Attached Link: http://www.jameswhittingham.com/video/quicktime.htm

This is my first 3d animation. I am currently finishing up a 10 month course in 3d. We use Maya 4.5. Please let me know if this sucks or what. This was a school project. Currently working on my final project. Thanks in advance!!

Wow! Most impressive. A bit too videogame-ish for my own tastes, but a most impressive job nonetheless. The motion of the car landing on the roof was somewhat abrupt, and your city needs some civilian traffic to make it feel more alive, but otherwise I have no complaints. Inspired by scenes from Blade Runner and The Fifth Element, I assume?

Yeah, I agree with you, I wanted to put extra stuff in it like other vehicles, etc, but I had my hands full trying to deal with the main cars and they were chugging my computer as it was. I agree about the car landing, I didn't like the camera move to the bomb loader but my render times were hitting 6-8 hrs. per frame and the thought of re-rendering even just a few frames made me sick. I started the animation about 2 months after seeing Maya the first time and by the end I wanted to do the whole thing over. I didn't set up the scene propely, I didn't know how to render in layers, just about everything I did I did the hard way. But that's over and done with and now I'm working on my next project wich is 3d and live action combined. here is a pic of a Robot(1/3 modeled) that will be in it. All of the inspiration came from Blade Runner.

best part: The very vrief scene inside the car engine.... its them details that make all the difference.

Very good ! REmind me both Blade runner and the 5th element. Lc

I was wondering if you studied your course at cgc australia?

Thanks for the comments everyone. I am taking the course at New Media Campus in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a private school with a 10 month course. It finishes at the end of June.

Attached Link: Soto's Digital

Well.... this is a REPOST since last one didn't show up. Let's see if I can remember... The overall of the video feels too "gamelike" for my taste. The explosions and optics remind me of games such as Descent and Homeworld. Although those work nicely in a game it doesn't work that well for general computer graphics (unless that's the look you are after). Second. I'd like it to be a little faster. The cars move sort of slowly and if they are flying they should fly faster. That would certainly add more "speed feeling" and "cool factor". Remember the Coruscant chase in EP 2? That's what I mean. You say this is the intro for your reel? The video feels like a complete reel altogether (it's too long for an intro). The presentation is nice but it would work better if you put it on the beginning of the video. Only something to keep in mind: this video is focused on what exactly? That may help you to think on what to focus.

Thanks for your comments Nemirc, I agree with most of your sentiments, and I want to fix alot of what I percieve as weaknesses but the whole project was so heavy on my machine that tweaking it was a long and laborius process. Rendering times were horrendous and the thought of going back and working on this again..... shudder. It was my first project and I am proud of it despite the blemishes, a face only a mother could love. I am going to cut the whole thing down to about 45 seconds for the actual intro and then offer the whole thing as an extra on my DVD demo.

There is a tool that comes very handy when working on animation, it's called PREVIZ.

Where were you six months ago when I started the project? I am currently doing a complete playblast, low poly, etc as part for my next project as part of the previsualization process. 8 months ago I never even heard of Maya, Previz? what the hell was that? I guess the school likes for us to take the hard road before they show us a better way. Sure helps you appreciate going through the previz process better than if we hadn't learned the hard way.

Previz is the "digital storyboard". Anyone who animates uses a storyboard to set framing and general "look and feel". Previz comes handly when you have to check your timing. Even when you playblast an animation just to see "how it looks" you are using previz. Unless you just rendered the images using the "here goes nothing" motto :-) without even playblasting your anim once.

where can we find it ? Laurent

window playblast [] in the Maya GUI

hi i like it..it was fast energetic the siren gave it a feeling of urgency..... not my sort of stuff i like daft looking characters jumping around..but it was well put 2gether a question what package did you use to put it all 2gether..add the sound n stuff as im looking for info on putting anims 2gether with sound overlays and being able to record a speach soundtrack Dave