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| Re: Lots of useful info in here. *Longish* | |
| Posted By: ThorsHammer <Nate4D@comcast.net> | Date: 11/29/04 12:54 a.m. |
In Response To: Announcing Project: ODST (Hikaru-119) : Do any of you know of some- : Computer animation software (MAC or Windows operating systems, high quality
Animation wise: Maya is pretty much the state of the art. It's also quite a few thousand bucks, so I would tend to steer away from it. Some people would choose Softimage or Lightwave over Maya, I guess, but in my opinion, Maya is the best overall package going (you should note it's been a while since I've followed animation seriously, so this might not be true anymore...). So, assuming you don't want to spend all that, let me recommend Blender. It's not as full featured as Maya, and it's interface is pretty odd until you get used to it, but it has most of the major high-end functions, like bone-based deformation (used for animating characters), and it has one huge advantage: it's free. You can go to the website, and download a full-featured, no-limitations, no-registration-needed copy of it right now. If this seems too good to be true, you probably need to become acquainted with open source software, which is what Blender is. : Good firearm replica or pellet gun online stores (preferrably carrying Meyer
U.S. Cavalry has a few pellet and replica guns, though I can't recall offhand if any of them look much like the M6C. : Ways to make marine uniforms from all of the Halo games. Not easy at all, on a budget. If you have a really major positive cash flow, though, U.S. Cavalry has craploads of surplus military gear from various armed services of various countries. You could probably do pretty well buying stuff from there (or other surplus stores), and then modifying it as needed to look specifically like Halo marine uniforms. : Stuff to make plasma rifles, pistols, etc. Covie gear is just plain gonna be hard. One thing I might recommend (hesitantly): You seem to be interested in using CG for this project, so an option would be to shoot any acting involving Covies/Covie weaponry in front of a greenscreen/bluescreen (these can be approximated at least semi-decently by painting a large flat surface like a tarp one flat color [even a blue tarp should be painted, because the reflection from their surface screws up the system], and shooting indoors), and then compositing the actual ingame models and background into the shot via animation and a good video editor/compositor combo, which you'll need if you're planning a project of this magnitude anyway (Apple makes a nice editor/compositor combo if you wind up using Macs, and Adobe does some pretty solid stuff on both platforms. Neither comes at all cheap, though, and I don't know of any real open source options.) I imagine that some modder or another has already extracted the Halo 2 models and textures, so you could probably even use those. That would be very, very difficult and involved, though, especially if you don't have a huge animation/modeling/compositing/editing team, which I bet you won't. Also, unless you've got some high-end pro-level animators, it just won't look that convincing (although again, perhaps you could get a friendly modder or three to figure out Bungie's animation format, which I *think* was done with Halo 1, and this would help you make convincing animations). Apart from that, I don't see any alternatives to just sculpting/carving models, and painting them correctly (maybe if you have MAJOR CRAPLOADS of cash, you could get the Nightmare Armor guys to make you some, but I imagine getting them to produce new weapons from scratch would be an order of magnitude or two more expensive than just buying stuff from their current production runs). : Anything that might be good for mass produced Grunt uniforms. Just my earlier one about using the original models animated in Blender or program of your choice, and like I said, that would be extremely time-consuming and difficult. But, I suppose it'll also be extremely time-consuming and difficult to create convincing Grunt costumes, so I guess you'll have to make the call, based on what your group's skillsets and resources are. : Also tell if you know any neat tricks that I might be able to use for
Luminous blue blood makes me think you'll be buying blue glowsticks by the ton, breaking them open, and spreading the contents around your corpses liberally. That color isn't perfect, but I'd say it's your best bet, and perhaps if you hunt carefully, you can find a better color. If you do go that route, try to do something to prevent the glowsticks from seeping into the ground; that could cause some nasty pollution (better to at least keep that mess in the dumps). If you really want gratuitous gore (not necessarily recommended by me), some hints might be: Extreme closeups and long/extreme long shots are way easier to fake than a standard medium shot, and the viewer probably won't notice the difference. That is, showing a plasma sword being shoved through someone with blood spurting is easier to do if all you see is the midsection than it is if you see an entire person. All you need is a dummy midsection that's got a bladder filled with stage blood, and you're there. In the same way, a faked exploding body will look much more convincing small, rather than large. Overall advice: Find the nearest stage acting supply company you can (or maybe just search the web for some good ones; I don't know what any web-based ones might be); they carry all sorts of useful stuff, like stage blood, costumes that might be modifiable, and other things. The products they sell aren't as convincing as the equivalent special effects junk from your average production house special effects group, but then, they're somewhat affordable; that's NOT true of most movie-level props, in my experience. Find a copy of The Five C's of Cinematography; this book is the best, bar none, when it comes to explaining the mechanics of actually shooting a film. If you aren't already a cinematographer at the Hollywood level, read this; I can guarantee you'll learn something from it. I know I did. Can you tell that I've spent just a wee bit of my life on this sort of thing? :-) -Nate | |
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| Replies: |
| Announcing Project: ODST | Hikaru-119 | 11/28/04 5:56 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Voltage | 11/28/04 6:01 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Peptuck | 11/28/04 6:19 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Cavmn | 11/28/04 7:05 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Rebel | 11/28/04 7:41 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Hikaru-119 | 11/28/04 9:14 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Pico | 11/28/04 8:22 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Michael M. | 11/28/04 8:41 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Pico | 11/28/04 9:48 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | KoRnKid | 11/28/04 9:10 p.m. |
| Thanks for all your suggestions | Hikaru-119 | 11/28/04 9:17 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | 343winks | 11/28/04 10:10 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Hikaru-119 | 11/29/04 8:39 a.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | egghead316 | 12/23/04 1:06 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Hikaru-119 | 12/23/04 1:13 p.m. |
| Actually. | GruntKilla | 12/28/04 11:22 a.m. |
| Re: Actually. | Hikaru-119 | 12/28/04 1:59 p.m. |
| Re: Lots of useful info in here. *Longish* | ThorsHammer | 11/29/04 12:54 a.m. |
| Re: Lots of useful info in here. *Longish* | Hikaru-119 | 11/29/04 8:29 a.m. |
| Re: Lots of useful info in here. *Longish* | Kyrceck | 12/23/04 4:16 p.m. |
| Forgot one thing, Louis please read | Hikaru-119 | 11/29/04 8:32 a.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Ty 'Bobamee | 12/13/04 10:38 a.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Andrew Nagy | 12/22/04 2:29 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Hikaru-119 | 12/22/04 6:11 p.m. |
| Hikaru... Previous movies? | GruntKilla | 12/22/04 7:18 p.m. |
| Re: Hikaru... Previous movies? | Hikaru-119 | 12/22/04 8:53 p.m. |
| Re: Hikaru... Previous movies? | GruntKilla | 12/23/04 12:47 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Hikaru-119 | 12/23/04 12:49 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Kyrceck | 12/23/04 4:12 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Hikaru-119 | 12/23/04 4:57 p.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | DBPhoenix | 12/28/04 9:37 a.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Guardian | 12/28/04 10:07 a.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Hikaru-119 | 12/28/04 10:13 a.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Jammerfer | 12/28/04 11:53 a.m. |
| Re: Announcing Project: ODST | Sharpshooter | 12/28/04 12:38 p.m. |
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