So on this project I set out to learn more about the whole workflow. Going from cube to a finished animation. Getting a hang of the common tools and repeating using them over and over. I’ve done a lot of this before. Especially modeling. There’s a lot to do once you learn the tools. Lot’s of ‘what do I do now’. I guess that’s being an artist. No one telling me what to do. I want to learn the tools.
My final goal is to create an animation workflow to create shorts or a series based on Battletech that I can release on a regular basis. Have the story idea and know the tools to execute and see how it would look. That’s the question - ‘How would this look?’
Over time I’ll develop a style that fits the workflow I’m going for. I’m very specific, even if I don’t know what that is really yet. I’ll know it what I see it and feel the process as I perform it and determine where things need improving or is just what it is and needs to be done.
I embrace all the new AI tech and automation. It’s this that’s given me confidence that I can do this in a reasonable amount of effort and time. The tech isn’t quite there yet. Ian Hubert is doing massive things to show what a small crew can do.
What lacks is interesting story. Showing people things they actually want to see. They don’t care to gawk at the animation or beauty of the art. They are here to be entertained like on a roller coaster. The train car and the rides colors are important but pale in comparison to the track and flow of the ride. That’s the story, riding the track, everything else is passing by. It’s all about what happens.
Anyway here’s my most recent animation from this weekend. I learned about anime and comic shaders, using color ramp to divide the colors and create a nice clean shadow form. I also learned how to separate objects into different collections so freestyle only affects the parts I want, also viewlayers and how that works with rendering. I learned a bit about Evee and reflection - I need that light probe object to make it work. The other thing was using track to and child of constraints to make lights and cameras much easier to use.
This model started because I was distracted by Godot and wanting to make a scrolling airplane shooter game quickly. That’s another thing I’d like to be able to do. Know how to make a video game and be confident I can do it.
Next I want to learn how to make the camera more swoopy and flow through the scene. the zoom in ends abruptly and transitions harshly to the lateral move behind the plane. Probably setting up a curve for the camera to follow instead of keyframing everything