Dust to Dust Trailer

[Siliconmaster]

Hey everyone,

It's been a while, but our semi-machinima series is definitely still in progress. We made a new trailer over the summer, which took forever to render, but it's finally done and we feel it's ready for release. This time we focused more on the look and feel of the planned series rather than specific plot elements, like we did with our original trailer (http://halomovies.org/index.cfm?pg=3&fid=1701). In addition, it is now fully animated, so everything looks a lot better than it used to. Thanks to Whiplash Daemon for the animating, as well as Ice Dragon for the city set itself.

We have 3 different resolutions:

High: http://useruploads.mythica.org/view/D2D_Trailer_High_Res.wmv.html

Medium: http://useruploads.mythica.org/view/D2D_Trailer_Medium_Res.wmv.html

Low: http://useruploads.mythica.org/view/D2D_Trailer_Small_Res.wmv.html

Comments and feedback are welcomed.

Also, as a note, we are looking to expand the team to try to overcome the crippling process of set building and animating. At the current time we are open for anyone interested in modeling sets for us in 3ds max. It would help greatly to have texturing experience as well, but is not necessary.

My email is siliconmaster482@gmail.com, or you can PM me if you're interested.

[~ZMT~Trace]

Its nice, but my only complaints are the cars moved too fast, it should of had more cars, & the Spartans should of been "fidgeting". (leaning back & forth & ect)

[FRain]

Spartans were motionless. Unless they are stuffed creations, they should have been breathing back and forth (leaning like trace said).

[SnaFuBAR]

It was ok. I'm not sure if the Spartans were supposed to be totally clueless about the cruiser above or what, and what was supposed to be happening.

[Siliconmaster]

Truthfully, I'm not surprised that these issues have been brought up. :P When we were animating it, or rather, when Whiplash was animating it, we wanted to focus on the feel, the style, and the world, instead of the storyline. We sort of tried that before, and, partly due to my mish-mash of trailer and partly because it wasn't planned as well as it should have been, it wasn't received quite as well as we had hoped. This is our "we'll play it safe on the symbolism and stuff" version. :D

First of all, the comments about the Spartans are dead-on. I had hoped for some movement, but by the time I pointed that out to Whiplash we were already moving into the rendering process and the decision was made to leave it the way it as. As for them reacting to the cruiser, the original plan was to have a shadow fall over the area, and the civilians look up before the camera did its upward pan. However, due to the same time restraints that was left out as well. There are elements of the storyline throughout that trailer, not necessarily in the same order as it will be, but certainly as a mindset.

As for the cars... you'd have to ask Whiplash about that. :)

If you are interested in the story, there's a general overview on our website. Just click my sig.

Thanks for the comments.

[SnaFuBAR]

I'll be dead honest with you about the trailer. I only saw noticed a few things, which you could say are the trailer in whole.

1) moving camera
2) moving cars/pelicans
3) used and re-used music from halo
4) unclear noise from the TV being watched

how long did that little take?

[Kalub]

Your kidding... all this time, and this is all you accomplished?

I'm definitely with Snaf here, all you had was an over used Camera Pan, some fades, text, some cars that were moving way to fast, and some pelicans. It seemed everything was "stiff" too, like it didn't have any lifeblood to it at all.

Can I ask what methods you used to animate this? Was it just a simple move the slider set a key, repeat, or was it a dynamic operation, with path modifiers, dummies, and other things like that?

[DaneO'Roo]

That animation can be done within mere minutes. That isn't debatable either btw.

[Siliconmaster]

Unfortunately, I do not know exactly how it was animated. I act as the writer, and the general director. I gave Whiplash a description of what I was looking for, and he came back with this. The obnoxious thing about the animation was not the animating itself- in truth I don't think it took more than a few days max. I'm not sure why we never got the bipeds to move. Before that we spent quite a long time getting the textures looking good- that, along with the rendering, took the longest. We're using vray, and each frame is going at 5 minutes or so. Mix that with a computer that only wants to render 100 frames at a time, and you get 3 months of rendering when it should have taken far, far less. I would love if we could get more people to speed things up. I'd rather not have the series itself with stuff left behind and overlooked. And as for the Halo music, we're using all public domain and custom music from here on out. I liked that music though, and decided to work it in.

Now that we have everything prepared texture-wise, etc., we are working on the first episode, or were when Whiplash's internet died. Hopefully he'll regain it soon s we can continue. In the meanwhile I'm trying to se if we can find a way for him to work offline on the project.

[DaneO'Roo]

Vray fucking fails.........

Don't let Whip pull that shitty argument on you. Mental Ray is better, and Mental Ray plus Mayas hypershade is godlike.

Also, why did that take him days to animate? I've done shitty maya practice animation that was more advanced than that, and it took me a whole couple of hours. Not worthy of posting, so I never did.

[Bodzilla]

I have to admit. the City looks awesome.

shame the animations are a bit :\

[Reaper Man]

Vray fucking fails.........

Don't let Whip pull that shitty argument on you. Mental Ray is better, and Mental Ray plus Mayas hypershade is godlike.

Also, why did that take him days to animate? I've done shitty maya practice animation that was more advanced than that, and it took me a whole couple of hours. Not worthy of posting, so I never did.
http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/5884/slheadersk8.jpg
.

[Kalub]

Vray isn't meant to render fast, I would have used mental ray, or Brazil to do that.

I thought you guys had big 'ole render farms set up and everything...

[Siliconmaster]

I thought you guys had big 'ole render farms set up and everything...

Unfortunately, that's what we need. :)

Personally, I am focused on the story elements. I want to create as interesting and engaging a series as possible. When we were using pure in-game machinima, I was happy, but we ran into problems concerning the animation limits and what we could do. Our next plan was to use animation when we needed it, in a way that would blend the two. When Whiplash joined up, he convinced us to switch to full animation, mostly through some nice still renders. I love the new look of the city, but I would be willing to sacrifice graphics for content. However, any nice-looking stuff we can manage is a superb plus. I have become frustrated with the way we have become mired on the "make it look perfect" sandbar. That's one of the reasons I originally started this trailer- it was my chance to see if we could pull off something fully animated. What I have found, via your comments, and also through our own discussions is this:

1.Animation looks very pretty.
2.The process we currently have set up does not work as efficiently as I would like.
3. Unless we find a new way of speeding up production, we'll never get anywhere
4.When something (i.e. the trailer) becomes so prolonged and intricate that people start to get annoyed with it, things happen and important details are dropped. These include the moving civilians and a small jerk at the end of the camera track that could have been easily removed.

The original concept even included some talking and a slightly different idea. However, we went with this to try to make it as simple and easy to make as possible.

Therefore, this is absolutely my opportunity to push the series into real production, not the semi-wandering and constant experimenting that has made up the last 8 months. If anyone has rendering suggestions, lighting tips, and other things, I would be overjoyed to submit a full list to our friend Whiplash. I want this to happen more than anyone.

As Kalub said, "Your kidding... all this time, and this is all you accomplished?"

That just about sums it all up. We have accomplished much, leaned a whole lot, but we haven't been able to use it. Something always gets in the way, usually related to our small team size. Anything too large can lead to more complications, but if we have some more people helping I think we can emerge into the light. :)

[SnaFuBAR]

1.Animation looks very pretty.
2.The process we currently have set up does not work as efficiently as I would like.
3. Unless we find a new way of speeding up production, we'll never get anywhere
4.When something (i.e. the trailer) becomes so prolonged and intricate that people start to get annoyed with it, things happen and important details are dropped. These include the moving civilians and a small jerk at the end of the camera track that could have been easily removed.

1) NOOO! The animation was TERRIBLE! How do you possibly gather that it was very pretty?? There was some reflection but there's absolutely NO SHADOWING on ANYTHING. It looked very flat and mediocre at best. Besides that, there were only 3 things animated. The cars, the pelicans and the camera.

2) No kidding. You're treating your small group like it's Pixar.

3) Go for in-game machinima. Your small group is incapable of full scale animation and rendering.

4) Don't announce something you're not capable of, and not near even producing. It makes it a hell of a lot harder if you attempt something your unfamiliar with.

[DaneO'Roo]

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/5884/slheadersk8.jpg
.

:yawn:

http://static.highend3d.com/galleryimages/129/screen.jpg


http://static.highend3d.com/galleryimages/627/screen.jpg

:mentalray:

[Jay2645]

That's a real picture, right? Not from 3DS?

Wow... It looks so real.
You get a :awesome: smiley and a +rep.

[Siliconmaster]

As harsh as Snaf's post may seem, it does strike close to the truth. I've been thinking for the past few hours about our options. Although at the moment we have put enough effort into preparing all our models and maps for animation that I still lean toward that path, I have a theoretical list of what we have to use:

Full Animation
Pros: Textures and lighting have the ability to look better than in-game; Movement of characters CAN look very nice if done correctly; Allows for complete customization of sets and props relatively easily; No in-game limits

Cons: Requires people who know what they are doing, and are dedicated to working to make things go fast; At the fragmented rate we're going at it will take forever.

Halo CE
Pros: High level of customization; Custom maps and camera tools readily available; Machinima community firmly in place for reference

Cons: Graphics are relatively horrible compared to animation or newer games; Not very realistic looking

H2V
Pros: Looks a lot better than CE; Allows for custom maps

Cons: Requires gold accounts for full online access for filming; Tools for weapons, vehicles, and bipeds still in development. No current fly-cam style hacks as far as I know

Halo 3
Pros: Looks very nice; Forge allows for placement of vehicles and weapons for filming needs; General epic feel about it

Cons: No custom maps- we have a city set, and we need to use it


None of these is perfect, and I would love to revert to in-game filming. However, we will be needing at least intermittent animation to accomplish things such as ship crashes, alien fleets, etc. I'm interested to see what the people here think. I am listening to everything you're saying, and doing my best to be objectively critical of my own work.


Edit: And o_o at the mental ray pics. Very impressive. I was told that mental ray would render much slower than vray. Apparently that was a mistaken idea.

[Pooky]

The word I would have to use is "meh"

The editing was okay, the music choice was okay, the animation was okay, everything was just okay. Nothing really stood out and got me excited, it was all kind of just there. The sad thing is I can see that shot having a lot of potential, the whole thing just needs a lot more feeling put into it, it's quite bland. Keep trying.

[DaneO'Roo]

That's a real picture, right? Not from 3DS?

Wow... It looks so real.
You get a :awesome: smiley and a +rep.

They're both Maya and it's native renderer, Mental Ray.

[DaneO'Roo]

Meh, Vray only ever looks realistic when you see renders of buildings and interiors, because of the easy hard surfaces. A trait of max itself really. Mayas good for organics and max is good for structural. Really all it is is good lighting and shader use. However, every render I've ever seen of a character in Vray still looks 3D, regardless of how detailed the models/textures look.

Even if someone did achieve those same renders in Vray, it'd be much easier to achieve those renders in mental ray and Maya.

[Tweek]

screw fullschale renderers, GO REALTIME!

http://www.nzone.com/docs/IO/42736/screenshot3.jpg

http://www.nzone.com/docs/IO/42736/screenshot1.jpg

^realtime^

[Siliconmaster]

^realtime^

:eek: Wow. What exactly are those using? It's insane.

One other thing I've been thinking about is the purpose of the series. It's to be fun to watch. Would you guys still watch something made in CE? It seems that the series has become more of a visual-perfection journey than anything else. I'm not sure I'm satisfied with that. As Metroid has said, we just didn't do that much with the animation. Instead, we focused on trying to get it nice-looking in terms of the surfaces. To a point, it becomes useless to think we can make a beautifully animated series, because with one animator and a single rendering comp it's impossible. I feel like we've been pushing in a direction that doesn't fit our goals. At this point I just want to find a way to make it well without having to worry about how good it looks. :(

[IceDragon]

I don't usually have time to use the forums, but this matter pertains to me and a bit of work that I have done. I'm basically the prime 3D artist for this project, I designed the majority of North Galeton, although four of the buildings are of Teekups design, and another is of [EJ] Beans (or hailstorms) design. The city itself is, more or less, a show of my personal learning experience at 3D's max, yet a rather out date example to my current ability's.

With that said, I do agree with a majority of your comments. I personally think the project should have used non-halo related references, and a more removed plot. The trailer itself was more of an effort to get something done, after literally over a years worth of toil and big ideas. In fact, what we have from the first episode shows drastic improvement in all areas mentioned quality wise.

One thing I don't understand is why this had to become a big debate as to what is better, mentalray or vray. I appreciate the advice, but next time could you instead just say what you personally think is better, then list why? All the debate did was bring us off topic.

I am open to further questions, and would be happy to show you some of my more current work, cause I like to show off ^-^.

Thanks for the feed back.
-IceDragon