Good Drone / Bad Drone

Hi Everyone

I’m a full-grown adult with seemingly no excuse to be using a kid’s program from 1995. But I was a kid in 1995, and 3dmm was the first animation program I ever used. It was also the first online community I ever participated in, back when those types of things were rare. It was extremely formative for me.

I am now a professional artist, animator, and game developer. But they say, "never forget where you come from". So, the past few weeks, both as a formal challenge and an exercise in nostalgia, I decided to make some animations using 3dmm.

After some frustration, I found I was able to pick it all back up pretty quickly. 3dmm is like riding a bike, apparently. Working within the limitations of the program was extremely fun (and so different from modern 3D where anything is possible), and coming up with creative solutions that the designers never intended still feels freeing and somewhat subversive, even all these years later. (like the first time you realized you could use a 3D L for a gun, and a flattened red explosion as blood)

Videos are embedded below.

For any hardline 3dmm purists, a disclaimer: While all assets were generated in 3dmm, I did bring everything into after effects for compositing, editing, and tweaking. Some people may call that cheating. But I was more interested in reproducing the vibe of 3dmm. So I made sure to stick to the original resolution, use only the provided music and sound effects, and of course kept that glorious 8fps!

Hope you enjoy! Any feedback is appreciated.

I’m not sure how active I’ll be on here, but I’ll check in occasionally.
also feel free to get in touch on ig: @chris__content

[Dustin Guest]

How is this not getting more attention?! These are fantastic! Well done!

[Gorosaurus]

Yeah, these were animated really well! They catch that 3dmm vibe that I'll never not love!


There really didn't seem to be a specific gag that this was written around, which felt a little bit underwhelming, but if it is part of a continuing series and/or gag, that's understandable. In any event, I like your simplistic construction of the drone, the animation of the glass shatter, and the color use. It's pretty much top-notch vanilla 3dmm, which is excellent!


Do you have any other concepts in the works?

[Old Rivers]

These are seriously cool. The scene construction in the second one was particularly impressive, as was the attention to detail (the steam rising from the coffee, the cat's pendulum tail swaying in time with the music).

I hope you stick around and release some more stuff!

[Dave Miles]

Those were cool

[Lord Blazer]

Having a pretty accurate depiction of a modern quadcopter in 3dmm feels so wildly anachronistic

I love it

[Dustin Guest]

I love the pancake slowly sliding down the wall.

[Chriscollins]

Originally Posted by Dustin Guest

How is this not getting more attention?! These are fantastic! Well done!

Hey! Just seeing these replies (are email subscriptions working?) Thanks, Dustin!

[Dungeon Snake]

Yeah the second one was especially impressive. A lot of cool flourishes that i don't really possess the terminology to articulate

[Chriscollins]

Originally Posted by Gorosaurus

Yeah, these were animated really well! They catch that 3dmm vibe that I'll never not love!

Thanks, Goro, this means a lot!

Originally Posted by Gorosaurus

There really didn't seem to be a specific gag that this was written around, which felt a little bit underwhelming, but if it is part of a continuing series and/or gag, that's understandable.

Hey yeah, you are right, this is part of a continuing series of vignettes I've made over the past few years about a futuristic VR office. A whole weird universe of automation, convenience, and surveillance. People have described it as "Pee Wee's Playhouse meets Black Mirror". In it, I've personified drones as these lovable scamps that pester me while I'm trying to work or relax.

Here's an example:


And here's a fake children's that I wrote:


Which I got printed as a real baby board book:
https://scontent-ort2-2.cdninstagram...&oe=5F 71DDA8

Incidentally, this is happens to be ongoing problem I often have with with my work. The question is always: How do you onboard new viewers into the middle of an ongoing series/universe without being redundant? (My answer is usually "Don't worry about it", or "let people be confused", but idk if that's always the best tactic).

[Chriscollins]

Originally Posted by Gorosaurus

Do you have any other concepts in the works?

I do hope to continue making a few more, particularly bc as I worked on these I kinda got my 3dmm legs back, and started to really enjoy the process of working within (and pushing up against) these limitations.

It also made me realize how much my current sensibility was influenced by 3dmm. Any other old-head 3dmm ppl feel that way?

This may be a topic for a different thread, and this may be nostalgia talking, but 3dmm as a program and as a long-running community seems super special and extremely rare. A real vibrant scene in every sense of the word. A venue for presentation, collaboration, critique. I saw there's been some preservation efforts in the past, but I was sort of surprised to see that no one (as far as I've seen) has written any sort of oral history or anything like that. Does that exist?

[Dungeon Snake]

hahah wow. that's all really cool man. the still life painting one made me laffo

[Dave Miles]

Yeah that one was great. Really enjoying all of these.

[Lord Blazer]

Originally Posted by Chriscollins

but I was sort of surprised to see that no one (as far as I've seen) has written any sort of oral history or anything like that. Does that exist?

There's an archived 3dmm community timeline thread somewhere

[Old Rivers]

https://3dmm.com/showthread.php?t=42344