comp 19 ----((Dance Move))----

[BiG ToE-3DT]

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g129/DJBiGToE/ballroom_dancing.jpg

_Dance Move_


The idea,
Alrighty then, this is a 3 weeker, I think. I want all of you to bust a move. Animate a character doing the best dance move you can think of. Or a dance move you’re good at, or even a move you couldn’t do if your computer depended on it. Just animate some dancing. This can be as easy as one person dancing, or two people getting down and dirty on the dance floor. Add music to the scene and please try to dance on beat. Have fun with it. If you don’t have a character to animate, you might be able to find one on the net (let us know you didn’t model it).

You can use any song/music you want, just watch the language, there are children present.

Rules

- The due date is January 28th, (three weeks and some days from now) a Sunday, 12 midnight (GMT). Voting will be on that following week. Post your final entries in the Final Entry Thread.

- Minimum animation: your animation needs to include a minimum of 5 seconds, with music, do more if your bored.
-
- Recommended screen resolution in 320x240 (you can do 640x480 if you want, but why would you). I will.

- You can post W.I.P.s but you are only allowed one complete entry. That link is also final. You can and should post your wip’s to get help.

- Websites where you post your finals is up to you.

- Remember, it's about animation, use your time for animation, not to get the best render possible, unless you can afford it.

- Use of plug-ins not allowed. Must be key framed (hand animated)

- Use QuickTime. It will allow everyone to view your hard work, plus it gives everyone the chance to go through your animation frame by frame to see how you did what you did

- You must post a render of some sort with your final entry post; also include a screen grab with key frames.

- Voting will be as follows -
- Vote on what best displays the motion -

First place (3) points
Second place (2) points
Third place (1) points



Good luck!


BiG ToE

[DerekSc]

Hmmm. Ok, I'm not ready to start working on animations of IK Joe ballroom dancing with himself. I've modified the model and color scheme in the past, but I think giving him a sex change may be a little too much. I may have to *gasp* not use IK Joe on this one!
Or... Mega Super Outer Space Dance Battle featuring IK Joe!
Gives "Dancing With The Stars" a whole new meaning.
Now where did I put those 2 Unlimited CDs?

Anyone else have any sudden brain storming ideas for this one?
This is going to be a lot of fun, time to get going on this right away!
Let's go people, this is starting to get stale, we need people involved in this if we want it to grow. The holidays are past, school is generally back in (so you need to do something fun to take a break from it, right?), and it's getting cold out there. Time to stay in and get some animating done!

[kuriouz]

Yeah count me in. I will also be doing something else on my spare time, so I guess this would be good to see how i can handle both tasks....
Derek, you can try putting a wig on Ikjoe to be female! ;) hehe

Aw its real sunny here, beautiful weather!

[ItsaMystery]

Hmm...I'm thinking something along the lines of disco/rave/MJ moonwalk. :haha:

[GfxNoob]

wow what a cool idea
u can try to use " Take The Lead " movie
it is all about dancing

[BiG ToE-3DT]

IK Joe can "break" dance right. I mean, after every move, a part of his body falls off.

[DerekSc]

It would be neat to come up with a rig that will handle both ballroom dancers at the same time. I'm not clear on the "rules" of ballroom dancing, but I think there's something about the extended hands not leaving each other, so you could put one IK target for both hands, and have two IK chains leading up to it, one from the shoulder of the man and one from the woman. Maybe one hip target/c.o.g. as well? Not sure how that would work with the legs though...
Anyone here really know how to dance? Tango, cha cha, salsa, tap?
Who's in that Take The Lead movie? Anyone hot? Cause then, ok, I'll watch it for "research". :D
Other movies that could be used as inspiration: Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction, Footloose. Is that "So You Think You Can Dance" show still on? I haven't turned on my tv in a month, so I have no idea.
I like the break dancing idea BT. Maybe something like the Black Knight battle in The Holy Grail.
The wig idea isn't bad, but my brain is carrying it too far... I keep thinking of Farrah Fawcett's 70s hair. Scary.

[arneoog]

I think I'll get time to make an entry this time too :)

But...
- Use QuickTime. It will allow everyone to view your hard work, plus it gives everyone the chance to go through your animation frame by frame to see how you did what you didI agree that that is the best to use, but I have no program that can make .mov files :dunno:
Is there a free avi/wmv/mpg -> mov converter somewhere?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

what 3d program are you using. They all should have the option when you do the save as, then scroll down the list till you see mov. Should be there.

[anm8]

Been following this animation thread for a while but never had too much free time. I do now! May have to jump in on this one!

[arneoog]

I'm using Maya... And there is no such option in there :(
I can use Flash, but then the quality sucks super hard, and I need to cut the animation down to lots of images first... :grr:

Is there no free mov converter?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

maybe DerekSc or someone else who uses maya can help, but I will look to see if I can find a converter.

Do you have quicktime on your computer at all. If not, go to www.apple.com and take a look at the download section. That might be one of the reasons why you can't make a quicktime file, cause you can't open one.

[arneoog]

okay.. DerekSc!!! Get over here! :p
How do you make your QuickTime files?

I have QuickTime ofcourse :haha:

...if they want .mov to be the standard, why do they charge money for it!?...
...stupid Apple...

[DerekSc]

I never build the movie file from within Maya. Quite often I will break something into shots and animate those seperately, so I don't always have the whole thing in one file. I admit the shot thing is weird for something that only goes about 10 seconds, but it helps me focus on the parts that are most important first (like the jump the gap one, did the jump first, put everything else in after... which is why everything but the jump was sloppy).
I render the images and use Premiere to buid the Quicktime file. At least then I know I have high quality images and I can monkey around with the Quicktime settings until I get something that looks ok, but isn't 100Mb.
Yeah, I agree about the .mov standard thing. They're caught in a struggle between "we want to be recognized" and "we want to make money". Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.

[Diabolos]

like a bad poltergeist - I'M BACK..............can't believe I missed the Spidey challenge (maybe we will have another one later) - i guess that happens when you leave the grid for a couple o' weeks. well I am ready to push some pixels and get em' to dance.........

Shake N' Bake,

D,

[kuriouz]

I think i'll animate a guy doing 'flashdance'! :)

[kuriouz]

hey do any of you guys happen to know how to import music into 3dmax?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

yep, you go into the trackview, all the way at the top of the list, on the left, there should be a sound option. You right click on it, a window pops up, click properties, now pick choose sound, pick your song, and there a go. Now you will want to see the song in the timeline, so right click on the timeline and pick show audio.

[RipeX]

hey do any of you guys happen to know how to import music into 3dmax? Why can't you just add music later in a video editing program?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

the problem with this is trying to get your character to move to the beat. It would be very hard to this, if your not animating to the sound. Your end result may end up the way you want, but you have a better chance of the dance being off beat.

[kuriouz]

thanks BT, I assume it can play normal mp3 files? or do i need a .wav file? .. well anyhow i'll give that a go after work.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I believe so, but there have been a few mp3's that havent worked for me. But wav files have always worked.

[ItsaMystery]

arenoog, there should be a free version of Quicktime available for download. They only charge for the upgrade to Quicktime pro...or maybe that's only the case becase I'm on a Mac.

All my playblasts in Maya default to .mov, and I think it defaults to an .avi on a PC, right? There still should be some render settin gthat allows you to change the exported file.

Welcome back, D!

[kuriouz]

Dang, one of the rigs I have is not working right, so have to whip up this little guy and a different choice of music (-> 'Freestyler'). Anyway haven't really done much, just started.

So here is ONE WHOLE second of animation. (wow) :P

-> Started.. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OosGbK3rYWI)

When i have my webspace up which will be soon, i'll start saving these out as movie files, in the mean time, they'll be going up in youtube

[kuriouz]

Change the colors abit. Here is a little picture of my dancing guy
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/4486/freestylerli5.jpg

[kuriouz]

Just a little introductory clip. Decided to get back to this last night. The clip shows some anticipation and build up for some crazy dancing later on.

Started - part 2.. (http://mloo.prettymad.net/animations/freestyler-4smallcolor.avi) - (3.1MB)

..hmm i'm getting a strange feeling that i'm just talking to myself. :dunno:

so er yeah whats happening with the rest of you guys? Any stuff to show? :D

[BiG ToE-3DT]

well, I will have something to show sooner or later. It's picking which character to animate, that I'm having trouble with.

[kuriouz]

I'm curious BT, are you working as a 3d modeller at the moment?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

nope, but I did kinda just get a job as an illustrator/animator. Kinda.

[ItsaMystery]

I just picked my music and edited it. Thanks to DerekSc, I'll be using IK Joe on this one. ;)

[kuriouz]

hm BT that sounds so mysterious.. i'm starting to think you're a secret agent! ;) haha
What music did you pick, itsamystery?

[ItsaMystery]

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger! ;D (by Daft Punk)

[DerekSc]

I'm looking at Tribal Dance by 2 Unlimited for my music.
Good to hear you've been won over to the IK Joe side, Itsa! :)
First ItsaMystery, next the world!

[kuriouz]

cool, daft punk. I always like their music videos. tribal dance - wow thats an oldie.. but a goodie :)

[ItsaMystery]

@DerekSc - BWAHAAHAHAhahahaahahaha...!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I'm thinking of mixing a few songs together as wells as animating a few characters, but more than likely, I'm thinking too big, so we shall see.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

yeah, so I thought this would be easy, but it's not. So I'm sticking with one sound track. And some head bouncing. Should have a quick sample up tonight.

[kuriouz]

cool, would love to see some work posted soon

[BiG ToE-3DT]

this is a test, this is just a test. If this was not as test, a screengrab of keyframes would follow the link: http://media.putfile.com/test-69-89

[kuriouz]

Good start, lets see the rest soon :)

[DerekSc]

I have the problem of thinking too big quite often as well.
Which I'm sure I'm doing on this one as well, but what the hell, why break a streak?
(You'll note on the Spider-Man one there was supposed to be a villain... I was going to stick a sphere on Joe's head and call him "Mysteri-Joe".)

[ItsaMystery]

I was contemplating the idea about doing something similar to the Evolution of Dance video, mixing various tracks together like that, but I realized that probably would take too long. We could all collaborate though and make one giant dancing animation! :haha:

BigToe - Ow. Doesn't his neck hurt after doing that? :P It's like a backwards headbang.

[kuriouz]

hm it does look abit snap-ish..
what you do you guys use to mix & edit music?

[ItsaMystery]

There are a variety of programs out there, depending on what you're looking for. FL Studio and Ableton Live are pretty high end software that's capable of mixing, composing, arranging, tons of stuff. Acid Xpress is a pretty decent program as well. If you're looking for something basic (and you have a Mac), GarageBand isn't too shabby either.

If you're just looking for a program to edit your music with, Audacity works pretty well.

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I'm using Acid, it allows me to beat map, whatever that means, I can also drag out the portion of the song that I want to use, slow it down, speed it up. I can increase pitch, lower pitch. Then render it out as a wav, mp3, or whatever. It controls volume as well.

[ItsaMystery]

Mmm...sounds fancy. I remember when I was a wee lad and used to use Acid 2 (or some early version like that). Good times...;D

[Diabolos]

elvis is on his way - I went for a solo salsa - lets see how the render turns out......til later tonight.

D,

[Diabolos]

http://www.mysharefile.com/v/199665/salsa02.mov.html

lets dance

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I know its just a test, but make sure you loosen up that cape, its kinda stiff right now.

Funny to watch, thats a good thing.

[ItsaMystery]

I wish I could salsa like elvis :P

[Diabolos]

thanks BiGToE, ItsMystery, the cape is not cloth, but there are some controls on his cape (which I did not keyframe yet - so I'll see what I can do. stay tuned for an update.

Tip: I "Googled" dance footsteps on the net, might be a help for anyone else working on their steps (if you already didn't think of the same thing)

D,

[DerekSc]

Gentlemen (and ladies, if there are any lurking or that I am not aware of).
I'll be blunt. I have gastro. To those who don't know what that is, it means you throw up a lot over a couple of days. Sorta like food poisoning, but you don't get the chance to enjoy something to eat before you get it.
And I had a really good idea I was going on for this one too. :(
But, food = energy, no food = no energy = no animation.
I'm very sorry. Every competition I get all starry headed with what I want to do, but don't get off my butt until a week and a half until the contest close.
Congrats in advance to those who are working on this and come up with something! Keep going! Please! Do it for a sick old man.
Never give up... nev... giv.. u. *thud*

[BiG ToE-3DT]

get well soon Derek. We will need you at tip top shape for the next comp, Animation and low poly.

[kuriouz]

Gentlemen (and ladies, if there are any lurking or that I am not aware of).
I'll be blunt. I have gastro.

Hope you're feeling better Derek, Had gastro before and its real nasty! get better soon!

yep there is a 'lady' lurking around..thought it was kinda obvious.

Hey diabolos, nice one. will you be doing any motion with his hands?

[arneoog]

I am working on an entry for this, I just hope I can get it done :)
Will be 9 sec, music made by a friend :cool:

I'm doing some classic and funny dancemoves..
Maybe add a preview soon ;)

[kuriouz]

Thats great, I hope to see something soon arneoog and would like to hear the music.
I haven't had a chance to grab those music editing programs that BT and mystery was talking about (thanks for the suggestions guys)

Anyway i'll be posting a WIP clip later on tonight, so hopefully i'll get some feedback from it.

[Diabolos]

Hey diabolos, nice one. will you be doing any motion with his hands?

Thank you, ummm the hands do not have very good controls, or I am not using them correctly, so unfortunately there will be more than likely no update on the hands.

DerekSc - gute besserung, Man!

D,

[ItsaMystery]

Aye, get well soon Derek!

[kuriouz]

Hopefully you'll get to fix those hand controls later on, diabolos. its such a nice looking model.

Here's my WIP clip so far -> Freestyler Test 3 (http://mloo.prettymad.net/animations/freestyler-11.mov)

I have to clean up some of the frames and hopefully I'll add more stuff later on like maybe make him spin on his head .... yeah something like that.

Anyway feel free to comment, criticize etc etc :)

[Diabolos]

lookin' goood.

D,

[BiG ToE-3DT]

kuriouz: sorry to say this, but, your link isn't working for me.

[kuriouz]

thats not good.. here's just direct link: can u try this ?

http://mloo.prettymad.net/animations/freestyler-11.mov

damn server better not be down!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

well, it's still no good, but it might just be my end.

is anyone else have trouble opening Kuriouz's link?

[arneoog]

I didn't have any problems watching kuriouz's animation... (The last link)
kuriouz, Very nice so far!!

Here is the simple little beat/tune I'm animating too: ClickHere (http://www.elqx.com/sm/threedy/DanceBeat.mp3)
Cool and well defined beats, perfect for animation :p

Preview of my animation will come soon, as I said :)

[BiG ToE-3DT]

yeaaaaahhh, it works for me now.

[kuriouz]

thanks for the comments diabolos & arneogg. Phew, glad that you finally managed to download the file BT! ;)

arneogg, that sounds like a midi tune! yep yep we're all waiting for a preview :P

Anyhow there's still something about my animation that's just not ... hm you know where people go "aw thats awesome"! (in terms of animating)! but i can work on that later.

[ItsaMystery]

Nice anim, kuriouz! I don't really have any immediate comments; seemed pretty smooth to me.

And...that's a sweet sound file, arneoog! That'd seem like it'd be more video game type music, and perhaps difficult to animate to? Just curious what dancing you're going to try and do?

[arneoog]

kuriouz, it is a Midi tune :p
A friend of mine made it for me to use in this challenge, heh.. (threedy username: espenan)
ItsaMystery, Hehe, will upload preview very soon!

But I want to know which of these file formats is most preferable:
AVI divX, MPG (mpeg1 or mpeg2), WMV, MP4 or MPEG4?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

I'm good with all those file types, but then again, I'm using a good ole PC.

[arneoog]

Okay, I made a .mp4 file (is that a mac format?)

danceMove001.mp4 (http://www.elqx.com/sm/SAC/danceMove001.mp4)

Hope everyone can watch it! :)
Works for me in QuickTimePlayer, RealPlayer and JetAudio..

EDIT: Can everyone with QuickTimePlayer installed play .mp4 files?

[kuriouz]

yep! i can see it arneogg. quicktime can play mp4 files

haha kinda reminds me of a guy who drank heaps of caffeine! :)

I think when he puts his hand up though - that action is just not very clear and is probably a little bit too quick. maybe you may want to sacrifice the 3rd round of that 'hip-like-action move for a nice smoother bringing of the hand-up. anyway thats just a suggestion. ;)

[BiG ToE-3DT]

to keep with tradition and the fact that I can't seem to find time to animate, would anyone be against adding another week to the contest.

[DerekSc]

Thanks for all the well wishes everyone! I'm feeling much better now.
And in keeping with the tradition of BiG ToE's tradition of not finding time to animate and asking for a week, I traditionally say "hell yes". So, hell yes, bring the extra week, and I'm back in.
Booyah!

[BiG ToE-3DT]

so then, an extra week it is.

new due date:Febuary 4th, 12 pm GMT

[ItsaMystery]

ItsaMystery, Hehe, will upload preview very soon!
Interpretive dance, perhaps? :P

Btw, (on a Mac) I can't see the .mp4 file...;w; I thing MPEG4 would work, though.

DerekSc - Glad to hear that you're feeling better! :haha: Welcome back :wave:

BT - Hell yes.

[kuriouz]

extra week eh? coolies
should be able to add some extra stuff to my animation. :D
welcome back derek, the more the merrier. really glad to see that there's more people participating in this one.

[XYZ]

Hi there ! so, when is the last day? do I have a week from now? I might join.

greetings

[BiG ToE-3DT]

well old pal, it's due sunday.

[DerekSc]

BT, uhhh... you feeling ok?
Something we should know about your avatar there, buddy?
Put down the chainsaw... good. No, you can't animate with it. Well, maybe in Maya, but not in Max. Max is not chainsaw compatible.

(war... huh... good god man, what is it good for? absolutely nothing! say it again!)

[Diabolos]

there is a war starting on feb. 2 and we are up against some heavy hitters. as long as BiGToE and montecristo show up, we should be fine.

D,

[BiG ToE-3DT]

Derek: there is a war going down, and Threedy has step up to beat down. The main site is here: http://www.dominancewar.com/

But all the blood shed of our foes will be here: http://forums.3dtotal.com/forumdisplay.php?f=88

If you can make it, bring a hammer, knife, skunk bombs are good too.

[kuriouz]

Yeah i'm still pondering about joining the 'war'.. hmm... hmm...

Anyway!! um well i thought i'll just post what i have so far. I came back to my animation today and added a hop-jump thing .. i'm not sure why I did that. But anyway have to tweak that jump abit and probably add some more stuff later.. still have to add that head-spin...

http://mloo.prettymad.net/animations/freestyler-12.mov

[BiG ToE-3DT]

will we have enough people finishing this that I need to open a final entry thread.

Nother question, what should we do next?

[arneoog]

I will enter.. :)

Maybe an antigravity animation! :D

[DerekSc]

Well, since we're mostly all gung-ho for this Dominance War thing, it should be something simple (ie: less time consuming).
We haven't done something rolling in a while... an off-road vehicle maybe?
A car accident? Something Burnout related (a takedown or spectacular crash)?
I think the speed modeling guys did a Cars related thing recently, so perhaps a car doing something human?
Non-vehicular: a sports move (basketball throw, slapshot, touchdown celebration), something unexpected happening to a pizza delivery guy, a practical joke (exploding cigar, whoopee cushion, chair pull-out).
Related to antigravity, perhaps something where you have to include one bullet-time shot (freeze the motion and move around it, like in the Matrix, Spider-Man, Swordfish, etc...).

[BiG ToE-3DT]

that bullet time could be cool. Would be good camera practice, which is a form of animation in its own right.

[RipeX]

ya, my vote goes to that bullet time idea :smug:

[kuriouz]

yeah sounds cool, wouldnt' mind something like a spectacular crash either (airplane/car crash)

[ItsaMystery]

Bullet time sounds cool.

Woah, what's the dominance thing all about?

[Diabolos]

I agree...........bullet time would be fun. Elvis has not left the building, but will be on his way tomorrow.

BTW - stay away from Vodka Redbull's, kids - how the heck did I get home last night (scheisse). :hurt:

*edit* - Mental Note: do not go to the local bakery with a hangover and a dawn of the dead t-shirt - people tend to stare.

Random thought - the person who started "home-office" should get a pulitzer prize.

D,

[arneoog]

Bullet time should be cool! :D
Or maybe antigravity as in outer space? :)

Really hope one of those will be chosen :cool:

[BiG ToE-3DT]

anti gravity sounds good too. Maybe, we can do both, one after the other.

[Diabolos]

Hey BiGToE - we need a final entry thread please - I'm ready and I hope I am not the only one., or are we just posting our final entry here?

D,

[BiG ToE-3DT]

ok

[Diabolos]

only two entries :grr: - where is yours BiGToe? at least then we would have three entries and thus all take 1st place for effort.

D,

[BiG ToE-3DT]

sorry about that, with getting the war stuff together, the cyberpunk/steampunk battle and my very new freelance gig, I just flat out ran out of time.

[DerekSc]

I'm still in this, got another 4 hours by my time, so there will be 3 entries.
THEN IT'S WAR!!!
Sorry, getting into this a little too much.

[ItsaMystery]

I have 7 hours by my time :haha:

All my Maya time these past 2 weeks or so have been taken up with working on and rendering a huge project for school (if any of you have read Dante's Inferno, my friend and I have modeled each layer of Hell and we're just rendering it now. It's been one Hell of a project so far ;)).

I'll try and finish as much as I can by the midnight deadline.

[DerekSc]

Ok, rendering now, will be throwing it Premiere and done in a few minutes (at least I hope so, I have to get up for work tomorrow morning).
Ummm... ok, so my original idea was too big (I was going to do a whole Star Trek space dance battle thing... sorta Kirk vs. a Borg). Was very gung ho for it until the gastro hit. Anyways, then I was listening to other music to use, and I have a bunch of techno remixes from Dead Man's Chest. Cool, I'll make IK Joe a pirate and make him dance to that with a sword and all that.
Well, again was thinking too big, and didn't get any arm or head movement done (or secondary animation for that matter), so I just posed them. Then I started laughing, cause I didn't have time to tweak the hips enough either, so he looked like C3PO trying to dance. So I make IK Joe all gold and shiny.
So, coming very soon in the final entry thread will be... IK Joe as C3P0 dancing to Pirates of the Caribbean techno music.
Thought I'd let you in on what happened just so you don't think I'm totally screwed up in the head and intended it to be that weird from the start.

[Diabolos]

I have 7 hours by my time :haha:

All my Maya time these past 2 weeks or so have been taken up with working on and rendering a huge project for school (if any of you have read Dante's Inferno, my friend and I have modeled each layer of Hell and we're just rendering it now. It's been one Hell of a project so far ;)).

I'll try and finish as much as I can by the midnight deadline.


Will we get to see it? Am I anywhere to be seen, on one of the levels, cameo's are cool :evil:

D,

[ItsaMystery]

You betcher buns you'll get to see it. ;P I'll probably post it sometime next week (our presentation is Thurs. of this week, so next week will give me enough time to compile it and show here online).

About the anim. comp. I ended up passing out Sunday evening while reading a book for homework, so I slept through the deadline :lame: I'll still post it here though, just for fun.

[Diabolos]

You betcher buns you'll get to see it. ;P I'll probably post it sometime next week (our presentation is Thurs. of this week, so next week will give me enough time to compile it and show here online).

About the anim. comp. I ended up passing out Sunday evening while reading a book for homework, so I slept through the deadline :lame: I'll still post it here though, just for fun.

Hey dude, wake up and post those renders - I enjoy seeing what other members make in 3d? :smug:

D,

[ItsaMystery]

*Snaps out of it* x_x

Thanks for the reminder :P I'll upload it to my friend's FTP now. (might take a while, they're kinda big files).

I'll post again here and in the animation forum when it's done.