A couple weeks ago I started animated a short 15 sec animation to test eevee as a production engine. after some delays (camping ), I’m on track to finish this, so I’m going to keep a WIP thread to catalogue the process and the things I’m learning.
GOALS:
1: a short 15 sec animation
2: with a detailed character
3: rich, animated environment with props and plants
4: and a wide environment shot
You can see the current WIP here, rendered in Eevee:
Still very much in a blocking stage, but the character animation is 80% there, which is the big time suck for me.
(the floating thing in the sky that gives him pause will be a blimp )
I’ll try to keep this updated, and I know that I will have questions that I will need answered. There’s a lot of great features being added to 2.8 that I’m super not familiar with.
Actually the one I struggled with a bit most recently is the new static override system. I couldn’t find any information on how it works, but on the file I used it, it seemed to make the entire linked collection local, instead of just the object that I wanted to make a static override of. If anyone has any info on how to use it, that would be super helpful!
I’ll throw in a couple more images of production so far before I close out.
This is certainly impressive work. The only thing that I felt that I saw in the animation – and I saw it even in the thumbnail clip – is “that pause” when the character holds that pen out to one side in his left hand, and, for about a half-second, seems frozen in place. There should be no pause either in the movement of his hand nor in the change of his expression: certainly the two must not pause at the same time.
If, for example, the character’s expression went to a slightly-eyes expression (not now seen), then immediately started into the frown while the pen continued to hang in mid-air, it would read as an “absent-minded motion” as the character made an important mental decision. (And the motion of his eyebrows would not be synchronized with that of his eyes.) However, thereafter his expression would not completely lose that frown as he subsequently bent down to go into the next move.
To my way of thinking, “the eyes have it.” Therefore, they must be in almost constant motion from one expression to another. And, they should very-slightly anticipate other motions of the face.
This looks like it’s going to be awesome!
I would love to see more if more was possible.
You seem really busy so, I’m not holding my breath.
If, and I mean if and hope you make it bigger, if you need help with assets, animation, voice-work and textures I would love to help free of charge. Guaranteed!
I’d just be happy to have something cool on my resume.
@sundialsvc4 Cheers m8, good thoughts. Definitely the facial animation is the weakest part, and I plan on coming back to that. the eyes certainly have it! I like your suggestion, I got a little lost while working on it, so the input is appreciated!
@Camos1011 Thanks man! The plan is for this to just be a short Eevee demo thingy, but I’m working on this looking toward the future. If this works out, long term I’d love to produce a short in Eevee!
In the meantime I’ve been blocking out the assets I’m going to use… most of the main structures are there.
I had trouble getting the grass to work. Seems that when you use custom normals, eevee doesn’t know how to interpret them. Removing them fixed the random black spots that appeared, but leaves the traditional problems that comes when using cards for grass.
I’m happy because it looks like eevee can deal with some pretty complicated node trees. I’m excited to push it to the limit of what it can do!
Things I’ve learned:
#1: for some reason, uv maps don’t work with any modifiers that change the geometry. ie, boolean modifers, solidify modifiers. Not sure what’s going on there. Clip and extend in the texture mapping options also doesn’t work. oO
#2: making bump maps with real time feedback is sweeeeeeeet.
#3: Places that I would otherwise plan on AO darkening/pushing into the background you can’t count on in eevee, obviously. Example: white window curtains in shadows are really bright. I’ll probably make those artificially darker to push further back in the background. Just from a design standpoint, I don’t want some of those items standing out.
That’s the story! this week I plan on pushing out the material library and texturing the rest of the scene! I don’t have a solution for the background yet. We’ll get there.
random object info doesn’t work in eevee atm. I got around it with the array modifier’s new UV offset though! Plug it into a noise texture with a small grain, and you get basically the same thing. example:
I spent Saturday trying to work on Newt’s face, but I messed up linking him… I used the static override system to link him in, and now I’m not sure how to replace him without breaking a couple dependencies. I have to figure out what’s going on there before I fix what’s going on with him.
it’s not quite a solution… if someone wants to take a look at it and figure it out, that would be awesome! Regardless of how broken it was, it gave me enough information to get what I needed. One smoke sim + photoshop later:
My stumbling block is figuring out how to fade out particles in eevee… using particle age in the material didn’t seem the work. Anyone have any luck with that? I call upon the collective brain of blenderartists!
Jaw dropping stuff going on here. I’m completely in love with the style and atmosphere of your animation and I’m looking forward to seeing the final thing. Keep up the good work!
Looking really good man! Super impressive to even come this far by yourself. I look forward to seeing some more progress. Can eevee not do image planes with transparency?
Agreed, what’s even more impressive is getting all of this done in alpha software. It does show that Blender 2.8 is already starting to become capable and should be far more so when the release comes.
Hey all, thanks for the love! I appreciate it a ton!
I’ve been on a stumbling block a little bit with the way my character was linked into the scene. I tried to use the new static override system, and ran into a problem where I was locked in (I accidentally overrode everything I think?) and couldn’t update him at all! I banged my head on that to no avail… it kinda was a stumbling block for the past week.
Now, however, I’ve relinked him in via the good old proxy system. This allows me to use blender 2.79 for animation, which is a good thing, and link the animation into 2.8… especially awesome on double screens. Back in business!
For me, the last major peice of this puzzle is his facial animation, and the details of the character model. I plan on spending some time on that before I can wrap this up. Now that the technical problems are out of the way, I hope to power through and finish it up!
cheers mate, even with how broken some things are, I super feel like Eevee is a game changer for blender. In the right hands, a lightweight production could be supercharged with the minimal render times.
Eevee can for sure! What I’ve ran into problems with is using transparency via particle nodes, seems like not all of that stuff has been hooked up yet unfortunately
), I’m on track to finish this, so I’m going to keep a WIP thread to catalogue the process and the things I’m learning.
)
The plan is for this to just be a short Eevee demo thingy, but I’m working on this looking toward the future. If this works out, long term I’d love to produce a short in Eevee!
I’ll probably make those artificially darker to push further back in the background. Just from a design standpoint, I don’t want some of those items standing out.
I got around it with the array modifier’s new UV offset though! Plug it into a noise texture with a small grain, and you get basically the same thing. 
Anyone have any luck with that? I call upon the collective brain of blenderartists!
I’ll give it a go!