J-Dude

Currently, I'm trying to fill a rather pathetically empty niche in this fandom: 3D Animation. Yes, excellent models currently exist for our favorite ponies, fully articulated and ready for use by creative persons... in Garrys Mod and Source Filmmaker... That's nice if you like restricting yourself to Teamfortress 2, Half Life and Left 4 Dead maps, props and characters by forcing them to barge in on something you probably only wanted to be pony-related. But hey, you're working with Valve's resources, and that means you're working with Valve's maps unless you want to bother yourself with learning Hammer so you can make a seriously awful Brush-based map of Ponyville! http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CM_KxlbVPb0/ThdaigIrFcI/AAAAAAAAHUE/6FKHFTP1ZJc/s1600/_25311-.jpg Ick... Okay, admittedly there are SOME decent maps made, but you get what I'm saying. An entire medium of artwork and animation left unplumbed and neglected, solely represented by some SERIOUSLY limited productions involving a game-engine, adding another hurdle to the process of making videos by exporting models and textures into Source. What if you wanted to go BIGGER? Where is the content necessary to make a 3D scene NOT constrained by game-engine limitations so you can have huge spaces to work with, or use fluid, cloth and general physics simulations on a grand scale? Maybe you want better effects, and to NOT have to deal with a game's particle engine to do it? Well here's the thing: I'm such a person, who wants to do scenes and trailers and all sorts of other cool things to supplement my written work for the fandom (a little fic on EQD called "Black Equinox"). And I'm currently working to make tons of 3D pony content available for those who work in the realms of 3DS Max, Maya, Blender or whatever 3D package you favor. Want an idea of the sort of thing I mean? Well, here's a teaser trailer I did recently for my fanfic: What you see here is not possible in Source Filmmaker, and if it were, it would be massively inconvenient. Already I've been hard at work extracting Nahka's 3D pony models and rigging them for animation, finding a way to implement the facial expressions he added that would otherwise be unavailable beyond Source Filmmaker or the like. Here's an example of a cel-shaded test animation I did with the current Twilight rig: Cel-shaded, smoothed over during the render to prevent low-poly edges, and open to ALL the possibilities raw CGI offers. Ah, but even with the characters, you need places to PUT them, right? And what yahoo is going to bother modeling all of these environments? Well, look no further than THIS yahoo. I am, at this moment, working to make detailed models of the buildings and structures located in Equestria, from Ponyville to Canterlot. I warn that my work is primarily exterior, but it's better than nothing. At the moment, I'm working on the Library. Yeah, pretty rough, but it's a WIP, obviously, and I haven't modeled the leafy-portions, just the core woody bits (mainly because I plant to set the former on fire in a scene, and I need the husk of the tree). So here's where you guys come in: To do this right, I require references. Here, for example, the Golden Oaks Library (to my knowledge) is only EVER seen from the very front. Any exterior shot of any kind ensures we get the same angle, the same iconic profile. While I'm getting that down in the model, 3D isn't 2D. I can't use an eternally isometric perspective and make the Library a facade with no back. As it stands, I don't think ANYONE knows what the back of this damn tree LOOKS like! I can wing it if I must, fill in a random window on the second floor and call it a day, but in 3D, something should look good right ANY angle. Similarly, (and a bigger long-run concern) Canterlot is shown to be both a palace and a city. By now we have a general idea of the city layout and the palace layout, but the relationship between the two is nebulous at best. Like the Library, we ONLY see the city from the South in that same angle, showing off the aesthetically pleasing silhouette. We assume the rest of the city is past what we can see, but it's shown to be a pretty big place. Big enough that when we see individual ponies on balconies in zoomout shots, we KNOW what we're seeing must only be a small part of the city. Or else, the city must curve around the back of the mountain out of sight. And true, you could do like THEY clearly are and make exterior city shots and interior city shots separate scenes, but it'd be nice to be able to pan a camera all the way through and not rely on cut-away shots.