Army of zombies

budgetguy · Post by **budgetguy** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 7:46 pm

hey, after seeing those cool battles in LotR, i was hoping to recreate something similar in my films, that needs to be really epic with thousands of zombies on one side of a battle and humans on the other. problem is that my software(simpy 3d) will almost freeze as soon as more than 10 people are added. so how can i create this, without spending tons of money on software, and possibly without having to animate each character individually. thanks

film fanatic · Post by **film fanatic** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 7:54 pm

Right. Isn't that just a little bit epic what you are trying to do???

Maybe you should just lessen the limit a litttle bit! Remember, Peter Jackson's SFX team were the highest trianed people with mega-mega computers and they had a Zillion pound budget!

On the other hand, you have a computer (or a laptop; doesn't matter) and Simply 3D which doesn't even work properly!

If you really want to go ahead with this though, I suggest you talk to insert_coin or someone like that!:D

Kazuo_Kiriyama · Post by **Kazuo_Kiriyama** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 7:55 pm

Army of Darkness...

Been done...but you could try to do it better...

SgtPadrino · Post by **SgtPadrino** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 9:17 pm

Build thousands of little toy figures. That'll be less work than the way you want to do it, if you want an idea of how hard that would be.

And yeah, Peter Jackson had millions of dollars, and you don't.

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 9:23 pm

LOTR also had a propirtary software called Masive which generated not only the vast armies but also the fights with a massive AI program.

what you could do is build the toys, and then move them stop motion style. But that seems a bit to epic for an amiture movie.

budgetguy · Post by **budgetguy** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 9:49 pm

just so u know the zombies are only a small part of this story so its not a rip off of army of darkness. also i heardd a few months ago about a program like this masive, but a lot more in my nudget range, anyone heard of this?

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 9:51 pm

nope. also what you could do to simulate a large army. Is get a high shoot, ie with modles. And then get a shoot panning very close across the front rank.
The key here is that you keep using the same people in diffrent places, and with slight vareations in make up so that in a quick pan across it looks like you have a huge army.

iamnothing · Post by **iamnothing** » Mon Nov 17, 2003 10:26 pm

Create 5 animated zombies and five humans. Set up your camera. If you can, save your camera settings ( have no idea if your software lets you export your camera settings for use in new projects). Make the background your alpha channel.

Let your characters fight each other. Do your camera actions. Now, do it a couple more times with the characters doing different things (same camera angle and alpha background).

When you have a good number of composites, render out the background with the ground/sky/etc. from the same camera.

Then composite the shots together to give a large-scale feeling with only 10 characters.

And make sure that you set up your shots correctly every time or it will look really, really bad. It's also a must to think about how the different composites will work together before you get to the editing process. Otherwise you'll have a ton of cr** CG footage you'll just need to redo.

insert_coin · Post by **insert_coin** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 4:18 pm

LOL heres a better idea... make like 1 or 2 poly squares and then image map a picture of a zombie to it... do the same with a human.... then model your terrain and texture it then position your camera high up so that 1 of the zombie objects will look half decent... then use two particle generators to make the particles come from each side and meet in the middle and push each other out of the way then just attach the particles from one emitter to link to a poly of a zombie and the other emmiter for humans... that would be a hardware easy way to do a scene like that... if the models are being viewed so far away why not simplyfy them...

mark_essex_87 · Post by **mark_essex_87** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 6:48 pm

if you wanted to do a big army - instead of doing each individial person which in turn would be mainly covered up - just model the heads altogether and do bodies for the front men?

Twabi2 · Post by **Twabi2** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 8:49 pm

i've created something in 3D max
it's really rough, but you'll see what i mean
it takes about 1 minute to render 200 men without textures or background but whit animation.
Link coming soon
_EDIT_
http://www.blueiceproductions.nl/army.avi (748Kb)

[Edited on 18/11/2003 by Twabi2]

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:14 pm

well thats a start, I guess. even textured wouldn't thay still look like lego men though?

budgetguy · Post by **budgetguy** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:15 pm

hey thats pretty cool, if i ever get 3ds max and learn how to use it that'll work. btw why is one of the guys heads glowing?

2nd_Recon · Post by **2nd_Recon** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:16 pm

Back to the original question.

This won't give you thousands of people like you said, and I never used your software so I'm not sure if this'll work. First you but in as many characters as you're computer can handle, then export it. Open the exported file and add more people, then export it, and so on untill you have as many people as you need

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 10:13 pm

Or get a close up of an astonished scared person, witht the sound of a zombie army in the background, and have them say, "Oh s*** a zombie army"

Twabi2 · Post by **Twabi2** » Tue Nov 18, 2003 11:13 pm

this was just a rough test
the head glowing is a mistake
I wanted some surface to walk on, but i clicked on that guy's head :p

if you export it and import it (like i did), you'll still have to render very long, and your computer can't handle it whit more people (i have a p4 2.0 512Mb)

insert_coin · Post by **insert_coin** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 8:27 pm

ok i think this animation ive made is what he means... i didnt have time to model or texture basic humanoids to link to these particles but this is what you mean right?

Army Video

budgetguy · Post by **budgetguy** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 9:01 pm

yeah basically, but more detailed of course! howd ya do it?

foxwood · Post by **foxwood** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 9:08 pm

Thats cool, well for a consept video I mean.

mark_essex_87 · Post by **mark_essex_87** » Wed Nov 19, 2003 9:14 pm

yup thats pretty kool - id like to see how that'd look if each dot was coloured correctly and the background was detailed.

insert_coin · Post by **insert_coin** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 7:28 am

lol its just a conceptual animation... im not the one making the video so i wont bother making more detail... unless theres a big fat paycheck involved HAHAH

Simon Rylance · Post by **Simon Rylance** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 8:32 am

nice dots

2nd_Recon · Post by **2nd_Recon** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 2:46 pm

That was cool! how did you do that?

I3lade203 · Post by **I3lade203** » Thu Nov 20, 2003 10:47 pm

What program is used to create CGI people 3d max? i still have some money left over to buy something .. heheh lol

Twabi2 · Post by **Twabi2** » Fri Nov 21, 2003 5:36 pm

3d max
lightwave

insert_coin will tell you what is the best program