F12’s
on May 9th, 2010, by soenkeSome renders:
Have a good day,
soenke
Sintel, the Durian Open Movie Project
Sintel, the Durian Open Movie Project
Sintel, the Durian Open Movie ProjectSome renders:
Have a good day,
soenke
May 9th, 2010 at 8:37 am
increible!!!!!
May 9th, 2010 at 8:40 am
wow! the renders have started to blossom. if anybody had any doubt about quality, then this just erased it. god this is looking SUPER. dying to see the trailer
May 9th, 2010 at 8:43 am
Nice texture and lighting !
May 9th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Simply great !!!!
May 9th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Trailer ?
May 9th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Nice, the hair though doesn’t look good, especially on Sintel. Surely this is still a work in progress so can’t wait to see how it turns out in the end.
May 9th, 2010 at 9:12 am
In the last picture there is a error. The clasp of sintels cloth is too far behind.
May 9th, 2010 at 9:13 am
I`m stunned! But still i noticed lack of subsurf on shaman`s coat (his left arm).
May 9th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Wow this project really has been brought to life from the story boards! Keep up the awesomeness, I’m really dying for the trailer now as well xD
May 9th, 2010 at 10:00 am
Pixel: Haha… well spotted! We will have to poke Nathan about that one, probably a slight rigging issue.
May 9th, 2010 at 10:00 am
These renders look fairly good. Sintel’s hair just seems a little off though. I also immediately noticed the lack of smoothing on the shaman’s shoulder.
May 9th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Hmm…I also think Sintel’s face could do with slightly more defined texturing on the face, perhaps show a bit more bump mapping on her pores or add just a touch more crispmess to the imperfections on her lips. Right now I’m having a little trouble believing that her cheeks are real skin. The shaman seems quite fine in that regard. No need to give her the skin of an old man, but if you have time, it should help make your main character feel just a little more real.
May 9th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Great! I am surprised to see so much good reactions and not “horrible, this and that should be changed!” Good job, I hope this isn’t a substitute for the trailer!
Maybe it is just the lightning but I like her skin more in the earlier pics.
May 9th, 2010 at 10:45 am
wow great renders how long does such a picture take? can you blur the edges a little bit? those sharp edges make it look a bit unrealistic but the rest is great
May 9th, 2010 at 10:51 am
I had trouble breathing for a while. 😀
Thank you, Soenke! I am so happy to see that it has come this far. Great stuff, you guys!
Sintel’s skin looks like she had a giant blur filter applied to it, though. 😀 Great atmospheric lighting. Tear specs look a bit WHITE.
I can not wait for the trailer…!!
May 9th, 2010 at 10:56 am
WOW! Nice renders, even though sometimes I’d love more focus on the characters as at the moment they blend a bit too much with the environments.
Also, the deformation on Sintel’s armpit in c.png is not so natural, rubber-hose style. Nathan?
Can’t wait for the trailer. Great work guys!
May 9th, 2010 at 11:00 am
These look fantastic! I think those complaining about the hair and edges and skin are looking at the two closeups of Sintel in a non-native resolution for the image. You do realize you browser is scaling down the images right? Expand it all the way and they look much better.
Absolutely breathtaking! Keep up the great work!!
May 9th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Ah, nice images. And also I agree with the Hair, they look as if sintel is right out from Bed – or maybe, just out of a fight ?? hm, so it could be intentionaly ;-D
Acording to the Trailer: I hope the Trailer is just now being rendered on the renderfarm?
😮
May 9th, 2010 at 11:03 am
I just put a slight blur on the close ups in The GIMP, and it does make the hair look a bit more natural. I honestly do really like the work you guys have done here, by the way.
May 9th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Den schönen tag werd ich haben mit diesen bildern 😀
Gruss ans ganze Team, Soenke^^
May 9th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Nice renders! But… have you decided to get rid of Shamans hair?
May 9th, 2010 at 11:28 am
number 1 and 5 my favs
May 9th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Even Proog from Elephants Dream had better hair than Sintel in these renders.
May 9th, 2010 at 11:43 am
This renders looks really cool, you have definitely improved Sintel’s hair.
Any chance of 4k renders soon? >:D
May 9th, 2010 at 11:53 am
i noticed that there is not fire or volumetrics
May 9th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Wow, well done!
But I can accompany the others, Sintel’s hair doesn’t look very good. It’s too thin and shiny and looks like it was well-tended with shampoo and hair conditioners, in my opinion it could look a little more greasy. There are also some pixel stairs in it. And of course Sintel’s face looks photoshopped. You could grant her some pores and skin impurities. 😉
May 9th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Hey, the more I play with the pictures, the more it makes me think they aren’t gamma corrected. Especially for the shaman.
Am I wrong?
May 9th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
looks nice but the hair looks a bit to thick and the skin also looks to much like plastic. Keep up the good work 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Yippi! Nice to see some renderings! The pictures are too sharp overall, more focus on object, and blur the background out. I agree that sintels face are too smooth.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Hi, i really love the color and the lighting, but especially the last one the modeling needs to be improved. I have marked some points that, i think looks horrible. http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/1935/sintelissues.jpg
May 9th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
C’est bien, mais les cheveux ne sont pas réalistes et les textures reflètent mal les lumières.
Sinon, c’est très bien. 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Der Schamane sieht toll aus und die Bilder sind schon sehr stimmungsvoll, doch auch ich muss sagen dass ich Sintels Haare nicht wirklich als eine Verbesserung empfinde, zu dünn und zu glatt. Auch das Subsurface Scattering auf Sintels Haut empfinde ich als zu stark, es glättet die ganzen schönen Details in den Textures weg. Mir persönlich hat ihr look aus dem Post vom 17. März am besten gefallen.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Love the face of the shaman. Where the paint is on his body, it looks so real! The lips of his are also very detailed. I feel emotion in his eyes. Just a stroke of genius. With sintel, her body looks extremely real. Around her lips you can actually see a small little wrinkle, adds so much! Love what you guys have done!
But here come the crits. I loved how the hair looked in elephants dream. That seemed so real and dirty: http://orange.blender.org/wp-content/themes/orange/images/media/gallery/s2_emo.jpg
I’m not that worried about Sintel’s face. Just a little higher normal should do the trick, I guess.
Love what you guys have been doing here. Just to say, this already looks extremely awesome!
Please get the hair this good again. Also, where the neck of the shaman meets the body, bump detail quickly gets less rough. It’s quite ugly. I do not think you would notice if the close-up wouldn’t take longer than 3 seconds, but else, please let it blend a little more.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
okay, something weird happened with me post. The hair part should be under the link.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Could you post in English, please? (this in an international project 😉 )
May 9th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Very nice!!!!
May 9th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Reflections in the eyes and the eyelids are bad.
Sorry. But this render is similar to a graphics from game. Your character “shaman” is similar to the pirate or the homeless (бомж).
May 9th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I don’t like to say this because there is a lot of hard work and skill going into Sintel, but I think these images are poor.
What are these images for? What are they supposed to represent? The overall cinematic vison of the movie or discussion on skin tone and hair. I think both would benefit from some effective lighting, cinematic framing and decent fidelity.
They’re too dark even for camp fire scene, there are no specular highlights that even approach brightness levels of such an environment, the images are flat, dull and lifeless.
There’s lack of bite, fidelity and depth. Has any reference been used to compare or just what the artist seems to think look right, but doesn’t by a long way imo.
They’re not filmic, in the ‘b’ image in such a dark environment even the background tent poles and roof are in focus for example.
They look like some screenshots from a game, not from a 4k digital film experience animated or otherwise.
Maybe the intention is to give the film a ‘game’ feel rather than a filmic cinema feel but there seems no consideration to cinematic considerations like effective lighting, dof, framing. The ‘wow’ factor is missing from these renders. 🙁
May 9th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
hahaha. they post this to generate confusion and critics but it’s obvious that there are lacks in some aspects. there is not fire, volumetrics and particles in the air, post-production, some poligons even multiresolution i think. hehe
May 9th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
sintel’s hair sucks. exept that, the renders look great!
May 9th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Well, I called Graham in and said “what do you think of this guy with the nose peircing”. He said “is he from one of those trible groups” then I told him it was Durian work. He was amazed as I was. Your all doing amazing work. I wish I could made the word “amazing” in bold, color and underline it. But I don’t know how.
May 9th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
I can’t to see all this in motion, looks like everything is coming together nicely! You can almost sense the movement/personality of the characters from just these few stills, great work indeed.
May 9th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Awesome!
However, her shoulder looks dislocated, her skin is to perfect (maybe intended) and her eyes are way to big (definitively intended, but I always think that ginormous eyes look to be freaky).
Still, can’t wait to see it! 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
i like the images a lot.
the only detals i don’t like are the aliasing on the reflections in the eye and that the eyebrow hair are to coarse. they look like bristles. 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Awesome!
Are these final? They aren’t final are they? Well it wasn’t specified in the post, but the hair looks a little fake as other commentators have noted. It looks a little texture-heavy too actually, although these are only half resolution? So I’m guessing the extra texturing will payoff in 4k. I just wanna point out that I’m getting that “Is this real? No wait, something’s off… this is CG! Weird….” feeling from these, so you definitely are on the right track for realism and it’s amazing work, but obviously I’m not sure if that’s th reaction you were going for. You originally said it was gonna be halfway between anime and realistic. These are definitely more on the realistic side.
I really like the expressions and what looks like stellar animation.
Once finalized and post-processed these are gonna look amazingly good!
Can’t wait for the premiere!
May 9th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
the hair are not good
May 9th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 9th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Granted there are some errors in the render, but that’s always going to be the case, that is why the major animation studios have artists who paint over each frame to remove errors, especially with hair. I don’t think the Durian team is big enough, or has enough time for such things. But that doesn’t really matter, once you have finally compositing with FX layers, DOF, Motion Blur and full motion video you will NOT notice any of these issues, unless you pause a frame which has very very little motion blur applied to it.
So, all in all I think you guys are doing an amazing job. The renders have some issues, but for stills they are always touched up in 2D any ways so that doesn’t really matter.
I cannot wait to see this trailer 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Well, that creepy guy with the viking thingy through his nose, his beard is crazily realistic. Ridiculous almost. Sintel’s hair isn’t as good as his. But it’s got realism alright. My sister, who doesn’t really know much about CG, said it looked really good, while I, the usual critic looked for everything to criticize everything I could.
And the only thing I came up with is Sintel’s hair, as many others stated. But I wouldn’t worry about that, because this is half-anime, half-realistic
May 9th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Very impressing!
However, a little glich I noticed: in the last picture, in which you can see Intels upper body, the clasp of sintels top seems to be behind the lace, instead of going through the buttstrap where it belongs. You might correct this, if you can.
Otherwise I’m really looking forward to this film! Maybe afterwards a full length cinematic Blender movie is not that much of of science fiction any more…
May 9th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
“…in which you can see Intels upper body…”
Oh, I mispelled the heroine’s name and turned her into the CPU she was rendered on. 😀
Sorry, Sintel!
May 9th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
@ Colincbn: No, the non-native resolution has nothing to do with the critique about Sintel’s hair. I agree, that they look too flat, they lack the brilliance that the keratine hair consists of naturally has. Maybe this can be compensated by adding a better shader to it, making her hair more “shiny” and vividly…
May 9th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
These look great! The atmosphere is right there. Although, as Dimetrii mentioned, these renders do resemble to a next-gen game. Could it be that there’s not enough ambient occlusion, indirect lighting, etc. in the renders? Objects don’t seem to stick on each other when they’re close.
The hair also seems to miss shadowing.
If you’re going to composite elements together, please use techniques such as adding lightwraps and slight blurring, so that the render layers look more integrated with each other.
I’m aware that it’s easy to critisize. Still, it shows that we care. I hope just as much that Sintel will be an amazing success 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Forgot to mention, just in case you didn’t notice. There’s a very small texture seam under the nose of Sintel.
May 9th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
shaman.png – Hair needs work, the roots are just too uniformly think and the tips (especially on the shorter hairs) need to taper off and fade. Skin texturing and rendering is great, especially on the lips.
sintel.png – Skin just doesn’t have enough texture. Her hair looks like thread. The hair of the eyebrows and eyelashes have a more natural tapering that the shaman is missing.
b.png – Lighting is way off, he knows looks like he has a black hair. The edge of the blade doesn’t have a metallic feel to the look.
c.png – The bowl contents look cheap, whatever they are supposed to be. Sintel has a patch of hair that curves out unnaturally (like a curve guide was not following the rest of the guides)
d.png – the dirt on her right arm feels forced on (like a quick dirt layer was slapped on in gimp) rather than natural griminess that mixes in with the pores adding to the skin texture.
May 9th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Speaking of hair, I remember remarking on how much I liked the feel of Soenke’s early test girl’s hair.
/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/first_face_wip.jpg
I’m no hair-xpert, but I think such a look naturally occurs when the hair are cohesively aligned by virtue of the oils vaguely holding them together. Freshly shampooed, short hair looks fuzzier partly because the oils are washed out, making the hair less specular, and equally importantly, the individual hair strands are made less associated with each other.
In other words, I think if Sintel’s hair system can successfully simulate the former situation where the strands are ‘sticky’ with each, the hair can look more realistic.
But I’m not expecting that to happen. 🙂 I still do want to read a proper entry about hair by the Durian Team, though!
May 9th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
I love the evolution of Sintel’s face and the shaman’s head at picture #1! Great work!
Daniel Wray: +1, post-processing does miracles!
We all know that Soenke (and the others’) is a perfectionist, so small glitches can be explained by the very tight deadline which prevents them to polish each scene as is it was a single picture… ..more an iterative way I think according to the schedule priorities…
And relative to next-gen games, only the huge manpower of these firms and the artists’ tricks explains this nowadays “standard” quality.. Let a small team develop a similar game concept in only a few months then let us compare the results….
Moreover, these hair issues must be very tricky, as the hair design, with long (contrary to Elephant Dream) and crossing strands (compared with usual, less boyish CG girls, where the hair directions follow similar directions: http://www.gameaxis.com/img/blog/3302/Image/finalfantasy1.jpg), is not the easiest one I think (and this must look good in motion and from all the directions! so only compromises can be found..).
So I think this heavily depends on the tools used for managing the hair, and this sole subject might monopolize a dev during many days…
Thanks for your dedications on this project (guys, many of them even work the week-end! If they are not perfectionist, what are they!) and don’t let the criticisms disturb you! 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Awesome renders! These shots are on definitely on par with those of other 3D animated films of similar styles, such as Appleseed Ex Machina. I LOVE how the Shaman’s facial expression looks just like some Thom Hoffman made during the voice recording session. Both characters have a lot of personality and seem to be very expressive. (Hats off to the riggers and animators for that!) Also, their modeling and texturing are quite impressive. (Hats off to that part of the team as well!) In short, the Durian team has blown me away, yet again. Keep up the stellar work and I know the end product will be something you can be very proud of!
May 9th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Everything looks perfect to me, except Sintel’s eyes. Well, they look good, but something is itching me.
1) The eyelid parts are very very reflective, as if there was lots of lubrication. Is she crying? Otherwise I’m not 100% sure eyes would look so watery in real life… but I may be wrong. I haven’t much occasions to look at pretty girls in the eyes in the firelight ^_^
2) The eyes are very curvy. Well that’s okay actually, I guess she is of asian/eurasian descent after all. Or that she’s making a facial expression specific to this scene, I don’t know. It just looks quite different from the other scenes and conceptual artwork I’ve seen so far, so I was a bit surprised.
May 9th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
oooohh god. Sintel Trailer come to us please T_T
May 9th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Video always looks better than static images so with this quality in the static images I just want to see the video!!! Is going to be breathtaking.
May 9th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Hi!
Personally I find this renders quite awesome, but still need some touches.
I think the eyebrows could look more natural if you add one layer to the skin shader with multiply blending to darken the area bellow the eyebrows’s hair. This can be applied to all the areas where hair grows, and this way you can get more sense of volume overall.
Hoping to see the trailer soon!
Greetings.
May 9th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I can’t put the finger on it, but I think that there’s some problem with the lips…
They just look…. uncohesive with the rest of the face…
May 9th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
“sintel.png cannot be displayed because it contains an error.”
🙁
May 9th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
i would like to see that skin shaders but without specular and better ilumination just to see how it is for reference and to look for diffences with some pixar shaders heheheh
May 9th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Quality has improved in an extreme way from the first shaman tent renders.
Shaman face is o-u-t-s-t-a-n-d-i-n-g!!!! Skin textures, normal map, hairs on beard, everything is really superb, Pixar or Dreamworks quality 🙂
The only uglyness with the shaman is this:
http://yfrog.com/j5shamanfj
Moving on Sintel, however, things are not so good…
Sorry but in the very closeup, her skin seems a bit too plastic, she almost looks like a rubber puppet.
But what is really not working for me is her hairs. They are completely off if you compare them with the Emo-four-years-Blender-development-ago-hairs as you can see here:
http://yfrog.com/bhcomparisontj
I know all this must be seen in action in the movie, so I can seemingly be wrong, but if you have time please spend on improve Sintel hairs 😉
May 9th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
the rendrings look fine and nice:)
..but what the heck is wrong with her eyes..the inside pulled down almost to the nose..looks bit alien to me as if it was sort of rotated..i tried to do that with my eyes but i got a headache trying…looks like shes meant to be sad or absolutely stoned/ devastated…
agree with some others that sss maybe needs some revision too:)
anyway good work, think this is getting along well…
best regards and have a nice sunday everyone!
May 9th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
The hair is somewhat lacking IMO. I know the extreme processing time it would take for a full hair simulation.
I also just realized why the Navi in Avatar like to braid their hair; especially when they’re getting ready to appear as a group. 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
zomg, waxy people D:
still cool though. 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Looking at nose piercing of the shaman it looks more like a spike is glued to each side of the nose. When a bodypart is pierced the skin stars to grow inside the hole. And when it does this, especially with older piercing (which would be a good guess the shaman has) there is bevel of the skin around the edge of the hole. This new skin could sometime also be a tiny bit more reddish than normal skin.
Examples:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1248/1359739210_e7f40f17c1_o.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loupiote/3764155089/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirencia/3319246790/
May 9th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Beautiful work team. I have to say that the stills are already much better than I could have hoped. These few shots have restored my faith in Blender’s abilities, when used by appropriately skilled artists. I guess I’ll have to blame my clunky work on myself after all 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Great job guys! These renders are coming along beautifully.
I haven’t been able to find a better place to post this, so I’ll just express my concern here. The characters are looking amazing, the renders are beautiful, matte paintings are wonderful. All the visuals a breathtaking and the technical aspects of the film are top notch. However, what really scares me is animation.
Elephants Dream’s animation was not very good. Big Buck Bunny was better, but still seemed like it was the last thing done (was it?). The thing about an animated short is that you can have very ugly stills, and still have huge success because of the level of animation. But you can have the most beautiful still renders in the world (like these), and still fail because not enough time was spent on animation. I fear that in an effort to add features and show off the technical capabilities of Blender, that you will once again leave animation, the most important ingredient to the end.
I look expectantly for the trailer!
Respectfully,
bydesign
May 9th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
The quality is really striking from the thumbnails alone! *Everyone* here has spent huge amounts of time looking rather too hard at images; myself included. Some of the criticisms above I can’t disagree with. I too noticed the clasp right away, and the shaman’s wrinkle-free collarbone area, but whatever stage of finality these renders are in, the operative term is still ‘frickin sweet!’ Will there be time to fix every niggling detail in a 12-minute film with this many little details? I doubt it, but hopefully.
I particularly wanted to mention: the eyelashes, and their shadows, and her eyebrows – god damn, those look so good! The longer hair somehow doesn’t have that same effect, would that be because an alpha/colour ramp taper-out over long strands doesn’t show up as well? I think it looks unnoticeable from further back, anyway.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a desk urgently awaiting my finger-drumming until somebody posts a trailer 😀
All the best!
May 9th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
I was like ” WTF? This foks are crazy”
well, this is the kind of thing that makes 3D animation great. every time i think i should give up on this i find something like this and i get back on work
May 9th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Don’t know if this has been said already, I didn’t bother to read the other comments yet. Anyway, a few critiques.
1. What the heck is up with sintel’s eyes? The area around the eyes seems to be lighted wrong. The light just stops abruptly, instead of falling off, as if she’s had a skin graft done.
2. I don’t believe real hair has that much curl in it. The shaman’s beard and brow don’t look right. Too ‘noisy’.
3. Also about the shaman. What is up with his torso skin texture. It looks like plastic.
Nice pics overall though. Still not as good as that teaser you promised.
May 9th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
You should really overwork Sintels eyes, I think. They don’t look natural. Also, as mentioned before, I think less subsurface scattering would make her look more healthy. I think in a final render there will be less children, more independent strands and hopefully much better shading on the hair.
Anyway, Great work. I especially like the shaman.
May 9th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Ok, I didn’t have time to read all comments now, but I certainly spotted, that a lot of people already mentioned, that the hair somehow don’t look quite right yet… – the eye-slashes are great but the main hair somehow look, like they don’t behave as they should, based on the light conditions…
An other thing, I wondered, which I didn’t spot yet, is Sintel’s eyes… Is it just the expression she has right there, or are her eyes always shaped like this? Because they somehow don’t really look nice like this. – If it’s just an expression and the whole scene will move, it won’t be too bad, though… 🙂
It’s kinda hard to get the SSS right. You did a great job on that, but maybe, the skin, especially of Sintel, is a little bit too waxy/translucent or too blury… – the Shaman has the same problem, but his darker and puckered skin somehow hides that a bit…
Stills are always a bit more critical than animations, though. I really wonder, how the same scene looks like, if animated 🙂
May 9th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Sintel’s eyes are beautiful! *Crosses fingers for a tutorial*
May 9th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
just stunning!
May 9th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
The lighting reminds me of night scenes from Pixar’s Up.. This is just amazing! The Shaman coat looks kinda low poly though.
May 9th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
These look really great. The hair and parts of the skin look a little strange, but I think a lot of it will straighten out once everything is in motion. I especially like the shaman’s mouth. I’m really anticipating seeing those lips move (with the hair and the wrinkles). Very nice textures too.
May 9th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
The renders look great!!, Sintel’s skin is so nice with that lighting setup and the shaman looks great too, but there are some nasty errors to fix:
– The clasp.
– Sintel’s pits (there is an arc there! improve the rigging Nathan!).
– Sintel’s eyelids. Too curvy (I think).
– And the bowls & other stuff that the shaman hangs in the picture.
– Hair… I don’t know. This wouldn’t be my top priority.
May 10th, 2010 at 12:00 am
I’d say hair is the main prob here. Everything else is damn good.
Firstly, i don’t thing there’s enough hair. You should add more particle children maybe?…
secondly, i think the hair should fade out on the ends.
best of wishes.
May 10th, 2010 at 12:55 am
Enough about the hair – they need improvement, and you great guys there will already know that.
Acording to the eyes: I like the eyes of Sintel, it’s completely clear that she’s vary sad here, and the tears are almost dripping out. It’s a very special expression. You even did this light upward motion of the lower eyelids, which ends up in this very curvy eye-shape some people here complained about. Not all people do this when crying, but I know several people that do. Maybe you have to check your Monitor-settings or recalibrate your eyeglasses, but that sintel is almost crying seems so clear from her facial expression, I can’t imagine someone can’t see it.
Okay – there is a strange bluish specularity on the inner side of the teardrops, that is too strong. Maybe it will not be noticeable when in motion.
You did a really great job! I’ll just came here again to look for the trailer – it’s still not there.
May 10th, 2010 at 2:19 am
They are completely stoned in these shots 🙂
May 10th, 2010 at 2:24 am
Sintel looks over-produced for a battled warrior.
Shaman looks great except for the swath of super-smooth skin running laterally across his collarbone! The skin bump texture that is on his chest doesn’t look at all human either. His face is great.
I agree that the overall lighting needs much work too.
May 10th, 2010 at 2:43 am
Awesome job, don’t let any of the nay sayers bring you guys down. As nerds we must create our own controversy by finding the tiniest things to pick on. It’s the only way we get noticed.
May 10th, 2010 at 3:38 am
Looks really great !
May 10th, 2010 at 4:12 am
i like that!
May 10th, 2010 at 4:48 am
Sintel’s eye expression looks a bit odd though.
May 10th, 2010 at 4:56 am
I hink is cool, this project is a “mission impossible”, so you are great 🙂
In the animation everything keep sense and some color effects and motion blur would be mixing everything verywell.
Just a thing, change the AA seting, now are you using catmull? try to use gaussian, because catmull makes image outline to hard (imho).
max
May 10th, 2010 at 5:47 am
All in all, looking solid. Yes, the hair needs work, but more importantly, Sintel’s deformations in the armpit look TERRIBLE! You definitely need to improve the pose-space deformations in that area. Other than that, it’s impressive overall!
May 10th, 2010 at 6:39 am
Well, I do believe Ton wrote about the problems they are having with Hair, several weeks ago even. So I think they as a team are well aware of the problem.
I also find it amusing that there are so many opinions that are in direct opposition to one another that it would be doing the film a dishonor should the teams focus solely on these comments.
Great job team, I can’t wait to see the trailer, then I think we can be in a better position to offer advice should it be needed.
May 10th, 2010 at 7:20 am
very nice textures and materials …
eyebrows are a bit strange
I think it may be because of the color …
great job guys!
—
muy lindas las texturas y materiales…
las cejas se ven algo extrañas
yo pienso que puede ser por el color…
gran trabajo muchachos!
May 10th, 2010 at 8:21 am
This is just my own wish, but I hope you guys will go LESS photoreal. Photoreal can be done much easier with a camera and actors 😉
These renders are looking impressive and I’m super-excited about this movie and the team that Ton has put together. Blender gets better every day. Keep up the good work!
May 10th, 2010 at 8:48 am
Shaman’s clothing in Pic 1 needs some sort of displacement to give it texture. Without it the edge of the shoulder / arm is too sharp against the background and just looks too flat for the type of cloth used.
Looks nice! Love the detail.
May 10th, 2010 at 9:02 am
Great renders. Of course stills shows more easily any imperfections than a animated clip (this occurs even in pixar/dreamworks ,and live productions) but this is normal…
About Sintel’s hair, these images are taken directly from the render?? i mean, were rendered at 2048×872 or were rendered in 4k and scaled??… this is because hair shown in the pictures has a spinned thread aspect (which gives the unnatural aspect). Taking any picture and aplying a soft effect in the hair will make the hair look way better (in photoshop or gimp).
Anyway, despite any imperfections in these renders, you are doing a great work indeed.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:48 am
@Gianmichele:
Gah, geeze. That shot does look remarkably bad. We do have issues with the shoulders, largely due to me still trying to rig them with mdef. But most of the shots look reasonable (hard to believe, I know, seeing that shot).
If I get the chance I’ll go back and re-rig her shoulders with good-ol-fashioned armature deform. But we’re already quite pressed for time, and there are more important issues. Maybe we can just put something in front of her shoulder in that shot. 😉
But yeah, I’ve had a lot of rigging mistakes and goofs on this project. So many lessons learned the hard way… and I regret that it will impact the movie for the worse. But next time I’ll do even better! And hopefully I will have time to go back and fix these things before the movie is released.
May 10th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
I haven`t seen it move so I might change my opinion after the release of the trailer, but at this time looking at the images of this post, I don’t like the color.
May 10th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Nathan you are a rigging God. I am truly looking forward to the film. I have no doubts that the team will produce something fantastic. Thank you all for your dedication to Blender.
May 10th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
@Nathan: Naaaa rerigging ??? Why not using something like Pepeland anisculpt and just fix what needs to be fixed. If you don’t see it you don’t need to fix it!
Working in the industry I’m very used to seeing assets and products grow immensely even in the last week of production. You need to have a very clear vision and believe in it.
May 10th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Incredible work. Congratulations to the team Durian
Greetings from Colombia
May 10th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
this is getting juicy
whats the average render time and what were the specs of the rendering hardware
May 10th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
?
May 10th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Concerning the volume of the hair:
The current particle system doesn’t seem to be sufficient.
Thoughts that come to my mind:
Long hair tends to sort of ‘clump’ to curls or strands of hair.
A mesh or an armature could serve as an ‘attraction center’ or ‘envelope’ to a bunch of hair particles (and, in distant renderings, replace the particles to save render time). They could be filled with sort of volumetric particles, accompanied by the current sort of hair/particles.
(Most probably, you already are thinking in such directions, maybe, not. So, maybe, this gives an idea or two.)
Wish you good progress! 🙂 Rendering wise the shaman’s face is already a highlight.
(P.S. As a workaround Sintel could get dreadlocks, as modeled mesh, cluttered with the well working short hair like in Elephant’s dream.)
May 10th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Hi,
I had a look over the latest renders you have posted; unfortunately, i don’t really see any progress concerning your hair particle system work, I am talking about unnatural shape of hairs, which gives an overall plastic look. I’m sorry to let you know that both 3D Studio Max and Maya offers an easier and also more suitable creation system and animation features.
Perhaps in the future you will get much closer to let’s say natural hair creation/animation.
Concerning rig structure( Sintel character), in the armpit area, the bending presents a misconception, namely a forced curve.
About 3 years ago, I chose Blender instead of Maya and 3D S.M. but I am seriously thinking of switching back. I am anxious to see the results of 2.6 version of Blender. This could be helpful in giving me an idea about which is the most suitable program to be used. I am confident that my last choice would solve few of the hair issues , like animation, texture and hair modelling. Regarding Sintel character, the issues listed above are not fixed in my opinion. The real texture of the human skin is extremely difficult to be reproduced in Blender. I hope the future will prove me wrong.
May 10th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
@Gianmichele:
Yup, that’s the kind of solution I would take in a normal production.
But the rule-of-the-land here is that–once the movie is done–anyone in the community should (theoretically) be able to change any aspect of the movie and simply re-render.
Workflows that make that more difficult are frowned upon. In particular, workflows that involve generating and then modifying data in a round-trip fashion seem to be particularly frowned upon. And I suspect anisculpt would fall under that category, given that you need to bake the animation to a point cache first.
Anyway, I appreciate your suggestion. I’ll see what I can do. But there are limitations that come with working on these projects given some of their non-production-oriented goals.
May 10th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Holy Crap!!!
May 10th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Daaaaaaaaang… Wow.
May 10th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Not bad, but i know you can do it better! I’m waiting for some epic Epic EPIC!
Where’s trailer? 🙁
May 10th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Nathan,
i understand your position concerning the use of point cache. However, whether it is your intention or not, many people, blender-users and non-blender users alike are looking at Sintel as an example of what blender is capable of. Poor deformations in the shoulder are what many small productions suffer from, because the tools are generally not available. Many houses have solved the issue with proprietary software, but generally speaking, no commercial package has something like anisculpt. Anisculpt is a major feature to have, you guys should embrace it and tout it as an advantage over the big guys, because thats what it is. And it will make your film look better as well! 🙂
Regardless, great work!
May 10th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Besides, i thought later versions of anisculpt didnt require a point cache export. You could just layer a blend shape on top of the rig.
Pepe? You reading this? Can you shed some light on this subject?
May 10th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Sintel is very pretty! 🙂
May 10th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Vraiment l’ambiance est magnifique, les couleurs et le résultat final. s’il est vrais que quelques détails seraient à améliorer, (comme cela à pu être le cas pour BBB), je penses qu’une fois animé, avec la musique, les voix, l’action..ces détails ne seront plus ce à quoi notre intérêt se portera réellement. Vivement le trealer et .. le film :miam:
little inglish version :-D.
Truly atmosphere is beautiful, the colors and the final result. if it is true that some details would improve (as this to have been the case with BBB), I think wen the film begin,wif music,and sond,Action.. these litels details (hair …) will not be what will really be our interest. i wait for the trealer and .. the film 😛
Good job your team it’s really good 🙂
May 10th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
I have truly lost the will to live with this project,
but I love blender so much and
remember my excellent time at the institute.
So I guess:
Go on guys and girl? (where is she?)
Show these expensive 3D soft what we can do.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Sintel’s eyes look familiar. Does she have that Scottish accent, too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDdNn0x7Y0Y
May 11th, 2010 at 12:10 am
Fair enough Nathan. I understand that these productions really have to drive Blender’s development both from a software and training point of view.
The scope of Durian seems also way more ambitious than BBB and that’s where probably you have to compromise some things. I’m sure a lot of this stuff will look better at the end. That’s how production works anyway 😉
And about your rigging mistakes. I’m sure what you learned will make for a great DVD !
I’ll leave you guys to your work, sometimes it’s difficult here to give some good feedback without being eaten.
May 11th, 2010 at 12:50 am
Screenshots are great. I am a big fan of Tomb Raider, sorry Sintel 🙂
May 11th, 2010 at 3:29 am
Nice work,but I love BBB better.I think blender golden days ended with BBB project.
May 11th, 2010 at 6:09 am
Gosh, some _weird_ (and negative) comments here :/
Well, I must try to cure this imbalance in the force.
Blender’s golden days? Are you crazy?! :b 2.6 has the single most important UI change in Blender’s history; this thing is going to rise from obscurity and DOMINATE the consumer 3D graphics space in a matter of months. (And video editing, to boot!). Anyway, let’s not compare non-final products to final products, hm?
As for the renders:
I, while no rendering expert, am pretty enthused by these. Obviously they aren’t perfect, and allow me to throw in another “please fix the Shaman’s skin” comment 😉
Sintel’s hair could definitely do with some tweaking, but I REALLY like the vibrant look it has. Feels like some very nifty symbolism, to me. Both the shape and the material evokes sparks rising from a fire, and I think too natural of a look would kill that in a disappointing way.
The eyebrows, on the other hand, both on Sintel and the Shaman, I think look odd. Maybe some hair related detail for the underlying skin textures would do it, with some kind of gradient from the start to the end of each strand.
The clump of hair pointing in the wrong direction (on Sintel’s head) in c.png makes me happy because I, too, have hopeless hair like that. Impossible to keep it straight. I hope it’s intentional and not a bug about to be fixed. It adds character, and Sintel seems to have lots of it.
The Shaman’s hat is pretty cool. I love how all the rings on it interact with the light. I can imagine that looking spectacular (and sparkly and mystical) while in motion in that scene. I am having trouble putting Thom Hoffman’s voice to the Shaman, but I guess I don’t really have an idea _what_ somebody with that head (and a ginormous nose thing) sounds like. Maybe my mind will be changed when I see him in action…
I still get the feeling that his clothes have a very sharp transition with his skin and the surroundings. I’m not sure why. I guess the fabric doesn’t look flat, yet it clearly is when we see it from the side. (And we see a lot of it from the side). Maybe some compositing trickery, blurring it at the edge, would save it.
Is Sintel’s shirt using a cloth sim, or is it being pulled along by the rig? If it’s the former, I picture a fascinating little puzzle and I very much look forward to seeing the solution, having been stumped by a similar matter before.
May 11th, 2010 at 7:16 am
Thanks a lot for all your comments (positive, negative and critics). Don’t worry about all those 5min fixes, nothing is final until the movie is done. Hair already looks better ;).
ROCK ON!!! You guys are awesome.
May 11th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Thank you Soenke, you’re awesome! And the team of course 😉
Those renders are what we needed to see along the great videos behind the scene you posted until now.
I agree, something really needs to be improved but the overall look is coming truly greeeat!
My hint:
I see hairs not fading in the air, you know, alpha gradient on them to make the tips better blend with the background. Is it this something you have yet to add or it’s intended? I think it would benefit a lot hairs look 😉
Come on guys, go on and make a good trailer to show us 🙂
May 11th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
As some other people have said, I don’t either dig the hair on Sintel. On Shaman it’s slightly better, but it just seems to be, that Blender’s particles are still pretty hard to get behaving like “real” hair.
May 11th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Mh, btw, don’t redheads have red eyebrows? She seems a bit young to colour her hair 🙂
May 11th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
@Yann
actually, they don’t 🙂
http://www.yeahdave.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/redhead1.jpg
May 12th, 2010 at 1:51 am
i Agree with @Shinobi, just map the strand with a color ramp to fade to alpha 0.1 on the tip and it will looks better for sure! You are almost there.
Btw thanks for this great screenshots, really looking foward for more!
May 12th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Hmm…
I don’t know what stage these renders are, but they seem to lack color dynamics. Also the hair seems to be lt by other lights than the scene.
The images look like they are judged in a very dark room. Get some louzy projector and see if your eye gets drawn to something… Mine are just floating around as everything seems to have the same attention value.
Her skin is rather waxy? is this some sss you are using? Emo was made of wood, but she seems to be clayed. Is that a look you are going for?
The fluid in the bool looks odd, and the textures look odd. Extreme detail is nice, but only if done correctly… right?
Then there seems to be cloth floating. If I wear a thing like she does ( when ever? ) it tents to fall, not float. Maybe its just this shot? Or maybe its hard leather?
I also dont like the water in her eye. Is she crying? It’s so… “how its done”. Poser models have that drip of water-reflection in their eyes too, I have no idea why. No real person has so much fluid in their eye, and salt water does not reflect non-existing/invisible lights. What does it add to the story?
Lighting an inner tent must be horrid, but this: “lets go for what happens in the real world” is not working for you in this scene I think. Put some fake studio lights in their to make the image tell a bit more.
Add more light. Eyes adjust to surroundings and give the feel there is enough to see.
http://atthelighthouse.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/blade_runner_4.jpg
http://www.seanax.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/bladerunner.jpg
http://moviepatron.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/blade-runner-opening.jpg
Anyway… thanks for posting. I’m sure it looks different when it all moves.
May 12th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
My skin “shaman” in the process. 🙂
http://www.pasteall.org/pic/3259
May 12th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
In my opinion the renders are poor :/
Clothes are too simple, they lack of details, look like rags.
Unfortunately all kind of hairs(hairs, beard, eyelashes, eyebrow) looks like wires, in truth they look worst then on bad quality doll.
I don’t like styling at all… why the hell so many earrings, I’ll prefer one but interesting then lots of “rings”…
It’s very bad to see so weak works, as against with
WoW trailer from 2004 year:
http://www.freakygaming.com/gallery/game_wallpapers/world_of_warcraft/night_elf_cinematic_art.jpg
http://www.freakygaming.com/gallery/game_wallpapers/world_of_warcraft/dwarf_cinematic_art.jpg
or with warhammer cinematics:
http://www.subhendu3d.com/thirdpartyimages/WarhammerCinematic02.jpg
http://cghub.com/files/Image/001001-002000/1303/173_realsize.jpg
http://media.photobucket.com/image/%252522warhammer%252522%20cinematic/tbdimension/WAR_cine2_01_200x230.jpg
and many many others…
I hope the renders will look lots better in near feature.
And please don’t understand me wrong I just don’t like quality/styling of those works.
I like BBB so much so… really honest good luck, hope Sintel will surprise me!
May 12th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
armpit looks funny…
May 12th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Nice renders. When do you show the trailer? Can*t wait for it :D:D
May 12th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
tomorrow the trailer will be finished i guess…
May 12th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
please
download DVD training 5: Chaos & Evolutions
May 13th, 2010 at 12:03 am
The trailer was due for the weekend, but they didn’t say WHAT weekend 😀
Maybe the next one… 😉
May 13th, 2010 at 1:57 am
Hehe, firs we complain about the lack of new updates, then we complain that they’re not perfect. I don’t know how you put up with us!
I, for one, am blown away with the quality of these renders, as well as the excellent styling and sense of emotion they show. I can only imagine how incredible it will be to see it all in motion when the trailer is released.
It is truly amazing what such a small team of people has achieved in such a short time!
May 13th, 2010 at 12:37 pm
The tattoo on her chest, does anyone else think it would be cool to use that as the movie’s logo instead?
May 13th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Nice! The shaman looks amazing. I just hope the animation can live up to what’s been done…
May 13th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
cooal
May 13th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Perfect! Awesome! Amazing!
May 13th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
somebody tell me. what is THAT? http://twitpic.com/1n7tc1
May 13th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Didn’t I hear something about a trailer today?
May 13th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
@ wo262: me too… growing curiosity 🙂
@ Todd: today has many hours to go yet…
May 13th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
@wo262 hahaha Where on earth did you find that? And furthermore, what *is* it they’re all looking at?! I wanna see it too!
May 13th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
@Wray Bowling i found it on side bar in this web. twitter updates.
“Pablo is a wizard. http://twitpic.com/1n7tc1” why is he a wizard? WHHYYY? T_T
May 13th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
7 hours remaining till midnight for Holland …
May 13th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
http://www.gotwavs.com/0059305935/WAVS/Movies/Star_Wars_Episode_IV_A_New_Hope/almostthere.wav
May 13th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Yeah, show us the awesome trailer, please!! 🙂
May 13th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
ooou almost :S c’mon c’mon
May 13th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
@Plablo Vazquez dime que es eso tan interesante y asombroso http://twitpic.com/1n7tc1
May 16th, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Amazing !
May 16th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Seriously COOL!!! Can’t wait to see this on a big screen in HD!
May 17th, 2010 at 5:42 am
Too many nit picky crits. This project’s got style. Everything about it so far is too awesome!
May 17th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Great job! Can’t wait for the release!
May 18th, 2010 at 7:38 am
This is kinda sad guys. Here we have a bunch of people work off their buts to make a free animated short for us all and here you are grilling them because it’s not how you would like it. Opinions are variables and your opinion isn’t the only one out there. Others may have liked the hair the way it was. Now it’s all good to point out mistakes like the sub-surfacing but you don’t have to get your panties up in a wad about it. This is their movie. They will make it how ever they see fit. It is their art work. Instead of grilling them cause you are so unsatisfied with their work, go make your own video. All that being said, after watching the trailer, I would love to see a feature length film! Possibly something that makes it too theaters! I’d definitely be part of it if was an open movie project! Well, I plan on trying to part of the next open movie project regardless!!
May 19th, 2010 at 12:36 am
Wow…really REALLY really REALLY super impressive!!! The trailer was really incredible as well! You all are doing great! I am absolutely blown away. All of it is a lot more impressive than anything I’ve ever done :D!!!
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Okay guys (and the occasional Gal : ), yes everyone is entitled to their opinion however if your opinion has no redeeming value , “The armpit sucks” for example, then take your opinion elsewhere.
Remember, that the crew is working very hard, they are dedicating time and energy to a project that they are going to GIVE to YOU for FREE! Picking apart their efforts without offering a single shred of edification or constructive criticism is tantamount to a slap in the face.
Please, have a modicum of respect for the team. It is through their efforts (and those like them) that our beloved Blender matures into a 3D suite that give novices like myself the ability to look like gurus to our bosses when they need a 3D render or layout ASAP.
For those of you who have offered your opinion but have tempered it with kindness and common sense, I thank you.
As for me I will say only this: Thank you, Team Durian. Please continue the amazing work.
May 23rd, 2010 at 6:43 pm
It seems to me that open movie project gets better each year as blender follow its wonderful path.
This renders show tremendous atmosphere.
Thanks to Team Durian
May 24th, 2010 at 11:22 am
There are some errors in the picture including her clothes and her eyes just dosen’t seem to be natural … i mean the reflection in the eyes is a lil bit more … i hope someone resolves these errors…
The Reputation of entire blender community is riding on this project ..which is probably the most challenging endeavor for blender open movie project till date… Good Luck guys ..hope everything falls in place and soon.
June 1st, 2010 at 12:58 am
Seriously COOL!!! Can’t wait to see this on a big screen in HD!
June 2nd, 2010 at 12:13 am
Looks great! Practically perfect. If I really had to choose an area to criticize it would be hair, but it’s still far beyond what I’m capable of right now. Great job!
June 4th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
So good. I hope some day be so good like this.
July 8th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
These are a little old (I was late for my own birth!) but as to the water, it sure looks like tears to me. In that pic it looks like she’s pressing against something pushing the clothes up. Y’all are doing great and I could only hope to be 1/20th modeler/animator/texture artist that any of the team is. Thanks!
July 8th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Forgot to note (if it’ll ever be seen) that redhead pic offered to say redheads don’t have red eyebrows, she’s dyed! But if you look closely, the eyebrows are still auburn not brown.
October 5th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Is it possible to get sintels chest tattoo in picture =). It’ s cool and…