I have had blender for quite some time now and I have yet to actually do something with it as far as animation. So I was watching a thing on tv about superman and thought I would love to just remake one of the Max Fleischer cartoons. I picked the mechanical monsters episode and began working on the Superman model. It took me about a day or so to get everything the way I would like it. I used references from as many tv superman actors as I could put into one model. I used Kirk Alyn, Dean Cain, Brandon Routh, George Reeves and of course Christopher Reeves. I only used certain things from them, like Dean Cain’s dark suit and build, Kirk Alyn’s hairstyle, Brandon Routh’s s shield and Chistopher Reeves’ eyes. To me my Superman looks more like Kirk Alyn than any of the rest.
Here’s a screenie:
Yesterday I did the rigging of the model, but it still needs some work, since I do not have the facial rig or fixed the pinching of the mesh. I kinda got excited to see him take off and just stopped there.
Last night and today I have just been playing around with the cape and trying to keep the at a certain height but it keeps strecthing way beyond the models feet. Anyone know how to stop that? The cape does not have any armatures, it just has the goal on the shoulders.
Edit: Please do Comment as I will continue to go on with this project. I do need some help here and there, If possible please watch the video of the cartoon I will try to replicate and make comments on where you might see me running into problems.
Well thank you both! I thought I would share the robot model that I made since I last posted on here.
I will add more to it with stuff like wires and hoses to give a little realism without going overboard. Next I have Lois, the scientist, police, and some screaming people.
You are right about the cartoons being great. I have the dvds, so I took the episode that I want to remake and I broke it down into images using virtualdub to use as reference for the timeline and action. That doesn’t mean I won’t put my own little flare to it. Hope you all enjoy!
I have done some more simple work on this cartoon. It is not much, but trying to make electricity arc is a challenge when you know nothing on how to make it work. I think I have it though and I wanted to get all of your input on it. It is a simple plane with a image squence. I tried a video texture, but as you can see in the videos, the plane has no transparency, so I use images and received a better result.
I made the superman title and I think it came out almost identical with the exceptions of the zoom in.
I do have a few questions. How do I make the flash behind the word “SUPERMAN” and how would I go about making the light trail behind superman as he flies around?
Here are the videos:
LOW RES: (compiled with movie maker)
HIGH RES: (compiled with blender for the first time)
doesn’t look too much cartoonish, more realistic. And yes, I know Fleischer’s Superman design was “realistic” as in super-hero-comics-from-the-30s realistic. Perhaps “take out” some of that shading and muscle details?
you should also do something about that stiff cape…
The cape is only stiff until the cloth physics takeover. I was thinking of doing this with cel shaders, but I have to see what that would look like. Thanks for the c&c.
