Ladybug Animation

Hey everyone...here's the ladybug animation I promised (over in my panda thread)

Everything you see here was created in approximately 13 hours over a period of 2 days. The specifics are:

-Scanline renderer (with Mental Ray for Ambient Occlusion pass)
-Rendered in 5 passes (Diffuse, Ambient Occlusion, Specular, Dustpass 1, Dustpass 2)
-Render time approx 15 seconds per frame

Feel free to comment!

(3.5mb, DivX)

Dude like always animation is 110%, but the ladybug needs more work .

the end goes a bit fast. and the leaf looks like it should bend when he gets to the end of it. otherthan that it looks fantastic

Hey! Nice one

Really like the detail - (those floating dust particles really add to the realism!) I feel that the background could have a touch more depth to it if it's total realism you are going for as it's a little too out of focus right now.

On the animation side of things it's wonderful! I like that little clean of the eyes as he gets to the middle of the leaf (nice opacity on that leaf btw) There is something about the motion of the legs just before he (or she... it is a ladybird after all (oh... we call 'em Ladybirds in the UK)) falls that doesn't look quite right.

I think the drop rate is spot on, but the leg motion is too quick. I'll try to explain why... It looks like the Ladybird(bug) is desperately clinging on for dear life, the quick leg motion has allowed us (the audience) to make a 'human' connection to the ladybird (or to anthropomorphise if you want to get clever ) which doesn't happen to things like ladybugs and has in some way detracted from the realism of the scene. Hmm hope that made sense and helped.

When I think or observe ladybugs or any beetles, I generally see them as very slow creatures (apart from when they suddenly remember that they can fly hehe) and I feel that it wouldn't really realise, or care, that it was about to fall as they all have that very hard exterior. Maybe it would make a half hearted attempt to continue along it's path...

Btw, I realise the irony of anthropomorphising the ladybug to explain my point hehe

Anyhoo - that's just me being too picky as usual just to keep you on your toes! It is a fantastic anim

*Global goes out to conduct gravitaional experiments on unsuspecting ladybugs*

Thanks for the critique Global!

I really like the way you think...and honestly didn't realize that I was "anthropomorphizing" the ladybug (haha...I can't spell it...but I still know what it means ), which I now see that I am to some extent.

That being said....I probably won't go back and tweak it....but I'll definitely remember your suggestions for future work

Wow, this has a really great environment and feel to it.

My recomendation would be to have his wings open and flutter a bit as he falls. At the moment it just looks like his back is a sphere.

Excellent job Tyson! Very good work!
I was expecting to see a dragonfly grab the labybug.
Nice job with the stuff floating in the air.


Peter

thats just Awsome
Congrats! its amasing how u can still amaze us over and over again!

u deserve a group hug man

Hey Paulo! Good to see you posting... well I think that's a good enough excuse itself for group hug!

i still wnna know how he achieves those extremely fine dust particles

Thanks Paulo

As for the dust....it's just a particle system using instanced geometry. The "geometry" it's instancing are just spaghetti-shaped splines I drew, which were blurred with DOF in post