I posted this at the allspark, but then I decided to stop posting there and discovered this place... So... Here it is! My final, it's 30 megs. Some notes... I made this in school, and I have gotten a lot better at animating since then/realized the concepts of it more, so don't judge my animation skills by this, just try to get some sort of enjoyment out of it.. lol http://www.mikefrenette.com/Work/MikeFrenette-FinalCompAnimation.zip JS.
As you said, the character animation is sub-par, but the camera and lighting are tres cinematique. Are you considering doing a miniseries? 'Cause I'd watch it.
well, it isn't terrible, it look like you have a basic understanding of modeling, lighting, rigging, particles, and animation. How long ago did you make this, and do you have a website with more recent work? Also, what programs were used to create this?
My website is http://www.mikefrenette.com. In the work section you can see more recent animation work, but it's not really representative of my new learning curve, because it was symbol animation for Wetsand Animation, meant for like 5 year olds. The company went under after only maybe 3-4 months of me getting on there... So I'm sadly unemployed now. Working on a short that I will post here when I finish it, it's very funny, and better animated than anything I've done thus far. =) I did this in a month and a half, using Maya. That included all the modelling, texturing, animation lighting... etc.. everything. It is pretty terrible animation-wise, It seems to ignore some of the more basic animation rules that I didn't really grasp until after school... Funny thing though, it was the best in the class. O_O; Unfortunately what really killed the whole thing was the rigging. I found out later that our teacher taught us the wrong way to rig.... :s (Amoung outdated ways to do other things too ) Her way made it very hard to get natural movements from the character. Only later did I find a better way to rig. As far as the concept... This is actually something that's been in progress for about 5 years, the idea started after I was shocked and appaled by the ending of BM... It takes place after BeastMachines and I have 13 episodes written mostly by Dustybot, Prometheus Prime, and Mark.. I only wrote about 3 or 4 of the episodes. The project was called "Xformers." For my final I decided it was a good opportunity to make this sort of trailer for it, which is what you saw. I didn't work any more on it because I wanted a better understanding of animation before continuing, which I have now. I'm currently modelling the characters... It's a pain because I'm trying to make sure they can all transform so I don't have to switch models...Yikes, it's harder than it sounds. >< Not to mention, I'm very busy trying to get a job, lol, which I'm sure I'll find soon, I just want to finish my short first. Oops, sorry about writing a freaking bible on you guys, I'm a very long winded person. =) JS.
I hear ya on the job search. I've been pretty much just building a completely new portfolio and it's a bitch with all these new technologies and crap coming out (especially when all the stuff they teach you in school becomes virtually outdated half a year before graduation). but it is always good to see another Maya user (let alone 3d person in general), showing off some of his stuff. hey, if you have any maya questions that pertain to modeling or rigging, feel free to send me a PM.