Comments on: Alligator vs. Gravity – Crazy Gator Tries to Fly

By: malefico

malefico — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:53:20 +0000

I forgot to say that I particularly liked the direction in this trailer. So, my congrats to director, whoever he is. :)

By: malefico

malefico — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:50:33 +0000

Hey Michael, great work there ! Certainly lot nicer than some TV shows I already knew like "Backyardigans" (which I like BTW).

Regards

By: Ideaguy

Ideaguy — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:35:44 +0000

I like it. And thanks Micheal for the realistic yet inspiring talk.

By: mthoenes

mthoenes — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:59:46 +0000

It is always great to hear from 3D artists and storytellers. Much of our local feedback is too kind. Indeed the motion blur on the propeller is needed as are other technical improvements. It may surprise you that only 3D artists ever seem to comment on that kind of stuff. The inside scoop is: In our effort to get this piece out before Christmas we skipped the blur because we were working on the render layering and compositing pipeline. The motion blur will be in the final show. An animation is never finished, you just run out of time. Balancing the visual style of Television (NOT Motion Picture) quality animation against the time and cost considerations has been really tough. The brutal truth is that TV animation needs to be produced at 1/10th of motion picture budget range. So trying to do Pixar animation on a TV budget is not realistic. Granted, people are able to produce great stuff cheaply in some cases, but usually accomplish this by working for free. If anyone wants to work for free for our studio, I would love to hear from you, the problem is you need to be very good because it costs more to fix things than it does to get it done right in the first place. :) Really, I am open to freelance modelers and other Blender talent for the parts of our pipeline I can use Blender for at this time and I am willing to pay for the work. Blender keeps getting more and more friendly with other apps. SO heres More inside scoop: Many studios that animate in Maya render in something else. Lightwave for instance – why because Lightwave has better\cheaper rendering. Blender has even cheaper rendering but getting massive scenes moved into Blender is still tricky, as is the securing the compositing talent to take advantage of Blender's capabilities. So, it all comes down to pipeline and the costs increased or decreased when you jump applications. Creative fences is one way to deal with it. You just say – We are going to work within our limitations and be creative with less than perfect tools. – I often prefer this because my audience does not care what I used to produce the show they want to be entertained. They say things like, "I did not understand that character, or I loved the crows, or that was stupid, I loved it, that ws boring…. You have to interpret this because rarely can your audience tell you why they did not connect with your shows story or characters…..

This has been quite and adventure moving from 3D animator to animation producer. – Sometimes I miss the days of testing new Blender features and thinking about making a show some day. It all seemed so clear before I actually had to do it for real, on a budget and on a schedule.:) I challenge you all to go make something and put it out there. It is a fun and sometimes scary place to be.

mthoenes,

Michael Thoenes
Studio 125

By: Felix_Kütt

Felix_Kütt — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 11:01:00 +0000

~0:48-0:59 i think that the 'mouth/beak' anims could be maybe made a bit better..?

anyways, great stuff! :)

By: jahmaica

jahmaica — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 02:04:29 +0000

LOL, Loved the Jamaican Characters!!

I dont know, but, its a shame Blender wasnt used fully. But nice work! I guess, you could achieve a better "quality" with the node composition in blender – just a few tweaks in the image! But I understand why, using maya for animation (from what people keep saying);

But its really good! Really good animation and character design! Thanks for your art!

By: panzi

panzi — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:39:20 +0000

@Anthony
I was about to say the same thing. :)

By: gnomis

gnomis — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 23:23:34 +0000

The characters seem just a bit stereotyped "Jim Crow" and the Tar Baby! this might seem irrelevant to some and offensive to others. The animation and production values are cool
jest my 3c worth

By: RNS

RNS — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:31:20 +0000

Wonderful job!

By: Lasphere

Lasphere — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:02:59 +0000

Its… okay. I must say, that ive seen better. I mean, the lightning and textures, for an example, could have been better. The voice acting and story was good I think, good idea.