July Challenge Rules and Guidelines!
 

July Challenge

ANIMATION!

For July, we're going to have you guys try something new and have a character animation challenge! The focus of this challenge is animation as opposed to modeling, texturing, or rendering. Here's are the guidelines:

1) Of the 2 provided sound clips, choose one for your entry. If you are able to do both somehow, pick your best one as your final entry.

2) This is an animation challenge, so don't be spending lots of time on the model! Feel free to choose one of the free rigs that are available around the web or make your own simple guy. Modeling, texturing, rendering, etc not required!

3) Your final entry should be no larger than 640x480 and cannot be over 1 mb zipped if you want to attach the file to the post. If it's larger, you'd need to host it elsewhere and link us to it. Your final entry can be rendered or a playblast.

4) Show your progress! Show concept/storyboards! Give feedback and encourage each other!

5) BONUS! This is NOT required, but it will definitely help your chances if you manage to use facial animation for the dialogue and expressions!

6) Label your thread thusly:

July - Norm or Noob - Your name

Choose to classify yourself as a Normal or Noobie class entry. Whichever class you choose is the class your final submitted entry will compete against! A winner will be chosen from both classes.

7) Mods and Admins can enter, but are inelligible to win and do not count toward the Grand Prize consideration of 5 entries mentioned below. If a mod chooses to participate, choose "Mod" class rather than Norm or Noob.

8) If 5 or more Normal entries finish among the 3 Simply sites participating, a Grand Prize will be rewarded! Regular VIP point prizes will be awarded to both a Normal and Newbie winner, regardless!

A rigged character is provided on page 2 of this thread.

The due date of the challenge is July 31st!

Ask any questions here! :)

this is to the 1 mb? how would I convert it to 1 mb? I Know I can just don't know how I use adobe premier 6.5 ???

It only has to be 1mb if you want to attach the file to your post. Otherwise, you'd need to host it elsewhere.

Are we allowed to use plug-ins? I know Messiah:Animate is more of a completely separate program to Lightwave so will its use be allowed?

nice idea this month!!! but i think i am not going to enter this challenge!! looks me fun to see what kind of finals this challenge brings!!

**btw...when and where can i see the winners of the previous challenge??**

sure, plugins are fine.

Winners will be announced in the Announcments forum shortly.

does lightwave have something to add sound into an animation? because i dont have any editing programs like after effects :(

I'm not sure... I know Maya lets you drag n drop .wav files into the timeline.

Any LWers know?

with the sound clips given, i think lip-sync would have to go with it... what if we don't have any lip-sync program?

lip synch program? What's that? lol ;)

That's the challenge! I don't know what the LW situation is, but in Maya blend shapes are commonly used as well as using facial skeleton rigs.

i havent had a proper look sharp but these might help

http://www.gnu.org/directory/vid/manip/

i think the best way to do this is to make different kind of expressions and then morph between them!!!

I thought Magpie was part of the "added odds and sods" programs that came with one of the versions of Lightwave - that was a lipsync prog.

ok thx ill check it out i might skip this one out tho ill see what happens :)

seriously, guys, if no ones wants an animation challenge, let me know and they'll stop coming.

i would enter if i had the right models :bored:

Just speaking for myself here, Mike. I love the idea of an animation challenge! But for me, personally, I don't think I'm ready to try and make a short anim in a month. I'd have to stick myself down as extreme noob for this one since I don't have a clue about rigging or animation at all. I think it would be a mountain for me to climb to even get anything that I was remotely happy with. Maybe once I've learnt animation then I'd be ready for something like this. I think its a good idea to have other flavours of contests rather than just being a modelling contest, but I just doubt I'll be able to have a go at this one at my current level of knowledge. (Only speaking from my own perspective)

maybe you can put an exception to the rules do to the fact that the tools we need dont ship with lightwave.

took the words right outa my mouth, fallen

although most people join these to learn i know i do.. and im terrible at thicking up something to do by my self

so im going to try and animate this but looking at my riging etc i did in my last challage. it look like a statue. stiff all over

so im thinking of doing robots like the person who entered in maya as they'll be easyer to move without them looking rediculous

i might do something simple like a bug so i dont have to model too much. as for the sounds can we modify them like cutting it up and having spaces in between to fit in animatioon?

yea i agree being a noob and never doing any animation, and my first try at moveing bones was last months challege where i discovered the animation is not as easy as i thought. onto what will be most difficult is getting the moveing at the same time as the sounds as iv had 0 practice with it so:) ill try

Attached is a LW file of a rigged character, provided by lostpencil.com. :)

You might need to replace the head, however, to get good facial expression and mouth movements.

Another, provided by lostpencil.com.

If you find any more free rigs, feel free to post them here. Let me know how good these 2 were, as I dont' have Lightwave in order to test them.

cool i like the noodle model nice rig too :)

Take a look at www.10secondclub.org to see some examples of this kind of challege.

perhaps i could come into this one, but i can't animate for beans! Rigging and all is fine but...

*When do June results come in, i was leavin town for a bit so...*

June winners have been posted in Announcements.

Proton has several rigged characters for download at his site (spinquad.com). Lightwave 8 comes with some rigged characters and if I remember right, so did LW7.

Also, if you have Windows XP, you have the software to do this challenge. Look for Windows Movie Maker (under accessories).

And Windows ME has the Window Movie Maker. One thing though the finished product is really distorted.

Hmm,, can agree that someone that are new to 3D or LW might find an animation competition a tad difficult,,, but me personally its a welcomed one as modelling all the time can get you tired.

I never had problems with the Windows Movie Maker,,, hmm,,, wonder what you mean?

Must be my computer then :S Probably because of the sources that my PC lacks.

Will we be able to cut the sound clips and add spaces between them to make the movie a littl longer? Will we be allowed to add other sounds? eg: doors opening, footsteps, etc.

no.

no to cutting the sounds up, adding sounds, or both?

both. Use what is provided only.

Are there any other things that u can do to get extra points besides facial animation? eg: textured, particle effects, having some sort of intro to ur movie outside of the sound clip? Just trying to get every little extra point that I can! ;)

if your having problems getting the two kinds of metal to work try using this file instead ;)

if anyones got problems with the ghostbuster soundclip i'll do it to that too

the quality of the animation is the only judging factor. Well, that and the applicability to the chosen audio. Heh, if you just have a nice walkcycle going on during the course of the audio, that kinda defeats the point.