Attached Link: http://www.littlemanproductions.com/airu_movies.html

I have just completed the first in a three part series of animated short films. The entire film was modeled, animated and rendered in Carrara 3 and 4. After two years of hard work, I just wanted to share with everyone and thank you for helping me solve problems along the way.

Chuck

Very cool! and congratulations! -Kix

Very Fun! Great work. Stan

Excellent! Would love to know more about some of the creation including post production.Congrats!

Fun Stuff!

Wow, great stuff there! It looks fabulous, I really like the camera work. Especially looking through the eyes of the explorer and the pod thing. I can see where those years of work went to. The shading, texturing and lighting make this look great! The strings in the soundtrack are a tad too 'programmed' sounding, but that might be an overactive love of music and lots of jealousy ofcourse :) Are you already working on the next parts? Are you considering using Cararra 5?

Thanks to everyone for the feedback - makes it all worth while! :-)

The music - I am a huge Star Wars fan, so a lot of the inspiration for writing my own score came from John Williams' work. But, I'm a guitarist, so writing orchestral music can sometimes be a challenge for me.

The next parts - I have already started pre-production on Chapter 2. I am in the set building stage right now and starting sketches for a couple of new characters that will appear. But it's nice to have the main characters done already! ;-)

Carrara 5 - Yes, I am using Carrara 5 now... when 5 came out I was just finishing up some final renders, so I decided not to switch over until this part of the film was done. Looking forward to putting the Replicator to good use in the next two parts.

Post production - was done in After Effects. Things like dust blowing when the crate lands, motion blurs and depth of field. I decided to do DOF and blurs in AE instead of Carrara so I wouldn't have to re-render if I didn't like something. So, I rendered characters with alpha channels and brought them all together with the backgrounds in AE. And all of the views through characters' viewfinders were done in AE as well.

Chuck

Brilliant work. Thanks for sharing with us.

Very nice work Chuck, I am a big fan already! You might check the use of "it's" in the opening lines. "It's" is a contraction for "it is". It is not showing possession. In your case, "its" shows possession, as in "My house, with its many faults, is still where I hang my hat." Great work! I hope to make a short film some day. R

Nice work there mate, looks like a lot of work and dedication. Well now I really want to know whats going to happen next;)

Well, I'm new to Carrara and have never tried any animation, so its good to see what can be done. There are some great shots in this - and points of nicely chosen. The reflected images in the eyepieces were particularly effective. In short, I'm impressed - looking forward to seeing part 2!

ominousplay - Thanks for the grammar catch! I guess I should have paid more attention in school all those years ago instead of sketching spaceships and robots. ;-) It's now on my list of fixes for the next release.

Chuck

I love these characters so far. Good stuff.

Good work

This is impressive work. This is the sort of thing that should be showcased on a Carrara short film site. It is a pity that Brian's site is no more as a lively site would encourage others to experiment. I suppose a large part of the problem is the hosting expenses for video. If I was not dirt poor at the mo I'd look into it myself. Good luck, I'll look forward to seeing more!

Chuck, I hope I didn't come off as a know-it-all. Just wanted to "catch" that before you go too far. Usually I am the one getting caught tweaking the English language. I wanted to also say more about what I liked in the story. The idea that these robots are being "upgraded" and using distance - as in the case of the oldest looking bot, it shows how they could possibly have emotions - fear, saddness, etc. Good work. The music lends to the mood as well. Did you do the computer screens in AfterEffects?

ominousplay - I really do appreciate the catch... my wife was surprised she didn't catch it first, since she is my test reviewer during the creation process. ;-)

The computer screens were created in Photoshop and animated in After Effects, layered on top of the shots I did in Carrara (with the exception of the objects that spin around in the viewfinders and the wireframe symbols - which were animated and rendered in Carrara with alpha channels and brought into AE.

Fantastiscally done. Now I am motivated that it indeed can be done. I still have a lot to learn though. :-)

Congratulations. It looks great. :)

Wonderful job on this, I really like the whole thing . Five stars from me .

EXCELLENT! Well done and very cool!