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Friday, February 19, 2010

I need your help!!!

I need your help!! For those of you who have been following my posts, you know that I'm making a LEGO animation as an educational project for my schooling (that's more of an excuse though, since I REALLY am enjoying it!!!). But I've gotten myself into quite a pickle, and I need your help on getting out of it! Here's a screen shot of my homestead model so far: (don't worry, I'll be getting a face on my guy soon and do more messing with the ground; this was only a quick screenshot)


I have a lot more tweaking to do with it, but with that primitive showpiece to stare at, I'd like to know what you would rather have: A realistic looking world like the one pictured above, or one that looks more like plastic LEGOs. I really want to hear your feed-back, so please write down your thoughts as comments on here so I can decide which way to steer. For me as the animator, I like both ways and either way would be "easy" for me to do. (just to be clear, I'm only talking about my background sets; I'm still sticking with my LEGO characters) So please be honest and tell me what you think would look best in the end. Ever wanted to be part of a film production? Now's your chance!

Here's a couple screen shots from other animation films to get you started:

The inside of a Navy ship, done with a LEGO set. (from Men O' War)

A LEGO island, done again in LEGO style. (from Men O' War)

A more "realistic" looking set, which would be the other way I could create my animated world. (from Big Buck Bunny)

Let me know what you think!

7 comments:

Heather Ueeck said...

I personally like the one that you had there - the more realistic type. The mountains looked like they had been animated, but you couldn't tell unless you were looking for it. I think that half way inbetween would work best, if that's possible. But if not, I think that the realistic does look great!

Sean Nebblett said...

agreed w/ Heather. Lean towards realism...

Seth Sutherland said...

Thank you everyone for you input! (even those who didn't leave comments...) I'll head for the real look, since I had absolutely NO ONE opt for LEGO block backgrounds. In order to keep my animation simple, I'm thinking of making my backgrounds look more like pastel paintings. I'll explain more about how and why in my next post. Thank you again for all your input; it really helps me steer in the right direction!

Nathan W said...

I realize that this comment might be a little late, but I'll give it anyways.

Realism in 3d animations is very neat and useful. However for a lot of applications it's not used or even attempted. This is due to a number of reasons... One of them is because achieving a "realistic level of realism" is a HUGE undertaking. Because of this, some animations (like Men 'O War) don't even attempt "realism", and they work because our minds fill in the detail that's not there. This is one of the advantages of animating Legos, people immediately recognize them and what they are supposed to represent. With Legos you're not even attempting "realism" and you also don't have to create a whole new "stylized" look.

I think it would be best if your fore-ground and possibly middle-ground elements were Lego's and then your background plate could be something image based.

Seth Sutherland said...

Thank you for your comment Nathan; it wasn't too late! If I knew who you were (I'm assuming you're from FilmWeavers), I'd ask a couple more questions since you seem to know a lot about animation! ;-)

Right now that's kind of what I'm aiming at. I'm shying away from real image backgrounds though, as I'm finding them way too busy etc. But I'll cover that in my next post...

Thanks again for your input!

Nathan W said...

Nope, different Nathan here...

I'll contact you through Google, and maybe we can communicate more. ;)

Not a problem.

Unknown said...

Is this Nathan Wright ?