Neko's Failtastic Art Thread

[Suicune's Fire]

Neko that is so freaking cool! OOO: I love the progress video and the animation is sweet. :3 The headless deer was creepy though, I must admit. All in all, it was really, really cool.

[Neo Emolga]

We did! Took about 2 months for a group of 6. xD Ton of work, but always worth the final. I've got some older studio projects, but this one was the best one so far that I had a decent hand in. Last fall's studio I didn't contribute as much cause of control-freak group leader. Spring was a 2D thing we sorta did while running around Europe... wasn't our priority. xD

We mostly use Maya for our animations. 3DS max is actually used more on the gaming side of things if I recall. Texturing was the hardest part for us. Even so we had a few issues. If you look VERY carefully you'll notice a few issues with the animation. I'm not the strongest modeler or texturer, so I struggle on those sides- which is why groups are awesome! Everyone has their strong points and we place roles on that. My area of specialty is Lighting/Post- which go together quite closely, so it works out. I'm taking a rigging/animation graduate class this semester to strengthen those skills... and you heard my rant about the hell class? That's a modeling/texturing heavy class. Go figure. xD Once we get in groups for that though, I'll get to shift back to the areas I'm strong in- but it's solo for now. RIP me.

I have heard of Maya, but I haven't ever worked with it. I'm curious to know what it's like, but I'm sure the overall setup is probably something similar to 3DS max with a few minor differences. For me, it took HOURS just to design the layout of a room. And I mostly used shape primitives with textures. Trying to do serious modeling was asking to die a little inside.

The modeling I did involved a LOT of anchor points. So many of them. Messing around with them in a 3D environment was like performing surgery, but if you were willing to spend a good chunk of time into it, you could set everything to actually be modeled into looking like something coherent. But it was definitely a lot of work and not for the faint of heart. It was the element that took the longest amount of time for me, and there were plenty of times where even after spending loads of time into it, I felt like "this is still awful, delete." It's no wonder that during the credits of 3D animated movies done by Pixar and Dreamworks, there's a gazillion people involved. I believe it! And I know what they must have gone through! XD It does make these 3D movies very easy to appreciate when you are aware of some of the behind the scenes work that goes into these things. You start to feel like they deserve congressional Medals of Honor. XD

But yeah, basically we started with a sphere (or some other 3D primitive shape) clicked on the setting that revealed all the anchor points, and you had to pull out or push in each anchor point one by one to get the exact shape you wanted. It was pain. It took forever. It made you question your life choices. But if you were diligent about it, you could make something seriously cool.

Applying textures was kind of a trial and error thing sometimes. Sometimes you had to try different textures to see what would work best and to make sure it didn't stretch too much or have weird cutoffs that made it obvious something screwy was going on. The bigger the texture, the better chance you had of it working. You HAD to experiment. You had to go against gut instincts to at least try to see if there was a chance of it working. And you had to be open to trying and trying again because you wanted to kick this thing in the butt and make something awesome.

It's been a really long time since I've done 3D stuff though. But yeah, I can appreciate the work that goes into it. But you've got the skills and the diligence. I think you can do it if you really take a solid plunge into the stuff.

[Nekomata]

I have heard of Maya, but I haven't ever worked with it. I'm curious to know what it's like, but I'm sure the overall setup is probably something similar to 3DS max with a few minor differences. For me, it took HOURS just to design the layout of a room. And I mostly used shape primitives with textures. Trying to do serious modeling was asking to die a little inside.

The modeling I did involved a LOT of anchor points. So many of them. Messing around with them in a 3D environment was like performing surgery, but if you were willing to spend a good chunk of time into it, you could set everything to actually be modeled into looking like something coherent. But it was definitely a lot of work and not for the faint of heart. It was the element that took the longest amount of time for me, and there were plenty of times where even after spending loads of time into it, I felt like "this is still awful, delete." It's no wonder that during the credits of 3D animated movies done by Pixar and Dreamworks, there's a gazillion people involved. I believe it! And I know what they must have gone through! XD It does make these 3D movies very easy to appreciate when you are aware of some of the behind the scenes work that goes into these things. You start to feel like they deserve congressional Medals of Honor. XD

But yeah, basically we started with a sphere (or some other 3D primitive shape) clicked on the setting that revealed all the anchor points, and you had to pull out or push in each anchor point one by one to get the exact shape you wanted. It was pain. It took forever. It made you question your life choices. But if you were diligent about it, you could make something seriously cool.

Applying textures was kind of a trial and error thing sometimes. Sometimes you had to try different textures to see what would work best and to make sure it didn't stretch too much or have weird cutoffs that made it obvious something screwy was going on. The bigger the texture, the better chance you had of it working. You HAD to experiment. You had to go against gut instincts to at least try to see if there was a chance of it working. And you had to be open to trying and trying again because you wanted to kick this thing in the butt and make something awesome.

It's been a really long time since I've done 3D stuff though. But yeah, I can appreciate the work that goes into it. But you've got the skills and the diligence. I think you can do it if you really take a solid plunge into the stuff.

Maya is the industry standard these days for the most part. It's a very complicated program that isn't user-intuitive at all. Got an error? BEST OF LUCK FINDING THE CAUSE. It can be one of a billion tiny insignificant problems. xD

And the modeling process you're describing is NURBS modeling. Why the hell would you do that to yourself? xD Polygon modeling is far more user-intuitive. That said... my hell professor is making us do all of our modeling in NURBS. RIP us.

Surfacing can either be easy or hell. Depends what you're doing and what method you're trying. I know renderman has some REALLY good presets for certain common materials. I also know how to paint seamless textures when I need to- it's a process. My friend is good at procedural texturing, so she usually covers that.

3D animation is very much a trial-error process. Iteration after iteration until things look good. I can dig up some older screenshots from that project later if you'd like to see what the early stages looked like (big difference). xD It takes a huge amount of people to make quality work. Seriously, there are people dedicated to making sure someone's scarf moves properly in animation. Another person may be in charge of just facial animations. It's a process and a huge undertaking. It's one of those fields you have to love your job or get out.

Neko that is so freaking cool! OOO: I love the progress video and the animation is sweet. :3 The headless deer was creepy though, I must admit. All in all, it was really, really cool.

I remember at the fall show someone gasped 'Holy sh--! WHAT IS THAT?!" behind me when our animation showed. It was priceless. xD Surrealism is full of weird bizarre things. xD

[Suicune's Fire]

Omg Maya. XD I used it for a few things in my game design course and yeah...that was pretty much my result. Even the artists had trouble working out what the heck half the errors were about. xD

I remember at the fall show someone gasped 'Holy sh--! WHAT IS THAT?!" behind me when our animation showed. It was priceless. xD Surrealism is full of weird bizarre things. xD

Ahaha that's great. It is! I think surrealism is so interesting. And trippy.

[Neo Emolga]

Maya is the industry standard these days for the most part. It's a very complicated program that isn't user-intuitive at all. Got an error? BEST OF LUCK FINDING THE CAUSE. It can be one of a billion tiny insignificant problems. xD

And the modeling process you're describing is NURBS modeling. Why the hell would you do that to yourself? xD Polygon modeling is far more user-intuitive. That said... my hell professor is making us do all of our modeling in NURBS. RIP us.

Surfacing can either be easy or hell. Depends what you're doing and what method you're trying. I know renderman has some REALLY good presets for certain common materials. I also know how to paint seamless textures when I need to- it's a process. My friend is good at procedural texturing, so she usually covers that.

3D animation is very much a trial-error process. Iteration after iteration until things look good. I can dig up some older screenshots from that project later if you'd like to see what the early stages looked like (big difference). xD It takes a huge amount of people to make quality work. Seriously, there are people dedicated to making sure someone's scarf moves properly in animation. Another person may be in charge of just facial animations. It's a process and a huge undertaking. It's one of those fields you have to love your job or get out.

NURBS! Yes, I totally forgot the name of it but that's what it was. It was hell. I think the reason why your professor is making you use it is because it goes into the deepest level, as if you were modifying things on a pixel by pixel basis with 2D art. It's so ungodly slow, though. It makes every project feel like it's something you're going to need to hand down to your grandchildren to complete.

Surfacing and textures felt a bit like gambling. Sometimes, things looked good even on the first try and even after you poked around and looked at it some more. But then other times, Satan jabbed you in the eye with a middle finger each time you tried to fix it and make it look good. And you could try a dozen other textures and still get crappy results, making you wonder if the shape was wrong or if the textures were wrong. You could only just keep messing around on both fronts until something seemed to fit. It was a trial and error jamboree.

I haven't done 3D animation on a serious level, but I have worked with Flash animation and blaurgh, it's not fun either. You play the same scene over and over and over again messing with it over and over by the tiniest bit just to see if you're on the right track toward fixing the mess. Sometimes you make progress. Sometimes it only makes it worse! It's agony. You can only make the modifications you think will work and then test them to see if what you did was right or wrong. It was so tempting to just settle with results less than what you were hoping for, but that just doesn't point toward the quality work you want. And usually the perfectionist in you would scream to try again despite the moans that your brain was making.

But you're totally right. You've have GOT to have the patience, love, and passion for this stuff. I know you have it, though. You know what kinds of rewards come out of doing things the right way no matter what it takes. It makes all the mind-grinding worth it in the end. :3

[Nekomata]

NURBS! Yes, I totally forgot the name of it but that's what it was. It was hell. I think the reason why your professor is making you use it is because it goes into the deepest level, as if you were modifying things on a pixel by pixel basis with 2D art. It's so ungodly slow, though. It makes every project feel like it's something you're going to need to hand down to your grandchildren to complete.

Actually, he's making us use NURBS cause he knows we don't use them often. In reality, NURBS are better for some objects than polygons- half of being a modeler is knowing what method would be most efficient for what you're doing! I've used it a bit in the past, so it's not entirely new to me, but still a challenge.

Surfacing and textures felt a bit like gambling. Sometimes, things looked good even on the first try and even after you poked around and looked at it some more. But then other times, Satan jabbed you in the eye with a middle finger each time you tried to fix it and make it look good. And you could try a dozen other textures and still get crappy results, making you wonder if the shape was wrong or if the textures were wrong. You could only just keep messing around on both fronts until something seemed to fit. It was a trial and error jamboree.

It depends on what you're texturing. Cubes and objects with flat edges and few curves? Not hard at all. Complicated shapes is where it gets difficult. Cause then you've got to UV unwrap and that's just pure hell.

I haven't done 3D animation on a serious level, but I have worked with Flash animation and blaurgh, it's not fun either. You play the same scene over and over and over again messing with it over and over by the tiniest bit just to see if you're on the right track toward fixing the mess. Sometimes you make progress. Sometimes it only makes it worse! It's agony. You can only make the modifications you think will work and then test them to see if what you did was right or wrong. It was so tempting to just settle with results less than what you were hoping for, but that just doesn't point toward the quality work you want. And usually the perfectionist in you would scream to try again despite the moans that your brain was making.

HAH. 2D animation is easy compared to 3D. A lot more to mess with. Lots of patience, tinkering, etc. to get it JUST right. You have to RIG before you can animate- and if you didn't rig well, then the animation isn't going to turn out well. X_x'

But you're totally right. You've have GOT to have the patience, love, and passion for this stuff. I know you have it, though. You know what kinds of rewards come out of doing things the right way no matter what it takes. It makes all the mind-grinding worth it in the end. :3

Yup! It's a rewarding field if you can get that far. If I can make something people enjoy, then I'm happy!

And some progress shots I found of our project (we had to give a weekly progress report to our professor.

Tree/s:

Spoiler:

Deer:

Spoiler:

Owl:

Spoiler:

[Nekomata]

Video for Robin's b-day gift that I forgot to post!

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Wow Neko, that animation is AMAZING! It's weird when you think "oh 10 seconds is no time at all" but wow you can really tell that a LOT of work went into that. It looks amazing! :O And omg! The deer is a really really cool idea but I am also super creeped out for some reason xD It was really cool seeing how you do the lighting and stuff, and all those progress shots. *really impressed*

How did you do the colouring on the Hail and Rayne pic? It looks like you were blocking it in somehow, unless the video was just too fast to see it? xD I'd love to see a tutorial on how you colour like that! I just do it manually and it's really hard to stay in the lines so it takes ages (one of the reasons I started drawing in a sketchier style xD).

[Suicune's Fire]

Sweet stuff! I'm so impressed by those progress videos. Everyone's process is so different and you're always going to learn something or another when watching someone conjure up a neat picture. All those tips and tricks can really come in handy!

Thanks for sharing. Double thumbs up for all your hard work!

[Chibi Altaria]

Niiiiiiice job, Neko. *O* It's always good to see your thought process when you work on stuff! Even though the video is sped up, you still do those pretty fast. xD And it was fun to watch you do the background too; something which I usually don't do lol.