TITLE: Anthrosphinx - Journey. A Sequel to Alien Speed Freak. NAME: Markus Altendorff COUNTRY: Germany EMAIL: maal-irtc20030115@anthrosphinx.de WEBPAGE: http://www.markus-altendorff.de/ TOPIC: Journey COPYRIGHT: I SUBMIT TO THE STANDARD RAYTRACING COMPETITION COPYRIGHT. MPGFILE: maal_jny.mpg RENDERER USED: Cinema 4D R8.1 TOOLS USED: Cinema 4D, Cinema 4D NET, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Lemkesoft GraphicConverter, Apple Quicktime, M.Pack 2 CREATION TIME: approx. 18 days, two full-time weekends, 6 full-time leave days, evening hours on workdays (except one tuesday. birthday party invitation ;-) HARDWARE USED: Apple G4 800 Dual for all kinds of things, AMD Athlon 2400 as render slave ANIMATION DESCRIPTION: "How to spend a day when your boss is in a meeting, and you're sitting on a desert planet? Visiting ancient ruins, of course. And maybe there's more to find there. Except water." Three journeys are part of the movie: The arrival at the desert planet, the walk through the desert, and, ... (no spoiler, sorry! :-) VIEWING RECOMMENDATIONS: * Any MPEG player should do (tested with Windows Media Player, ATI Player, Quicktime Mac 9/X), including VideoLANclient 0.5.2 or higher on MacOS X which doesn't stutter on the audio any more, but seems to introduce more distortion than, say, Quicktime Player. Best results with Quicktime Player and ATI Player, Windows Media Player seemed to emphasize the compression artefacts. * Players that do "soft rescaling", i.e. pixel interpolation, give best results. * Play it at fullscreen and step back to the distance you would use when watching TV, e.g. 2-3 m on a 19" screen. Or play it at 2x size. Or leave it at 240x176. Your choice... * Play it twice. 1. Read the dialogue to get the story. 2. Look at the video. Sorry for the lots of text, but there's a limit to what story you can tell with gestures alone... * General recommendation: Make sure to set up the brightness right. By the way, regarding one comment "it's the artist's job to balance the lighting" - yes, i try. Really. But it's your job to balance your screen. The videos look just fine on mine... * Watch the volume. The composer that helped me out with this one enjoyed bass maybe a bit too much... :-) DESCRIPTION OF HOW THIS ANIMATION WAS CREATED: + Credits / External sources: ----------------------------- Musical score composed and recorded by T. "JoJoJohn" Wessely. Used with permission. Thanks a lot, JoJo! Cloud map of planet: NASA Blue Marble Project http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ "These images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public. NASA images are generally not copyrighted." (NASA Website). Cloud texture at ground level: from my own stock photo collection. + Alterations to the raw renderings: ------------------------------------ Lensflares and highlights are post-process FX built into the Cinema4D render engine. The rendered sequences have been cut and edited in Adobe Premiere for fade-overs between scenes and adding of subtitles. All images are "contrast-softened" (adding a layer of 128/128/128 grey at 8 percent opacity on top of the tracks sequence) in Premiere, to increase the MPEG quality (the algorithm of M.Pack 2 cranks up the contrast, so you've got to soften before). No further enhancements or compositings werde made. + Overview: ----------- I once again started out with a set of sketches on paper right after the announcement of the topic. Another ongoing project interfered, so it's a last-minute rush again. Lots of minor (major?) errors in the motions, "cliche" models ;-), but this time animating was a real learning experience with Cinema 8.1. Almost got a grip on things like "Pose Mixer" (using pre-set arrangements of bones and sliders to "mix" e.g. the fingers of the hand) and "Soft IK" (using rubberband-like forces on joints to create stable, balanced bone positions). Still no real lip-synk yet. This would require to re-build the heads separated from the bodies, and to create deformation meshes for at least the vocals. Maybe later... But then again, who said the original dialogues are in english? :-) + Things i hate about it ------------------------ (So you critics can't say that i hadn't noticed :-) - Compression artefacts. Bah. Horrbile. Doesn't do justice to the effort. Couldn't avoid it, though. Squeezing 3:45 in 10 MB is not for those that value image clarity above all. - The cloud texture is bad along the horizon. Really bad. Sorry. - Animation of the desert "walk" scenes is generally bad, too. These were the first ones i made, although they don't show up until about half of the running time. Walking cycle is horrible, the camera moves too much. - Same goes for the walk through the temple at 2:40 - Amurels right hand is static in the picture: 0:24-0:28, 0:38-0:44 - Amurels right hand stops moving at 0:52 - Ship landing at 1:10 is jerky - Animation is bad at 2:14 (please no "only there?" jokes...) - Wyngz' ear rings don't respond to gravity. - Amurels tail is ... quite un-animated. - "Natural" hair would be nice, but slow... maybe next time. - No heat blur in the desert. - The motion in the scene (3:12-3:14, Amurel finding Wyngz inside the temple) is too slow, but too time consuming in rendering to redo it now, and too short to speed it up by dropping every other rendered picture... - 3:24-3:26 - the wing visible in the background obviously doesn't take the bone mechanics inside it too well. Will have to use another way for animating. - The textures are rather undetailed and/or too repetive. Guess i'll have to get into UV-mapping next and stock up on texture photos. - The temple model was "crincled", but there seems to be an underlying pattern to the crincling. Not natural. The stones should look like eroded by sand. Not enough debris lying around. Sand should have settled along the edges. etc. - Too much text. In a "real" movie, you'd just have the voices on audio, but since that's a "no go" i've opted for the subtitle approach. I KNOW that it's challenging, that's why i recommend watching it at least twice. + Things you SHOULDN'T complain about ------------------------------------- - 3:20-3:25 - Position of iris stays perpendicular to the ground: Believe it or not, but that IS the correct behaviour (up to a limit, of course, you won't twist your optical nerves if you roll over). Look in a mirror, watch the fine veins on your eyeball and then tilt your head... - Amurel talks without breathing from 0:28-0:38... (hey, *i know* people who do this in real life, too... :-) + Things i like about it ------------------------ - 1:57-2:04 Wyngz breaking to her knees is the last scene i made for this animation, mainly because (see above) the walk cycle scenes were horrible. It turned out to be one of the "least worse" sequences. - Guess i haven't learned so much about Cinema in so little time ever before... the surface is definitely scratched. + Technical: ------------ ++ Special F/X: The "shockwave" at the arrival is a square, subdivided 60 times, textured with a fire shader using an odd colour set. Texture is fixated, then the square is warped into a disc that expands over time and eventually fades out. I used this approach 'cause i couldn't find a way to map the fire "bottom up" onto a simple disc. ++ The models: +++ Out of the archive: - "Convertible": the small spacecraft. First appearance in "Alien speed freak" (Jan. 2003) - "Space Eye": the large spacecraft. First appearance in "Alien speed freak" (Jan. 2003) +++ Out of the archive and modified: - "Amurel": the cat-creature is a ongoing "work-in-progress" since Aug. 2000. New this time: the SoftIK bones, face expressions with PoseMix objects. And of course an unwanted complete manual rescaling of the bones... softIK doesn't handle scaled objects well. She's 2.08 meters tall now, by the way. New thumbs and thumb position. - Major overhaul for "Wyngz" this time: Hands and face animated by PoseMixer, skeleton converted to SoftIK bones, manually rescaled. Height is 1.85 meters. Added poly details on the finger joints. Thumbs position remodeled. Textures sort of misplaced, due to the fact that i didn't do a mirror-to-polygon each time i added some new effects. The right half of the body is a mirrored version of the left half - including textures. Work started in Jan. 2001 +++ Completely new models: - The derelict / non-derelict temple. Built mainly from extrusion curves. - The cell-phone like comm unit. Converted and detailed brick. ++ The animation: (see the SPEED description file of the Jan. 2003 round for additional details, i'm still working the same way ;-) This time, facial expressions and hands are controlled with the new PoseMixer control of Cinema4D, which greatly simplifies the setup and animation. Have just started to scratch the surface on that one alone. + My personal comments: ----------------------- Last-Weeks-Type entry again. Torn between processing my panoramic pictures for an exhibition and doing something for the IRTC, i caved in and started building models - with two and a half weeks to the deadline. Just couldn't let the chance to do a sequel animation to "speed" go to waste... + Things i've learned: ---------------------- - Software: "It's expensive" doesn't mean "it's bug-free"... :-) - SoftIK without defined targets is BONE-BREAKING ;-) Think "knees backwards." - Always do a preview render of any animation. If you don't, the final render sure will look bad because you've forgotten something. And there's even a handy menu item for this with Cinema 8.1. - DON'T use global illumination (aka radiosity) unless you've got lots of time or a render farm. The desert scenes with GI were beautiful, but i've opted for a simpler "light from below" approach (reduces render time from 12 minutes to 10 seconds @ 240x176 pixels). + Things on my to-do list: -------------------------- - Add more details on "Wyngz". - Try modelling convincing clothing. - Add a SoftIK chain with gravity dynamics to "Amurel"'s tail. - Maybe add gravity dynamics to other body parts, too... ;-) - Learn how to really use 3D software. - Build a real panoramic camera. - Get a life. ;-) The Anthrosphinx Official Background Story and UAQ (Unasked Questions) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (Generic background storytelling, just for fun while the last 300 pictures crawl from my computer at the glorious rate of 5 to 10 per hour... ) + Who are these creatures, anyway? ---------------------------------- - Amurel, the cat-like one: She's a planetary recorder, i.e. spends most of her time in automated hibernation, and wakes every few years to perform a "memory dump" of the planet she's ordered to watch. Doesn't do much else. No signs that the gathered data is even used. (Sort of like everyday civil service work ;-) Seeing her on the flight to a meeting, like in this story, is rather unusual. Her species isn't limited to one body type - in fact, the actual "body" of the Anthrosphinx class beings is a small sphere the size of a tennis ball. They can adapt to living tissue and even machines, though most of the time they'll use their current biological "container" and breed "follow-up" bodies without brains and have themselves implanted. Lifespan of the core is unknown, and ability limits are unknown, too, since they're just plain lazy and won't easily show 'em. The glowing iris is a mere indicator for mental activity. - Wyngz, the one with the wings... :-) She's a "PETRA", a PErsonal TRansportation Assistant. A "conventional" integrated being, compared to the "discrete" mind/body natur of Amurel. Her one ability is the power to reduce or invert gravity within a sphere of limited diameter around her body, enabling her to carry objects and beings. Source of this power are the luminescent spots on her body. Her wings are not powerful enough for this, they're solely used to control spatial movement perpendicular to the axis of gravity. She lives off light (collected with the wings) and easy to process liquids, blood for example. Doesn't care for garlic, by the way... :-) Due to her limited lifespan, she's the last of a large number of clones Amurel had to replicate. Both know each other for longer than they want to remember... Imagine having the same co-worker for the last few thousand years - that about sums up their relationship. You may switch off any hormone-driven thoughts now. + Are they ... females? ----------------------- - Yes. My, did the MPEG compression do that much damage to the video? - To stay within the story universe: If "female" is defined as "being able to reproduce", the answer is a definite "Yes". + Do male counterparts exist? ----------------------------- - Yes. But they don't matter much, and are more trouble than they're worth... consider this: To reproduce, all you need is some biotech and a body that is able to grow the fetus. No males required. So, why go through all the trouble with territorial fights, "me-stronger-than-u", drinking bouts and other "typical male" characteristics...? Enough of this for now, another of the video sequences is ready... guess i'll continue the story setting on the project's homepage...