DKC Atlas Forum

[Simion32]

Hey, Im a big fan, and I wanted to say that I think you should use DKCTF or DKCR models in your video. The models now seem a little... off. No offense, but when I see them, they seem to fall a flat. No offence, But it feels like you shhould use modern models. Thanks for reading!

The point isn't to use existing models to make something else, it's to create models that closely match the original DKC SNES look.

[ItsameDonkeyKong]

The point isn't to use existing models to make something else, it's to create models that closely match the original DKC SNES look.

I understand, it is that the models used now feel a bit... Strange. Diddy doesnt look rounded out enough, and DK is ok, but the fur seems kind of unnatural. And Cranky is terrifying. No offence :C

[sonosublime]

How exactly does Diddy not look "round enough" and Cranky look "terrifying"? It's good that you're trying to provide constructive criticism, but you need to articulate better.

[ItsameDonkeyKong]

How exactly does Diddy not look "round enough" and Cranky look "terrifying"? It's good that you're trying to provide constructive criticism, but you need to articulate better.

His snout looks a bit flat, and his hands are also flat. I think he should try modeling around the newer models at least, but its just my opinion. It feels his snout should look more like And again, I think Cranky should be reworked. He just seems off to me, the beard mainly. Realism can be important, but his beard should be more attached to itself. As for the rest of him, I just can't put my finger on it. Again like Diddy, I think he should look more like Aside from that, DK looks good enough to be considered looking like Nintendo made it, and I'll say it right now. King K. Rool? Jesus Christ the guy looks perfect! So, I don't mean to sound rude, but I feel Diddy and Cranky should be reworked a bit. And also, I noticed an error during the DK seeing the bananas and entering the hoard. His right leg bends the wrong way. Aside from that, Animations pretty good! I'd just refine some rough bits here and there to make it all look more natural. Anyways, again, I don't mean to sound rude, but I'm a HUGE DK fan, and I'd love seeing it all go right, so I kinda nitpick when I see something like this! It's very good, but I'd just refine the models, touch up on that animation mistake, and you'd be pretty good! Thanks for reading!

[sonosublime]

I'm sure that Cyclone appreciates your feedback. Although I believe he is trying to recreate the look of the Rare games, rather than the Retro ones. That's always the problem when styles change over the years.

Welcome to the forums, by the way!

[ItsameDonkeyKong]

I'm sure that Cyclone appreciates your feedback. Although I believe he is trying to recreate the look of the Rare games, rather than the Retro ones. That's always the problem when styles change over the years.

Welcome to the forums, by the way!

Thanks! If he would like to change the newer ones for the older looks, I'm fine with it. But maybe grouping together the beard on Cranky would benefit nicely, as one, it would look better on the eyes, and two, He seems to have a grouped beard in the games. Anyways, thanks for welcoming me!

[Cyclone]

^ what do you mean buy grouping the beard?
Anyways thanks everyone for the feed back, always helpful. Although changing the characters look is a bit too late as I am already far along in the animation. fur can be tweaked though.

Do to a virus I lost a few months of work,

but here is an an update on the DK falling out of bed shot with updated movement of DK, dynamic fur and DK breathing animation.
Let me know what you think.



Thanks!

[ItsameDonkeyKong]

^ what do you mean buy grouping the beard?
Anyways thanks everyone for the feed back, always helpful. Although changing the characters look is a bit too late as I am already far along in the animation. fur can be tweaked though.

Do to a virus I lost a few months of work,

but here is an an update on the DK falling out of bed shot with updated movement of DK, dynamic fur and DK breathing animation.
Let me know what you think.



Thanks!

Hey! Nice to be talking to you! By grouped beard I mean something like: Where the beard is not in individual strands, but in one big part of the model. It would look really pleasing to the eyes, as it will make the beard look fuller and may be even easier to animate! Anyways, sorry to hear about the virus But at least it means a fresh new start to rework what you did before and fix up small little details! And VTW the new animation looks great, I'd just add some natural bounce to the movements. When DK sits up, have him go just a LITTLE bit farther than you want (Just a little) Then move him to where you want! It makes everything look very natural, just make the gap between a little further and the preferred position a very quick little bounce! Anyhoo, great work, sorry to hear about the virus and good luck on your journey!

[Cyclone]

^ thanks for the comments I appreciate your time.


I would like feedback on the overall lighting and the look of DK's Fur,
before I continue rendering the other shots of this scene.

Sooner the better so I can start rendering.

Thanks everyone.

[ItsameDonkeyKong]

^ thanks for the comments I appreciate your time.


I would like feedback on the overall lighting and the look of DK's Fur,
before I continue rendering the other shots of this scene.

Sooner the better so I can start rendering.

Thanks everyone.

That is great! The animation may be a little choppy, nothing wrong with that, though! The fur is great, but make it move a little less. The lighting seems good, but some more Ambient occlusion would look better. Anyways, I'm glad you like my feedback! Also, you should make something with King K. Rool! Badass of the Kremlins!

[Cyclone]

**** DONATIONS Kindly needed ****
paypal email address is [email protected]

Any amount is appreciated. Need enough funds for at least 1tb (terabyte) Hard Drive.

Thank You for the support.

Need the HD space to store tons of uncompressed video files. They take up a lot of space!
For example a single .png or even an uncompressed .tga file can be 7megs in size. Times that by 30 frames per second with multiple passes/layers and you can see the file sizes added up!

[Jeffrey_Bones]

The hard drive will be in the mail tomorrow my friend. (or technically today) Keep up the great work!

[Cyclone]

Thanks a ton to Jeffrey_Bones for donating a 1tb hard drive. Now I can resume working on my project!
I lost a few bd disks of content due to bad disks but luckily nothing I can't just re-render.

Below is what I have so far. keep in mind it's buggy and lots of work needs to be re-done.


As always comments are welcome.

[Simion32]

Looks great Cyclone, keep up the good work!

[spaceman2028]

Oooh, loving that transition animation you did with the charging Krusha, really fits into the GBA port of DKC! And the bit with the DKC intro where the screen flys on in to the island itself is also great, excelent job cyclone!

[sonosublime]

Awesome, thought this project was dead. Glad to see it's not.

[vege]

I was missing your DK videos, Cyclone, i like your work, it would be perfect for a game.

[Super Luigi!]

Although I appreciate everything about your animation so far, Cyclone, I especially like the transitions to and from the title screen. Well done.

[Cyclone]

^ Thanks guys glad you like it. The project is still going. Just a bit slow that's all.

Here are some renders. The forth and fifth shots have been re rendered with fur.

[Qyzbud]

The fur looks great! That's a very positive improvement.

The fur colours seem to change a little around the 9 second mark; DK's goes from being a rich, warm orangey brown to a more neutral, almost greyish brown — almost like the difference in colour between Cranky's body fur and head fur. A lighting/material adjustment to improve consistency between shots would help here, I think.

Also, how much effort goes into smoothing out the little visual glitches that appear on DK just after the 9 second mark? It looks like a lighting issue — dark flickery shadows in a few spots, especially around his chest and cuffs.

Other than these minor (and hopefully easily fixed) issues, this scene is looking very good.

[Cyclone]

Thank you for your comments. Is this any better? Played around with colour settings/skin tones etc.

[Cyclone]

edit removed

I tried to make the fur colours more consistant (except for the one shot of Cranky) and tried to make the lighting better.

Waht do you guys think of the lighting?

[Cyclone]

Scene Lighting issues and consistency.

I need a fresh pair of eyes. WHat do you guys think of the lighting and colour balance of the below shots.
Thanks in advance!

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Comp 2 (0-02-22-13).png (1023.36 KiB) Viewed 269871 times

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Comp 2 (0-02-26-20).png (1012.41 KiB) Viewed 269871 times

[Cyclone]

Comp 2 (0-02-23-24).png (885.74 KiB) Viewed 269870 times

[Qyzbud]

Unfortunately I don't have a particularly colour-accurate monitor, but I'll lend my input as best I can.

DK's fur colour goes from a lovely, rich-looking brown to a pale, desaturated brown from scene to scene:

Spoiler!

Rich brown:

Pale brown:

Cranky's head fur also seems to change colour a fair bit, from a greyish brown to almost a red/purplish brown:

Spoiler!

Greyish brown:

Purplish brown:

A little bit of a shift would probably be fine, but these changes seem a bit obvious to me. Hopefully some others with better monitors/eyes can give their thoughts, too.

[Cyclone]

Trying to match the hair of DK to the below first image.
Any better Qyzbud?

Comp 2 (0-02-20-17).png (938.25 KiB) Viewed 269817 times

Comp 2 (0-02-22-13)_1.png (1 MiB) Viewed 269817 times

Comp 2 (0-02-23-08)b.png (878.92 KiB) Viewed 269817 times

[Qyzbud]

I hardly see any difference/improvement with the first changed render at all. It basically looks the same to me as it did previously. And DK's fur colour in the second changed render actually looks a bit less like the target colour than it previously did.

[Cyclone]

Another attempt. Any closer?

Comp 2 (0-02-20-17).png (938.25 KiB) Viewed 269769 times

testAll4.png (1023.04 KiB) Viewed 269770 times

[Qyzbud]

That's much better!

Sorry for the lukewarm feedback I gave in chat earlier; I hadn't had a proper chance to look at the latest render on a decent monitor, but now that I have, I can see that it's a very solid improvement across the board. Both DK and Cranky have vastly improved fur, and the lighting on their skin (particularly visible on DK's feet) is a big improvement, too.

Great work, Cyclone.

[Cyclone]

Thanks Qyzbud for your feedback.

Does anyone agree with Qyzbud does it look okay now?

I need to know before I start rendering.

Thanks in advance!

[Cyclone]

Anyone? Thanks.

[Simion32]

Bottom image in the latest post is looking quite good.

[vege]

HI, Cyclone.

I like the color (of fur) of Donkey Kong in Comp 2 (0-02-22-13)_1.png (it looks light brown ala donkey kong 1).
The color of the head of Cranky is very different versus the color of his body, that mix looks a bit strange.

Everything else looks awesome for me.

[Cyclone]

^ Thanks for your comments. I already started rendering so it's a little late to change the colours around.

[Cyclone]

Work was done to improve scene lighting, and fur and skin colour.

Comp 2 (0-02-22-12)(Oct14th).png (1019.02 KiB) Viewed 269396 times

Comp 2 (0-02-25-12)(Oct14th).png (889.71 KiB) Viewed 269396 times

Visit here for the previous version

[Qyzbud]

Looks a lot better to my eyes, Cyclone — well done!

[Cyclone]

Thanks Qyzbud

Added the small fishy in the picture frame. The fish lost its tail animation. I will fix that in the far future.

What do you guys think of the scene thus far. The house needs more objects?

Thanks again for your feedback guys/galls.

[Cyclone]

Finished rendering the fur and ambient occlusion in all the indoor shots. I also added a 'place holder' boombox/speaker to one of the shots. What do you think of the compositon,placement and size of the is (the speakers)? Maybe there are other neat things to add to the shots to make it more interesting.



Thanks.

[Cyclone]

Any comments? ^

Here is my first pass at modeling the BoomBox. Any pointers to improving and adding detail would be great. It is hard to tell what's what in the small in game graphic.

Help appreciated.

[vege]

It looks like a TDK boombox but oldstyle, probably Philipps with 3 speakers:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/voMXRWT_uZY/maxresdefault.jpg

[vege]

Or Magnovox:

http://www.yourepeat.com/g/D8443

http://www.yourepeat.com/watch/?v=I4g-tGMOZpAv

[Cyclone]

^ Thank you for taking the time to reply. Those boom boxes have too many buttons and detail then the one in the game. I am trying to stay canon to the in game graphic. Get the overall likeness etc.

Here it is in this shot. It may not be perfect but it looks decent.

Comp 1 (0-01-57-20).png (1009.61 KiB) Viewed 269229 times

Keep the comments coming... You guys are so silent..

[vege]

Cyclone, i think that your sprite is a bit inaccurate, look at 0:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhGBXPYydJE

[Cyclone]

Thanks for the pointers Vege. I used this sprite sheet from the spriters resource, I had no idea it was inaccurate. The vid you posted the aspect ratio was also little stretched. I used this one instead. I also add some more buttons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2YurnXXoF8

Comp 1 (0-01-57-20)_1B.png (1010.25 KiB) Viewed 269204 times

[vege]

I applaud your effort to achieve something to look canon, i think that the buttons in the original sprite look like volume control / radio (they are circular and small because they can to rotate): http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/perilla- ... 593176.jpg

[Cyclone]

Hmm it is hard to tell what the buttons look like.
Vege is what I have decent enough do you think.

Others do you like it or not?
Thanks again!

[Cyclone]

Here is what I have so far. All the scenes/shots compiled
together. There is sound however it becomes out of sinc
later in the animation.

This is by no means a finished animation and requires
extensive re-rendering to improve fur detail and
more fluid character animation.

The last shots are 'Wips' and are draft renders.



Below are font comparisons. Which is more legible???

Original

Level Font

DKC Font

[sonosublime]

The boombox is looking good. And I think the 3rd picture is the most legible subtitles.

Although... I wonder if written dialogue and subtitles is the best way to go for your project. Looking at a silent movie with subtitles is odd, and I've been feeling that more and more as I watch your project develop. I think that voice actors and lipsyncing would be the best, but you have already indicated that you don't want to go in this direction.

I'm thinking we should scrap the current script, and I could write a new one to not include any dialogue at all. Simply have implied dialogue, like the cutscenes in the Retro DKC games. The way things are going would take far too long anyway.

The new script would be much shorter (maybe 5-6 mins total, 10 max), only including a couple of level archetypes, and I would make sure to make use of scenes that you have already done so your current work won't be wasted.

What do you think?

[Cyclone]

Forgive me but that is a bit harsh. I spent years on this project and now you say scrap it?

Is there some sort of compromise? I dislike the voice acting because its often amateurish.

If anyone wants to do voice acting please send me same voice clips.

Thanks!

[sonosublime]

I didn't say scrap the whole project. Just scrap the current script.

I'll write a new one, which makes use of all the current scenes you've done so your work isn't wasted. It'll also be a lot shorter than the current script, which stands at about 30-40 mins or so. The new script would be 5-10 mins max.