My fan-made cinematic thread

[Robear]

The graphics look great, but I suggest cutting out the music while the computer is speaking at the beginning. It's a bit distracting for both going on at once, and more dramatic for the music to go on when the wraith launches.

Hmm, thanks for the feedback. I had considered earlier just having the adjutant just make some sort of vague echoey announcement via loudspeaker in the background as just a way of adding a 'this is a hangar bay, let's pretend that stuff is actually going on on this ship" kind of ambiance. I didn't intend for the dialogue to be very important. Do you think that would also work as a solution?

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The graphics look great, but I suggest cutting out the music while the computer is speaking at the beginning. It's a bit distracting for both going on at once, and more dramatic for the music to go on when the wraith launches.

Hmm, thanks for the feedback. I had considered earlier just having the adjutant just make some sort of vague echoey announcement via loudspeaker in the background as just a way of adding a 'this is a hangar bay, let's pretend that stuff is actually going on on this ship" kind of ambiance. I didn't intend for the dialogue to be very important. Do you think that would also work as a solution?

[Nissa]

Well, to be honest, I think it would be better if the music weren't playing right away, with or without early dialogue. The music makes more of an impact if it's not automatically present. It'd be really great if it coincided with the launch of the wraith.

[Robear]

I made a mutalisk to be the wraith's adversary. Check it out!

[Robear]

I want to use basically as many SC1 sound effects as I can, but they all have to be masked with either SC2 sound effects or sounds from free sources, because their audio quality is so low. So, the mutalisk above has mixes of SC1 and SC2 audio. I don't really love the SC2 laser sound effects though, so for the wraith's lasers I decided to try to make my own.



Each laser sound in there has the original SC1 audio playing, but then also a custom garageband synth over it. The nice thing about that is it means I can have a bunch of different versions of it with slightly different pitches and amounts of buzzing for variety, instead of just using the same clip over and over. I'm pretty pleased with it, but, any feedback?

(the main laser goes through the back of the wraith because with that render I was specifically testing to see if the motion blur would make that happen, and it did, heh. Here's a version with the effect looking the way it's supposed to.)

I don't know how I'm going to do engine noise... If I ever want any longish shots just flying behind a wraith or valkyrie, I kind of need to have long, persistent jet engine clips. :/

[Nissa]

Those sounds are pretty good. They work.

[Robear]

So, I've still been working on and off around this, despite being very busy...

I've had all the models finished for a long time, but the Zerg textures are all not finished, and then the next big thing is learning about particle effects, for smoke and sparks and zergy acid and plasma. I'm planning to avoid showing any big explosions because I've seen too many amateur animations with really bland digital looking ones. But I would like puffs of plasma and sparks when a glave wurm hits terran hull, and blood and chunks when a mutalisk or overlord gets shot. So at this point I have all the different shots that need those kinds of effects planned out in such away that I know how to do them, and can strategically avoid showing difficult things like actual tearing Zerg flesh or any physics/fluid simulation-y stuff.

But, even though I know exactly what I want to do with regards to effects, I still run into problems between me and the software. Like, I have some smoke trails for Valkyrie missiles that I'm pretty happy with,



...but when I try to actually render them in the scene they come out in greyscale. Problems like that really aren't so difficult, and I'm sure there are easy answers to all of them, but when they keep cropping up and I'm only working on it in my spare time... that's why progress is slow.

Even though I like animating, and want to learn these new skills like getting good at subsurface scattering stuff, just modeling is a lot more relaxing. So, I'm back to that Brood War hydralisk model, trying to outfit it with the expanding spine-firing mechanism from the in-game sprite animation. So, this isn't for this thread's animation at all, which has more SC2-like Zerg, but it'll still be cool. I might be the first fan to animate this design firing in 3D, which is cool (WC3 had the only other interpretation I can think of, but it matched the sprite less than mine will.)

[Robear]

Another neat little animation test...

[Visions of Khas]

Hey nice animation. Whenever I make my own 3D mutalisk, I've always wanted to see them with a larger wing span and streamlined body.

[Robear]

No, you'll make your mutalisks unaerodynamic and you'll make them flap their wings in space and you'll like it. :P

I haven't had any time to work on animation stuff. This is the same mutalisk flapping animation from March, without any of its minor flaws fixed. The wing colors aren't new either, this is just a gif of the old flapping with the color on the wings, but it does look pretty cool. Makes me feel optimistic about future Zerg models/animation.

[Robear]

I also plan to have a part of the fight where a wraith collides with a mutalisk, with a shot from inside the wraith's cockpit of the mutalisk trying to adjust its position and snarling at the pilot. I haven't decided whether this shot would be better from over the pilot's shoulder, with the side/back of his head in the frame, or from his first-person perspective. One obvious advantage to doing a point-of-view shot is that I don't need to model and texture a head. This isn't anything like what the shot will look like, this is just showing how the wraith interior fits into the wraith exterior model, and seeing if the reflections in the glass would look cool, which I think they do.



So I'll be making something like this at some point, when I have the time. And there'll be blinking warning lights and alarms and the whole shot bouncing around. It'll only be a very short shot, but maybe if the interior model is going well I can keep using it later.