After I finished the Fundamentals list of courses I decided to try to model something entirely on my own to practice. I ended up working with photos from helmets of teams I work with, and here is the first attempt of animation with it.
Let me know what you think! Would love some feeback so I can start training my eye for 3D. What do you see that could be improved?
ps. I first added this as a project. Not sure where that lives and since I was seeking feedback I thought I'd post it here too. Sorry if I doubled anything up.
That is super super awesome Nat. The model is great and everything works just fine. I think perhaps if you're having doubts is because composition and presentation is a huge beats and totally separate from doing 3D. It's so hard when you finally complete a model and you know you're got something in your mind and then you realize presenting the model is a whole other challenge and now you don't have any energy for it. In your case presentation feels great, but I bet you have in your mind all those fancy sports channel animations that have a lot of momentum and cuts and make it all feel energetic. It's a lot of work, but if you have the time, I think you can iterate and try more stuff, lens flares, more cuts, different angles, dramatic lighting, etc. Try it in Evee as a way of making a sort of storyboarding process before you commit.
Very true! I was overwhelmed with the thought of modeling it from photos, then overwhelmed with UV unwrapping... but somehow those were a lot faster than I imagined (I think the time I spent with the fundamentals courses did pay off after all!).
Then when it came to lighting I was staring at an empty viewport for a long time. Very tough. So much easier in real life when you only have this equipment and that will have to do. In 3D we have any equipment we want and that is a bit much lol.
Thanks Omar! I'll definitely play with more angles! I can't render it in Eevee for some reason, but I wonder if I can still work with viewport renders maybe? Just had that thought. Thanks again for the feedback!
Hi Mathalia,
Yeah, I agree with Omar. And it's a fantastic result!
Some notes (and those are just random thoughts from someone who isn't very good at presentation, so, to be taken with a pinch of salt...) the animation of the logo's could maybe be a bit 'snappier'. Also I don't really know what I should focus on, the helmets or the logo's, both are 'screaming for attention'.
Yeah I also agree with the above!
One thing I notice, when you switch from one helmet to the next, a short fade out and fade in transition (0.5 seconds?) would be better than just a sudden change.
Same again when switching to the shot of both.
The only other critique is the second (blue) helmet single shot is closer to the camera, personally I think the framing should be the same.
These are just little details, following your efforts and troubleshooting in the forum, you stuck with it and the result is an awesome reward.
Excellent work.
You may find these courses helpful to polish it a little more...
Directing the camera
Animation Bootcamp - In chapter 5 in particular there are some lessons on anticipation with translation and scale, plus some exercises, Wayne demonstrates these with motion graphics examples. This could help make the logos a little more dynamic.
The VFX I think are perfect for the animation.
Thanks for sharing your work, all in...
I think it is awesome. I❤️it.
Wow, thank you all for the great feedback! I'll later add more pieces to my project page with other uses of the model where I try and apply all of these tips. You guys rock!
And also thank you for all the tips along the way with the modeling, then materials, then rendering... it took a while but I wanted to only tackle the next part when I finished the related courses. But here we are, I'm on my last course of the fundamentals (the Animation Bootcamp) and thought I'd take a quick break to finish this project since there wasn't much movement, and now I learn I should have waited for chapter 5! I'll make sure to finish it before adding pieces to this project.
As for the helmets and the logos being fighting for the visual importance, I totally agree... I wasn't sure what to add as secondary animation to add detail to the frames and while I think they helm the energy maybe I should make them less contrasty and/or smaller? I'll play with it. Thanks Martin!
Nice! I did indeed want to make one sequence that have that darker revealing vibe. Turns out it is even harder to do that kind of lighting for my brain. I'll tackle that next!
Thanks for the tips! I'll start updating it on the project page!
Thank you ttmtigran! I'm pretty excited that so far the only notes were on presentation ... maybe it's because I didn't show any macro shots yet 😅
Whenever you need a break from the crazy dense fundamental classes (I at least needed those lol) take a peek at the sci-fi helmet modeling. Omar recommended it when I started these models and it was super helpful despite the older looking BlenderUI. Also the Modeling Bootcamp... I pretty much started the same as we did the cartoon head.
Looking forward to seeing your models soon! :)
nathitappan I intend to. Problem is I'm not subscribed yet. I was one of the ones that got the fundamentals courses from Humble bundle. Trying to save up for the year subscription.
ttmtigran Nice! Honestly the fundamentals alone can take a long time to go through... I have been studying every day for almost 6 months now and I'm just now done with it... So take your time and enjoy the ride!