AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING!

This is what I am going to school for (film editing and 3D animation on Maya).. this sort of thing inspires me to one day pull off amazing stuff like that. Amazing what they did with three guys, a decent camcorder, and what else they had at their disposal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRS9cpOMYv0&eurl=

Damn... that is insane! I can't imagine the amount of forethought that would have to go into a project like that.

Wow!

That's incredible, very impressive, and great insight into the elements it takes to generate a cool composite like that, thanks for sharing this.

MaulFan said:

That's incredible, very impressive, and great insight into the elements it takes to generate a cool composite like that, thanks for sharing this.

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No problem, and knowing a multimedia guy like you would surely enjoy this!

That's really well done. Really that's what they do in large-budget movies but in this case they don't have as many people to work with so it's even more work.

Eli26 said:

No problem, and knowing a multimedia guy like you would surely enjoy this!

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Well I don't do video, but I utilize the same principles for images. I have a lot of photos just for use in composite shots.

For example, all of the lava explosions in this graphic I made were actually created from water spalshes in a river. Through a trick I learned in photoshop, I'm able to take the shape of the water splashing and the trailing drops of water and generate a lava look from it. I just had a buddy I was with throw rocks into the water while I shot.

MaulFan said:

Well I don't do video, but I utilize the same principles for images. I have a lot of photos just for use in composite shots.

For example, all of the lava explosions in this graphic I made were actually created from water spalshes in a river. Through a trick I learned in photoshop, I'm able to take the shape of the water splashing and the trailing drops of water and generate a lava look from it. I just had a buddy I was with throw rocks into the water while I shot.

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It's amazing what you can use to make into something else. I used magnified food bateria, okay my friends did, to make a universe, backdrop if you will, for my illustration of a alien in a space car. It was for a band in the States. I did their CD cover. I'll see if I can get a coloured scan of it to show.

That is an amazing job MaulFan. I may have to conmission you to make something for my art collection I am starting. I would love to hang up all of my fellow artist's (friends) work on my walls.

That video was really amazing, great stuff you can do with effect nowadays

That is simply amazing.

I started a thread called Animation. Can you guys list what tools or tricks you use for your work. I am seriously interested in getting into 3d art and animation. I have worked with some freeware like Blender and daz studio but nothing worth saving. But check out some of the other members work they posted in the Animation thread.

All of you are extremely talented and I can only imagine the stuff you guys would create if you actually got together and started your own studio.

I use Maya. You can get the Personal Learning edition for free...I know it's out there somewhere. Just warning you though, when you fully render things you'll have a big watermark stretched throughout your work. Basically you can only animated sculpted 3D environments. Hair and cloth are only available through the Unlimited version which retails for about 6,000 USD.

Guess one can not complain when he/she is not paying for use of said program.

Eli26 said:

I use Maya. You can get the Personal Learning edition for free...I know it's out there somewhere. Just warning you though, when you fully render things you'll have a big watermark stretched throughout your work. Basically you can only animated sculpted 3D environments. Hair and cloth are only available through the Unlimited version which retails for about 6,000 USD.

Guess one can not complain when he/she is not paying for use of said program.

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WOW Thanks. I will download it tonight. Can I use a third party renderer?

Chimera 1 said:

WOW Thanks. I will download it tonight. Can I use a third party renderer?

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Probably not, I think MAYA's like a $5000 program, so I'm sure they go to great lengths to ensure the free version is of little profitable use to people.

MaulFan said:

Probably not, I think MAYA's like a $5000 program, so I'm sure they go to great lengths to ensure the free version is of little profitable use to people.

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Exactomondo!

Cool. Ok noob question here. Where should I start? What tools will I need. I have a very fast computer and an above average graphics card. I have a digital camera and photoshop CS2. Where can I get textures and the such?

Chimera 1 said:

Cool. Ok noob question here. Where should I start? What tools will I need. I have a very fast computer and an above average graphics card. I have a digital camera and photoshop CS2. Where can I get textures and the such?

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When I first started, I just thought of things I wanted to do (don't get too ambitious) and then figured out how to do them. It's got an ok help guide with it (3ds Max's User Reference guide is better), but also look at www.cgtalk.com which has a section for most major programs. It can take a while to get into the programs. I find that there is more help out there for 3ds Max users than Maya users, but you can't go wrong by using Maya since that's the main program for movies while Max is used the most for video games. But just try to do some stuff and search the forum when you have a problem, if you can't find the solution that way then post a question, but most questions have been asked before so it can most likely be answered by searching through the forum.

Also, as a point of interest, the Personal Learning Edition of Maya uses a different file format than the full version--I know for sure that the files you make with the PLE aren't usable by the full version, I'm not sure if it's the same the other way around.

As far as that video goes, it involves more than just Maya. Maya is used for the 3D rendering elements and then a different program (like Adobe After Effects) is used to composite the elements together.

A goog precurser to MAYA is Marcromedia/Adobe Director. It's a 2D animation program, like Flash, but more user friendly, and MAYA and Director both run on Keyframe animation where you can set points for an object to be in the viewing space within a time frame and the software will automatically fill in the gaps between point A and point B. A key thing you'll need with MAYA is a 3-Button mouse because MAYA being a 3D software uses X, Y and Z axis and a lot of the functions require the 3rd button.