Suggestions not explicit details
Last night as I was modeling some stuff with Zspheres in Zbrush... I got to finish a low poly/subD version of the figure I was making... it was rough...like 300 polys or something.... I liked it... but for some reason I didn't move on... I subdivided it... then added details then subdivided it again and again till it was like 3 million polys and I didn't like it anymore... I realized once I had gotten the basic form... the suggestion of what I was going for my inner artist was like ok cool move on... but my geek mind was like more polys because you CAN! Lets use all 8 gigs of RAM!!! (Steve Ballmer woo)
Thinking about high poly... high detail stuff hmmmm...
I HATE working with multimillion poly models in a scene...it makes everything so slow its NO FUN at all to animate...
BUT I came up with that solution to use low poly models with high res SPD maps right? YES but... those do take some time to render... I haven't done a test to see what a scene with a bunch of characters and objects with hardcore SPD maps and a bunch of lights will take to render... but I have an inkling it might take forEVER....
I was just watching trailers for some next gen games including Resident Evil 5 and the level of detail in them is NUTS!!!
As an artist you need to pick and choose your battles carefully... now if I make a 3d animated film in 2010/2011 it will be compared to whats in films and games at that time... and there's NO WAY I could make 2 hours of 3d animation at such a high level of detail in the time I'm giving myself ...NOR would I want too... its just how like photorealism doesn't interest me...
So as a lone animator what do you do? You pride yourself on giving the viewer something they can't get from those other thanGS... NO its NOT going to be "higher quality" I throw that out the window!!!! You are going to give them something extremely unique, exotic and sincere...
Sooooo once I throw the whole "super high detail" thing out the window what do I focus on? Suggestions... Wha?! A simple silhouette... done well can convey a lot more than any fancy character with a weak pose... So I focus on the basics... Minimalism... Its something I've been thinking about for a while after I did that Rabbit Junk promo... It was so fast and simple but I liked it... and everything was so low poly it was fun to do as well... also I find myself drawn to minimalist animations...
So I'm making this film with nothing but 3d primitives!!!!
Starring: CONE, Sphere, CUBE
^ ^ Not that minimalist... hmmmm lots more tests and thinking too do... If I used low poly models I could focus more on the movement of things which I enjoy...hmmmm....Brought to you by professional weirdo M dot Strange.