A little change of pace

[ddrake]

Been showing a lot of stuff from one single project I've been working on, maybe you all are getting sick of it. Anyway, here's something a little different.

So there's a project here where students K-12 write short screenplays and area filmmakers are given the opportunity to read them and select winners that will be made into short films. Fortunately young creative minds come up with stuff that can be a little hard to turn into live-action film, but lend themselves nicely to animation

There's a script this year that included a tux-wearing secret-agent worm. Wanted to do a little test of character look and movement before officially taking reins of the project. Here's a little proof of concept clip that I worked on this weekend.



Here's the same scene but with just the worm so you can see a little more of the movement:

[hammerjammer]

Hello ddrake

There's a script this year that included a tux-wearing secret-agent worm. Wanted to do a little test of character look and movement before officially taking reins of the project. Here's a little proof of concept clip that I worked on this weekend.

looks good, I think you got something there. I liked the slinky squash and stretch walk or whatever they call what worms do to move.

Here's a little proof of concept

I like your word usage too, I call the hundred or so test files that I have created my Proof of concept files too.
Although my proof of concept files are not even as polished as this looks. I would have had way less detail.

anyway, I like it. Maybe someday we'll get to see the finished product.

Good Luck

HammerJammer

[Danimal]

It makes me want to see where and how the scene plays out, so it's definitely a good test! The worm's slinking was very well done.

[sargumphigaus]

you have an exceptional style going for you. Your rigs are lifelike and their movements are seamless and unique, hard to replicate, and your environments are excellently crafted. I checked out your YouTube page and noticed you have only tests and samples on there. Do you have any completed projects posted anywhere? I'd like to see them.

[ddrake]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

I checked out your YouTube page and noticed you have only tests and samples on there. Do you have any completed projects posted anywhere? I'd like to see them.

Sorry, unfortunately I do not yet. There are a couple things in the works right now, but still may be a little while before they are finished. Hopefully soon though. I'm relatively new to the animation scene so I've been trying to spend the last year honing the skill a little. A lot has been just working on developing some styles and techniques that are to the level I'd like before proceeding. I feel like it's starting to come together.

Most of those clips are for a large project intended to be a web series that I'd written. But a no-budget production has me bound by necessity to learn to animate it myself. And I'm definitely in some "bitten off more than I can chew" territory in certain aspects, but I'm still plugging away. Work speed and efficiency has definitely increased, and I've recently started putting some of the building blocks together.

But I must say the forum and community here have been an invaluable resource and inspiration, as well as a reminder that there's always more to learn and improve.

[3deeguy]

I do an awful lot of proof of concept. I even name all my test videos "z" after realizing there's no need to save more than one test clip. There are a lot of puzzle pieces to what I want to do so I also think people would get tired of seeing me work through the process.
I enjoy seeing what others are doing. I like being part of a community. I say keep posting!

[ddrake]

Well, if 3deeguy says keep posting, I'm gonna keep posting

Here's the same wormy guy again, but trying out some action-y and lighting-y things:

[Danimal]

The lighting is very well done, especially the mysterious shadow at first. Looks great!

[hammerjammer]

Well, if 3deeguy says keep posting, I'm gonna keep posting

Here's the same wormy guy again, but trying out some action-y and lighting-y things:

that does look real good, I don't even know where to start with lighting and shadows to get a look like that. I am usually just happy with drawing anything that looks ok and animating it, let alone shadows and stuff. Anyway, I wrote a line for your character though.

"Hello, I am Worm, Earth Worm.----.0007_____ (Get it? Triple 0 seven, I crack me up) OK, it wasn't that funny. I liked it!

HammerJammer

[sargumphigaus]

Well, if 3deeguy says keep posting, I'm gonna keep posting

Here's the same wormy guy again, but trying out some action-y and lighting-y things:

Okay, so i'm going to speculate on the lighting effects. You put a layer over everything and used the fade script to adjust it to make it look like a steady getting brighter effect. You went to the start point and ending point and adjusted the opacity so it wasn't completely obscured or completely gone. Only transparent enough to implement the right amount of darkness. OR you have 2 separate layers of the same worm animation, one with the normal worm skin, and one with an a shadow skin placed directly over and you just faded the latter layer away to make it look like he was stepping (crawling?) into the light.

[ddrake]

OR you have 2 separate layers of the same worm animation, one with the normal worm skin, and one with an a shadow skin placed directly over and you just faded the latter layer away to make it look like he was stepping (crawling?) into the light.

This is pretty close. I have a group with the original worm animation, and then a duplicate and set the blend mode to "difference" to create a black silhouette. Then just keyframe to lower opacity on the second layer to have everything get brighter.

I'm not sure what settings I ended up with for sure, but the neat thing I found about grouping the duplicates is that you can apply layer shading on the original, the difference, and then the group itself to get some different effects. I'm certain there are other less processor heavy ways to do this, and takes a little longer to render (esp. on my machine)

Though I guess I actually wind up with 4 versions of the worm animation in all, (another set, flipped vertically for the reflection. By the time you're seeing through youtube compression I don't know that those details come through in the reflection well enough to be worth it, but it does look pretty cool in higher res.)

[sargumphigaus]

OR you have 2 separate layers of the same worm animation, one with the normal worm skin, and one with an a shadow skin placed directly over and you just faded the latter layer away to make it look like he was stepping (crawling?) into the light.

This is pretty close. I have a group with the original worm animation, and then a duplicate and set the blend mode to "difference" to create a black silhouette. Then just keyframe to lower opacity on the second layer to have everything get brighter.

I'm not sure what settings I ended up with for sure, but the neat thing I found about grouping the duplicates is that you can apply layer shading on the original, the difference, and then the group itself to get some different effects. I'm certain there are other less processor heavy ways to do this, and takes a little longer to render (esp. on my machine)

Though I guess I actually wind up with 4 versions of the worm animation in all, (another set, flipped vertically for the reflection. By the time you're seeing through youtube compression I don't know that those details come through in the reflection well enough to be worth it, but it does look pretty cool in higher res.)

Hm, that's very interesting, I've never heard of difference mode. Then again, I never really mess around with blend options. I probably should. Go figure. Clearly I've been making more work for myself all this time. When I go for a very similar affect, I just duplicate the entire animation and reskin it as black, use a masking layer that acts as the illuminating point and there you have it, he's stepping into light.

[ddrake]

I just duplicate the entire animation and reskin it as black, use a masking layer that acts as the illuminating point and there you have it, he's stepping into light.

Yeah, maybe a little more work, but you can get a more tailored look to your shading/highlights that way. The auto shading for layers is a passable quick fix, but by no means the best looking approach. In this instance I figured with the shape of the worm being so simple it would probably look ok, and I managed to stumble upon some interesting new options.

As for blending mode, I'd really only played around with those settings for particles, where you'd have a lot of shapes overlapping. And then it was mostly comparing things like screen/multiply/add. Couldn't figure much use for difference in that scenario.

But I will say that just making a duplicate difference layer is a big timesaver if you are just looking for a straight black silhouette of something you've already made. Beyond that, depending on your style, that time might be lost later finding a workaround for making desired adjustments.

[RichardU]

I have a group with the original worm animation, and then a duplicate and set the blend mode to "difference" to create a black silhouette. Then just keyframe to lower opacity on the second layer to have everything get brighter.

This is brilliant. Thanks for the tip. I have yet to internalize an understanding of all the blending modes.

[nitin]

Nice work ddrake. Liked the smoothness of the character and the lighting effects too. Would love to see how this project develops.