK and skeletal animations are part of tS7.5, which is the "animation update" for that reason :)
HTH!
Tom |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 7, 2006, 4:08pm
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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I've added another toe. (It's actually a lot harder to do than it looks!) |
Post by Birdnest // Nov 8, 2006, 7:36am
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Birdnest
Total Posts: 152
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Now that's the biggest damn toe I've ever seen lol. j/k
Looks good so far. I'm looking forward into seeing the results. :) |
Post by Steinie // Nov 8, 2006, 7:44am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Have you been keeping track of your poly count for that "Big Toe"? At the rate your going I'm not sure you'll get to the head!
I wanted you to be aware of this early. ESPECIALLY if you plan to animate!!! |
Post by GraySho // Nov 8, 2006, 8:08am
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GraySho
Total Posts: 695
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I can tell you, you won't even get to do the hip if you continue to add polygons like that. This is a typical problem when new to SDS modeling (happend to me as well, just recently). I highly recommend you go through some tutorials about SDS- and character modeling. The control mesh (before doing any smoothing) could be around 500 polygons, or even less. Then you add another SDS layer and tweak it a bit. Maybe add an edge loop here and there to define some areas. Believe me. It will save you a lot of time, and a lot of frustration. As you said yourself, it was quite difficult to add just a toe the way you did. Imagine you find your mesh has not the right proportions and you have to edit the mesh with such density. A desaster. |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 8, 2006, 1:46pm
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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I can tell you, you won't even get to do the hip if you continue to add polygons like that. This is a typical problem when new to SDS modeling (happend to me as well, just recently). I highly recommend you go through some tutorials about SDS- and character modeling. The control mesh (before doing any smoothing) could be around 500 polygons, or even less. Then you add another SDS layer and tweak it a bit. Maybe add an edge loop here and there to define some areas. Believe me. It will save you a lot of time, and a lot of frustration. As you said yourself, it was quite difficult to add just a toe the way you did. Imagine you find your mesh has not the right proportions and you have to edit the mesh with such density. A desaster.
hmmmm....well, I know where you guys are going with this but look at how the pros do it! They use way more complicated meshes, and don't care how long it takes to render.
example: In LOTR: 2 towers, Treebeard took two full days just to render a single frame.
I'll try to take it easy on the polygons, but I'm trying to make this look as professional as possible.
Also, remember that I plan on compositing these images. (put different layers together, like in photoshop) This will save a whole lot of time, as well as my proccessor's ability to keep up with what I'm doing.
Maybe I should just animate one body part at a time, composite them together, and blur the edges?
Who knows! This is still very early, and most of what I'm doing will be corrected at some point.
Either way, I spent some more time on it today and found an easier, more effective method. Here's a smoothed out version, as well as the current render: |
Post by GraySho // Nov 8, 2006, 10:09pm
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GraySho
Total Posts: 695
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Well, good luck then. I see you are very confident in what you are doing. If you think the pro's don't care how long it is rendering.....well, I shut up now :rolleyes: |
Post by brianalldridge // Nov 8, 2006, 10:33pm
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brianalldridge
Total Posts: 397
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Well, good luck then. I see you are very confident in what you are doing. If you think the pro's don't care how long it is rendering.....well, I shut up now :rolleyes:
Says the pro:rolleyes: |
Post by Steinie // Nov 9, 2006, 2:06am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way and that's called "experience" |
Post by GraySho // Nov 9, 2006, 2:15am
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GraySho
Total Posts: 695
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Says the pro:rolleyes:
I'm not saying I'm a pro, I'm a hobbiest, but even "pro's" don't have infinite resources, and they have deadlines for sure. So they try to have their meshes and stuff optimized. Having more polygons than necessary is not very wise in any case. It slows down editing, modifying and rendering.
My point about keeping polycount low before adding sds layers is, you can modify your mesh easily, without having to edit thousands of edges or vertices. The logic behind that is obvious. It was just ment as advice from my own experience. |
Post by Matski007 // Nov 9, 2006, 11:33am
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Matski007
Total Posts: 539
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I think you ought to listen to the advice being given, you (I am assuming) have very little resources available to you, trying to accomplish levels of detail in such films as LOTR is utterly rediculous when they have such things as render farms available to them, you (I am assuming again) have 1 computer maybe 2, you seem to be concentrating far too much in one small area of a character also, there is a ridicuolous amount of polgons being poured into this, and this is just the foot, you need to start a little more simpler and instead of just using smoothing actually add the details, I can see a very large amount of problems with your foot model already which are details that should have been made at the start, perhaps you would have been better following a tutorial in order to find out the way that the pro's model a foot.
Also! bad idea to render each body part individually! worst idea ever heard! unless there is some warpy style your going for, this would never work, and would give you some bery horrible results, and are you planning to composit each frame individually in photoshop? why dont you use Adobe Premier? there sheer amount of frames you would have to deal with would be staggering, I should know, Ive sat for hours painting light saber blades onto footage for my end of year project.
Isnt this person going to be wearing shoes? therefor why model a foot? |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 9, 2006, 6:50pm
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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I think you ought to listen to the advice being given, you (I am assuming) have very little resources available to you, trying to accomplish levels of detail in such films as LOTR is utterly rediculous when they have such things as render farms available to them, you (I am assuming again) have 1 computer maybe 2, you seem to be concentrating far too much in one small area of a character also, there is a ridicuolous amount of polgons being poured into this, and this is just the foot, you need to start a little more simpler and instead of just using smoothing actually add the details, I can see a very large amount of problems with your foot model already which are details that should have been made at the start, perhaps you would have been better following a tutorial in order to find out the way that the pro's model a foot.
Also! bad idea to render each body part individually! worst idea ever heard! unless there is some warpy style your going for, this would never work, and would give you some bery horrible results, and are you planning to composit each frame individually in photoshop? why dont you use Adobe Premier? there sheer amount of frames you would have to deal with would be staggering, I should know, Ive sat for hours painting light saber blades onto footage for my end of year project.
Isnt this person going to be wearing shoes? therefor why model a foot?
I am considering most of your advice, but if I do render each body part individually, the compositing will be done using Adobe After Effects.
I've remodelled almost half the foot, so the complexity levels have gone down by far. I've also added toenails.....so here is an almost finished left foot: |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 10, 2006, 10:26am
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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I've read all of your advice, and, before it IS too late, I will reduce the poly count on my model. Any advice on the best way to do this? It would be really helpful, as my current model has a LARGE number of polygons.
Is there a way to find out the exact number? If so, I can probably come up with a way to limit myself on creating them.
Also, really, I'm not trying to base this off of the way they did LOTR. My biggest influences in this have got to be the Final Fantasy movie, as well as the "Final Flight of the Osiris" from the Animatrix. |
Post by GraySho // Nov 10, 2006, 10:35am
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GraySho
Total Posts: 695
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One of the best and most complete tutorials I found about character modeling was this one (http://mr2k.3dvf.net/tutorials/max/tutorials_joan.htm). Though it is for max and in french, looking at the pictures alone should help a lot. Also, a good place to start is http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 10, 2006, 11:14am
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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One of the best and most complete tutorials I found about character modeling was this one (http://mr2k.3dvf.net/tutorials/max/tutorials_joan.htm). Though it is for max and in french, looking at the pictures alone should help a lot. Also, a good place to start is http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com
Whoah! Now that tutorial is making me rethink things! I think I may decide to start over...all the way.
Would you advise with or against? Y/N? |
Post by GraySho // Nov 10, 2006, 11:43am
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GraySho
Total Posts: 695
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Holy S#*T that tutorial is making me rethink things. I think I may decide to start over...all the way.
Would you advise with or against? Y/N?
Now you are at a point where you'll improve your work ;)
I vote for start over, you'll find you can do the whole work you've accomplished so far within minutes if you get used to box modelling and sds. |
Post by Steinie // Nov 10, 2006, 1:10pm
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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You finally came around good for you. I'll say it again...
Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way and that's called "experience"
Take your time and learn the basics first, it will really help you in the future. What your trying to do is reinvent the wheel, but other people have already found better and easier ways to do this stuff. Read and study the tutorials, read these forums, ask questions and never ever pretend you know more than someone else. That will be the person you'll probably learn the most from. Just look at the work being done in this forum, they all started at your experience level. The best of them still ask questions, still trying to get better and they always listen. Go to Graysho's recommended websites, take notes, apply it to TS and give this another go. The foot you did wasn't bad but that was all you were going to get. Keep trying because I'm interested in what you come up with. Good Luck.
Steinie |
Post by RichLevy // Nov 10, 2006, 1:15pm
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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Always consider starting over, don't be afraid to just do something to see where it will take you... but... learn from tutorials first, there are just soooo many great tutorials on the web now adays, http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/wiki/tiki-index.php
There is a great set of tutorials listed their, they also give some great advice also. and they have a wonderful, lively, helpful forum with so many talented people it is disgusting :D
This is one of the first ones I used, Peter Ratner's tutorials are pretty good intro to SDS modeling, he also released one of his modeling books to the web, for some reason the site is down right now, do a search on him thru Google, it's a pretty good read. http://www.deathfall.com/article.php?sid=2338
Best of luck to you!
Rich
[Edit]
I see Mr. GraySho already posted the Subdmodeling site, that Joan of Arc tutorial is a pretty good one, just be careful with the head and face, not possible to do that in TS (that one was one of my first tutorials also :D a sentimental favorite) |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 10, 2006, 3:58pm
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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I'm thinking, perhaps I should keep the foot model, but lower the poly count, touch it up, and continue to work with it, while using a faster, more effective technique...such as the one used in the tutorial.
Would any of you concur with this?
I don't have an image to show just yet, but I can tell you all that I did some work deleting the polygons, and found that it did'nt change the final render one bit. |
Post by brianalldridge // Nov 10, 2006, 4:07pm
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brianalldridge
Total Posts: 397
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Although I've never attempted making a character, I'd recomend deleting the current model and using box modeling, keeping the detail level low, texturing, and if you're not happy, you can always add more detail. |
Post by RichLevy // Nov 10, 2006, 5:02pm
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RichLevy
Total Posts: 1140
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With as many polys as you used, you would be able to delete a very large amount before it had a drastic visual effect. Bewarned, save often, I find that deleting edges in TS will cause problems down the road at some point.
My advise, keep the foot as a reminder. You will be able to box model a foot as good as that with no problems, it will just take you alittle work and some trial and error. In the Ratner tutorial, he walks you thru a foot model, he skips things, but you should find yourself able to follow it resonably well.
Personally, I perfer starting with heads or torsos, they are so much more interesting than feet... a little story, in grammar school I knew this guy that I used to draw with, he drew his people starting from the feet, and than work to the head :D I always thought that was very weird hehehe
Rich |
Post by daybe // Nov 10, 2006, 6:19pm
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daybe
Total Posts: 562
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Personally, learn from this model, but I would start over, the trick to SDS layers is to define the overall shape as close as you can to the final shape and not put to many layers on, 2 or 3 layers should be enough 2 would be best to keep the overall poly count down remember adding a layer of SDS will cause the object to increase in size by 4 times so 6 polys become 24. The closer you get to the final shape before adding SDS layers the better and try and keep the mesh as clean as you can only add verts and segments where you need them. I say play around with them for a bit a see how they react, go through some tutorials as others have suggested to see what other people do.
HTH |
Post by TomG // Nov 10, 2006, 6:47pm
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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For those looking for poly reduction, tS7 has a poly reduction tool that actually works. It is nothing like the one in tS6.6, which usually managed to mangle the model even for a small reduction in polys - the new poly reduction tool can take a lot of polys off while doing a good job of preserving the rendered look of the model. I've been able to do reductions of 50 to 75% and still end up with something usable.
Although nothing beats modeling it with less polys right from the outset, always gives more control and the best possible result :)
HTH!
Tom |
Post by 2much4U // Nov 13, 2006, 12:14pm
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2much4U
Total Posts: 430
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Alright, I tried to reduce the polygons on my model...over, and over again...without success. I tried it with the poly reduction tool, as well as by hand...both failures.
A conclusion has been made, as it had to be decided soon...due to the fact that my project has a deadline by April. And so, after much trial + error, I will begin a complete reconstruction of my model...but rather than starting with the feet, I will begin with the shoulders.
Does anyone disagree with my decision? If so, I would like to here your advice. |
Post by TomG // Nov 13, 2006, 4:30pm
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TomG
Total Posts: 3397
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The poly reduction tool on the player side in tS7 (the new poly reduction tool) should have given good results. The one in the modeler (or in tS6.6 / gameSpace if that's the app you're using) side will give bad results though, it's old and not that great.
Generally starting over is always better though, if poly counts are an issue. No algorithm can beat careful planning and thought for exactly the result you need :) A good algorithm, like in tS7, is great for a model imported from another source, where you simply can't or don't want to remodel it from the beginning, but you want reduced polys, or for making a level of detail low poly from your high poly, where starting over would be super time consuming for something that is only going to be used when the mesh is farther away anyway.
If the low poly mesh is the final result you want, and you are making it yourself from the beginning anyway, then making it low poly is the best route for sure :)
HTH!
Tom |
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