Neko's Failtastic Art Thread

[Noblejanobii]

Just today saw your response! What I was getting at is maybe this little cutie thay Xanthe made. It's...based off of a Pokemon. xD

http://sta.sh/01x9wjdjdrru

Xanthe did this? It's so cute! I can't wait for Neko to take a whack at it.

[Chibi Altaria]

It's awesome to check out how you made that Altaria. .u. Actually, it's a lot like how I do my own works. xD But I take a lot longer, aha. Nice!

[Nekomata]

It's awesome to check out how you made that Altaria. .u. Actually, it's a lot like how I do my own works. xD But I take a lot longer, aha. Nice!

Well... After making 160+ comic pages, you'd HOPE I was fast-ish. xD



A thing for Robin's birthday!

[Neo Emolga]

That's awesome and really cute! Definitely a cool birthday gift. :3

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Aww, that's so cute! I love the colours! :D

[Nekomata]

Aww, that's so cute! I love the colours! :D

Thank you! xD I tried a softer color palette than usual.

That's awesome and really cute! Definitely a cool birthday gift. :3

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.


---

So, this isn't NEW, but it's from last semester. It's my studio project that I did with my group. As such, I'd ask that it does not get shared around without my knowing. I just want to share it so people get a better idea of what I ACTUALLY do in my major since I tend to be a bit cautious about posting group projects anywhere.

Assignment: Create a 10 second animation using a period of art history as our inspiration.

What we did: Surrealism. Cause cool/weird creature designs- why not? Also, screw trying to do a story in 10 seconds.

What I did: Concept art, animation (deer), HDR map, lighting (my main thing), Rendering, Post, Effects (Atmospheric perspective, the tree's vein-glow), Compositing, etc.

I'm more of a late stage player for projects. Lighting, post, etc. are my things.



And here's a process video I put together from the lighting- get a better idea of what it looks like without all the fancy lighting and post work that I did.

[Neo Emolga]

You guys MADE that!? Holy snaps, that is incredible! The surreal fantasy forest is amazing and you guys definitely did an awesome job with the textures. I've worked with 3D Studio Max and I know how much of a ROYAL PAIN it is to model things and apply the textures without stuff looking weird or screwy. And that was even without animation. But modeling... I know from experience that you could spend hours upon hours of doing that stuff and it looks like you barely made any progress.

The lighting is also really cool! It does give the scene really neat fantasy vibes! And yes... I know how much of a pain that is as well.

VERY NICE job on everything. The animations, the lighting, the modeling, and the camera path were definitely very well-executed.

[Nekomata]

You guys MADE that!? Holy snaps, that is incredible! The surreal fantasy forest is amazing and you guys definitely did an awesome job with the textures. I've worked with 3D Studio Max and I know how much of a ROYAL PAIN it is to model things and apply the textures without stuff looking weird or screwy. And that was even without animation. But modeling... I know from experience that you could spend hours upon hours of doing that stuff and it looks like you barely made any progress.

The lighting is also really cool! It does give the scene really neat fantasy vibes! And yes... I know how much of a pain that is as well.

VERY NICE job on everything. The animations, the lighting, the modeling, and the camera path were definitely very well-executed.

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.

[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