The Hegemony of Archon

P

Policar

Carbonite Member
I'm doing the special effects for Hector Johnson's next short film: The Hegemony of Archon.  It's the sequel to David and Jonathan, sort of, which gained some level of notoriety here.  I also act in it; you can see me in the first shot.  Oh, and I'm sure people here will be happy to see that David and Jonathan are back.  They were great to work with, too.  All around a really professional and hard working crew.

Unfortunately, I'm way behind on post production and I'm supposed to have all the shots done by early tuesday morning.  Check out the preview, though:

http://home.comcast.net/~wauhkies/compressed.mov

Hector expects to have this online within the week as it's a really short film.  Here are a few stills, too:
image005.jpg

image019.jpg

image001.jpg
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

that guys facial expression in the movie is funnny.

the integration of the live action into that cg ship is pretty good. i feel like the ship needs some lighting and texturing done to it though. maybe you are already working on that? how far along are those shots?

keep us posted.
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

Interesting shots of spacecraft travel in combination with live action.
Is the Spacecraft your design?
Looking out for more...
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

OMG! I cant freakin wait! This guys a genius. And he had as all thinking he was maybe half retarded for a while!

D&J with spaceships... YES! 8)
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

Rich, the textures are pretty early in that not much work went into them and they're mostly just single color objects with adjusted specular levels, and fine noise as a bump map (though if time is a concern I may keep everything but the wide shot the same and redo that). The lighting is mostly 3-point, 2 omnis and one spotlight that casts shadows. Are there any tips you'd give for texturing and lighting for greater naturalism? I'm a bit of a newbie but I want my contribution to this film to be good. Sadly, I have very little time to work on it. There aren't many space ship shots (maybe three more), and since I'm not getting paid I don't need to deliver perfection (bad attitude, I know), but I would like to improve them as much as I can in a day or two's work. What would you advise I do? I may just revise the wide shot a bit and leave the others...

I'm just asking since your music video is so awesome and you seem to really know what you're doing. Thanks for any advice you have to offer, by the way.
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

It's the same genre as David and Jonathan so far as I can tell, but with more dialogue and space ships.

Rich...still need some advice.
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

im not sure if im glad to see that it's going to be longer than David and Jonathan
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

hey man...what 3d prog you using? i think i remember you saying once that you used 3d studio max? anyway, any chance of doing some image based lighting? global illumination type stuff?

either way. i would say add some sort of texture to the surface of the ship. even if its subtle. maybe some sort of line work or tile like they use on the space shuttle. also maybe some scratched and dents. anything that is like wear and tear...now i dont mean to go over the top with it...just some subtle stuff to break the surface just a bit...

check out the this site and this page for some good links to free textures

http://www.3drender.com/ref/texture.htm

also..this used to be my favorite texture to get scratches and stuff...i think i used this thing on everything...it makes a nice bump map...http://textures.forrest.cz/cgi-bin/showimage.cgi?page=metal&pic=SIGNBACKX.JPG

also..try and get a bit more bounce light under the ship.

my first 3d job for tv/film ever was making some space ship type stuff for a cheesy ass disney flick...here is a pic..it is similer in look to what i think you are trying to do...maybe it is a good reference for you?

zenon_plane_large.jpg


here is alittle model i was going to make for a little cg animated film about robot workers...

robowelder_large.jpg


maybe some line work like that...to show off some of the curves of your ship?...they dont have to be as thick as those...it can almost be like pn striping on a car..to help show lines..and maybe brek the surface of them a bit to show some chipping and wear.

hmm..hope some of this makes sense man..let me know i can do more...keep us posted!

peace
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

Thanks; that was quite helpful and I'll definitely re-light and re-texture with that in mind. Those robots look really good, by the way. The geometry as well as the textures are excellent. I think I've yet to see something you've made that hasn't really impressed me.

I made the space ship really quickly (and, yes, I did use Max), so I'll probably fix up the geometry a bit as well (I've definitely done higher quality work in the past, but it takes so long and the ship is only on screen for like 15 seconds.)
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

cool man. the short stuff..things that arent on screen for very long. are always fun to work on. cause you can do things that you dont normaly get to do very often..like using global illumination to light a scene. cause usualy you dont get to do that as much becuase render times are so insane...but for the short stuff you can throw everything at it...and the render times are still slow...but because you arent rendering that much stuff...you can deal with it easier. know what i mean? good luck on all that stuff!

peace!
 
Re: The Hegemony of Archon

[quote author=Rich Lee link=board=Clips;num=1098073739;start=0#9 date=10/20/04 at 21:18:44]here is alittle model i was going to make for a little cg animated film about robot workers...[/quote]

Rich - Very nice graphic! :)
 
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