DKC Atlas Forum

[Cyclone]

The confusion is because I was trying to follow the in game art. In the game the island render had the house just resting on the sand. In the start of the first level the house is on a hill.

Any suggestions on how to work around that so it looks good and makes sense?


Here is the revised camera movement of the House shot

[sonosublime]

The revised DKHousePan2 looks good, but I agree with extending the hill on which the treehouse sits. Having the house set into the side of a larger hill or small mountain would seem cool. Also, maybe add a miniaturised version of the hill for the house to sit on in the island render.

I would also keep the zoom in to the house as it is during the rainy shot.

[Cyclone]

OK, I will add a smaller version of the hill in the island shots.

The reason I want to remove that one shot is because it's so close up and requires a lot of work to make it look good and consistent to the look of the actual jungle scenes. I never really liked it. What are your reasons for keeping that shot sonosublime?

Here is the house on a larger hill. I refined the camera so it's a lot smoother. And added some butterflies(wip animations)
Look much better?





*Brainstorming needed*

My goal for the project is to add as much detail and little touches as I can and create a lively and moody atmosphere. The lighting and sky in the above scene will probably change to reflect a morning/dawn environment.
I added the Gnawty and butterfly in the above shot and I think I will add some very low poly seagulls in the background.
Suggestions on what to add would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

[Cyclone]

It is about time that I modeled some more foliage for the jungle. These plants below will replace the grass(well most of it.) The goal is to make everything more dense.

What do you guys think? I know there is some intersections with the leaves but close up shots will be tweaked to fix that.

Plant1+2+Trees(Scene).png (2.62 MiB) Viewed 109224 times

[Qyzbud]

I was just looking over the panning animations, thinking that the scene was looking a bit barren; this latest effort of yours ought to address that nicely!

Here are some thoughts on how this scene could be improved:

• The lighting looks very harsh/overexposed, especially seeing as this foliage is undergrowth, which ought to be mostly in shade/dappled light. Your render does feature dappled light, but the overall appearance is way too bright.
• Some texturing would really help the look of the leaves, I think. The current "pleated" look is nice enough, but it looks kind of plasticky without a texture to break up the plain surface.
• The brown/beige leaves you have here are perhaps supposed to be a lot more red in colour — at least that's if you're aiming to resemble the look of the red leaves seen in-game and in the promo art. There does appear to be a third leaf colour in some promo renders, although it's closer to an olive green than to the beige of your render, and appears with less frequency than the green and red leaves.

These are perhaps some of the better reference renders:

Spoiler!

Notice the olive green/gold leaves with the orange accents at the bottom left of the second image.

[Cyclone]

Thanks for the comments. Is this looking better? Maybe its worse.

Plant1+2+Trees(Scene)2.png (2.58 MiB) Viewed 109197 times

[Qyzbud]

Yeah, that's an improvement.

With further adjustments to the lighting and texturing (hopefully you can find what looks best through experimentation), this could look really nice.

[Phyreburnz]

The hill behind the treehouse looks great!

[sonosublime]

The jungle foliage looks great!

The reason I want to keep that existing shot of Dk's house during the rainy scene is because (just like the the new DK house pan shot in the morning) it sets up the scene. Change its position by putting it before the scene with the snakes and gnawties outside DK's house in the rain, and you will have set up the scene well.

The larger hill still looks unnatural. It wouldn't have to be too big, but I was thinking something like this (excuse the crappy MS paint art):

[Cyclone]

Good suggestion sonosublime. I think it looks better. But I think the composition needs more weight/something more on the left side to balance out the dense jungle.


What time of day is DK waking up? morning or afternoon?

[Cyclone]

I decided to go with morning light for a more moody atmosphere. What do you think?

[Qyzbud]

They both look good to me; the "morning light" makes the treehouse, etc. stand out more, which might be an improvement.

Hard to say which is better... perhaps it all depends on context?

Either way, I'm really digging the recent renders.

[sonosublime]

Oh yeah, that looks much better. Especially with the morning light. For the record, DK wakes up in the morning.

[Cyclone]

Here is the scene animated. It's not full HD. It took 6h to render and used 11.4gigs of ram. Any more then that and it would crash.

I animated the foliage.
Any more critiques before I call this scene finished for the beta pass?




Also any preference on what scene I should improve next?

[sonosublime]

That looks great, dude. All it needs are sound effects.

As for what to work on next, I would recommend you go through the checklist on the first post and work out those details.

[Cyclone]

Been working on the Intro shots. I added movement in the curtains and table cloths, added some rain drops hitting the windowsill and driping down the post. There is a slight blurry reflection on the windowsill as well. And the background is different too with trees closer to the house covering up half the rainy shot behind it. Oh and DK is finally in his bed.

Be sure to watch in 1080p or you might miss the raindrops.

I think the blue curtains are a little stiff.

[Qyzbud]

Good god, man... That looks incredible.

Major props.

[Super Luigi!]

I agree. Those blue curtains move just like mine, by the way. So, either we both have stiff curtains, or yours are lifelike!

[Kimi Kong]

This is starting to look amazing! Keep up the good work!

[Cyclone]

Good god, man... That looks incredible.

Major props.

Thanks guys/gals glad you like it.
Qyzbud doesn't your discerning eye see anything that needs changing?

[ExpandDong]

I really love what you guys are doing keep it up!

[Cyclone]

ExpandDong thats a suspicious name. Are you new here? If so it doesn't show on the newest user.

Anyways thats a great image collage you made. It could be a good promo image. Can I use it? Could you make others lets say replace the text with the actual text I made?

[Qyzbud]

[...]
Qyzbud doesn't your discerning eye see anything that needs changing?

Well, since you asked...

• I think the giant daisies could stand to react a little to the breeze; the curtain and tablecloth look great with their movement, so a bit of motion in the flower petals would surely be a nice touch as well.
• At the start of the second phase (the window close-up), it looks like the foliage outside switches from one configuration to another. This happens rather quickly, so you might need to slow down the playback speed to see what's happening.
• Although the drops running down the inside of the upright post look really nice, it's hard to tell the exact position/nature of the post. It looks to me as though it'd be too close to the window/house (and under the shelter of the eaves) to have so many droplets running down the inside. Of course, the wind could have blown the rain onto the inside of the post, and I'm willing to admit that I might just be entirely mistaken about this, as I don't fully understand what/where that post is in relation to the house/rain.
• Obviously, the bright green background right at the end is a little distracting, but I know that's temporary, and won't appear in the final cut.

That's all I can think to critique at this point, but I'll post more if I notice anything worth pointing out.

[Cyclone]

Qyzbud you're the man! Thanks for your imput.

Yea I thought the flower was too still as well. I like the rain on the post so I will probably keep it. I may make the trees look wet and shiny . Just imagine the rain dipping off the roof and onto the post. I could add droplets to the eves but I wanted to give the the impression that DK's house is surrounded by a dense jungle and more rain would obscure the trees.

And a big oops to the technical glitches you mentioned.

Here is the first shot of the DK Banana Hoard sequence revised.
I made the edges of the light less noticeable, reduced the particle amount and changed the color. Animated the rays of light and DKs Head looks in the proper direction now but still needs work.

[sonosublime]

ExpandDong thats a suspicious name. Are you new here? If so it doesn't show on the newest user.

I keep seeing 'expand dong' comments whenever I listen to DKCTF music ('Big Top Bop') on youtube. Is there some DK meme I'm not aware of?

Anyway, that newest video looks good, although maybe tone down the light a little bit. And DK's movements seem kind of jerky.

[Cyclone]

What part of the lighting needs to be darker? And what in particular is jerky? I know DK slides a bit at the end but I think I like it. Its a bit cartoony like that.

[Cyclone]

Simion or others, would you be able to put together an animated Gif of the little fish that is inside DK's house at the start of the game. It is the fish in the picture.

Thanks.

[Qyzbud]

Bon appétit:

Fish and ships.gif (4.43 KiB) Viewed 108936 times

I'll edit some feedback in here (or reply below) for your recent animation soon.

[Cyclone]

^Thanks. Its hard to tell the colour and shape of the fishie even zoomed in. I guess I will have to guess at it.

Here is a less glitchy version of the interior sequence(only the 2 shots so far). I animated the flower in the second shot and fixed the background. Has a much better "house surrounded by jungle" feel.




As allways comments are welcome. It always helps to get a fresh pair of eyes looking at it. I tend to get used to a scene and think it's good when it actually needs work.

[Qyzbud]

Glad to help.

It's very hard to make out any detail with that fish, but I think a basic grey (perhaps even a slightly purplish grey) would be a good bet for a base colour. Here's the fish's palette, for reference:

Painting fish palette.png (1018 Bytes) Viewed 108923 times

As for your animations, I like the changes you've made, but I do have some further suggestions:

Treehouse at night

• The flower movement looks good! They are only moving in the close-up, though, and there's no movement amongst the individual petals; I can certainly live with the latter aspect (although some petal dynamics would look nice), but you'll have to keep the effect consistent by adding it to the first shot, too.
• I'm loving the outside view, now (great job on the scenery), but I've noticed that the lightning flashes only affect either the foreground (treehouse interior) or the background — not the trees just outside the window. I'm not sure it it's too tricky/expensive to cast the lightning's light onto these trees, too (subtly, for the most part, I would suggest), but I think it would add to the atmosphere. Of course, it's great as it is, so don't worry too much. On this same point, the flashes in the background really ought to be reflected by the super-shiny wet windowsill... but, that's an optional extra, too.

Added after initial post:

Empty hoard, morning

• The sparkles/dust are better than last time (subtle is good!), but they still feel more like some kind of celebratory sparkle effect than just dust caught in a beam of light. I would recommend that you lower the maximum brightness of each speck somewhat, slow down the 'flashing' significantly, so that they have a more subtle 'fading' effect. I also think there should be more particles (perhaps twice as many?), and if possible, DK's entrance should cause a significant disturbance due to the effects his movements would have on the surrounding air; this may be another tricky/expensive effect, but it would certainly add to the scene.
• DK's shadow still casts toward the cave entrance, despite this being the primary light source. You have light being cast on his back, as it ought to be, so it looks like it's just his shadows that need attention.
• DK's animations need work; the way his right foot kicks upward as he comes to a stop looks very peculiar, for starters...

I want to make sure these pointers get to you before you leave for the night, so I'll post now, and add more later.

[Cyclone]

As mentioned in chat, Thanks Qyzbud!

Here is fish preview render.

[Cyclone]

Added the fishie to the scene. It is located to the left inside the picture. looks/moves pretty close to the in game version. I also matched the lightning to all effected layers and animated the flowers. I think the one flower moves too much and is a bit distracting. I will reduce it.

All it needs now is texture refinements. which if i get to it will be added during the gamma/final passes.




If anyone has suggestions on little things to add to the scenes in the project that would be cool. It's these types of things that really add interest to the animation.

[Qyzbud]

That's all looking really nice.

• The fish looks quite true to the game; I think you've captured the shape, animation and movement pretty much as well as you can, with the minimal detail provided... but a bit of creative work might be required to turn it into an asset befitting the quality of the rest of the animation.
  
• The flowers look great now, swaying in the breeze... I think you might be right though; the flower closest to the window could be made to move just a little more subtly, as it is just a touch distracting.
  
• The lightning flashes look better now, affecting more of the scene. You may be able to improve the effect further by simulating a flash on the windowsill when the far away lightning strikes; based on the camera's viewpoint, one would expect to see a reflection there, I think.

Marvellous work, yet again; I'll do my best to think of some extra points of interest that could improve the scene.

[Cyclone]

I made some changes to the the cave entrance scene mentioned in previous posts. I fixed the shadows, reduced the brightness and flicker of the dust particles and added movement in them caused by DK's movement. I can reduce the speed of them if they are moving too fast. No changes were made to DK's animation.

[Qyzbud]

It kind of looks like there's no shadow at all being cast by DK now, but I suppose that's just due to the cave's ambient lighting overpowering the light pouring in from outside. The hoard could stand to be a fair bit darker overall, anyway.

The particle movement is a passable proof of concept, but will need a bit of work to properly resemble the swirling effect one would expect to see in the wake of a moving object. There's also a fair amount of glitching/resetting amongst the particles, which looks a bit odd.

Still, although these things aren't perfect, they're a step in the right direction.

[Cyclone]

Adjusted the particle movement so it 'swirls' a bit. I changed the lighting. I am now using volumetric lighting with more realistic rays of light. Still no changes in DK's movment. I will work on that tommorow maybe.




To anyone out there. How do you think this project is turning out. I know I'm not a professional but I hope to make it look close as possible with my current skill level.

[Qyzbud]

The new lighting doesn't look a whole lot different (apart from the somewhat large, random shadow coming from outside), but I imagine it will be a positive change if and when other lighting tweaks are made.

DK still doesn't seem to cast a shadow at his feet — I think it would be better if he did.

The dust swirls are off to a good start! Perhaps start the swirling effect a little earlier, so that it more closely follows DK's movement.

[Cyclone]

Overall the the cave is darker and the lighting is more contrasty and the light rays are more relasitic,. What should I do with the lighting?

Getting shadows on DK's feet may be tricky.

[Qyzbud]

On closer inspection, the lighting does look a lot nicer in the latest iteration. I was a little rushed with my feedback before, and didn't get a chance to examine the current and previous animations side by side, but now that I have, I can see a significant improvement.

What is supposed to be casting that shadow coming from the cave entrance? Is that just to make the lighting look more dynamic? It doesn't quite look like it could be cast by Cranky, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Either way, it'd be nice to see a bit more of a shadow coming from DK — if you're up to the challenge.

[Cyclone]

What is supposed to be casting that shadow coming from the cave entrance? Is that just to make the lighting look more dynamic? It doesn't quite look like it could be cast by Cranky, so I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

Yup. It's to make it more dynamic. I can slow the movement down if it's too much.

Either way, it'd be nice to see a bit more of a shadow coming from DK — if you're up to the challenge.

I'm up to the challenge. for two days at least. I want to work on some other aspect of the cave scene now. Like the animation of DK and Cranky.

[Cyclone]

Made some changes to the shot.
-Added cloth dynamics to DK's Tye
-Fixed the awkward feet when the come to the resting pose.
-Added some dust when DK slides to a stop.
-You may not notice but I slightly darkened the rays of light.
-Animated the dust particles in the air a little more accurately to DK's movements.




The feet dust may be a little distracting. What do you guys think?

[Qyzbud]

Some comments on the latest clip:

• Cloth dynamics are a nice idea for DK's tie, but the current settings make it a little too floaty/swishy in my opinion; perhaps make it a little more weighted/starchy, if you know what I mean... The loop around DK's neck also needs some attention, but I'm sure you'll get to that.
  
• His "awkward feet" are much better now.
  
• The dust at DK's feet is a bit distracting, I think; it lingers way too long, and is perhaps too bright/white/visible, too. I suggest that you have it start fading out pretty much as soon as DK comes to a complete stop, and perhaps have it be overall just 50–75% of its current opacity.
  
• I see what you mean about the darker rays of light, but I probably wouldn't have been sure that they had been changed without you saying so. I think you've improved the effect somewhat, but I think it could be made to look even better; the gap between the beams (seen from the 6–8 second mark) is quite distracting, so perhaps it's best to aim for the 'overlapping beam' effect to be shown at all times? It's just a little strange to see such a break in the lighting — especially if it's not being caused by something important to the story.
  
• The dust particles look more suited to DK's movements, I agree. That said, I think the swirling effect lingers too long after he stops moving, and will likely be distracting; perhaps you could have this effect die out soon after DK comes to a stop?

Keep up the good work.

[Cyclone]

Thanks,

-I made the tye less jiggly and more stiff if that's what you meant.
-The dust caused by his feet look al better now i think.
-The dust swirling affect stops sooner now(NOTE I have yet to re-render the particles. Will be done in 3 hours)

[Cyclone]

Made the particles more gradually change from shiny to dark and slowed down the movement caused by DK to gradually slow down.




What do you guys/gals think. I'ts almost done I think aside from some modeling/texture refinements.

[Cyclone]

Rendered the fur pass on DK and added fur dynamics. I know the fur could be stiffer but I wanted it to be noticeable. Maybe It's to much?

This shot is practically done (The aesthetics and atmosphere) that is. Have to work to remove clipping of DK's tye on the ground as well as his hand and work on his head shaking.

For the final pass which if I get to it I will improve some of the stalactites and texturing.



Comments are welcomed.

[sonosublime]

That's looking really good man. Although the dust clouds look kind of odd. They don't really look like clouds, more like 'clumps', if you know what I mean. And I feel they linger a bit too long.

[Cyclone]

Thanks sonosublime. I agree. I knew they didn't look quite right but i didn't think it stood out looking off.

Here is a more "cloud" like version. I'm now working on the the following shots in the sequence.

[Qyzbud]

DK's fur and tie look good, and the ambient dust particles are now pretty much spot-on.

Personally I preferred the way the dust at DK's feet looked before; perhaps there's a happy medium between the two styles.

I mentioned in chat that DK's hands ought to move with his head as he shakes it; this would be nice to see in your next render, if possible. In addition to that, I think that having DK open his mouth at the same time as his eyes bulge out would be an improvement.

I still think the 'dynamic light rays' (and especially the dark space between them) are a little too prominent, but I'll refrain from pointing that out again for a while.

[Cyclone]

I will consider making the light rays less obvious but I kinda like them. In the newer shots I made his hands move with his head but not the shot with the fur yet.

Here is the entire sequence animated.
There are repetitions cuzz I needed more length in the shots. In the future each shot will be of proper length.



Looking for suggestions on body language, camera angles, compositions, timing etc.

[Cyclone]

Here is the same sequence with fur and beard on Cranky. The fur is just a draft. There are many glitches and bugs. I rendered it cuzz I thought it looked really weird without Cranky's beard.



Still really looking for suggestions and feed back on body movements and camera angles.
Sonosublime got anything to suggest?

Thanks.