The Highway rider

Good year transform!

Max Ady — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:38:41 +0000

Last time in my blog i did write about how to handle short and fast project. Well this time the dateline is kinda short but the execution is not simple. The client basically want to portray how their tyre are better in punishing condition. And off course, because it is at the time where movie transformer going to make its appearance. They want something related with it. So the agency had to came out with an idea that also possible to be done in two weeks time. And its up to our team try to figure out how to make it happened.

Well its really not two week. The final storyboard only been conform at the end of week one, so we got only one week, arrr what the heck… At least it is better then one day! So i start with tyre transform into robot… they change the board! Then i squeeze Evo lancer transform into a robot…They want to change car into Lamborghini, Ok… This is a though client, lucky we are though. I do bumping almost 100x a day, and other thing such as weight lifting ( i wonder what that got to do with this topic) Done! Lamborghini transform into a robot.. Suddenly, without any sign and warning, they want to change the cars into a Porsche. At this time the agency had give some warning to the client that this project might overdue its dateline, and will not make it to the cinema at the time transformer movie were aired. Another problem is because the agency need to send the render file to Thailand to mix with surround sound, and they need it one week for that process to be complete.

To think of this, lucky they does not choose the realistic rendering that we purpose in the early stage of the brainstorming. Some more it need to be render in HD size. That’s why the agency came out with the black and white idea. Thanks to all GFX team, producer and the agensy for all the hard work, and also everybody give their best effort to make sure this job meets its dateline.

my new short film…. Sarjan is back!

Max Ady — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:28:55 +0000

New short film

For my new up coming short film, it going to be the most detail work i ever done. So far i encounter some few problem because i model the new battle suit as high poly and as detail as possible. There are also many modifier that were put stack after stack including reactor. Many comment that i had in the previous project says that it look like a game render rather then realistic render, so i hope to settle that problem in this new short movie. Another reason for that is because the previous project need to be done in 25 minute duration. This one will be only 3 minute or maybe 5, that should give me enough space to give more detailing on the project.

In the beginning, The project run so smoothly. And then the polygon become higher, and the modifier stack start to look like a ladder… you know you reach the limit when the software start to ask your permission to safe it in the backup folder because it about to faint! When it reach that level, i began a to arrange my file to layers. When the animation key are confirm, i start to safe the work on separate file, so you can keep smacking more element in to your animation for it to look so detail. But all of that is nothing, the real problem start when i send the file to renderfarm. The hair modifier start to look ugly, and there is another story how i solve that. maybe i tell at another time…. I get tired just to think about it.

In this new short film also i hope to answer some viewer question why the other soldier need to salute Sarjan Hassan and his comrade. What i hope to tell in short is because they don’t solute him for the rank, but because of what he had done and sacrifice in the previous War. So stay tune…. God will, i will finish this new project on time.

Here some wip images….

The new version of head and the old

Yes i know, i over cut the sideburns…. a little tweak of this and that, it will be on the go.

BT TM 7 riview

Max Ady — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:37:43 +0000

BT TM 7

Its about 8 month since i own the all new BT TM 7. All i can say is, it has the wow factor. And i hope that tell allot. I dont need to write all good thing that outperform this marker from other woodsball marker outhere since i guest many of you all already read review about it, that it is light, super dam fast, could swallow up to 25 paint balls per second and yadayada the list go on. The thing that i need to review is base on my experience until today how this marker has change my life in sport.

Before i own this marker i only use the house marker, the tippmann 98. yeaa like all the guys say this marker are the most reliable woodsball marker in the world. you can shoot it, drop it, step on it. And when you start to load balls again, it just spit flawlessly. But, i hate it… its like giving a special ops personal with a kalasv nikov, what da hell!

Then i try my friend marker, an A5 with load of makeup on it. mann, with it you can hit a bull head without worry that bull going back after you. I mean it just dame heavy. For the love of god, why do you need to carry a dumbell up and down in the middle of the forest? what is this, a karate kid training center! naaa, forget it…

Then uncle raja at skirmish asia show me to this all new gun, it catch me like love at the first sight! I hold it, smell it and almost hear it whisper to me ” ady, take me..i will serve you relentlessly” ok, my eye are starting to see little stars. It is quiet pricey at that time, but i dont care.. this gun are destine to be mine!

When I play with this marker, it really stand out from the rest. Because it is so lite, I can run around in the jungle like I was naked. I did carry milsig custom carbine marker inside the jungle once. It takes effort just to point it out to your oponent, and to carry it around the woods… That takes a lot of your calorie, the problem is … im not fat! The BT have 3 set of mode, singgle, burst and full outo. I like the 3 fire or the burst mode, It does not consume a lot of ball like full auto, but it also does not compromise the chance of hit like when you are using the full auto. The only thing that i dislike about it is the 3 fire safe before full auto. Cant wait until the APE board came out its version for the TM 7.

BT TM 7 with accessory

Well, if you are a newbie in the woodsball game, I not recommended to you at all to buy this marker. I live in Malaysia, and when this thing is out of commission, it take about one month to get it repaired by the local shop mainly because they have to order the spare part from oversea.

In the end I had to get my a self a set of tippman a5 for my backup marker in case my BT TM 7 goes down again, and it broke down a lot! Oh by the way, i manage to test this marker on the ECO paintball chalange 2009. In woodsball or eco tournament, you need to move in the junggle with speed, and the e grip to help you have a better chances to mark then your opponent. The TM 7 perform in that area nicely. I remember shooting 3 person in a very close range, they all panic and the TM 7 shoot faster then they can move to find out who was shooting them.

I give this marker 4 star.

im looking forward to see the new version of BT, the new Tm15.

Reaction Manager.

Max Ady — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:11:01 +0000

Im not often had to do a character that have a complicated lipsync. Well, there always have a first time. For my new character project im going to aplied reaction manager to it. Normaly a boring morpher will do but this time the requirement for this character a much more challenging. So here we go.

After some trial and error, i finally manage to assemble a complete reaction manager to my test model. It is not that hard, a few modifier had to be done first such as face morpher before i can channel the reaction manager to the character. It is not that tricky once you repeat the way to do it over and over again. Many modifier that require to be inserted with the reaction manager are suppose to be familiar already by the animator, such as morpher and the float limit. All it need is the reaction manager and know how to handle it thats all.

There will be more to come when i finish with this modifier… the magic with what you can do with it, 3D is such a wonderful thing.

here some link for the reaction manager tutorial by super_W_oko . It is one of the best reaction manager tutorial that i can find.. well it works for me. Enjoy.
MOV file 36mb link

until next time…stay tune.

6 month in the making (youtube)

Max Ady — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:41:53 +0000

Film tittle : Final Drive
Duration : 25 minute
Format : Pal D1You tube link

Finally, after all this years….I finish the work that had been lock in my planning. I had about 6 month without taking any public holiday, working from 10am to 2am almost everyday. The work had progress years before that, it only have an intensive focus after I receive a grant from MSC. So the work just run smoothly because I already have the material around me. I also had a few friend that offer me to create part of the story, model, editing and also music.

The original character drawing that I polish from my earlier design

It takes me about 6 month to complete this project. I suppose to start the project on Monday, 10th September 2007, however it has to be postponed to 15th October 2007 because the re still another job revision that had to be taken care of. The Final Drive project finally meets it dateline and going trough FCP editing on Sunday 16 march 2008.

On the first month of the project I start to polish back all the character concept of the story.

I had a help from MDEC illustration artist Sandra khoo to give me more dynamic perspective drawing of character that I have design. Also in the first month I polish the story script with APV discreet smoke artist Raja vikram.

Above is the enhance version of the character drawing, below is something that i manage to find back in my garage. I will post more once i can lift this washing machine after i figure out how to move my sister piano. stay tune!
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ok, back to the topic…. I start the 3d modeling process in the second month of the project, the first thing I model is The Final drive robot, I had an earlier design but it was still to simple, so I work on the detailing of the skin and also certain part. It took me 1 week to finish this model. After that I concentrate on the character, spaceship, background and the last thing is the Titan city ( the place where the 2 robots collide). It a bit disappointing because I have only 4 days to model the city, the original plan was three weeks. But during that time I have only 2 week left, i still need to animate the scene and put two robots to rumble on it. The worst part is, I already fix my online time with the editor, if i postponed the timing, i will need to start bagging at the producer to give me an extended timing (im not very good in giving flowers, birthday cards and also bagging! take a note of that)

many of the scene are render on standard scanline, this is to avoid any conflict with the plug in after been send to the render farm. scanline renderer also are much more faster in dealing with certain scene. Because many of the work i concentrate alone, i dont want any problem with the plugin renderer when im on the job, and it is easier if i need to send it to another company that have renderfarm without having a hassle to install the plugin in their farm.

In the 3rd month, I already finish modelling all the character and background in the story (accept the Titan city that I had to do it in the last minute). Animating of the character start here with over 12 final scene that I had selected (originally was 16, but it will be over 30 minute duration if I had not cut it). Every shot that finish animating straightly send to the render farm. The file that finish render were store in a hard drive, only in the last 2 weeks before dateline I start dumping it on a tape for online and telicine grading purpose. This is because each render fill were render on layer and composite it back on Adobe After Effect. So every time I had revision I only need to delete the final composite file on the hard drive. If straightly dump on a tape, than I had a big problem to erase the tape and record it over again. It is a hassle if I accidentally erase or record over other file that already confirm in that tape.

One of the most important element in this work is the motion capture process, almost 35% of the character animation work in this project are using motion capture while the rest is traditional key framing. I only use the motion capture on a very hard animation scene. It is not totally easy when using motion capture, there is still many work to be done before the motion file can be load into the character. You still need to do a couple of cleanup on the key frame to make sure it run smoothly. However, what’s help allot is because the movement is already there, especially when you are dealing with a very dynamic movement. When you finish cleaning it up, you can see the result after render are much more better than what can you do only by using traditional key framing.

From the 3D software, file are output by layers. After that, it is composite in After Effect to have more control for the effect and color control.

The first character i model for this project

In the 4th and 5th month I receive the music background from my freelancer, in that month also the voice over were finish batch by batch. So it is easily for me to use it as my character animation guideline.Well, I had a very hard time during that last 2 month, I was also lucky many of my friend offer help to animate some of the scene. To tell the truth, I never expected to finish this project on time, looking at the work flow there is a lot of thing to do.

It has been about 5 year since i try to pitch this idea trough local tv station, they had some reason why they rejected it in the first place. But everytime i get back it just keep get in better. This time im wrapping a bunch of dynamite under my chap ayam shirt. If they give me so many hassle just to waste my time, im gonna pull the triger. so after this people after me will not face the same problem again. wish me good luck.

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When you want to do something so much, your dream or ambition. Forget what people says with all that lame excuse. They will say this is not good, that will not work and this is not suitable for underage kid Soooo what! If they don’t want listen to you, don’t listen to them! Simple. The obstacle in front will only help you to push the adrenalin out. Just add focus on it and that’s it, its like you holding a machine gun with a cheat code on it, no matter how much you pull the trigger, the bullet are always full in the magazine.

Sorftware :

3ds max 8

after effect 6.5

Final cut Pro studio 2

RC Heli

Max Ady — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:56:41 +0000

Before this, i need a hobby to escape myself from video game addict. Playing video game cost me my time, and i cannot afford that because i have and important project that have dateline to finish. I try to wrap it in a box and leave it in the closet, the next day i open it and play it again for several hours. Until i go to sleep, go to work and play it again another day. To put an end to this, ill decide to sell it…. there she goes, my x box 360, going to another owner…let it bug that guy life for a change. But then again, i need a hobby. All work and no play could limit your brain creativity, then i saw something flying at padang setia alam. it was so cool, with a pair of blade and a vomiting smoke fly freely like it own the sky… it is the RC heli.

Even in my childhood i always dream to fly this machine. It is not as easy to control it as it looks, some people even take year to get a proper control of it and some don’t ever get it at all. There are 2 categories of this RC, one is electric and another is nitro. I start on electric but never could get it to hover, latter after that i fly a nitro, it take about two weeks for me to get it hover. And 5 month after that, i made my first nose in, then the roundabout. Heh, next target it will be formation 8!

My first lesson with my own graphic design canopy.

I fly my heli only on the weekend. Thats give me time to concentrate on my work, this way my time schedule are arrange properly. An rc nitro heli could cost around RM 3000 complete set with a basic radio, and it could go till RM 25,000 so on. Once you start this hobby your hand will itch for an upgrade, well dont! Try to master your self to control it first. Get the orientation weld inside your head and your two hand.

Well i have my first crash, sooner after that my hali gets it new body.

The upgrade part aren’t that cheap, and when you upgrade your heli until it become so expensive, you will afraid to do a new technic especially to those that fear of heights . But than again there is an upgrade that worth buying to make your learning period short, such an engine governer, servor govener, headlock gyro and maybe if you are born with a pair of hand that are so solid metal until you can crack a brick, perhaps an upgrade of helicommand will be a big aid to you. well, if you could not affort to buy a helicommand, there is device call training skit. its also auto, as long you don’t hover and lost control beyond 1 meter heights, hahaha heh, get it, get it….arrr well. One of the important upgrade that give me better control for my heli is a headlock gyro, i use JR 77oT and it hold my heli head perfectly.

And again another crash! This time.. i get my self a new radio, and a new canopy design. alamakk tak kawin laa aku nampaknye tahun nie..dok perabih duit

kat bende bukan-bukan.

FINAL DRIVE WIP (wip trailer)

Max Ady — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:41:33 +0000

After almost 5 month of struggling, this project finally show its shape. Now only 5 minute duration is require to complete all of this pilot episode with the duration at 25 minute. I have few more day to go before my final presentation. And now is almost to showdown.

During at the time working on this project i found many new problem and the method to solve it…. so i learn how to make the work flow better, render faster using optional lights rather than global illumination and getting use to more real character movement, well…. i still had a few more problem on animating certain posture but with the help of mocap it make you even faster to understand a real movement behavior…. for some part of this project i use the motion capture device and some also using key frame method. For the mocap, im using it at the harder character movement and for the normal animation i key frame it.

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After all this is done, cant wait for my ride again. need go from town to town, make my stop beside the road near a clean river and make a good coffee, smell the freedom and clear my mind, far away from civilization . rather than to find a wild animal like the mosquito, I hope this time i find a deer or maybe and elephant during my time camping near a green meadow.
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Assembly of the wolf

Max Ady — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 04:49:06 +0000

The famous 3

During the 10 years of war. The famous 3 of an elite commando unit, has bean sent to various mission of intelligent and demolition of enemy strategic territory on mars. They are highly skill and experience people that focus on their duty. In this war of freedom and for the human kind, they has taste many sweet memory and also fatal event. From the left is commander Tan Siew Sin, He is E8 Final Drive artillery support for the wolf Battalion. In the middle koperal sambathan and in the right is Sarjan Hassan of the wolf battalion.

Commando of the earth alliance

This unit has been active on mars since 2048 to 2056. On 27 November 2056, During mission to the north, they has discover a huge cannon look alike structure that have a size of a state. After the UN space headquarters see their discovery, an important announcement finally has been made. Human race finally declare all out for war on 14 September 2057, The first wave of attack were called, Operation freedom universe.

Before earth alliance come back to mars 10 years after the Alien invasion. Sarjan Hassan and his valiant friend have been active on mars as a special commando unit. Latter on when the alliance announce new battle plan to conquered Mars, sarjan hassan form a battle unit known as the killer wolf battalion, and low his rank to sarjan in order to put himself in the action.

The big take off

During these event, a gigantic size mother ship called KD mahsuri made it return flight to mars and bringing with it the most powerful weapon called the FINAL DRIVE

The Core of the storyIt has been about 10 years since human lost their civilization on mars to an advance invader. After that tragic historical moment, the Earth Space Federation has been sending out special commando to attack or collect data on enemy territory. Now, every nation on earth is bringing their special force for the D-day. And this is the story of the Mahsuri battle fleet, Chosen by the United Earth Space Force council. To attack east hemisphere of planet mars.
Final Drive

A massive gigantic piece of hardware. It is to be use as an exploration tools for deep space travel. Latter on, it were equip with more stronger motor, harder Armour and heavy weapon. Different region create several version of super Final drive.

The making

After 5 month of brain draining and hand welding, finally it is complete…however you can only view the first 2 minute of the overall short story. They will be another 1 minute to be 3 minute all, that can be view during the end of the year for the short film festival (hopefully it will be shortlist)and another 25 minute of its another stories by the middle of 2008.

A very big thanks to several people who give me support during the making of this short story especialy to Asia pacific videolab (malaysia) staff and also to Djemba (husna) that help me build the backround of the music

The main software to build this animation is 3d studio max. The composite software is after effect and the editing is adobe premier. To build the skin and texture is adobe Photoshop and illustrator.

Happy Independence Day Malaysia.

Optimus prime

Max Ady — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 05:18:24 +0000

Poor old guy, he didn’t even make it to the casting of the movie. Before the trailer came out I were hoping to see the old good prime in the silver screen. I guest in 20 years of time, the new prime also will look at the billboard and see somebody else go to the stars. Its like the Mitsubishi GTO, it were Prime on its time. But day goes by and here come another guy. At least they still remain the esthetic value kept in Optimus Prime. And also, Hollywood standard is understandable. They must push it to the limit. If they came out with an old prime, many CG artist can copy the design and make it into their own short movies. But for the bays prime, an ordinary guy like me with a dell laptop….Its a way-way impossible man!

optimus prime transform(quicktime mov)

Well, I have a megatron project that currently on hold. I need to see the movie first before I can lay my hand on it again. and I have sneak peak on many forum that post my work on their blog or post. Sometime it turn into a war zone saying this is prime, you are right, they are wrong, bla-bla-bla.. Hey, any fight in idea is good. when a movie like this came out for sure there will be fan, critics and people that anti about it. The numbers change according to the quality of how movie makers made it happened. Before you know it, every each of them critics playing an important part to popularize the movie..

To many people give support to it also is not very good, because the makers will feel the unnecessary to compete, it is the most dangerous thought of all, worst than people that make fuzzy statement about the movie, and before you know it your favorite story could die because of it.

some people even ask me,”Hey….where are your side” I do the prime 3D is to tribute to the most ultimate robot af of all time, try to imagine prime vs ultraman….of course the red old boxy prime will win. But that doesn’t mean that i anti at the new Bay prime. Remember, any good idea will start small, it then grow from mass input to become big. That is how the old prime kept survive all these long years…. the new version came out, people will look for the old.

And for people that keep email me, asking when im gonna came out with ver 2 and 3.. patient my friend, when I do something I will make sure it is pretty damn good…or I will scrap it rather than just for the sake to just showing it…

cheers

more wallpaper at: http://www.max-ady.com/wallpaper.htm

few links of my handmade prime

youtube

themichaelsmith.com

Short animation in progress (trailer quicktime download available)

Max Ady — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 04:31:28 +0000

click here to see the trailer (or right click save as)

It has been about 10 years since human lost their civilization on mars to an advance invaders. After that tragic historical moment, the Earth Space Federation has been sending out special commando to attack or collect data on enemy territory. Now, every nation on earth are bringing their special force for the D day. And this is the story of one of those brave men who sworn not to return home alive upon defeat.
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chapter 15 of the Final Drive saga.

Finally, after almost 2 month and a half, this animation almost took it final shape. I start this project somewhere in April. It is a bad time to start though, because during to the middle of the year, my job booking start to build up. But when the mood start to kick, I dont even care if I have to slept on the office floor . When the time has come, a man got to do, what a man got to do….ge me five!

now my dear friend, it is time! get that Rocky balboa mp3 on, sang it, and wat ever u do, bring it to your final limit…! woooh, woooh…..wohuuuuuuuuu!

My office got one more 3ds max license, so I install it in my laptop. For an Intel dual core 1.7ghz, 256mb graphic ram and 1 Gig of memory, it goes quite not bad. With it, I can model a few good stuff, and it fast in rendering to. I made many scene using this laptop, but the scene with crowd animation, it will suddenly turn blue with many American slang language that I don’t understand what it trying to say. For that, one of the solution is you need to push a coinbox icon button (its not box actually, more round in shape)

Yeaaah that its, During the day play dum old boy doing his rutin work Ady! show your boss how dedicated you are… I do many fast job for TVC in Malaysia. I remember the first time my work goes out on TV, It was at the Mamak restaurant. I shout ” hey look-look, my work is on TV. At that time, nobody care, it was almost 5 years back then…. heh, the good old rambut belah tengah me.

And the night, is our night, and we could never ever-ever beee daaa aaaa what is that song, I forgot, this is not good. I always had a short term memory lost these days. Must be the new sleeping technique that I just learn…hmmm, it seem i need my money back garentee from that tukang urut.

I use every free time that I had during night, some say many good idea can be rise because it is so silent and peaceful… after finish, I put the render file into the render farm and put it on low priority so in the day it would not disturb my day job rendering….

image priview….