I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the
Blender Artists forum and I'm Community Lead at
n8n.
Big CongaCongrats to you! Great work, very smooth and fluid animations! keep up the good work! Wish you all the best :) BLENDER-RULEZ!
I think the characters seemed “unalive”, and not very natural in their animations.
The compositing (fruits) wasn’t blending.
I liked the clouds.
Reel is too long, too much repetitions.
This is trash… I dont understand how this crap is posted…. the character is stiff… no life… very amateur rendering… the compositing is basic… the lightinr loos like BGE…
And of course everybody will say Im out of line….
CRAP CRAP CRAP…. come on guys…. stop posting amateur “works”…
Blender-HonkyDonky: Fluid animation??? jhahahaha.. buy a couple of new eyes, are you his friend?
Rob, why don’t you post some of your super awesome work and teach us a thing or two about how to be the best Blender artist in the whole wide world?
BnBGobo99: This is not about me.. this is about this “demoreel”… and it is crap… i bet you are his friend too…. so stop saying a work is great just because it is made with blender….
This is a very unprofessional attitude. Its easy and lazy to criticize. But if you criticize- lets see a link to your work- otherwise- the comments are empty… Cool stuff Fernando. Working= professional. You could probably teach some of these guys something.
They are probably not hired because they don’t kow how to be respectful. In the real world, talent is only about 1/2 of the equation- you can always grow and learn, but unprofessional employees will cost you your business and career. If they are working, I wonder if they’d rep their company like that without getting axed…
Looks awesome man! Great concepts! Keep it moving!
Most of the people that talk the loudest has the least talent.
Let’s see what you have Rob.
Most people talk the talk but can’t walk the walk.
However guys.. the demo is amateur… and so your comments… stop saying something is cool just because it is made with blender…. I repeat.. this is not about me.. it is about this demo.. and it sucks
((I’m assuming Rob the Great doesn’t have any artwork to show us))
Cool reel. Everything is good, but the animation needs work.
@Rob-blender.
It’s not to do with the reel. It’s to do with your attitude.
Show us your reel or be quiet. There’s a difference between giving constructive feedback and being arrogant.
BnBGobo99: I dont have to show you anything…. but still awful demo
CD: Im not arrogant.. Im just saying this sucks…. so .. you are saying that if a say.. yeah!! good work.. but the animation is stiff.. no good!… the compositing need a lot of work.. and stuff like that .. maybe you will aprove my comment??? hahaha… WHAT-EVER
@Rob-blender
If you can’t see the difference between giving actual useful feedback and saying “CRAP CRAP CRAP. THIS SUCKS” then you’re the one with the problem.
No one is asking you to praise it. They are simply asking you not to be so rude when you comment.
I like especially the commercials in this reel. Very good job done here. From the character animation I like the violin player on the bike the most. What could make them more life like is more secondary movements during their animation.
Anyway, good job. These commercials, were they aired on TV or in the cinema?
Very good work, and nice demo, Fernando!
I really liked the timing of everything in relation to the music… some of those interior renders were tasty! Were they done in Yafaray? And the clouds… really cool… were they created in Blender 2.5?
Now, if you composed and recorded the music yourself, then I am even more impressed! But I truly understand that not everyone is both a musician AND and graphics buff… and, of course, major Hollywood films and all types of artists from all over the world use pre-recorded music a lot… so thats okay either way.
In any event, thanks for sharing with the world, and keep up the good work!
Hello everyone, I am the author of this work, I thank all the comments, all the same, including the critical, which really only serve to make me more and more interest in study and seek to further enhance my little knowledge about This fantastic tool is Blender. I’m still not friends with any of you here, but I hope to make good friends.
After creating this DemoReel’ve done other work that somehow think they have evolved a bit, but that’s it, little by little I tried to create polished with much study and dedication.
Thanks for the posts and sorry for my bad english.
I really liked your interior renders! Keep up the good work! :)
@ Rob-Blender “We didn’t start the flame war…”
Nice architecture visualization, and very beautiful sky-fly shots, and nice music. However, the reel is too long, and the character animations are terrible. Also, keep in mind that good textures, dirt-filled textures, are very important. Thanks for sharing, man.
I don’t know guys where are you from, maybe some small farmers village, where just 1/2 modeler/composer/animator. But this “demoreel” (in fact just a few randomly sewed footages) is a REALY low-level. I understand that everybody was a novice, but there is no need to show your pretty average jobs to whole wide world.
AND by the way – when you watching a movie, you dont need to be a succesfull director or a screenwriter to say, that the movie is crap. :)
Cepreu4: AMEN!!!!
let’s see what you have Cepreu4.
A good effort with a lot of time put into the work. I agree taking blender out of the equation and viewing this purely as a reel the animation is very amatuer, the character designs are unoriginal and the compositing is weak. However i imagine 5 years from now this artist will be producing great work.
David.
First off, you don’t need to be good at something to recognize when it has quality or not, or even to critique it. Fernando, I do not know what your experience level is, but seeing you are freelance I will judge it as I do other freelancers.
I would say this is mostly really low level work. The cloud animation for the titles and the few static room renderings are the strongest parts. I’m not going to critique the individual pieces as that would be a waist of both our time.
Overall it lacks the polish of professional work specifically in the lighting, animation, and shading. I would start by looking at a lot of professional animations every day. http://www.motionographer.com is a good place to start. They post really high quality work. Second I would start doing a lot of experimentation and rendering. Use every bit of free time you have to try and reach that quality level. It’s important you first understand why something is high quality before you try to match it. A helpful way to do this is by taking lots of photographs. This will help you learn about light, shadow, color, texture, and form. Even if your style is cartoony this will still help. Check out http://greyscalegorilla.com/ he has a lot of nice tips for reels. You should also cut the time down. I’d say 30sec MAX. You simply do not have enough quality work to do longer. I would also start doing 5 second short animations that are super high quality so you can add them to your reel. This will also help you develop quality without having to worry about quantity. Only put your very very very very best work on your reel. People can only judge you by what they see.
I hope this helps, check those links I posted.
—
Sincerely,
KevinW
Cepreu4, you can say that without being offensive.
Sure it’s not great, but it’s not “crap”. Everyone, and I mean *EVERYONE* has to start somewhere. Frankly, this is good work for someone who still has a ways to go.
Also, you must understand that not everyone lives in Hollywood. There is local work to be found where Fernando can make use of his demo-reel. He can actually get hired with this depending on where he applies and what kind of job he applies for.
Fernando, keep up the good work, and don’t let the internet-tough-guys get you down. While you have a lot to learn, you’ve demonstrated one important thing that is so lacking amongst the rest of us, and that is the ability to finish what you start.
I commend Fernando for ‘putting it out there’, good or bad. I have yet to finish a lot of my stuff.
Were those ‘Puff’ commercials for a real commercial? If so, good for you!
Hey dudes, its clear these guys were banned from Myspace and Youtube for spamming up the comments- they clearly aren’t pros of any sort. So just ignore them.
If bluntness is their thing, unless someone who is a qualified blender artist talks (and yes “Blender artist” as this happens to be “BLENDER Nation” not CG Talk)- just give them the old:
@Rob-Blender (SPAM)
@Cepreu4 (SPAM)
@banor (SPAM)
and let the little men yell till their hearts content since we don’t take it seriously. They seem to like the blunt thing it makes them feel empowered- so let em post with some “Blender-based advice” and back it up, or let em be spam! Blender is highly technical software that takes years to learn well. You don’t see pros commenting like this at the other software sites. So ignoring them is the best thing for a pro.
Guys, don’t argue. Can’t we just say what we think about his work? Ok, some opinions aren’t much constructive (Eg: “It sucks”), but it always good to get the feedback of the work, even when they are negative criticizes, because with the feedback we can improve the work.
Ca entre brasileiros: Gostei bastante dos desenhos de interiores, a primeira animação, do violinista e tal, eu achei bem legal tb, mas as outrs realmente pareciam um pouco duras…
Good work! The interiors especially were quite nice. Though the animations and composition definitely could use a lot of improvement, just keep up the good work and they’ll get better!
This demoreel isn’t “crap”. I’m not saying he’s the next Michelangelo, but I’m saying that he deserves some credit. This stuff takes a lot of time. I’m very impressed with the interior renders, but the character animation doesn’t look too great. I think that textures are what’s going to help you make better-quality models. Pay attention to the criticisms, because they can be extremely helpful, but don’t let them make you feel like all your stuff is terrible, because it takes many years to get to a point of Pixar Quality.
@Hyper Cool,
What exactly did banor say that was spammy to you? His comment was perfectly reasonable.
Constructive crit 1: the easiest, quickest way to make this demo reel twice as good as it currently is would be to cut it down to a quarter of its size. It’s way too long and repetitive. You do not need to fill up the length of a song with whatever odds and ends you have lying around. Use your best work, only your best work, and only enough of it for the viewer to get the point.
Constructive crit 2: The Blender Foundation’s training video “Learn Character Animation Using Blender” by William Reynish is a goldmine, and I would strongly advise Fernando to buy it, study it, live it, breathe it and totally consume every last bit of it if he wants to continue with character animation. That goes for everybody else here who wants to get better at character animation.
Constructive crit 3: Credit the music.
Ah, constructive crit 4: avoid the default Blender font (especially rendered in 3D).
Thank you again, did not think that video would generate so much repercussion unfortunately negatively sore my capacity, but when I decided to ask Bart if it was possible to publish it, I knew I was exposing myself and yet I do not regret some of these work is delayed a few years and others are more recent, I do not think the best, but I’m not the worst, at least had the courage to try to produce something to sell and thus realize that evolution happens much faster. Anyway there is no market for any type of product and my product is being consumed while it is in relatively low, but that is slowly appreciating as the quality of work increases.
Again, sorry for my bad english.
Dude Fernando- don’t worry bro- they’re spammers- ignore it. You ROCK! They’ve been spamming this site for a while now… don’t even know why, you’d think they have some sort of life rather than spamming software they can’t use.
@TonyM- that was beautiful man. You gotta post more often. Where are the other high-end pros who’ve been rocking Blender for a while? We’d love to hear what you guys gotta say (esp. like tech details!)
@Spammers (You know who you are), just because you can finally afford the download of a high-end, technical 3D software doesn’t mean your’e a pro.
Leave the professionalism to the pros. Read some TonyM material (Didn’t know that was you- Cool!), Do some homework.
Peace Dudes.
I have some constructive criticisms, as well.
I think the materials could have been better for some of the characters, and you could work on the animations. Buy a book or DVD from the Blender shop. They’re all quality and worth your time and money. Focus on making the animations look less mechanical, specifically.
I agree that the Blender default font wasn’t working, especially in 3D. Also, using the toon rendering wasn’t great either. May I recommend Freestyle? I feel that it would give you more of the look that you were going for.
Your realistic looking scenes were good, I just wish that the camera didn’t have any motion to it, such as going from one corner of the picture to the other so that I could take it all in.
It’s a good start, Fernando, keep up the practice and good work!
And to the spammers, if you think it sucks, don’t say that. Use constructive criticism. If you want quality demo reels from Fernando or anyone else, doesn’t it just make sense to help them get there?
I’d cut the demo-reel down to 30 seconds if I where you, and only include your very best work. The 3 minutes is waaaaay too long and way too repetitive.
There’s no doubt that you have some talent, and thats what you want to show.
I remember a friend of mine who taught 3D for a living – good advice – it’s better to deliver QUALITY rather than QUANTITY.
Look at what you REALLY like in your collection of work, even if you like everything, try to get some friends to point out your best scenes, now – try to get some of your “competitors” to point out your best scenes, you’ll probably get the most honest response from those whom you have no relations with.
And Finally, I have to say something to everyone who attacks those who doesn’t think the work is up to par, stop attacking! It makes this childish and unprofessional, this is open to everyone – you have to expect some criticism, even if not very constructive at all, some people just don’t have the time or ability to “teach” you what you couldn’t see in the first place.
If you keep attacking those who give “harsh” criticism – they won’t come back, and then you’ll never get proper feedback to improve. If you posted this on CGTALK – you’d get 1-2 responses, the rest would be silence, it doesn’t take scientist to figure out why ;)
What? This is good work. I like many pieces. He do best in motion graphic & interior.
@JoOngle Some people never learn…
What about TonyM. He wasn’t harsh. Very knowledgeable and professional. This is a tech site, not MySpace or American Idol. What they may need is proper fellow professional suggestions- not someone to yell at them- a nasty client will do that just fine.
Just because some people never learned to express themselves without cursing is no excuse. Maybe its good for those type of individuals to be silent and learn from TRUE industry pros.
So it just might be good that they watch how the real guys do it- or as you suggested “they won’t come back…”
Looks like its true- those who dish it out, can’t…
Sorry… couldn’t help it.
I just don’t get it the gotta be harsh thing.
Peace for real dudes ;)
@Hyper Cool,
While true – in a perfect moderated world – I’d be absolutely preferable to have constructive well mannered critique such as TonyM’s example, you have to realize that this is the real world – and not everyone is created equal.
I have taken pretty harsh criticism from the professional community myself, especially when I started out back in the days, I remember feeling pretty upset (inside of me) when someone wrote, you’ll need to pick it up, because with that – you’re not working hard enough, and we can see it… (same as calling it CRAP in my world) ;) actually helped me realize that if I wanted to go somewhere…and make something that would be liked enough to get paid for it, I had to have such honest and direct criticism. Of course – it’s better to be told WHAT is CRAP – rather than just “it’s utter crap”…but if someone tells me it’s crap, you can be pretty sure…it’s NOT “sellable” ;)
So take the world for what it is…and be glad you actually GET feedback.
very nice
i liked the unicycle. I’m an extreme unicyclist myself and i love to see unicycling and blender come together.
Hyper Cool: Dont be that stupid… Im a blender user… I used it in professional work, it is my tool for my freelance work and I love it.. dont justifiy my comments just with a spamming thing… Im a blender user…. stop defendig this dude.. (sorry Fernando, this aint against you.. it is against this blender users that defend and say a work is cool and good and whatever you call this just for being made with blender… you have some good work like the indoor architecture and a few more) anyway… you need a lot more practice in animation, character design, modelling and lighting.. so I think that if I’m not ready to show a good animation… I wont…
And also nobody is professional just because has made some freelance stuff….
Fernando: cut this video in 30 sec. and then we’ll talk..
I think Bart may be die laughing in some corner…
Every blender user is always trying to demostrate every other 3d artist how good blender is… this aint the way… And also you are not helping this guy improving himself saying this reel is awesome…
THis site is showing bad and amateur work… if you admin have no news… I would choose not posting things arent good enough…
However… it aint my site…. so.. guys.. KEEP IT MOVING!!!.. :S
PS: BlueSock: the only difference between most of the people here and me or a few of us it’s just we say what we think.. whatever the way we do
BE HAPPY
Just wanted to say that while the animation could use a little bit of work, the overall video was interesting. I agree with those that it was a bit to long but to put your work out there for everyone to see takes guts, but with the bits of constructive criticism posted here (minus the rude spammers) will help make the poster better with animation and modeling regardless of the program used. I’m no pro and still have a lot to learn but other points of view are very important. So, good luck and keep up the good work.
I’m a beginner myself, and my comment is that the showreel is 75% professional, 25% test / learning animation, I think. All product animation are awesome (at least, a lot other product animation are like that) but some are, I’m sorry, low quality. I think he should cut 25% of the animation.
I can’t remember the news item regarding what, but it’s about a hidden learning animation by some guy. I think he’s right, just show your best work, hide the learning ones.
Uh, lots of floating feet there. The animation in general could certainly be more based in the physical reality. Some examples:
– The violinist on the bike, which is probably the most well animated part: When losing balance on a unicycle, a lot of motion happens: Your body tries to counter swing and the wheel twists and turns to compensate. You have the body counter swinging greatly at 0:22-0:23, without the bike tilting.
– Ronaldinho juggling the ball: The ball should travel to a certain height depending on how hard he kicks it. He barely touches it most of the time, which could be fine, but compare 1:56 with 1:57. It does not look plausible that he kicks it twice as high the second time.
The lighting on the guy in 0:35-0:41 is poor, the shadow is way too black (this may be the compositing rather than the lighting). In general the lighting is of quite varying quality throughout the reel.
I would advice to focus on your stronger sides. The clouds are really nice and the interior renders are good. If you insist on showing animation, work more on it and only include your very best work for now. It is not a problem if the reel gets shorter, it is a problem if there are parts of the reel of too low quality.
As a side note, there can be no obligation to show one’s own work in order to criticize others’. This thread is about Fernando’s work and noone else’s.
But of course constructive and polite critique is much more likely to be taken in ;-)
I like the fact that many are showing their work and not just critizizing.
I agree that the work under consideration isn’t mature as far as skill is concerned but the fact that he has finished a complete animated work is commendable because as I mentioned most amatures have a gazillion unfinished projects on their harddrives. To complete work of such magnitude (modeling,texturing,rigging, animating) is a HUGE task. One thought I would like to leave with Fernando is good 3D is in the amount of time you spend in details. I remember when one person asked one of the designers of the game Duke Nukem Forever when would the game be available. The reply : When it’s ready. The reason for the reply was that they wanted the work to reflect a high level of skill and professionalism. Don’t release work until you’ve worked out all the kinks (sliding feet,movement that lacks fluidity and weight, good modeling topology that makes for good deformations in animation) Make sure the details are covered and you’ll be producing good product in no time.
P.S.
In this field, you better have skills before you critizize. 3D is not a no show field. It’s for all to see.
In this industry, you can take that to the bank!
It’s good that I see that some in the forum are showing their work and validating their credentials.
Hi,
Several things:
– I think that, as a reel, this is’nt a so good reel.
– Related to the works shown on the reel, there are many low-level works, while there are a few really good works. IMO and as others said, demo reels should contain only these very best works and play for only 30 or 60 sec. I think the issue with Fernando’s work is more about how to do a good demo reel than how to do good 3D.
– To be polite is good and necessary, but saying someone that his demo reel is amazing when it isn’t is as bad as being rude.
– I agree too with some issues here, what we are about is Fernando work, no need to demonstrate what can i do to get rights for criticizing. I’m absolutely unable to do any animation shown in this demoreel, but this doesn’t mean that I find all this animations good. Most animations here aren’t good, and i think useful for Fernando to know MY opinion in order to reinforce his strenghts as interior renderings and some commercials.
– As I don’t like rudeness, I don’t like that the first pedestrian passing becomes judge about what is Spam and what’s not. We are’nt child (mostly, i think) and we can distinguish about what’s polite, helpful, fanboyism and so. If it’s not so clear, I hate fanboyism as much as I reject unpoliteness. And yes, CGTalks is plenty of fanboyism as much as BlenderArtists or even Blendernation.
– Anyway, it’s a good thing to finish projects, and not so much people is able or well organized to do it. Greetings Fernando (for the former), thanks for sharing and keep improving your skills!.
Raimon
Boy, what a thread! -And what passions it’s aroused!
Firstly, Fernando, congratulations on having the balls to put your reel out there. It takes real guts, especially on a forum of this kind. If you wanted feedback, you’ve sure got it! So where do I start.
Well, I’m not a 3D animator. I have done a little 3D animation professionally but I definitely wouldn’t call myself an animator. What I am is an editor/compositor. So what I feel qualified to talk on is the way your reel is put together.
I can’t remember who said “the soul of wit is brevity”, but he could have said it about demo reels. The people who you want to pitch to are busy. You won’t hold their attention for five minutes, you may if you’re good for two. Keep it short and snappy. Don’t dwell on things that you know were technically difficult, they won’t know that or care.
If I were putting this together the first thing I would do is find a short, punchy, up-tempo piece of music. If I couldn’t find one I would find something that could be edited to a good compact length. I would then grab the material I intended using and cut it to the track.
This part of the operation is critical. When you’re cutting to the track you should make the music drive the cut. If there’s a vocal line, see if you can achieve vocal “triggers” for your content. A vocal line isn’t essential – one of the best demos I’ve cut used an edited version of “Spring” from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” performed on electric guitar.
Then, once you have your cut together, put it away for a couple of days or a week or so. When you next look at it you’ll see all the stuff that’s mis-timed, poorly lit, badly modelled or just shouldn’t be there. Be ruthless. Throw out the stuff that doesn’t work and replace it. Repeat the process until you’re happy.
Then show it to the world.
Fernando, thanks for sharing your demo reel.