Casting Call for Animated Short

[gmd3d]

Great ,, if you can do a show tut in the future we can post it here.

[evil_genius_180]

I always just used lens flares for torpedoes but then I've only done them in still images.

The animation looks spiffy, dude. I also like the music and effects.

Cool deal.
Glad you had a chance to see it.

I looked through my Trek archives and I don't see my torpedo.
I'll make a new one and a tut to go along with it.
I don't know how to make the same effect in Carrara but in Lightwave it's perfect - when you see it you'll see what I mean.

If I recall correctly, the photon torpedo effect in Lightwave is a lense flare effect.
I'm 90% sure it is. It's been about a year and a half since I've done one but I think I can remember how it's done.

At the moment I'm decloaking our happy littke Klingon Bird of Prey.

I have a question for you guys though - when the Enterprise fires upon the BOP the shields protect the BOP (for a while anyway) - what color should the energy scatter be?
I'm trying to figure out if I should shatter the phaser along a sphere or if the sphere itself (the part being hit) should be it's own color.

Let me know what you guys think and I'll animate it up.

Ok guys, in order to free up some space on my server I've had to delete some of the earlier video files. So if you click a dead link that's why.

Ok - here is a bit of test footage.
I've compressed it into a WMV file so anybody with a Windows machine can view it.
If you have a Mac and can't see it (and want to) let me know and I'll come up with something.

Also - since this is a WMV file the aspect ratio is off (still don't know why it happens) and it's playing in 640x480 instead of the 720x480 that it's rendered in.

The size of the file should be small enough for a dial-up connection as well.

http://wabashponies.com/dan/BIGTEST-1a.wmv (5.6mb)

This will be the last sneek peek of the project so I hope it's cool.
For those of you working with me on the project - you'll still be getting updates because, well you're working on it too! LOL!

At the current rate of production I think we can have the full 5 minutes done in about a month.

[evil_genius_180]

That's pretty sweet dude. I like the reverse dissolve de-cloaking effect you made. It's different than ones we've seen in the past but that just means it's unique.

Tiny nitpick: the torpedo firing sound effect was about 1/2 to 1 second before the torpedo actually fired. But that's such a small nitpick that someone less anal than me wouldn't have mentioned it.

I wanted the sound of the weapon powering up but couldn't find anything like it.
I mixed the sound of a TOS torpedo and a TNG disrupter with the hope that it might work.
Guess it didn't.
That's why it's test footage. LOL!

[evil_genius_180]

Yeah, that's what tests are for.

When Im doing a serious mix I'll use either my Cakewalk Pro Audio or Goldwave.
When I did this footage all of the sound was mixed in the video editing software (uLead v.11).

I had to go online and look for some of the sounds.
I knew I wanted some sort of ambient engine sounds as the ships pass the camera but I had a heck of a time finding one.

Hey does this look better for the bussards or should I leave them as they were?

The image on the left is the new one.

With the bussards as they are in the image on the right I have a slight alpha applied to them.

[evil_genius_180]

I like the one on the left.

Boy, I'm not too bright sometimes. I had your latest animation clip saved and the the UPS man delivered me a new hard drive. So, I swapped out the hard drive for my old one and then realized I hadn't saved the animation to my flash drive. *sigh* Oh well, I guess I'll just have to download it again.

Sorry about that. LOL!

Ok, I'm going to reshoot the stuff with the bussards on the left.
I think they're going to look awesome spinning in a counter rotation with the outer 'flame' looking ones.

But first...

...It's time to drink beer with my guitarist!

[evil_genius_180]

Yeah, it was my fault for losing the video. I knew the drive was coming today and I should have just saved the video to my flash drive to begin with. And I think redoing the bussards like that image would be sweet.

I still have the videos on my drives.
But the newest one is the one to get.
It's a little bigger than the others but I think it's worth it.

Tonight (if I'm sober enough! LOL!!!) I'll set up a test scene with the new bussards so we can see how they look.
I'd like to try and find a way to have the new look and the old look together - like the orange dot things are stirring that gas looking stuff in the other ones. I liked how it had a cosmic carburetor sort of thing going on.

But the new ones are 'tough' looking and I rather like that. LOL!

Time for more beer!

[evil_genius_180]

Yeah, that newest one is da bomb. I like them all but that's a cut above the other two.

Originally Posted by evil_genius_180

Yeah, that newest one is da bomb. I like them all but that's a cut above the other two.

Cool.
I'm going to be animating bridge/crew shots today.
With luck I'll get between 4-5 scenes shot.