Dango and I completed a battle to create a short animation based on the theme "Crash Control", however that may be interpreted. Here's the final entries:

Stwert's animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0mMHJCzdi0

Dango77's animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLi2M-w27jw

Cast your votes!

Choose based on how well you think it fits with the theme, as well as how much you like the animation, how well you think it's made, the various aspects, you get the idea...

Good luck to Dango and myself! :p

PS The winner will get 1,000,000 points for SimplyMaya (subject to approval of the moderators)

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-stwert

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Haha, nice prize. At any rate, I voted for Dango. His animation was much more technical and substantial. Though Stwert, yours was great too.

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No way! Im really impressed by both (I cant animate at all!)I dont want to vote cause I think they both should win, maybe you could get 500, 000 SM points each. Sorry, yeah, I want to sit on the fence. Im jealous of both your skills.

haha, 1,000,000 points!

too hard to decide who to vote for!

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Nice one for sorting out the poll Stwert, and I like the sound of the million points prize....lol!

Cheers Joopson for your vote, and for your comments, they are appreciated! And thanks Ben and Chirone for your comments too, I guess it could be a hard one to choose from as they are both very different in content.

How long shall we leave this poll open for Stwert? A few days to a week? I'll once again be lazy and let you decide...lol

Had so much fun doing this and learnt tons! Have just figured out how to use depth of field properly and am wishing I'd known before I started this animation, the tricks look even better when it's used on each shot!

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Whaa? When was this happening? Well I think they're both pretty cool. Stwert's was simple, sweet and straight to the point, I like how you presented the situation with the wide to close up medium shots, and I really liked the animation on the vehicle, the crash could've been more dramatic though. Dango's vid was very pretty, the texture work, the lighting, animation was good too but it got a little repetative and I felt some kind of introduction to the character should have been made before throwing him on the ramps, so it makes more of an impact when he wipes out. Anyways, bang up job guys. I'm casting my vote on Stwert's animation.

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- Genny
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Thanks GecT,
you're point is spot on about the "no intro", there wasn't really enough time to do what I would've liked to it overall, which would have included an intro part.

I'm actually redoing mine at the moment, but this time with a storyline to go with it, it will still be mostly a skate video so 80% tricks, but I'm aiming to make it about 20 minutes long,and there will be a theme going with it that is pretty much far as from skateboarding as you can get!

Once I've got a good bit of it done I'll probably post some of it in the wip section.

But thankyou for your comments, really appreciate it!

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@Dango: Don't know how long we should keep the vote open, maybe next Friday, a week tomorrow? That'll hopefully give time for people who don't visit the forums as often, but it doesn't matter too much.

@Genny: This has been going on since mid-December. I don't think the Battle forum gets much attention. I think only two people other than Dango and myself actually commented on my thread the whole time, but that's alright. Hopefully this'll give that area of the forum more publicity and we can get more battles going on! I think part of the problem is that you have to drill through several links before actually getting to the threads.
Anyway, thanks for the comments (and the vote ). I agree that the crash doesn't have as much impact. I was planning on having the car crumple and the glass shatter and everything.... oh look it's Jan 31, time to render.

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-stwert

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I agree, the battle threads do seem to become a little confusing, and seem to jump about a bit. Ive never joined a SM battle or challenge, but I'm tentatively waiting for the write one...

As a non animator I thought probably dangos had slightly more technical stuff going on with the jumps and the way the skateboard was spinning around. But I probably prefer the lighting and materials of Stwerts. I thought the crash in Stwerts was quite cute actually. The way the car just hit the wall and rolled over, rather than crumpled up. I officially, honestly, lol'ed at that point! Very like a Kids cartoon, like how a car might crash in Fireman Sam or Postman Pat. (English kids programmes...don't know if they get aired overseas....must do??)

I didnt know you (dango) could animate. Have you had many attempts at animating before this?

Again, good work all round

Hey Ben,

Nope, never animated anything before, well, I tried a bouncing ball tutorial once, but at that point couldn't really work out what I was doing as I was completely brand new to 3d at that stage.

I've spent the past few months reading about animation, and watching a few tutorials, inbetween learning other aspects of 3d, but this was my first actual practical attempt at it, so I'm glad I'm getting a few nice comments!

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Do you think you'll veer more towards the animation side of things from here on? Id love to animate but I think its a real artform you have to really devote yourself. I dont think I have that devotion at the moment. Yours looks really good for a first animation though. Ive rigged a couple of dudes before, and the cartoon dog from the SM tutorial, but thats about as far as Ive got. I told myself when I was learning rigging to remember as much as I could, really tried to drum it into myself, but if I went to rig now, Id have to follow a book all over again.

P.s Hope COD2 isnt distracting you too much?

Haha, no, cod2 has been put on hold for a while....lol

I started learning 3d to get into animation originally, as I'd always drawn in 2d and loved the idea of making my images move, but once I gave 3d a go, found the actual modelling to be really fun, and very addictive!

I figured that you need to know a little of each aspect of 3d to be really good at one specific area of it. This was actually my first attempt at modelling a cartoon character too, my first human character actually and my second organic modelling attempt at all, and my first attempt at rigging and skinning, so I'm quite pleased all in all with how it turned out!

I will keep with the animation, but will continue to model too. I love both sides of it, to be honest I love all of it!

Until the (hopeful) day comes where I get offered a job in one area, I'll just continue to do what I can, basically create art in whatever form I can, that's the main aim of it for me, create stuff that makes me feel happy that I did it!

Cheers for the comments Ben!

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Just a reminder you've got until the end of Friday to vote for the winner of the Crash Control battle!

Yes, that was little more than shameless self-promotion in a glorified 'bump'.

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-stwert

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I Verted already.
Swert i liked your video, well composed and put together,
but I felt it left me wanting something and i couldn't place my finger on it, was like a movie with unfinished business...like District 9, you want a sequel to finish the story, make sense?
I give it a solid a-

Dango: I also liked your animation, it felt very Pixarish to me, which is good in its own right, I personally preferr more photoreal stuff myself, as you've seen but I give it a solid A.

Both are very good, and in the end my vote was hard. Technical aspects of each were ( a well as can be compared for the different compositions) pretty good and about equal from you both. Presentation and composition of the concept each of you had was what made my vote for me.

G-man

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Ok, looks like the voting time is gone, so a hearty congrats to Dango, winner of the Crash Control battle!

If any mods want to present the recommended prize of 1,000,000 SM points, now would be an appropriate time.

For next time I think it would be fun to try a weekend long challenge, or something like that. Shorter time period, more specific goal centered on a single module in Maya.

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-stwert

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