Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Ok, I’m doing an animated battle between necrons and space marines, I’ll be using 3ds max 7 to do so, but first I need to know some details.

First off, I’m doing this from the dark angels perspective; I need to know where the hangers in which the battle barges are kept on the rock are. Second off, I need to know what the inside of a battle barge looks like in these following places, hallways, main deck, and hanger. I found the layout of a thunder hawk, so I don't need that, I need a lay out of the inside of a drop pod, the inside of a land raider crusader and a rhino. I need front, right and left side, top and bottom views of a land raider crusader, thunder hawk, battle barge, rhino, dreadnought, attack bike, and regular bike. after all that, in need all views of a monolith, a destroyer, a tomb spyder, a warrior, an immortal, and a lord, I won't need a flayed one because I can just edit the warrior to have long claws and drape a material over him and assign it a flesh-like material. if at all possible I would like an inside view of a necron tomb, though I doubt its possible, with stasis 'pods' I’m not sure what else to call them, after I’m finished I will post a link to the video.

If there is any legal problem with doing this could someone please tell me? I don't feel like getting arrested or sued for this.

In regards to your legal question, as long as you aren't making a profit you won't get into any trouble.

Looking forward to seeing this project happen

I think I'm right in saying you can get most of what you need from either forgeworlds website or games workshops. Bits sites also often have good images of pieces you wouldn't easily see in a built model.

well, I can't offer any help (sorry).

But I will be watching out for this new animation. sounds awesome!

thank you Skarwael, now i can pursue this without worrying about a legal battle.

thank you cakefool, i've gotten several views of a space marine back pack now and i am working on it, i have the basic shape right now, i just have to make the intrusions for the little vents in the back, the other "nob" things on the bottom angled sides, and the details on the back, like a kull, round vent etc. after i have the back pack finished, i will post a picture of it and you can critique my work. i can always go and edit it to make each one unique. after i have created the back pack and have a good rating for that, i'll move on to the helmet, boots etc, one piece at a time, and wait for people's approval, my projected finish date for the backpack is sometime next week, hopefully sooner, but i don't have much time to work on it each day, and i am still learing the program.

this is what i have so far for the space marine back pack, note that the color is enhanced by the website, so i have the color of the back pack as close to dark angels green as possible

This is looking really cool

thank you, i'll attempt to have some more pictures up tomorrow, i'll try to finish the back of the back pack with the vents and other miscellanious features, then to the cables and other things on the front to portion.

That is an incredibly industrious project you are very cavalier about.

gamefreak wrote: I need to know where the hangers in which the battle barges are kept on the rock are.

I don't think they "park" the barges, they're pretty fracking big.

gamefreak wrote:Second off, I need to know what the inside of a battle barge looks like in these following places, hallways, main deck, and hanger. I found the layout of a thunder hawk, so I don't need that, I need a lay out of the inside of a drop pod, the inside of a land raider crusader and a rhino. I need front, right and left side, top and bottom views of a land raider crusader, thunder hawk, battle barge, rhino, dreadnought, attack bike, and regular bike. after all that, in need all views of a monolith, a destroyer, a tomb spyder, a warrior, an immortal, and a lord, I won't need a flayed one because I can just edit the warrior to have long claws and drape a material over him and assign it a flesh-like material. if at all possible I would like an inside view of a necron tomb, though I doubt its possible, with stasis 'pods' I’m not sure what else to call them, after I’m finished I will post a link to the video.

Either the website as someone suggested, or just take a camera to a game store, find some people who own the models and maybe borrow them while you model them.

gamefreak wrote:If there is any legal problem with doing this could someone please tell me? I don't feel like getting arrested or sued for this.

It has nothing to do with profit being made. If you publish it, you can potentially be sued. I say feth IP laws and do it anyway.

jabbakahut wrote:

gamefreak wrote:If there is any legal problem with doing this could someone please tell me? I don't feel like getting arrested or sued for this.

It has nothing to do with profit being made. If you publish it, you can potentially be sued. I say feth IP laws and do it anyway.

I was under the impression that it was only if you used another's IP for your personal gain. I would have thought that as long as it isn't slanderous towards GW, they wouldn't mind at all, seeing as it's publicity they don't have to pay for.

If you want to play it safe, you could always drop GW legal a polite email about the project.

Their IP regs are sketchier than that actually. They take into account the length or nature of the use, the means of distribution, the intent (or lack thereof) for profit, the mixing of non-GW IP with GW IP, Inclusion or Exclusion of a proper legal disclaimer, etc...

If you do things right you should be alright. THey'll probably give you a warning about procedure and possible legal action if you fail to follow it, but other than that they won't come on too hard if it's not for profit.

The best thing to do would be to meet with a lawyer, as well as contact their (GW) customer service and ask a few questions before getting too far in.

If you contact GW, they will say no, period. Then you are in more of a precarious situation having already been denied. Just research the Damnatus debacle, or TSOLR. You can do whatever you like in the confines of your bedroom, but as soon as you post it for viewing on the net-you are liable.

The guy who did TSOALR was fine for ages. I think the only reason he stopped doing it was because he wanted to sell t-shirts or something and GW said no, right?

Skarwael wrote:The guy who did TSOALR was fine for ages. I think the only reason he stopped doing it was because he wanted to sell t-shirts or something and GW said no, right?

I'm not sure about the shirts, I know he wanted to publish a book of his comics and GW slapped him.

Sits back, orders a pizza, and gets drunk with happiness.

thank you all for your help with the legal issues, right now, a lawyer is pretty much out of the question, as i am a poor, high school student with too much time in my architecture and video game design class. so as of right now, i'll look up TSOALR and Damnatus debacle, and see what they did wrong and not do that. as for the space marine back pack, i'll try to have it finished by friday, i made a great deal of progress on it today, more than i had expected so that moves the projected finish date for the back pack to friday. next time i have the update i'll change the background to white so you can see it without the color enhancer in the gallery.

Dang it! I forgot to mention this before... Check this guy out on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/robfry2008

Hope it is helpful.

i have made some more progress on the back pack, i'll render it later and then post it, i think it is coming together very nicely, i just have to work on the font and back of the top.


Automatically Appended Next Post:












there is what i have so far, not great, but hey i'm still learning to use the program, let me know what you guys think.

It's a good start.

unable to work on the back pack today due to an acute fever, will continue work on it on tuesday

ok, i've gotten rid of my fever and will continue working on the model, i will attempt to finish the back pack by friday.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


entire table (unfinished)



necron tomb (unfinished)



temple (finished)



another angle of the temple



another angle of the temple



front of the back pack, (still working on it)



another angle of the back pack



another angle of the backpack



necron obelisk (finished)

I think your detail scales are a bit off. You're going through a great deal of effort with just the backpack, yet the temple (which is complete) is lacking. If nothing, try adding some texture mapping or image mapping to simulate texture.

jabbakahut wrote:I think your detail scales are a bit off. You're going through a great deal of effort with just the backpack, yet the temple (which is complete) is lacking. If nothing, try adding some texture mapping or image mapping to simulate texture.

Indeed - 3dsMax has a great suite of procedural textures that will help if you don't have the time or inclination to construct your textures yourself. Also you might want to play with your material settings and use different shaders for the different parts of your scene. Also keep in mind your resources vs render time - If you're going to have even a couple of marines, in a scene, lit from a couple of sources, you'll need a couple minutes (or more depending on your rig) per frame - e.g. at 2 mins per frame (which would be a good level of detail, at a nice size for watching on a dvd), it would take over an hour to render a second of animation. A two-minute film would take 5 days to render.

So consider reducing the overall detail level - you can use texture/bump mapping for little details like aquilas and rivets - and think about rendering elements individually and comping them together in premier or something similar when you're done.

I would also recommend quickly story boarding so you know what kind of shots you are going need. Create the detail for the stuff up close and let the detail slide for the rest.

I would definitely look at creating textures as they are typically quicker to render and make gritty.

Your project sounds quite ambitious and hats off to you for attempting. I would also look at collecting models that have already been built. try Relics website, some of the fans may have created marines. I know there are several groups making mods, especially for the first series of games.

Unistoo brings up some important points. Comping can save you major amounts of render time.

ok so too little detail on the temples. i'll work on those later after i'm finished with the entire space marine, or if i get bored i'll work on it, as far as the rendering goes that might be the biggest obsticle for me to overcome, because i was going to do a good 15 minutes of animation AT LEAST, i might post an unrendered version of the animation, and then render the animation a little bit at a time. Thanks for the suggestions, and i'll get working on the spacemarine today.

Its looking like a good beginning, keep it up and this could be really good!

If you're looking to do fifteen minutes of animation you'll definitely need to storyboard and get a sense of how the story is going to unfold. Three minutes of animation is a lot of shots, actors, props, and audio (or is this a silent film?), let alone fifteen minutes.

I want to be supportive but fifteen minutes is a *serious* undertaking. I worked professionally for eight years doing 3d (vidoe games and commercials) and there is an amazing amount of work (both manpower and cpu time) creating assets and planning a task like this.

btw, I found this for you:

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/258598

It's a free space marine. You can up res this and give it some textures and tweaks. I'd comb other resource sites for object created by others and save yourself TONS of work. (After all you don't hand sculpt all your mini's).

Again, major hats off for trying something like this but you need to be aware that typically it is a team of people working around the clock to get even 30 secs of decent animation.

Cheers!

ps. really do the storyboards or a least write up a breif description of the sequence of shots. You'll save yourself a lot of work.

I don't know if it's the supported file type, but I downloaded some google sketch models of a land raider and baneblade which were rather impressive.

Personally, I think that if you can pull this off, it'll be epic.
And my hat goes off to you for getting this far

I use 3DS Max 8 a fair bit and I know that the included textures can really make something look that much more.
Also, I'm putting my name down if you need to share the load of rendering when it's done. Especially if you intend to render it at a high resolution/framerate.

Good luck, and keep up the good work

looking good mate, just from a viewers point with other 3d 40k animations i have seen, please dont have a flat boring plain with no hills mountains or rubble. it kinda recks the realism to it SO PLZ FOR MEH