OT: Have you read Watership Down?

[Dan]

OK folks, here's a seriously off-topic poll for y'all. I was stunned last night to discover that my two 23-year old roommates have never heard of Watership Down. Am I old and out of touch, or were their parents criminally neglectful?

[Allee]

I read Watership Down when I was about 10. You should have asked them why they never saw the movie ...

Seriously, how to tell when you're getting old? I sometimes share my work office with a 24 year old Chinese girl, who has never seen a vinyl record.

[Dan]

...I have t-shirts older than current high school students.

[kjl]

I read it when I was really little and don't remember too much of it, but I recently watched the movie (again). It's awesome. Really, really awesome. You should get your 23 year old friends to brave the children's section of the video rental store and have them rent and watch it, if they are book-phobic. Although frankly it shouldn't even be in the children's section... it just happens to be animated.

It is impressive that the movie got made, as it, unlike almost all other animated movies, retains the dark tone of the book. Heck, in the first 5 minutes of the movie they pretty much lay out the world view of the rabbit: All the world will be your enemy, and when they catch you, they will kill you.

The treatment of the rabbits is really cool, too - in that they can kind of talk simply and are sentient, but don't understand tools and are saddened but not overly distraught when one of them dies, because, presumably, a lot of them die very often. Possibly the most believable animated protagonist animals ever, all the more amazing that they take the point of view of an animal at the bottom of the food chain, which is markedly different than most of us humans see the world.

Hmm, I think I should put it back on my netflix queue...

[Aisling]

yeah i read it ages ago...dan how old are you? if you have 23 yr old roomies you can't be all that old?

i barely remember the movie... maybe i should rent it... hmm... lets all have movie night!

[dr. sandman]

Years back ............. when I was a wolf pup.:)

[NateW]

I'm 33 and read it when I was in junior high. Great book.

[Guest thomas_m]

Yep, 3 times including last year when I read with my young daughter. I've also read a couple of his other books but they didn't hold my interest nearly as much.

I actually have a pristine 1st edition of WD that I will pass along to my kids with all my other favorite books.

T.

[jdgang]

Read it was I was in the 7th grade and saw the movie a bunch of times. Great story

[Dave Pushee]

Read it, but I'm too darn old to remember when.

[Dan]

yeah i read it ages ago...dan how old are you? if you have 23 yr old roomies you can't be all that old?

Hey Aisling, I'm 30, but it's an old 30...(it's not the years, it's the mileage).

Ken, I agree with you on the Watership Down movie: a high water mark in animation not equaled until Miyazaki came along (and Pixar of course!). I remember seeing it when I was a kid and getting the p*** scared out of me at that scene where one of the rabbits gets caught in a trap and starts hallucinating. I just reserved it at the library - it will be interesting to see how it stands up 20 years later.

[bobdea]

for some reason I really was scared when I read it

[Aisling]

Hey Aisling, I'm 30, but it's an old 30...(it's not the years, it's the mileage).

were you rode hard and put away wet, Dan? lmao :D

[C5 Golfer]

...I have t-shirts older than current high school students.

Phunny Dan! But I have kids older than most posters here at Bomber.

BTW - Yes Mt Hood is much better than our ski areas. We kinda suck at a good ski areas here in WA.

[kjl]

I remember seeing it when I was a kid and getting the p*** scared out of me at that scene where one of the rabbits gets caught in a trap and starts hallucinating. I just reserved it at the library - it will be interesting to see how it stands up 20 years later.

Yeah when I was little and saw it in 2nd or 3rd grade, and the rabbit (I think it was one of the tougher rabbits) gets caught in the trap and starts bleeding out of his nose and mouth, and nobody can figure out how to release its simple mechanism because, well, they're rabbits, I remember being completely freaked out. A few kids in the back of the class started crying - it was kind of traumatic but definitely a valuable learning experience. I saw it kind of recently (2 years ago maybe) and seem to remember it holding up very well.

[Justin A.]

I actually just read it this winter, it was required reading for my senior english class in high school. I thought it was pretty good, even if as a required piece of reading it was hard to get through. But I even kept it after we were supposed to return them so that I could finish reading it.

________

Mercury Park Lane Specifications

[Zcarver]

I never read the book, but I did see the movie a few years back. I think several times, it was a good 2d animation movie. Yeah I remembered that trap scene. I was a teenager and feeling bad for the little fella.

I would like to do something similar to Watership down in 3d. :o

In fact I think I will see it again. Thanks, Dan!

[kjl]

I would like to do something similar to Watership down in 3d. :o

Fur and grass, man... shudder :)

[Zcarver]

Fur and grass, man... shudder :)

Yeah, working with fur and grass are render killers. Especially when you add dynamic effect to make the fur or grass react with objects.

I did a 3D cartoon scene with a helicopter flying over grass, pretty cool how to make the grass move. The picture below is a clip of a 5 part scene to show a grass scene to a client. These 3d programs are tricky. :o

[kjl]

Hah, awesome. I wasn't even thinking of the render time - just getting grass to look good is difficult.

Speaking of 3D programs - which one(s) do you use? I only do lighting, but I'm trying to learn modeling on my own. I picked up a copy of Lightwave and then Modo when it was super cheap. I never imagined wrangling span lines and finding places to terminate extra edges would be such a gigantic pain in the butt.

This was my first model. It was just a learning exercise for me to blend hard shapes together. All those rounded edges - what a pain.

.

Right now I'm working on a giant robot, because I'm pretty sure there's a requirement that all modeling newbies have to make one of 1) a car 2) a mean orc/troll thing 3) a naked/seminaked elf chick 4) a robot.

[Zcarver]

Hah, awesome. I wasn't even thinking of the render time - just getting grass to look good is difficult.

Speaking of 3D programs - which one(s) do you use?

Right now I'm working on a giant robot, because I'm pretty sure there's a requirement that all modeling newbies have to make one of 1) a car 2) a mean orc/troll thing 3) a naked/seminaked elf chick 4) a robot.

Thanks Kjl. I like your render look. Very Nice!

I am using Lightwave 8 and learning Maya 6.5 Unlimited. Both are excellent programs to use. Looking forward in getting Vue 5 from e-on software also.

I have a few samples below. I really enjoyed using these programs. But there is so much to learn to get good quality animation. I am pretty much doing everything from modeling to special effect animation. I have about 3 years experience, but only a year of character animation.

Getting Grass to look good can be hard or easy depending on what you are looking for. I tend to stay away from Photo-realistic images because they are render killers. I like cartoon "cell-shader look" and the standard "3d animation look" like Toy Story. Cartoon renders are very easy and fast. The standard 3d look can be trouble-some but I have the hardware to complete decent renders. I am currently working on a 8 min animation short for a friend.

Yeah I started out modeling rooms and simple objects. I try not to get too involved into robots when looking for a job. I am trying to tackle organic character animation. But it is amazing what these programs can do weather you are Pro or amateur :rolleyes:

[kjl]

Yeah, the organic stuff is the hard part - I'm making a robot to ease into it :) Also, coming from a computer science background, the programming and math parts are easy, so writing plugins or code to make pistons or gears or other automatically moving mechanical parts are easy for me to deal with, but actually making and managing organic shapes as they deform is really hard.

I like that cel shaded android thing in the upper right and the well/grass on the lower right a lot - very cool.

I'm trying to go for somewhere between the standard Pixar look and photoreal, as I don't really care about render time (I'm not making it for an actual client or timeframe, and with FPrime, you don't really have to worry about rendering at all anyways :) )

Do you hang out on any of the modeling forums? newtek or spinquad or any of those?

Oh, and an 8 minute short is a big project, especially if you do everything yourself! Wow.

[Zcarver]

Yeah, the organic stuff is the hard part - I'm making a robot to ease into it

I like that cel shaded android thing in the upper right and the well/grass on the lower right a lot - very cool.

I'm trying to go for somewhere between the standard Pixar look and photoreal, as I don't really care about render time (I'm not making it for an actual client or timeframe, and with FPrime, you don't really have to worry about rendering at all anyways :) )

Do you hang out on any of the modeling forums? newtek or spinquad or any of those?

Oh, and an 8 minute short is a big project, especially if you do everything yourself! Wow.

Thank you :rolleyes:

Yeah my first walking character was a robot too. It is easier to set up a IK rig for a robot without using bones and don't have to worry about weight maps.

I use Fprime as well, awesome isn't it! Hopefully when LW 8.5 and 9 is release it will be even better. Especially with the dual cores computers.

Yes I am on many of the 3d forums. I am zrender8 on LW and spinquad.

The animated short I am working is called, "The Immune System Defense" (ISD)It shows how the white blood cells (The Knights u see in the lower left picture above) fights the Pathogens inside a boy's finger. I have about 5 mins and 34 seconds of 50 "720x486" clips done. I have been working on the project for about a year, but about 4 months of rendering. I am on and off with this assignment.

I have been doing several 3d projects over the summer and I also teach lightwave in NY and FLA. So it is hard for me to focus on the "ISD" project all the time. So much to learn, but not enough time, you know? :(

A few Images of ISD: