CAP 3D Modeling Project

Not sure if now is the time for comments or whatever, but looking at the animation on Pajantom's finished product thread, the Dreamgon's tail looks kind of stiff. Most parts have that spirit-y waviness like on the wisps, but the tail feels more like a physical, odd-shaped tail than a genie-esque wispy tail because it all moves together for the most part. Although it looks like y'all are still talking about animating so maybe that's just a WIP kind of thing they posted in that thread so they'd have something to show? Idk anyway overall it looks frickin incredible don't let my nitpickiness take away from that. Beautiful work, my dudes.
I agree, I'd like to see the tail being more fluid. No judgement tho, I'd never be able to do this myself.
 
First off, I'd like to ask you all to nitpick and pester with confidence! It helps, it really does. Take it from the 3d project's official nitpicking pesterchild.

Part of the issue with the "fluidity" of the tail is that, as can be seen in Reiga's art, the whole z-shape is supposed to represent some sort of intangible, smoky wispiness that is rather difficult to replicate in terms of a 3d model. A sine deformer, as was used with the flames, would not offer nearly the same value when applied to the tail since in truth what you'd need is to cause a deformation that makes the peaks slowly fade and reform as if being blown around by wind.

Now, back before showing this QxC and I talked and I proposed that the length of the 2nd segment may be a bit too long, which was exacerbating the perceived Z shape of the tail. The decision was to throw it out there to see what the animator did, since oftentimes in 3d models the perspective and cameras require funky proportions so that they look right from the angle of presentation within the engine itself.

Note how the tail looks significantly less rigid in the 1st image in QxC's post, where it's already in a pose and placed in a similar angle to where it'd be seen in PS. I do think the second tail segment is a bit too long still, again making the whole z thing a bit too on-the-nose, but all in all it doesn't look rigid or out of proportion.

As far as I know, the animations in the Final Product are just so we have a thing for the playtest and not necessarily final :D.
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
The model looks absolutely fantastic! Although I do have one nitpick, something about the arms on the (wip?) animation feels a bit too static/unnatural. They feel a bit too far from the body imo and should move a bit more (claw flexing? Slight but desynced shoulder rolling? Idk) to show that it has, well, psuedo-legend levels of attack and look more intimidation because of it.

I don't find the tail too distracting but a waviness would look really cool on it. Otherwise it's a beautiful model and looks like it's straight from Gamefreak, awesome job!
 

LucarioOfLegends

Master Procraster
is a CAP Contributor
Yea, I think that the arms on Pajantom look too much like those party balloons that you make balloon animals out of. Perhaps make the shoulders slightlymore profound to look like it does have two purple cylinders nailed to its torso?
 

QxC4eva

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Animations~

There's not much I can do for the idle other than bobbing it up and down :( If there's really something better I just haven't thought of it yet! I did play around with some ideas but they're all so silly I'm posting it here for fun, obviously not gonna have a poll for them.

Left to right we have Reiga's older design pose, woke Smolgon, and a roaring sequence (an art request for Creta ¬.¬)

As for the REAL idle, the only notable thing I can change is how the arms move so here's what came out - palms facing down, palms facing in, and clawing.

The clawing arms was Cretacerus' idea and some of us liked how it turned out but not others so overall it was kinda mixed. Strangely though, Creta was one of those who didn't like it (!!!) so for revenge sake I went with clawing for the playtest~ :D I might keep it for the final too but if you guys like non clawing more let me know and I may change it.

epicparker, Lil' Mike and Earlio -
This is an earlier draft I shared to the team and we agreed the tail's too wobbly, I guess that's how it ended up stiff in the later versions.
Cranked up the amplitude instead of frequency this time. I hope it works better!
<--playtest | updated-->
Yes? Or no...?
Zephias - I tweaked the zigzag shape a bit but I'm not sure if it's clear on the render. It came down to this sneaky bug that made some of the vertices join together and I missed it back then. Not sure how much I can help it now without redoing the geometry / UVs / skin weights etc again. x_x
Earlio - I made the arms flex more but not too much cause it's already a lot of movement for an idle. :p
LucarioOfLegends - oo nice find! I bulked up his shoulders a bit.


Final renders will come after the pokedex stage so it doesn't polljump. Until then, any more comments or feedback is welcome. :)
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
Animations~

<--playtest | updated-->
Yes? Or no...?
Zephias - I tweaked the zigzag shape a bit but I'm not sure if it's clear on the render. It came down to this sneaky bug that made some of the vertices join together and I missed it back then. Not sure how much I can help it now without redoing the geometry / UVs / skin weights etc again. x_x
Earlio - I made the arms flex more but not too much cause it's already a lot of movement for an idle. :p
LucarioOfLegends - oo nice find! I bulked up his shoulders a bit.


Final renders will come after the pokedex stage so it doesn't polljump. Until then, any more comments or feedback is welcome. :)
Really nice new idle, looks much more natural and threatening. Great work!
 
Too me the whips shape is just bobbing back and forth. It still seems solid.

Perhaps if the ‘Z’ bends seemed to roll out of the origin on the cap and fade out below Dreamgon’s shoulders?

Like the rolling of a wave. The smoke is folding into that shape as it billows out and slowly stretches out as it forms the big guy.

I’m sure this is much harder to achieve. But perhaps just slowly looping shape along with the current deformation?
 
That's significantly harder, and would require essentially redoing the whole tail. Trust me, QxC and I discussed it. QxC, it's a lot smoother now. Still noticeable but significantly less "I AM Z LOOK AT ME ROAR" which is fine in my opinion.

On a side note, the roar could totes be a special attack animation but PS doesn't do those so rip :U.
 

snake

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Is it just me, or does the tail seem a little too...jiggly, for lack of a better term? I think there's a happy medium between the playtest version and the updated version.
 
That's significantly harder, and would require essentially redoing the whole tail. Trust me, QxC and I discussed it. QxC, it's a lot smoother now. Still noticeable but significantly less "I AM Z LOOK AT ME ROAR" which is fine in my opinion.

On a side note, the roar could totes be a special attack animation but PS doesn't do those so rip :U.
Maybe they can be in the CAP subsite in a category of CAP Models and other animations.
 
After looking at that second animation, Pajantom kinda looks like it could be one of those arm flailing inflatable tube guys you see in front of care sales.
.

I have a really weird imagination lol.
 

QxC4eva

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Pajantom 3D animated sprites - Final Product






https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e6tDtphBT1naxoj3Hybr8hzLNQfdq3ta


[CREDITS]
It's not often we get such a big team of modelers working together! It's been truly amazing working with you guys and all of you have done some incredible work to bring Pajantom to life. I for sure have learned a lot from it. And I hope you have too! Thanks for showing how productive and welcoming our 3D process can be, as it hasn't always been like that. CAP's 3D modeling stage is still very premature and we quite often find ourselves with a shortage of modelers. Getting enough of us is only possible if we use the right approach... and there's no doubt we've been doing something wrong in the past CAPs if you notice how few modelers we had for them. I'd argue what we did this time is a step in the right direction, but even that may be going a bit far. There's still heaps of room for improvement and we can only keep on trying till we hit the sweet spot. ^^

Of course I should also thank everyone who offered us critique in the process,
Also yes, I do have another modeler who wanted to do their own animations for Pajantom. They're pretty new to it so don't expect anything soon, but if something gets done we'll certainly post it here and maybe even work towards getting a poll for it! As for who the animator is, I'd like to withhold their name (for now) to avoid putting any pressure on them.

Approved by Birkal



 
i will not poll jump ever again

But seriously, great job to everyone who contributed to these Pajantom models. The smol dragon looks really cute on its own.
 

Birkal

We have the technology.
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Outright unbelievable. Huge massive kudos to this crew. Best model we've ever had, which is really saying something considering how complex this design is! Congrats to all!
 

QxC4eva

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I forgot to update woops :P
Now that Pajantom is out of the way, what is the 3D Project's next avenue?
The answer to that is Scratchet! I'll be busy so there'll be some delays though. Here's the rig.



 
I've been thinking of making reference sheets for capmons to make 3d models. Would this be the correct place to post them?
 

Quanyails

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Hey, BARABOY, welcome to the CAP Project! This would be the correct place to put them, but you'll want to check the status for each 'mon in the spreadsheet in the first post to see what has and hasn't been done. You'll want to get continuous feedback on model sheets, too. :) I'd be glad to chat and help you on the CAP Discord server, and I'm sure you'll get feedback from the wonderful contributors of CAP here, too.
 

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