Hi,

Nice vids! I wanted to ask you guys what kinds of tools you're using to achieve these amazing animation clips. I was curious, just so I could learn more about these tools myself, in case I ever wanted to try doing stuff like this one day.

I recently came across a cool leading-edge cartoon line renderer, made by PSoft in Japan:

http://www.psoft.co.jp/en/product/pencil/index.html

http://www.psoft.co.jp/en/product/pencil/sample.html

http://www.psoft.co.jp/en/product/gallery/pencil.html

Their samples looked pretty cool. If you check out the movielcip of the WW2 fighter in their gallery, it looks amazing. Would be nicer if it was a Veritech, of course.

Hi. Welcome to the boards...

Well lets say we were looking for tge best suitable rendering solution(for 3ds max)..

We found

http://www.davidgould.com/Illustrate/IllustrateForMax/Illustrate53.htm

Ilustrate to be the best solution(and the fastest one) for our needs.So the shading in the newest teaser is achieved by using Illustrate...


Other software tools used inlcude Autodesk Combustion(as a compositing app), Photoshop, Sony Vegas...

If there is anything else you would like to know, just ask. Cheers..

Haha, that's cool! Well, I used to chat with David Gould a lot, on the HighEnd3D forums, and also over email. Yeah, I really liked his Illustrate3D, but I found 3DSMax too frustrating to work with! It's such a complex software, with a really complex interface.

Just like in classical Anime, I like the idea of doing the backdrops separately in a softer watercolor aesthetic, while doing the foreground animating objects in a vector-ish solid-colored format, which looks more cartoony. I've been thinking about trying Swift3D for this purpose. I've heard Swift3D version 5 is supposed to be a lot better.

Anyway, I really liked the soft look of your planet in the background.
But the Invid motherships look too 3D-ish, which really makes them stand out.

Anyway, wonderful movie clips. Can't wait to see how it all turns out.

Oh yeah, maybe you should also check out the FinalToon renderer:

http://www.finaltoon.com/

That's a pretty good product too.

I've never tried it out myself but maybe you should also check out Blender which seems to be good 3D modeling/render tool. I heard it has quite a lot of functions but best of all it is free (opensource).

http://www.blender.org

Cheers,
Michel

I like the idea of doing the backdrops separately

Just exact;y what we are doing. The shots are finaly composited within Combustion...


But the Invid motherships look too 3D-ish

Yes. Exactly as they should


http://www.finaltoon.com/

Yes we checked it out already(as well as Pencil..) But nothing matches the Illustrate in results and prior to everythinh SPEED