Well, its been a couple of months in the making, but my best content thus far is all together and ready to show off to local (and interstate/overseas I guess) companies. Thanks to those who have commented in the ‘Focussed Critique’ threads, those hints directly helped make this better. Without further ado…
Unfortunately, the compression makes everything a bit more ‘pale’, particularly James Bond, but on the uncompressed version for DVD they are fine. Will post a better transcoded file when/if I can make one.
Also, from the reel, I have two textured models for people to download and have a play with, Bond and Davy Jones. I was aiming to make a normal mapped Davy, but having problems with the toon shader SSS method and a normal map. Of particular note, if you move the spotlights, the skin textures should give off quite varied renders, especially Davy.
great reel!
i dont know if this issue has been raised yet, but editing the video to music - wipes, accelerating rotation and glowy stuff (although it looks absolutely cool!) - might not be such a good idea… in my experience, most recruiting offices just end up watching everything with sound switched off (with character anim stuff being the exception) and those shiny cool editing effects just tend to look weird.
anyways, this might not be such an issue, but i thought i’d point it out… it definitely has a big wow factor!
foCus and thoro- Thanks, I’ll let people know how I get on, particularly seeing as the bulk of this reel has ‘Blender’ written all over it.
@ndy - First up, kudos on Elephants Dream and all the other stuff you’ve done, big fan. The visual presentation issue got raised in the Focussed Critique thread, it used to be more like that, mainly with the glaring background stuff. I’m going to take the chance and leave it I think. I’m pretty confident that the music isn’t necessarily ‘masking’ the quality of the work as such if they turn the sound off. It’ll hopefully stand out as something different in the odd chance they leave it on. The wipes/flashes however… James Bond and the Mech Warrior don’t have any sudden jumps and I think the rest work ‘ok’ soundless (I’ve watched it a couple of times without), although that might just be me defending what I’ve already done.
Turned out really nice. I tend to agree that the flares/glow is a bit distracting, especially on the pirate at the end there. Very distracting. You lose the detail in the model.
Overall, you have definitely shown that you can model and texture very well. Great effort.
One suggestion: I see that you give credits at the end of the demo. What might have more impact with a potential employer would be to give more detail. For example, is Davy Jones entirely your creation, or a derivative work. If the latter, credit the original, then give details about your interpretation.
Or maybe you’ve already instructed about this at university. Nevermind.
And good luck!
The encoding should run on a wider range of machines, use Quicktime if possible.
Changes:
Removed most of the flashes and all of the coloured background, replaced with dark grey background because something was still needed to boost the edges of darker model areas.
Simplified the editing (cuts) in most places, still one or two jumps for ‘wow’ factor I guess, but overall smoother to watch.
Added credits for non original concepts (although I did all the modelling/texturing you see.) Originally this was to go on the ‘cover sheet’, but just in case it isn’t read.
Added semi transparent wireframes to parts two more of the models. Was going to do all of them, but somehow lost 3 of my .blend files with the camera move, (still have all the models.)I think that’s it. I’ve got a bit of an ‘editing’ background, so it took a lot of hints for me to tone down that side of it, but I think the work itself is more of a focus now as it should be. Now off to make some phone calls!
I know it’s already in there, but I have to think that the inclusion of Davy Jones is a mistake. The one in the movie is absolutely, convincingly real. Yours just isn’t. It’s very good, but using it invites comparison to the original, and you do not come out on top. Sorry. Unless you can show a still render in composite that looks as good the original, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
The only other thing I noticed was some bad aliasing artifacts on the edges of the car’s hood as it rotates.
I hope that was a joke. That is a replica and it’s famous character. Atleast when someone is going to hire him they are going to connect with that model cause they have seen it before.
