Omnus Trailer 1
 

So, looks like I'm gonna finish this. There are some props I couldn't remove from the movie with out destroying it. If someone wants to give it a shot, I'll re-upload. Let me know of any problems and I'll see what I can do.

Downloading now, will edit with thoughts. I'm looking forward to this. ;)

Is my voice still in the main film? I remember doing some lines for it a while back. If so, you might want me to redo them. It's been a while, and my voice has probably changed a bit.

EDIT: Well, firstoff, some of those cityscape/crowd shots were just incredible, you must've had nerves of steel to pull those off. The custom characters are fantastic and it's obvious you've put a lot of work into some reeeeally detailed design.

Animation was very jagged/robotic in parts but that's not really because of any lack of skill and more to do with how complex some of the shots in this are. I think it's a case where, in some areas of the trailer/film, you've bitten off more than you can chew in terms of ambition versus creation (welcome to my world).

I wasn't sure about the brown/yellow-ish palette in a sci-fi action film the first time I saw scenes from this but I've grown to like it now. It's a much more gritty action epic than a pristine sci-fi adventure movie. However I don't really think the music was right for a trailer like this. Mainstream music can work really well in trailers like these, I just think it was the wrong song choice, but then I know fuck all about music anyway.

In some of the big war shots, it's difficult not to notice the background clusters of characters just standing there and not actually fighting, but I'm not going to ask you to animate every individual character fighting one another because jesus christ, you're only human. But I dunno, if there's any way to like, have them running about or something just to liven up the background a bit.

Overall though, I really can't wait for this. I'm a sucker for big epics and this feels very nicely oldschool despite all the v3dmm stuff in it. It just looks like a really exciting watch, with some truly badass moments. As someone who's slaved away at their own epic and ambitious movie, the only advice I can give is don't think about how tedious the work is, think about how awesome a reception it'll get when it's out.

Actually don't finish it, I want some kinda shot at Best Movie.

I really hope you don't use the music in the movie. You need "soundtrack" music for this type of movie.

Aside from that little thing, looks pretty epic and such.

No the music is just a trailer thing. No way in hell would I use it in the film itself. For me, the lyrics fit the story so for the first trailer, it worked. Thanks for the feedback!

Nice use of Take A Bow.
This was a pretty epic trailer, without a doubt one of the best, if not the best preview I have seen all year. It did have it's flaws, like Mr. Slade said, the animation wasn't super smooth but you've always been best at writing great stories and directing them, animation isn't the most important thing in this case. I am so psyched for this man. Great work so far, when do you think this will be done and released?

It was really impressive, and I know how long this has been in the works, so I bet it must feel good to finally release something, even if it is only a trailer. This is definitely shaping up to be one of those "epic" 3DMM films, in the same company as Dragon in America, Vlarion, and Legacy of Saradomin. I really look forward to the full movie.

FYI, I didn't have the font that you used. If you can provide it to me, I'll make a vimeo version, if you like.

Looks fantastic, as far as the technical aspect of a movie goes. I hope the story is good. Looks epic so far.

You need to upload the font though, unless I'm missing something.

I sent Goat the fonts in the movie, but Megaupload charges for a hotlink cuz it sucks. So, man, if you can do me a solid and link to the fonts, I'd appreciate it.

Not sure on a release date. But before 2010 if I can. I have the entire second half of the movie and the rest of the first half to do. I'm splitting the movie into two parts and releasing it like that. But this movie WILL get finished. I just need to get all my actors together. I think I have your voices around here somewhere, Will, but I rewrote most of those lines anyway. So, I think I might be asking you to do a few if you don't mind.

Oh! I want to see it! Could you vimeo o youtube it? my internet connection is reaaally slow...

I think I asked goat, but if I didn't, please, do make a vimeo version, Goat. I would greatly appreciate it.


I think SOME of the animation problems stem from the amount of elements in the scene. The cityscape shots especially. It runs smoother the second time around. Another thing is, the style I was going for. I wanted speed and viciousness in the fighting. It's supposed to be REALLY aggressive and gritty. I hope I convey that to people other than myself.

The background armies are another thing that suffer from my lack of prowess with 3d model work. right now they're just for background chaos. I don't know how to add like...running animation of anything like that to 3d model, so they're static and only serve to convey the scale of what's going on around the central focused action.

Also, for some reason it refuses to remove unused sounds when I tell it to. I don't know what deal is.

I got the fonts, I'll upload a vimeo version in a bit.

Thank you, Goat. I appreciate it.

I'm glad you released this before the end of the year, we can probably have a competitive lineup now for "Best Preview" in this years awards ceremony.

Damn, those crowd shots are incredible. This is the kind of scale shot we never see in 3DMM just because of the mechanics involved. I'm glad someone was able to manage it.

I'm going to spend most of this post addressing criticisms, since it's presumably still early enough in the production process to make major adjustments if you decide. These are big things that you might disagree with me on, but I feel like they're worth mentioning, and this is probably the last point at which it's remotely practical to implement any of them.

I think your art design looks a little hamstrung by 3DMM's unfortunate palette limitations, but also a bit by how you implemented some of the textures. When you use a "dirty" texture that's been reduced to two shades of brown, it calls to mind extremely old 3D games and takes away some of the immersion. This looks to be a visually "dirty" movie, part of which is also due to the animation, restricted by default action loops that aren't always fluidly handled, falling short of conveying the natural movement of your more complex ideas.

However, there's something about that that historically works in 3DMM, for nostalgia's sake, but also in a raw and entertaining way. It won't make the movie unwatchable by any means, so don't take the preceding paragraph as being extremely critical, I just think it's something that people will notice and comment on.

Just the same, I'd consider adjusting the movie's palette to not be so uniformly brown, tan, grey, and red -- you need some kind of highlight to cut through that and keep sections of the plot and battles from blurring together. I'm guessing you're staying away from green on purpose, but I don't think it'd instantly destroy the mood you're setting if you had SOME plant life, carefully controlled and specifically placed. This trailer probably doesn't represent the entirety of the movie's locations and the order in which we see them, sure, but it's worth taking a second look at, if you have the time and desire to increase the post-production process for it. Too much time spent with such a limited palette can flatten a movie.

It has a majestic and brutal quality to it, which I assume the themes of the story will reflect as well. I have a feeling the rawness of it will give it a unique feel in the grand scheme of things.

Looking forward to it, good luck!

You're right in me going for dirty and used. Now, in the environment, there's not much room for plantlife. It's a new thing to the planet due to changes brought about by man. So there's not much, but the planet is changing. There are also Scenes on another planet with an entirely different color palette. I wanted to stick to the warm, earthen colors for Omnus. For the planet Jacaru things are bathed in purples and blacks, things like that. there's a scene aboard a Spacing Guild ship where things are actually using a white, Red, Blue, Grey sort of color scheme. They're the pristine, star trek types. Nothing's dirty for their ships. There's lots of stuff to do yet, and animation's a huge problem to fix at this point. In some areas it works better than others, mostly due to me having more concrete ideas of what I want in the action. I DO realize that I'm not going to have that Sanford style smooth animation, due to my lack of knowledge of 3dmm pencil to create character fonts for smoother animation. Really, though, I'm only using v3dmm for props, scenery, character diversity and the look of the movie. I'm not doing any big animation tricks aside from disappearing a torso or legs here and there. I may go back and fix some things now that people are bringing them up. It depends on if it'll screw up the sync and flow of the scene.

Awesome preview.

I can't fucking wait.

I personally loved the preview. It looked like you had a very interesting story as the main aspect of this movie with amazing fight scenes all bundled together. This is the one movie I am truly looking forward too. Guess I'll just have to keep checking back for more updates. Also, about the dirty colors and such, I didn't really notice them. I think it worked basically perfect. After you discouraged me halfway through last year about you not finishing this, I almost cried! But now, I'm overwhelmed with happiness!

If not for a pack of repressive network admins who block my access to Vimeo at work, I'd watch this in a heartbeat.

Did you receive my lines for this, Dustin? I've had them sitting on my hard drive for years and I can't remember if I sent them over.

looks awesome, what year does i take place in?

Very nice work Dustin! I would love to see some footage from Jacaru and the Spacing Guild Ship that you mentioned above, it would definitly spice up the visuals.

It didn't strike me as engaging as some of your previous work, which is actually surprising. But I have massive expectations when it comes to you mr. Guest, you have always been one of my favourite directors, animators and voice actors.

Also, if you want I have MSN, nobodyzfirehose@hotmail.com,
I wouldn't mind voicing someone in this! repay you for all the help you had given me in my early day's! I don't know if you remember this, but you animated several scenes for one of my early works (back when I was tealc11) and you were like the main character in everything I did.

Dustin, looks really good! Some of those huge epic crowd shots were breathtaking. Estimated release date?

Sometime before 2010. Not going to jump the gun and give it an actual release date yet.

Just WOW. This looks great. Keep up the cool work!

Looks pretty sweet!

When's it coming out?

probably not coming out
:(