ManGodAi4x / AquaCoop, Comic, Cinematic…Terminal Dark.

[Rman Virgil]

Very nice concept, a few crits/suggestions if I may
-The background cliffs/mountains being untextured is something I assume you are going to address. Alternatively, you can make them much darker so that they only show up as a silhouette. Not sure how this will affect the overall color composition of the scene, though.
-The lighting on the base is good, and your use of coloured light and bumpmaps really works, but one thing is still missing: you don't see the lightsources. This is of course something commonly encountered in computer graphics. Lightsources don't show up because they have no geometry, unlike a real lamp where you can see the tungsten filament. In other words: we need to fake it. The usual approach is to make some brightly coloured semitransparent geometry, that doesn't interact with the lighting on the scene. Warzone does this all the time, for example here: download/file.php?id=12553&mode=view
As you can see on the landing lights, the center part is totally white, while the edges are approximately the color of the light. The tricky technical part is to specify that they shouldn't take scene lighting into account nor should they cast shadows (otherwise they will block the actual lightsource, paradoxically enough).

Thanks Jorzi. When I said "experimenting with multiple light sources" it was more like bumbling around.

In addition to the natural environmental, I had 4 sources within the base. In the environmental natural I made a color mix that was different than the 4 inside (made the same color mix but I altered the parameters of each). I see what you mean about "faking" those light sources and the interaction with the natural ambient.

Gonna go ahead and post the set of still caps I did earlier of this sequence (I was messing with the parameters throughout)... while I go ahead and follow through on your suggestions going forward. Yea, still need to create distant mounts with textures.

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[Rman Virgil]

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Aquatone: The Doctor's lair from afar.

Don't see any oil rigs around, heh. Or anything resembling a projectile weap for that matter.
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[Rman Virgil]

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Aquatone: The Doctor's lair closer up.

I'll see about "faking" those light sources and make my next, & final post in this thread, the result of those efforts.
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[stiv]

Don't feel bad about "faking" it. Computer graphics is all about fakery.

[Merowingg]

Computer graphics is all about fakery.

Nooooo cannot be it simply cannot be..

[Rman Virgil]

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Reminds me of how one of my favorite artists once described art:

Art is the lie that tells the truth.

~ Pablo Picasso

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[Rman Virgil]

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5 point light source geometry (1 in the Geodesic + 4 at the Landing Pad). 3 different color mixtures and 5 parameter sets. Then the natural ambient would be yet another of both - color mix & parameters - along with the interaction threshold with the 5.

Thus this chapter of the project comes to a close here, along with the thread.

Back to the workshop to woodshed, from whence I'll emerge sometime down the road within a new thread parlaying FMV samples with my ManGodAi4x WZ machinima integration / editing along with all the other craft elements: original music, voice, FX, GFX, SFX, etc. Till then...
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[Rman Virgil]

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Kept it hidden in all the other frame grabs posted.

Alas decided, just in case, a profile would be a fitting close here.

(My version is intentionally not the demonized caricature of the original.)

Taken within the geodesic control / power center of his Arctic lair at sunset, sitting at his main console (long distance caps above).

Ahora es seguro - asta la vista...

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[Andrie]

Wow you took my breath away, I like it a lot!

[Rman Virgil]

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Wow you took my breath away, I like it a lot!

Thank you Andrie for sharing that. I hope that the whole of it when completed achieves at least a fair bit of that response, which I wholeheartedly identify with the phrase "sense of wonder".

This sense of wonder is something I gravitate naturally to in all I would make, in a variety of forms. Taking this further, it is also something I seek outside of myself, in the works of others, for example. I also seek and find it in what humanity has no hand in other than mute beholding. For me sense of wonder and inspiration are flip sides of the same coin. The coin of a realm like no other. A realm where nothing less than daring greatly will do.

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[Rman Virgil]

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Been toying the last few weeks with the notion of creating a comic book adjunct to the FMV hybrid (3D 1st PoV anim + WZ Machinima) Triumph In The Balance. This comic book would dramatize story events that I have NO intention of animating for the FMV and was instead merely going to refer to with brief voice-over narration & scrolling text in between the plot segments I am indeed animating.

Why do a comic? It's pretty straightfoward.

Just trying to sustain my connection here (motivation and enthusiasm being part of that dynamic) while my focus over the coming months is the completion of my original, non-derivative, animation film short - "G's Masquerade".

NOTE on sourcing:

Besides my original yarn / storyboarding, 1st PoV 3D animation, Aqua Coop / ManGodAi Maps / Machinima, and some elementary script triggers, I'm also working with:

~ WZ RC 3

~ Art Revolution Mod

~ NULL Bot

~ Ultimate Scavenger Mod

My thanks to all those creators involved. Hope the adaptions and transformations that will follow donot offend the sensibilities and artistic integrity of their work.

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Here are a few samples of what I've been playing around with.....

The story segments and dialog are written but I'm still exploring what visual style is gonna work best. My visual style experiments will be obvious in the samples that follow. Another thing I'm trying to figure out is how to make my paneling more cinematic, not so predicably bounded by symetric boxes all the time. This last is a main stumbling block for me right now, to be honest. Hopefully I'll work through this so I can settle on a consistent and more energetic visual style (translation: less boring) within the next week or so then I will start posting the comic book itself dramatizing the story sequences that I am not animating in the FMV. That's the plan anyway.

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[Rman Virgil]

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A few more of my experiments...

[Jorzi]

Cool stuff The cartoon filter works quite well, although for optimal results, some hand tweaking might be needed.

Will be watching this one

[Rman Virgil]

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Thanks, Jorzi. For sure gonna have to do some hand painting. Somethings the filter handles with beautiful results and other stuff (like sky and water, for example) the results are WTF ugly. I'll work with it in Art Rage see if I can blend changes seamlessly. Think I'll get the sky off the bat. The water will be more challenging as I'm thinking about what I went through when I did a new water texture for the old renderer - was down to making my changes on a pixel level for that one but was interesting for the illusions that would result in the animation on the macro side from subtle pixel changes. Struck me with a sense of wonder, as I recall.

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[Rman Virgil]

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Shadow Wolf has just released another update to his Contingency Mod that I'm excited to check-out. To play for fun to be sure but also for reasons of revising some machinima down the road and here and now in this phase, replacing some comic book panels that would reflect his work. Will post some results over the weekend.

You can grab Shadow Wolf's latest Contingency Mod here: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=9493


Another Recommendation: It's obvious my thing involves both visual and story telling art. Yesterday member gulik shared a yarn he spun around the Nexus Link that I found very fine indeed and would highly recommend. You can find it here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10144

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