>>
|
No. 1289958
File
139774763765.png
- (0.98MB
, 1600x900
, facegrowl.png
)
>>1287859 I don't really keep track of the industry itself, I'm just trying to learn how to do it one step at a time. Part of the reason I took a break from ponies, FimFiction, and why I'm limiting myself to one post per day on here. But I guess a little background wouldn't hurt.
Mostly I got into 3D by dumb luck: I was looking for free programs to make games with, stumbled upon Blender. Been doing that on and off for several years, and only recently I've been doing it seriously enough to get a finished model. You can find him here: http://xeregon.deviantart.com/art/Nickel-the-raindeer-thunderbuck-whatever-418120153. Note that this is a first in several respects. I've been meaning to make a pony animation for about a year now, featuring my 'Fluttershy on steroids' OC, but it never got off the ground and with what happened with JanAnimations I figured it'd be better off as another fanfic, really. It's not worth the hassle if it can get pulled so easily. I did make some plans and I do have some idea of what goes into it, though. I have books on the topic, I mean.
Anyway, in terms of 3D animated movies I don't catch the most recent ones, I just umm, how do I put this... ah, what normal people call 'Christmas holidays', I call 'those two weeks I just tape whatever the BBC decides to air'. I'm a huge fan of the How to Train Your Dragon movie, I think it's Dreamworks' best, haven't seen the sequel trailer because apparently it has spoilers (another reason I'm avoiding FimFiction: too many spoilers while I'm avoiding Season 4), and haven't seen any full episodes because the Dutch dub makes it insufferable, pretty much. Ninja Turtles was a great reboot, right up to the latest season which is also insufferable because of the dub butchering my native tongue. The Maya reboot is a great children's series I would gladly let any of my potential hellspawn watch, and Sophia the First I've caught snippets of, and I liked what I saw. Care Bears I can't watch for too long, because the children's designs make them look slightly parasprite-ish, and Doc McStuffins looked okay from what I saw, but way too childish for me to sit through. I'm sure it's not as bad in English, and giving kids medical advice in a language they understand sounds like a great concept.
Now with all that said, where do the three FF trailers rank? The first one looked way too bright and pink, and the lens flare was over the top, especially at first. That's compositing; someone had to add that. Some of the shades around Rose were a little too marked as well, that's a lighting and materials thing. All in all, that looked more like the opening to a video game than a series.
Second trailer, with the cupcakes. Very nice details on the textures, especially Will. I can't remember seeing specularity maps used so cleverly (that's making the lips and glitter on the wings shinier than the rest of the body). The models are shown off with big closeups, so we see all the detail on their coats, and all the facial animation and best guess at topology. When you look at the toy site and see the 2D designs, there's a little curl going from the nose to the lip that's on, I think, every face. That's translated well to 3D. Good detail on reflections in floors and windows, too: you can see the stool Battiwigs is hit with from the window behind him. That's not really necessary for quick shots like that, and reflections take processing power, so it's showing effort. Besides which, the hair is simulated, not animated. You can see one of the strands in Lynn's mane push against her face as she talks. That's the sort of thing you typically see in movie productions, not as much in series. But in movies, if they go that far, they add particle hair. Contrast the Kung Fu Panda movie with the series and count how many hairs Po has in each. One will be a lot easier than the other.
Speaking of which, the character models themselves look inspired by the ones from Niko and the Way to the Stars (criminally underrated movie). I'm a big fan of that design and topology, even used it as an example for my own raindeer and going to use it for pony models in the future. That's the linked picture, btw, you can see how the facial expression is exagerrated to include the eye area. In FF they do something similar, but only up and down, not tilting the brow as much.
Then latest trailer. Lots of neat technical stuff being shown off here. Animated transparency, particle effects, rigs that let the Fillies sit comfortably without breaking their legs (this means you, Hasbro). I'm still not sure if they can spread their arms without stretching, but they shouldn't need to, I guess. No real closeups to show off the textures, but the background materials have been tweaked and the fill lights look brighter, I think. Haven't gotten to mastering lighting yet. More facial shapes being shown off, oh, and it looks like they're using baked Pixar eyes instead of the normal ones, that's another clever thing about it. With eyes that big, regular Pixar eyes can look like satellite dishes. I fully speculate on the rigs yet, but at the very least they have FK/IK switching on the legs, which is considered essential but tricky to set up in some programs (they made that into a single button in Blender :3). FK/IK determines if the hands move because you turn the arm, or if th earm bends because you're pulling the hand. One allows you to animate arcs better, the other is best for straight lines.
But compared to the rest? The textures are on the high end for a series, with spec maps thrown in to good effect. Princess Sophia only has colour maps, and I'm pretty sure those eyes are projected (ie painted on) whereas Filly eyes are the baked Pixar variety (meaning they made an eye with actual depth, took a picture and then mapped that data on an actual sphere, roughly spoken). The simulations for water and chocolate goo look low-grade, but at least they don't explode like in Food Fight. Being able to narrow pupils is fairly basic blend shape work, and it doesn't look like the Fillies can move their crowns (yet), but all in all I think it's pretty well made, technically. I hesitate to call it high-end, though, because I don't know what passes for high-end nowadays. But if you want to know what the bare minimum is with old technology, look up Elephant's Dream and Big Buck Bunny on the Blender Foundation channel. Those were advanced years ago, but those guys didn't have to cheat to make anything longer.
|