chillyche

You know, I used to think piloting a giant robot by rocking out with a guitar was somewhat of a stretch for my internal logic, but when I considered piloting a giant robot by rocking the mic... Hmm... a Sound Force made up of an emcee, a dj, and a beatboxer... Macross Aria Dynamite? Good luck in the robo challenge. Remember, even non-transforming robots can still contribute to an Itano Circus. It does have micromissiles, right?

Just to be clear, Hikuro's version of DYRL is the full picture, but squished to be 4x3. If you're using a player like SMPlayer or VideoLAN, you can force it to view the image in 16x9, which shows it in the proper aspect ratio. WiMP is not terribly good at letting you make your own choices, so then it displays improperly. There are three ways to address this, depending on the final end user's hardware. 1) Create a file that is 16x9 with SQUARE 1:1 pixels. That would mean the file size would be 720x405 or 856x540. We often see things that are 856x480 which is 16x9 with an NTSC 0.9 ratio pixel (TV pixels are not squares, but actually rectangles -- you'll notice that 4x3 would actually equal 720x540, but with D1 video, due to the rectangle pixel, 4x3 is actually equal to 720x486, and with DV 720x480). 2) Make sure that the file is coded to be understood as a 16x9 image, so that whatever player can decode and display properly. I'm not sure that a regular playback format has this option, but when burning a DVD you can tell it whether or not your 720x480 file is meant to be 4x3 or 16x9. At least in DVD Studio Pro, which is the only DVD burning software I have any experience with. 3) Hardware. If you have a monitor or DVD player that allows you to force the aspect ratio, you can hit the 16x9 button, and you'll be set. If it's confusing, it may help to think about feature films. When they shoot a movie, a widescreen movie, they're shooting (most likely) on 35mm film. This is the same stuff that you put into a 35mm still camera (if anybody still remembers those). So how do they fit a wide 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 image into a little 35mm frame? Via anamorphic lenses. These lenses SQUEEZE the image so that it fits into a smaller box. Then, when projecting the film, you have another set of lenses that expands the image back to its original size. This is what's happening with Hikuro's file. Basically, the image has been squeezed to fit into the smaller box (4x3) and we need to tell our players to stretch it back out.

Looking pretty sweet so far.

Shouldn't that be Family Matters version?

Just wondering if any of the modelers for this Mod would be interested in contributing their models or new work to Macross Aria, which has its own thread now: macross aria thread and website. It's just such a shame for those models to never see the light of day. And I sure know I was impressed by them.

Thanks! That's just a little music video pet project that's slowly developing. I'm now using it as practice for Macross Aria. Getting two birds stoned at once.

FYI: 3ds Max is the tool we'll be using to compile and animate everything. As far as I'm concerned, people can model for us in whatever software they feel most comfortable with, so long as there's a reasonable path from SOFTWARE > 3DS MAX.

Wow. I gotta say, regardless of how you used your reference materials, these are outstanding. And I happen to be a fan of tweaking to get the things to look the best in each mode. After all, we're dealing with stuff that was never intended to be 3d cgi. What software were you using?

Not to detract from the excitement surrounding casting announcements, but we're still looking for modelers. Particularly people willing to tackle some Zentradi designs. Things are about to hit high gear.

Wow, great models, and great renders. Is there a Battroid mode?

UN Roundel as your spline controller? Cute.

Hikuro has a call out for auditions on this website: voiceactingalliance.com/board/showthread.php?t=37956 There's a description of the available roles there, and instructions for submitting auditions. I'm psyched about all the interest in the project. Word.

That IS really cool. Looks like our work is cut out for us.

Just think of the poor, under-appreciated VF-4s, man. Do it for them!

CG, with a look closer to the first Appleseed CGI than to Ex Machina. With any luck, we will have some models to show off before too long. You can see my earlier pilot model on youtube: Since that model was built, I've learned a lot.

Absolutely. Believe me, there is a good deal of action planned.

Awesome. This is really a serious feat. What's more, there's been some changes since the low-quality version, including (for all the naysayers out there) a revision of the infamous helmet effects. All I can say is, this is simply spectacular, a major undertaking that was a resounding success. What a gift to the community! Everybody represent!

Hey folks, I've been keeping a lid on this for a while, although some people may already be in the know. I am currently producing a series of three short CGI films that take place in the Macross universe, titled Macross Aria. Set shortly after Space War One, the series will explore loss and transformation, set against the back drop of -- what else? -- space battles and song. Many fan productions come and go, and I know I'm not the first to shout about an animated short here. Where this particular project differs from perhaps others is that I'm taking a page out of game modding book, and enlisting plenty of like-minded fans to help bring this project to life. In fact, to be quite honest, without the support of the Macross fan community, this project would not be plausible. I am announcing the project here now to open the doors, and invite community members to help take part in what I think will be a very valuable and rewarding experience. I'm excited about the talented team that has already been assembled, but we're going to need more hands and creativity to bring this thing to fruition. Right now we're looking for: 2d artists character designers storyboard artists concept artists 3d modelers and/or completed models texture artists composer/song writer additional voice talent (PM Hikuro for more details) The project has moved past its development phase, and is currently in preproduction. Given the nature of a non-centralized, fan-contributed project, production and preproduction can and will occur concurrently. For more information, I have set up a production blog located at http://macrossaria.ning.com. The public website is: http://www.macrossaria.com If you'd like to contribute in any way, please hit me back either with a PM or by responding to this topic. In the mean time, the first public element of Aria will be Mercury's Word, the on-board publication of the ARMD Pegasus. It will features articles and media and will be a good place to explore the world beyond the three episodes planned for Aria. Check it out, it's in beta-beta rough cut form right now! DECULTURE!

I personally use 3ds Max. You can download a 30 day trial, but the learning curve is such that if you don't have some great tutorials, you won't be modeling a Valk in only 30 days. Not a transforming one, at any rate. If you're a student, you can get it for an educational discount which is like ridiculously cheap CONSIDERING it's normal retail, but if you're not, and you don't have thousands of US dollars to spend, then you might want to explore Blender. I've seen people do amazing things in Blender, and frankly, it seems like a decent tool. It's not really used professionally that much, though, so depending on your ultimate goal, you may want to shell out the money for a professional tool. Not much I can add.

Looks cool! What are you modeling in?

Hikuro -- tell me what format you have stuff in, I might be able to overlay your credits over some video in AfterEffects, then kick that back to you.

Yeah, I agree with that, but I'm willing to live with the current fx, given how much work changing it would be.

Nice.

Yeah, that's not really worth it. I prefer voicemail to the old radio, but I'll live with whatever you actually use, because, it's not like I'm paying you to do my bidding or anything. That said, I'm surprised that you can't just remove the effect from a clip and replace it with the new effect simply. I guess it's cuz I have limited audio mixing experience, within Avid where we usually just leave the effects on the clip, and can remove them at will. When I've done stuff in Sonar, it's more destructive, actually rebuilding the clip audio. I prefer non-destructive editing. I'm not sure how protools works, but I assume it's non-destructive, like Avid or AfterEffects or something. So, when the tooth fairy leaves you a copy of ProTools LE with an MBox, then, maybe you can make everybody happy. Frakkin' tooth fairy.

If the video source was interlaced originally, deinterlacing it just drops your vertical resolution in half, by removing one field and duplicating it, or interpolating it. If the video source was progressive to begin with, deinterlace STILL might lose you some resolution. What you gotta know is that at 29.97, NTSC, you're actually dealing with roughly 60 fields a second, rather than frames. With a 24p (or 23.98p, or whatever) source, what's happening is that a pulldown is occuring. That is, 4 frames are being spread out over 5 fields. The type of pulldown depends on the encoder and decoder. If everything is staying at 24 from start to finish, then one shouldn't have to worry about fields, but, if it's ever been NTSC or PAL or SECAM, then it will have been converted to fields at one point. And the question becomes, how did the people who captured the footage actually go about capturing it? I tell you, my secret wish is for video fields to disappear from the earth forever, and for stupid-ass NTSC to vanish, too. Even the new HD broadcast format is stupid 59.94 frames per second, interlaced. Progressive HD programming is just pulled down. What this means is that, even if you have 24 frames per second, your data rate is still, at broadcast, going to be 59.94 frames per second, or 119.88 fields per second. Stupid. And interlace is dumb. Always has been, always will be. It's just, sometimes we don't have any option. Since older anime was actually shot on film, that means that any new "prints" of the program could be in true 24p, but usually by the time it is distributed, we don't get the true, pure datarate, we get some dumb bullshit. I'm griping, because for the past five years or so, the rapidly evolving formats have made my job a constant living hell. So I feel for you. I really do.