Is Janzl on holiday?

[Sweersa]

I really wish I could afford Lightwave, as it is still my favorite 3D program, and the one I first gained any kind of meaningful experience with.  I have 3DSmax, and even after going through some of the tutorials, it's just forbiddingly user-un-friendly to me.  Produces amazing results though.

It takes a lot of time and practice to get used to 3ds MAX.  I only work with it as a hobby so thankfully I don't to have to know everything about it.  It is in some ways limitless.  I have been working with it for a few years and what I can do on it is only I would say around beginner level, but I am comfortable there and I learn what I need to know.

For more info about AnimationMaster : http://www.hash.com

What exactly is it you're gonna have to animate?

Thanks for the information.  For an upcoming film, I need to animate a number of tentacle like appendages on a head of a human.  The tentacles are supposed to look similar to vines and they "walk" the head.  I will have to look at a number of 3ds MAX tutorials to get a start on this, lol.

[Janzl]

Thanks for the information.  For an upcoming film, I need to animate a number of tentacle like appendages on a head of a human.  The tentacles are supposed to look similar to vines and they "walk" the head.  I will have to look at a number of 3ds MAX tutorials to get a start on this, lol.

Wow... that's gonna be a hell of a job. Modelling a head in 3dsmax is no picnic. Make sure to check on AM because that piece of software is much more aimed at organic modelling. But also in AM its gonna be a hard undertaking to model and animate the squid-head. Try to use as less tentacles as possible because animating say eight tentacles will be a hazzard. I saw a nice documentary on Ray Harryhausen. He is the guy who did the monsters for Jason and the Argonauths and other classic's and he said the eight-headed Hydra was the hardest job he has ever done. He also animated the famous scene of some greek soldiers sword-fighting animated skeletons and that was more easaly to accomplish according to him.

So.. take it slowly and plan your animations very carefull. And I hope that your deadline is not to tight which I guess it is not as it is a hobby project 

Do you have some of your work online?

[Sweersa]

Thanks for the advice.  I have a lot of time because my friend hasn't even started shooting the movie yet! He plans on starting it during this summer. 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=umtbolPnf8I  Here is a link to a 3d model of a flashdrive I made a long time ago.  (I should post more recent videos)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_2fyD7ccPWM  The intro of this school psychology project was made in 3ds MAX by me a few months back.  With youtube quality is it hard to see the textures.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QXjqU-gzjBI  The intro clips and the CGI in this trailer was made by me, my friend should "release" this soon. lol

http://youtube.com/watch?v=V4Bye-fmu58  This is part 1 of VINES, a movie my friend recently made.  Some of the CGI i made is in it, mainly stills with effects applied to it.  You can see some animations I made in the beginning intros.  It's not exactly a masterpiece, but we like to have fun this way. :-)

[Seob]

Do you play in any of these movies? The last movie is staring Alex Sweers. Is that you?

[Sweersa]

Do you play in any of these movies? The last movie is staring Alex Sweers. Is that you?

Yup thats me :-)  In the VINES film I am the one wearing the yellow polo shirt, later in the movie I just have a white under shirt on.  Please excuse my poor acting! (one of the reasons I prefer just to do CGI) lol

[Seob]

lol

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

A few of my pitiful attempts at 3DS animation (using other people's models I might add):

A bit of Trekkie stuff - this one's actually not bad.  Just slow.
More Trekkie stuff - this one's embarrassing because I didn't realize that I accidentally moved the lights along with the "camera", so it gets ridiculously dark right at the end.

Animation on stuff other than 3Ds:

Football promo - complete with tutorial!
Actually, you'd be better off just browsing through this whole section - there are tons of examples of 3D, match-moving, compositing, etc. from my old TV job.

[Sweersa]

Thats looks awesome!  How did you achieve the glow effect around the planet? 

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Thats looks awesome!  How did you achieve the glow effect around the planet? 

Partly the model came that way (with an atmosphere modeled onto it), partly from some post-production effects I applied in my editing suite.

[Sweersa]

Thats looks awesome!  How did you achieve the glow effect around the planet? 

Partly the model came that way (with an atmosphere modeled onto it), partly from some post-production effects I applied in my editing suite.

Thats neat, I remember on your website you said you got that suite for a sweet deal!