Show's On-Topic Cameo, now in 3D!

[on:]

So very few people enjoy my off-topic 3d thread (pluggage) http://www.peelified.com/cgi-bin/Futurama/12-002919-1/  so I thought I'd try my hand at some on-topic 3d crap.  I started making bender last night, here's what I've got so far:



Modeled in 3DS Max 8 and rendered with mental ray.

I used a different technique than my previous 3d Fry model.  check out my old thread for Fry if you haven't had the chance
http://www.peelified.com/cgi-bin/Futurama/4-001231/

I'm not sure how much time I'm gonna put into this 3d futurama bit, I'll prolly finish up bender maybe model another character or place, we'll see what I can make time for.  Bender's a work in progress so C&C are encouraged.

[Reply #1 on:]

nice! Good job!

[Reply #2 on:]

awsome!!! that rules. you should try to make the rest of his body that would be real cool.

[Reply #3 on:]

that is really cool!

[Reply #4 on:]

Ahh, the many talents of 3D artists arises from the semi-dead.... It's exactly like the show's 3D Bender looks. I applaude to you sir.

[Reply #5 on:]

excelent bender show good job

[Reply #6 on:]

Thanks guys, I'm trying to make him look as much like the show as possible, so I'm really glad to hear you say that Professor Zoidy. 

My next animation is going to be of a similar style so I figured this would be good practice.  I dunno if I'll be able to finish his body tonight, I'm going to see some fireworks.  I'm rigging him as I go along so that's slowing me down as well.  Here's what I've got so far. 

I intend on doing a simple animation with him.  I just finished rigging his fingers, I also hope to rig his mouth and practice a little lip sync which I've been reading up on lately.

[Reply #7 on:]

that is really good. that slight bend at his knees makes him to look like the real bender.

[Reply #8 on:]

I rigged the eyes today.  My first legitimate attempt at facial animation.  I didn't spend anytime on tweeking the animation, so it's not the best, I just wanted to test out the controls.  I'm usually never saticfied with my own work but I'm pretty pleased with how this came out.

 http://media.putfile.com/BndrEyeTest6-26-06

tell your (peel)friends, seriously, I don't think many people would think to come to this page and click this link.

lemme know what you think.

[Reply #9 on:]

Wow those are awesome. You have alot of talent.

[Reply #10 on:]

Nice to see you again Show... how can you do that? Amazingly done Bender. About the eye animation, I think it looks great!

[Reply #11 on:]

Ahh, the wonders of something I can't do....I really like it. It's quite the awesome little video and when you move the little round bar thing, you can see the individual frames and give him  still poses that would be just as awesome still as when they are all put together. Good job, and please don't hesitate to do more. 

[Reply #12 on:]

whoa that is awsome...wish I could do that!!! It looks r3eally cool when his eyes go sad like.

[Reply #13 on:]

really good, the only small thing I noticed was the blinks looked a little off, but still pretty cool

[Reply #14 on:]

thanks.  yeah, I think the blink looks wrong because bender usually doesn't close his eyes all the way when he blinks, they just turn to slits.  I'll keep that in mind when I start animating with him.

Here's what I've been working on lately, morph targets for the fingers:

I know it doesn't look like much and I'm sure it only looks cool to me, but I've never rigged a hand or made an object with multiple morph targets so it's kind of exciting. with this I'll be able to curl in and stretch out each finger individually

I have to figure out how to copy the right arm and it's setup over to his left side, or re-rig everthing, including the fingers... ugh. but after that it's on to rigging the lips then I'll be ready to animate. 

[Reply #15 on:]

Is there a way that you can make the fingertips rounded (not like a cylinder, but with rounded edges, I don't know exactly how to expain it... ) kinda like this image

The movements of the fingers look fine to me.

[Reply #16 on:]

yeah, I was thinking about rounding off his fingers.  It changes from shot to shot though, I was basing most of this off the Volume 4 cover where they're pretty defined cylinders.  Right now I like the definition at the tip of the fingers but if it doesn't look right when I'm animating I can change it pretty easily. 

And as usual JavieR, feel free to grab any of this stuff for your site, I'd be really honored.

[Reply #17 on:]

 

Originally posted by Show:
yeah, I was thinking about rounding off his fingers.  It changes from shot to shot though, I was basing most of this off the Volume 4 cover where they're pretty defined cylinders.  Right now I like the definition at the tip of the fingers but if it doesn't look right when I'm animating I can change it pretty easily. 

And as usual JavieR, feel free to grab any of this stuff for your site, I'd be really honored.

I see... well is up to you then, you know more of 3D stuff than me. And I'll grab something from this thread very soon... thanks for the permission 

[Reply #18 on:]

Some good WIP y'got there... I gave the animation a good looking at to nail down any innaccuracies.

The visor seems a bit too wide and sticks out too far, and the head seems a bit too thin too. Oh, and the mouth also needs to be taller.

[Reply #19 on:]

Well, I finally got the weekend off.  And now that I'm painfully single I get to cope by spending all my freetime on my one hobby.

I rounded out the fingers, took me a lot longer than expected.

Thank you for the advise zmithy, I tweeked what I could, other things would look odd from a different agnle if I did much to 'em.

Anyways, this morning I finished rigging his body, now I've just got him mouth left.  Hopefully I'll be able to spend some time on that soon.

[Reply #20 on:]

Quite awesome. I think rigging the mouth will be the hardest part of your job on Bender. You may have to study it some by watching episodes in slo-mo, much to many people's dislike. I'd also love to see Bender's door opening and closing. I always loved that part in Less Than Hero. If you ever want something to do, that is... 

[Reply #21 on:]

Very good! Those are real nice 3D images!

[Reply #22 on:]

 

Originally posted by Professor Zoidy:I think rigging the mouth will be the hardest part of your job on Bender. You may have to study it some by watching episodes in slo-mo, much to many people's dislike.

Actually I think it'll be easier than the fingers ((knocks on wood)). In fact, I'll be using the same method for rigging the mouth as I did the fingers.  Also the slow-mo studying is one of the great parts about being a 3d animator;  I've gotta do some research, better pop in an episode of futurama   

I've taken over 150 frame grabs of bender for reference during this project.  most of which refer to the different 3d models they've had  in the show but also all the major mouth positions of his that I've come across.

I'm glad to see you got the less than hero reference.  I was actually thinking about doing a little animation with his door popping open.  We'll see what I can make time for, I do plan on making an animation with him.

thanks for the nice feed back you two.

[Reply #23 on:]

aside from the one used in the show, this is definately the best Bender model I've seen.

That said, I have only two minor things to point out.

First, the feet look very slightly off to me. They seem a bit more squat than his feet on the show. That might be my imagination, though.

The other thing is the mouth. It seems a little wide in the 3/4 views. They said in the commentary (I think on the Titanic ep) that they cheat a lot with bender's facial features. I don't remember them mentioning the mouth specifically, but their comments about the eyes seem likely to apply to the mouth as well; perhaps in their renders, the mouth's width varies depending on the perspective? Narrower in the front and wider the futher the camera moves around the side?

As I said these are very minor points, but it's the only constructive criticism I can offer because, as I said, it's the best-looking bender model I've ever seen outside the show.

If I manage to get anywhere with my game programming projects on the side, I'm going to have to find some way to recruit you as an artist. What's your flavor, money? booze? strippers?     

[edit] Oh, when you get the mouth rigged, you should do the eyes too. Pretty trivial compared to the mouth, but he should be able to make angry eyes, as well as "zoom".

I can't wait to see it in action   

BTW, what did you ever do with the Fry model? Dug up your old "3d Fry" thread but you never did post any rendered video in it.
[/edit]

[Reply #24 on:]

   

Originally posted by Gopher:
The other thing is the mouth. It seems a little wide in the 3/4 views. They said in the commentary (I think on the Titanic ep) that they cheat a lot with bender's facial features. I don't remember them mentioning the mouth specifically, but their comments about the eyes seem likely to apply to the mouth as well; perhaps in their renders, the mouth's width varies depending on the perspective? Narrower in the front and wider the futher the camera moves around the side?
[/edit]

Very good point.  I've noticed that about the 2d bender.  from the front his mouth looks very flat, not wrapped around his head.  But from the side, his mouth is wrapped halfway around his face.  It's actually true of a lot of cartoon characters- the reason I didn't put mouths on the stick figures in my first animation.  It you were to have a perfectly spherical smily fave and look at it from the front it'd look like this    from the side his mouth would practically be a dot, as opposed to comming halfway back, like this    the model in "A head in the polls" seemed to address this problem best, from what I can see, I'm not exactly sure how though, I'll check out some commentaries on that.  Again though, very good point, I'll see what I can do as I'd like to get it to show quality.

   

Originally posted by Gopher:
If I manage to get anywhere with my game programming projects on the side, I'm going to have to find some way to recruit you as an artist. What's your flavor, money? booze? strippers?     
[/edit]

workin in 3d on a solid project is a treat in itself, I'd love to work on something sometime.  Of course if you had some money, booze or strippers on hand I can't say I'd object.

   

Originally posted by Gopher:
[edit] Oh, when you get the mouth rigged, you should do the eyes too. Pretty trivial compared to the mouth, but he should be able to make angry eyes, as well as "zoom".

I can't wait to see it in action     
[/edit]

people don't look for links on pages like this enough, that's the trouble with animated fan art     
  http://media.putfile.com/BndrEyeTest6-26-06

I don't have to zoom rigged but I will if it ever arises.

Thanks again for the comments, very helpful.  I'm serious about that project too, I'd love to collaborate on something.  of course it might be another year before I've got the time or an efficient workflow but things like this are really what I wanna do with myself.

[Reply #25 on:]

Oh, sorry! Dunno how I missed that link. Looks great!

I was going to edit my old post but since you already responded I'll just say, I retract my comment about the feet. Watching the show now and Bender's feet look right.

And as for the project, I'm in the same boat. I'm moving right now, and so in addition to being busy with that I'm working overtime to help pay for it. But I'm always thinking about ideas, and I try to scrape as much time as I can to do some hobby programming.

I'll send you an email one of these days, with a couple of my ideas. I think it's vital, especially for internet collaborations, for everyone to be excited about the project, so I'll throw out some of the ideas I've been kicking around and see what you think.

[Reply #26 on:]

nice work show! i dont know how u do it, but its amazing! good luck on your work in the future! ....heh

[Reply #27 on:]

Thats lookin' good, I should try and learn how to do that

[Reply #28 on:]

The stuff looks really badass Show.  Very much like the show, keep up the good work! ^_^

[Reply #29 on:]

Amazing stuff, Show. 

[Reply #30 on:]

This is the most accurate Bender model I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few. But I don't think hise eyes and mouth are yellow enough.

Love the "Less than hero" pose.

[Reply #31 on:]

Take your time on it, Show. It seems a lot of PEELers lately have been gearing up for a move or have already done it. I myself would do it to join in on the fun.  The "zoom" would be a great feature to work on. You'd only need to add in the [illegally made] robot porno magazines for it to have a really funny effect. Of course I do understand it's quite a difficult thing to do, so if you don't wanna, or it takes a while, I'm cool with that. 

[Reply #32 on:]

 http://media.putfile.com/DA07

It's not much but I was feelin kind of down and thought I should get some decently timed animation done on bender today so I'd have something to show for myself.

I have a three other key poses done as well but I have yet to put them to use. I'm tryin to resist the temptation to render it out before I've got the motion complete but here's a frame from an earlier version, which pretty much looks the same as the model hasn't changed, just the timing/position.

It's also worth noting that I haven't touched the eyeball keys yet.

Also, if you overlooked the off-topic 3d thread (and lets face it, who doesn't), you prolly missed out on this other preview: http://media.putfile.com/DA04d

lemme know what ya think.

[Reply #33 on:]

Woah! totally awesome. It was great seeing the handles you used (not sure if that's the right term) the controls for Bender's expression etc. Best Bender rig ever, now go infiltrate Rough Draft! 

If you have another generic host, you may want to make a lil thumbnail preview for the links, makes people realise there's content there

[Reply #34 on:]

Thanks alena.

you wouldn't happen to know how to make a linkable thumbnail with UBB code, or how to turn HTML on when you post, would you?


Edit: nevermind, figured it out. I'll get right on that.

[Reply #35 on:]

Whoa really great job Show, looks like it's coming along good

[Reply #36 on:]

Thank you fry1077. and thanks again for the advice Alena.  Here's what I've got thus far:



be wary of the the volume. The music sort of kicks in out of the blue near the end. naturally, I'll be saving the audio adjustments and sound effects for last.

[Reply #37 on:]

Very, Very nice work show.
I wish I had the patience and money to do this

[Reply #38 on:]

I think I prefer your model to the show's. There's something more slouchy about his posture on your model which suits him well.

[Reply #39 on:]

Superior work, Show. Who are you? Do you secretly work for the government Futurama 3-D staff in your spare time?