chillyche

The track is currently a well-guarded secret. I might release the mp3 before the video is finished, but, more than likely I'm going to sit on it. Unfortunately, I don't actually have the rights to that beat -- it's borrowed -- and none of the usual suspects have been able to produce something with the right flavor. If you're on facebook, you might as well become a fan there, because eventually that's where I'm going to start making stuff available, including the song itself. I've been working on this darn thing for literally more than a year now, so I'm hoping to make some serious strides, and expect to complete at least a third of it before TOO LONG (whatever that means in the DIY CGI community). Solving a few technical issues is always good for a couple of major leaps forward (but new ones always arise).

NECRO! What the heck, it's my own topic, so I can resurrect it if I want, right? RIGHT!? Anyway, I joined this community over a year ago looking for some help with a project which is still ongoing (and has taken sort of the back burner to other Macross related stuff, hint hint, Aria, hint hint). Here's the latest from that project: Youtube is playing havoc with the brightness and contrast, so, pardon that, if you will.

Well, we have a lot of organizational work to do. There are something like 20 team members, all working on different things, but we don't have an up-to-date master list at this point. We also have a wiki which we've set up to identify all of the assets we need to develop or are currently developing. I've been looking for somebody to basically go through the wiki and make sure each entry has some information, whether it's just the concept sketches, or work in progress sketches/renders, or finished renders, or finished files. It's not terribly complicated, just time consuming and not very glamorous. Interested, or know somebody who is?

Okay, this isn't strictly a clip from Aria, but it's a clip from my music video, fan dubbed with authentic Macross sounds by Aria ADR Director Hikuro. Just sort of testing the waters here.

Anyone interested in doing clerical work for Aria? We have lots of web related admin stuff that needs to be done while modelers model.

You're right. The channel between the buildings in the intersection is letting much more angular light in. MY BAD. I was looking at all the stuff BEHIND the intersection, where of course the buildings block the steeper angled light. And since it's somewhat overcast, it's not as obvious. In this case, your lighting direction is actually spot on, it's just a matter adjusting contrast ratio. But, yeah, I mean, the stuff I'm working on is all not even remotely photorealistic, so, its pretty easy for me to sit back and pick at your lighting design, since I'm trying like hell to avoid some of the more intensive/complicated lighting challenges. Still, it looks cool.

It's an awesome model with great textures. The render, though, the lighting is somewhat off. You'll notice the shadows on the vehicles are almost directly underneath the vehicles, indicating that the sun is nearly directly overhead, but the Valk's shadow is cast fairly far off to the side, indicating a differing light source. Also, as far as contrast ratios, go, there doesn't seem to be a strong sense of fill or bounce light coming from the ground in the background plate, but the model's underside shadows are fairly well filled. A couple of adjustments to the lighting rig, and you'll produce a far more convincing effect. But I'm totally jealous of that model. Is it transformable? Who's the original author?

Also looking for some Production Coordinator type people. We're in particular need of somebody with wiki experience, or the flexibility to learn and spend maybe an hour or so a week on keeping some of our online asset management stuff up to speed. Deculture and all that.

I was gonna suggest Rodavan, but he beat me to it.

Hey, the y'all thing wasn't a texas dig. My dad's family is from Alabama and Georgia, so I picked that up from them (even though he grew up in Bridgeport, CT). Besides, I'm an emcee, we say "yes yes y'all!" all the time. Whattaya want from me? Still, yeah, you got it hotter down there than we do up here. I can't speak for Hik, other than I've heard him say it's been over a hundred for a hot minute out there.

Photoshop. Careful masking. Color correction. And some serious relighting. The problem is, not all of those original renders have lighting that will match. No matter how well you mask the images, if there are shadows in the wrong direction, it's gonna look fake. You'll want to try to blur things where they should be blurred due to both motion and depth of field. Add a little grain into the image. Stuff like that.

Does this board have autocensor? I definitely do not recall writing "poo"

Just so you know, I think it's been over 100 for a MINUTE in the PACIFIC NORTHWEST, where that is NOT NORMAL. 105 yesterday. Up north, a lot of people don't have AC, because it's not like it is in the south where it's just a fact of life. Like, in NY, most people in apartments don't have AC, and the houses are built originally to hold heat IN, because it's not meant to get as hot as it does these days, so, while I know it gets hotter in Texas, y'all are better equipped to deal with the heat. I mean, just architecturally. Also, as far as NYC goes, we're always ten degrees hotter than anywhere right out of the city because we have all this stupid concrete just soaking up heat then radiating it back. Way to go guys, next time try some frickin' greenery. I mean, it's only been in the 80s in Brooklyn for the past couple of days. OUTSIDE. Inside, it's been at least 5 to 10 degrees hotter. And it's been humid as WHAT. Today we had a shoot up on a roof, and literally when we took the tripods out onto the roof, the cool metal instantly began to SWEAT like a cold brew, just because of the humidity condensing on the sticks that had been in the AC'd studio. Everything was damp instantly. It was some ol' Louisiana poo. Uh. But, anyway, um, something about Macross. Something.

Sorry to hear that, man. My condolences.

Woops. Late to the party.

It's the only way to be sure.

Yeah, I'm really glad that the team has been giving us little glimpses of the process, because we can all feel like we're a part of the development, even if we're not actually part of the team, because we're part of the community. I for one, am rooting for this project just because there's so much talent and passion in it. I don't even play HW2 (though this mod will likely make me give it a shot).

Sanook Mak!

If you use the flats properly, you still have all your color areas isolated in the flats channel, so you can easily just select all the skin areas, or whatever, and apply a global change to those. It's actually quite brilliant. On top of that, I think there are some free plugins that will automatically do flats for your lineart (if the line art doesn't have too many holes in it). http://www.bpelt.com/psplugins/flatting.html Of course, it doesn't choose colors that make sense, but you can easily select and replace those colors, or just ignore them totally. Truth be told, though, if I'm just doing a quick piece, I often still use layers. But complex pieces or definitely comic pages I use flatting. Here's another take on flatting, that actually bypasses using the channels, and does it in layers, but with fewer layers than some might normally use. http://www.rnel.net/tutorial/Photoshop/3264

I definitely agree that layers feels more natural. I would never even consider using flats, except that I had a comic project I was working on a couple years ago, and when I switched to flatting from doing layers, I actually cut my time per page down by a quarter. It was crazy.

There's a half-serious saying we have in editing. "If you can't solve it, dissolve it!" Basically if something isn't cutting together right, just add a dissolve. Sometimes a four frame dissolve works wonders. Especially for audio. I'm constantly adding two, four, or 10 frame dissolves if I can't be bothered to really match the music, or if I'm locked into using certain bits. It's really quite effective. Although, I hear when other people do it and shake my head knowingly. Best place to put those cuts is under a big sound, disguise it a little. But, it's one of those things, when you're trying to cobble together music that's clearly been edited, you kinda just have to hit a point where you say, "I'm done."

Not that I'm some kinda photoshop wiz, but I want to point aspiring photoshoppers in another direction. A lot of people tend to use layers to separate out their various colors from their lineart, and this is fine, and easy, and intuitive, but the problem is that a file with a lot of layers is bulky and can get up there in file sizes, bogging down your system. It's also a bunch of layers to slog through. There's an alternative method called "flatting" which uses channels is a rather novel way. http://www.steeldolphin.com/htmltuts/digital_colorpart1.html http://www.steeldolphin.com/htmltuts/digital_colorpart2.html This is an excellent two-part tutorial that shows you the process. The first half is basically the same thing, about preparing your line art, but the end of the first half and the second half are quite different from the layers method. Once you're done with flatting, the various highlights using blurs and layer modes and stuff still apply. Have fun.

I would just like to mention that in addition to our awesome modeling team, we are also looking for people to create simpler models, as well as to adjust some of the models we've inherited. If you dabble with 3d, but don't feel that your at the level of producing hero models, we could still use your help on many assets.

Chthonic, do you have any other lower-poly models?