military movie critiques appreciated

# 1 04-02-2007 , 09:56 PM

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Location: cleveland ohio

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hi everyone Im currently working on a swat ambush flik for myself but Im very dissapointed at how the run cycles turned out. Id be hard to refix and rerender since it took me a whole weekend to render but Id appreciate if you guys could let me know if its that bad and really needs a redo. thanks.

it can be downloaded here its only 6mb.
https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...C6BE1F2F7012BD

-or any glitches, improvements, critiques are greatly appreciated.

-oh and you guys know any sites that can let you post your files for more than a week? thanks

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# 2 04-02-2007 , 10:24 PM

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Think it looks like a good start!

The textures look pretty cool.

The Walk cycles kind of let it down a bit, and I think that more work on them would definatly make it look better.

Also it is just one clip that youve rendered form different angles? as the same actions appear to be happening over and over. If it is that youve rendered from various angles I would try to stretch it out as it lacks continuity because of the repeating motions (tanks being dropped down is one thing that I noticed).

As for doing something like this I would render it in layers, background, tanks, helicopters, and then the people, that way adjusting the walk cycle would not require rendering the whole thing over again.

Cheers

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 3 04-02-2007 , 10:30 PM

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hehe darn didnt think people would notice a lot of the repeating background animations. thanks for pointing that out though, Ill try to not be as lazy on those things.

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# 4 06-02-2007 , 06:17 PM

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yea in one portion there's a shadow of a helicopter with blades spinning, but then BAM - it stops. i couldn't help but snicker there a little bit, but the entirety of it is very ambitious. you're doing a good job so far, but i think if you want a test render to get opinions it's ok to render it out to 320X240 or even just do a quick playblast and save that to show.

i did notice that in one section (where the tank is coming out) the camera shakes quite a bit. i can understand if that happens because it's a huge heavy tank shaking the ground, but i don't think it would shake THAT much.

as far as the run cycle, i think it looks a little odd because they seem to kick their legs up pretty high - almost like a strut or something.

Accept no substitutions.

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# 5 07-02-2007 , 01:49 AM

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excellent points. I also felt that the shaking was a bit uneven and too strong for the tank. I thought that randomly moving the camera by hand would give a good effect but I guess Im gonna have to be more systematic. And I also raised a big red flag on the still helicopter shadow. It's kinda interesting how on your scenes you dont really see the effects of shadows of other objects that arent shown in the camera. so yea I think the whole scene needs some modifications and a weekend re-render.

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# 6 07-02-2007 , 03:34 AM

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My two cents: :p

Helicopter blades are uneven, they wobble and stutter during rotation.

At the 00:07 marker the helicopter blades interpolate through the claw on the right side of the frame. Then the other helicopter follows behind the first one and does the same thing.

Your walk cycles are very stagnant. They should be smoother. Everyone is running like those Mudokans in Oddworld. (I would say until you get this right, dont re-render.)

00:12 Marker there is a shadow of a helicopter in the upper left corner. It stops suddenly producing a rather large shadow on the back wall.

00:13-00:14 Make sure the trucks wheel are touching the floor.

00:21-00:31 Yes the "shake" is uneven. The whole room appears to shake except the tank stays pretty stable and smooth.

00:21-00: The treads of the tank are moving way too fast. The tank is not moving fast so the treads shouldnt be. To help you adjust the speed of the treads here, try to think of how heavy this thing is. Think how many tons of pressure are being applied to those treads. "The treads push how far the tank goes."

These are just the major things that popped out. If you would like more crit on things such as the lighting and whatnot let me know.

Keep up the good work.

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www.papalati.com

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# 7 07-02-2007 , 06:49 PM

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o yea great details. I'll keep them in mind as well. as far as the lighting shoot right away. I know that I had problems trying to create a global illumination because I was using maya software instead of mental ray. So I tried using a bunch of point lights at different locations but the shadows still seem a bit too strong in some areas. so yea let me know wat you think about lighting.

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# 8 08-02-2007 , 03:25 AM

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I think you have made a great start. The tank threads at the end are actually moving pretty realistic. I would know I was in the marines and the company next to me was LAV light armored vehicles I saw tanks moving almost everyday. How did you model the scene to get that real world size. I model my scenes using footage but don't have a formula for making the huge seens I just eyeball it.

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# 9 08-02-2007 , 05:54 AM

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yea the proportioning has always been a problem for me also. but like you said I just eyeball it as well lol. I sometimes look at pictures of tanks and vehicules next to humans to get an idea but most of it is eyeballed. sometimes I like to make the tanks or the people bigger to make them look more badass you might say.

btw just a general comment to you other readers. the comments really mean a lot to me. Ive noticed I model and animate my new scenes a whole different way and pay attention to a whole new set of details. so again, i know i say this a lot but very appreciated.

-Dan

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# 10 08-02-2007 , 06:46 AM

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Hey Dan no probs, that why we post up WIP's etc!!

When you rerendering have a look into rendering in layers, that way if there is a problem with the final render you will only have to re-render one ofthe layers and not the whole lot, which will save you lots of time.

Cheers

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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military movie critiques appreciated

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