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Fellow dimensionalists--
From my recent sticking of the nose into threads here...
I think we can agree that it all comes back to:
1.)What works best for you, and
2.)What it is you are trying to communicate.
I wrote a Netscape Press book on multimedia back when Netscape was a real company, and I sort of tore apart the term "multimedia" as a vague buzzword for anything that animates, is the least interactive, and plays sounds. This dysfunctional definition would leave Director as the perfect multimedia creation tool, would it not?
Let's do a reality check here. A lot of us are into 3D simply because of the fun and wonder of it; the same goes for 3D animation. We often replicate stuff from around the house or parked in the driveway due to a need to see how far we can push this virtual creation thing. Can we really fool the viewer into thinking that's a real human ("Shreck" comes darned close)? Later this year, director Nicole (his first name escapes me, but he directed "Gattica" with Ethan Hawke and Ula Thurlman) is going to release a movie called "Simone", where for the most part, the actress is played by a bevy of Silicon Graphics workstations. I wish him luck.
PIXAR comes from the other school that says if something is impossible to make look real, don't try. So "Toy Story" has Gumby-like people, perfect plastic toys and realistic outdoors scenes (on par with Bryce, right?)
Here comes the point (FINALLY!): "Multimedia" means "many media". To my way of thinking, that means exactly, "Explaining something with different kinds of media." Suppose for example, you wanted to explain a paperclip (NOT Clippy...MS is killing him off, thank goodness<g>) to someone who had never seen a paperclip. First, I guess, you'd use words and hand gestures. Failing that, you'd draw a picture on a piece of paper. But the drawing doesn't tell the ignorant guy here that the paperclip is shiny metal. So you do a model of it. Finally, to give ignorant person an idea of what it's tensile characteristics are, you play a wav or aiff file of a paperclip being dropped on the floor.
One medium might do it for explaining a paperclip, okay? But it takes many media to replace the act of showing something in real life.
I really like what Alvy (co-founder of PIXAR) Smith has to say of modeling. He says it's a "visualization solution."
Think about that for a moment. Isn't that what we're here for? Isn't that a noble kinda definition?
Kindest Regards,
Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!
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Fellow dimensionalists--
From my recent sticking of the nose into threads here...
I think we can agree that it all comes back to:
1.)What works best for you, and
2.)What it is you are trying to communicate.
I wrote a Netscape Press book on multimedia back when Netscape was a real company, and I sort of tore apart the term "multimedia" as a vague buzzword for anything that animates, is the least interactive, and plays sounds. This dysfunctional definition would leave Director as the perfect multimedia creation tool, would it not?
Let's do a reality check here. A lot of us are into 3D simply because of the fun and wonder of it; the same goes for 3D animation. We often replicate stuff from around the house or parked in the driveway due to a need to see how far we can push this virtual creation thing. Can we really fool the viewer into thinking that's a real human ("Shreck" comes darned close)? Later this year, director Nicole (his first name escapes me, but he directed "Gattica" with Ethan Hawke and Ula Thurlman) is going to release a movie called "Simone", where for the most part, the actress is played by a bevy of Silicon Graphics workstations. I wish him luck.
PIXAR comes from the other school that says if something is impossible to make look real, don't try. So "Toy Story" has Gumby-like people, perfect plastic toys and realistic outdoors scenes (on par with Bryce, right?)
Here comes the point (FINALLY!): "Multimedia" means "many media". To my way of thinking, that means exactly, "Explaining something with different kinds of media." Suppose for example, you wanted to explain a paperclip (NOT Clippy...MS is killing him off, thank goodness<g>) to someone who had never seen a paperclip. First, I guess, you'd use words and hand gestures. Failing that, you'd draw a picture on a piece of paper. But the drawing doesn't tell the ignorant guy here that the paperclip is shiny metal. So you do a model of it. Finally, to give ignorant person an idea of what it's tensile characteristics are, you play a wav or aiff file of a paperclip being dropped on the floor.
One medium might do it for explaining a paperclip, okay? But it takes many media to replace the act of showing something in real life.
I really like what Alvy (co-founder of PIXAR) Smith has to say of modeling. He says it's a "visualization solution."
Think about that for a moment. Isn't that what we're here for? Isn't that a noble kinda definition?
Kindest Regards,
Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!
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Ya I agree whole heartedly with all that Gary.
For those of you who are interested there is a movie being released soon of the famous Final Fantasy series which has a huge ammount of incredible CG work in it.Actually I might be wrong on second thoughts it might all be CG,but what I have seen of it so far is just mind blowing artwork.
Stu.
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How hard was that book to model Gary?
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The movie, Final Fantasy, is being released Wednesday, July 11th. It is entirely 3d animated, pushing the limits of photorealistic human animation to the very limits. New levels of human animation will certainly being reached. This movie should be well worth seeing, if not for the animation purposes alone. I've been waiting 2 years for this movie, and I will most definitely be seeing it on opening night. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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Earl you might find Amazonsoul.com pretty interesting as its the home of Rene Morel who designed a lot of the characters for the Final Fantasy movie,and man is that guy talented.
After you have seen the movie please let me know what you thought of it as I will have to wait a couple of months longer to see it.
Stu.
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Hi Kiwi--
The book was actually quite simple. What do you *really* see in the book? It's got page paths that are simple extrusions, likewise the spine, a few pages sticking out of the book (done by inserting 2D curved planes into the geometric surface of the main pages object), and then to distract the eye, I added text to the pages by using XARA's (or corelDRAW's, this is an older piece)envelope filter on some text, and then exporting it to Photoshop as an eps file, placed over the pages and flattened the image.
By the way, if this piece does not look like others I've shamelessly littered this forum with, it's because this is a genuine RenderMan rendering.
It's a different atmosphere and textural look.
Best Regards,
Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!
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Kiwi--
Here's the Illustrator drawing I used to make the book.
Does it seem easier now?
Best Regards,
Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!
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That guy's work on faces is by far the most realistic and best I've ever seen. I wish I knew what software he used, if it's commercial (not that I'd get the same results. Did you watch the animation of Mika's face???
BTW, if you're using Windows and want to save any of the animations to watch again, go to your cache and pull a copy out onto the desktop, a la:
Documents and Settings\Your Name here\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files.
This is not a well-known trick.
Kindest Regards,
Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!
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Thanks for that explanation Gary.I cant get over the lighting on the book itself it looks like you could just pick it up and start turning pages as the lighting is just so subtle.
I think Rene Morel uses Maya and Photoshop for texturing.I did notice they are both Fine arts graduates though.Isnt it astounding what that guy can do with polygons,its just so realistic and when you take into account that it was shaped from a square block its even more amazing,I really take my hat off to that guy.
There is also a Final Fantasy web site as well which has incredible artwork yet again,but I cant remember if the url is finalfantasy.com but it might be.
Cheers.
Stu.
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My first guess would be Maya as well. Though, that's based entirely on 'instinct'.
Though, any one of the major 3d apps could produce such results - especially in such talented hands as his.
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I crawled around the site (Morel's) a little further and found his description of technique/tools. He uses no 3D scans, and he uses Maya 3.
BTW, if anyone wants to get in to a fiscal arguement with their spouse, Maya 4 is coming out next month. I'm going to go for it, because:
•In the words of Einstein, "The need for self-expression is sometimes greater than food and shelter."
•I need to shake some of the shackles off. By this, I mean I'm growing wearing of a multi-program solution to my work. Every stinking model I finish has required at least 4 to 6 programs to pull off. Below is the most ambition one I ever did. It took a week.
Life is too short, you know?
Kindest Regards,
Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!
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Gary,
Great image, and I feel your pain. I would be interested in hearing your feelings about MAYA if you get it. I just wonder if it is, an all-in-one all incompassing program. Of course I could never afford it myself, but maybe My wife who teaches could. (education version) and just maybe she would let me use it sometimes. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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I think that guy Rene Morel could come up with that result with any 3d app,and my next question is,is Maya that much better than other 3d apps? or is it just that people assume it is and flock to it,for instance surely at his {Morels} level its more about artistic skill than the app itself.And I would think that when you understand the modelling side of your soft about as well as you can then it comes down to art theory alone.
What do you guys think.
Stu.
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On newsgroups there are always application wars going on. In short, the answer to your question is: no. Maya isn't 'that much better' than other 3d apps (though it is 'that much more expensive'). [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] Maya is another tool, fairly new in comparison to the veteren applications. Maya is generally considered one of the top character animating applications. It's render quality is considered decent, though many still opt to use an outside render engine. But again, anything done in Maya could be accomplished in Softimage, or LightWave, etc (and vise versa). It's more about personal workflow - if someone's mind thinks along the same lines as the application is built - then that application is for them.
Try the demo out for free. See for yourself. When it comes down to raw power, it's silly to say that one application has more beef than another (at least when comparing on the same level).
As an example: LightWave is the only off the shelf 3d application that has been used to create an entire movie. No other application can make this claim. Does this make LightWave better than the rest? Of course not - because had the studio decided otherwise, they could have used any one of the other major applications.
Anyhow...when it comes down to it, it's the artist behind the application that determines the power of the software.
My humble opinion. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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Ya I totally agree with your opinion on that Earl.
It makes me wonder though if its actually Mayas marketting department that has made them appear to be more desirable over the years.
Apart from the demo there is no way I will ever be able to afford to use Maya as it would be about 37 thousand dollars here {choke} at the moment,and I would rather put a good chunk down on a house [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] And you are right it comes down to the individual skill and talent of the user and there choice of application.
Good luck with Maya anyway Earl.
Cheers.
Stu.
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Damn I mean good luck Gary.
I have a Neurological condition which has a habit of regularly htrowing a spanner in the works,so if I call someone by the wrong name I apologize in advance.
Ps do Yas think grey matter can become anti matter?
Yours Neuronally challenged [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
Stu.
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Hehe, don't worry Stu, I think that runs in my family too (the mixing up of names).
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Earl, Stu...
I feel as though you all are disapproving of my taking out a mortgage and getting to know a program that seems to offer a lot. The point is a moot one right now: it's $16,000 US with all the plug-ins.
My *point* is that I am frustrated because I had LightWave sent to me (authors get free software to review sometimes), I bought StrataPro, I had 3DS Max sent to me...and I'm f___king clueless.
I thought that as long as I'm clueless with $4,000 software, I might as well take the financially suicidal plunge and become clueless with an industrial program.
Ah...I think I'm going to be doing my best with trueSpace and E3D as the modeling program for quite a while...
JUst, please, don't get the idea that your humble moderator is a sucker for "name brands" in modeling. Hey, I shop at K-MKart and I'm not ashamed to say it! <g>
Yours,
Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!
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I didn't mean to make it sound like it was a bad decision at all. I have a lot of respect for Maya. It's a powerful program - they strive to make it 'the best', and for that reason it's one of the programs that comes out with truly innovative ideas. I have seen some truly awesome images come out of Maya. The only problem I have with Maya is the price tag. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] I think it's way over-priced. Same with Softimage. Both programs, in my opinion, should be down around the price range of LightWave and 3D Studio Max (well, a bit more if you include all of Maya's plugins). It also frustrates me when others get the impression that an application that is made untouchable by its price is 'the best' simply because it holds the highest price tag (I feel the same way about PhotoShop).
But, even with it's price tag, I don't feel that people who purchase Maya are 'suckers'. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] Heck, most people who read my posts probably get an idea of how much I love LightWave - if NewTek decided to raise their price tag by 10 grand, I'd still try to squeeze out the upgrades. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
Just out of curiousity, what versions of 3ds and LightWave did you try out Gary? I tried version 3.5 of 3ds (I believe). It was about a year ago...I was utterly clueless in that program (and found I didn't have the patience to learn a whole new one).
