ReactOS animation

[whitequill]

I made this ReactOS animation recenly and I was told on irc I should post it here on the forum.
http://youtu.be/ZWlrz1eEIYs

I'm looking for constuctive critisizum. Thank you.

[milon]

That's pretty cool. Did you make it for anything specific? It's hard to give constructive criticism without a context. Regardless, are those 4 central-ish white reflections intentional?

[hbelusca]

Hmmm.... looks like there's some Stargate inspiration in it ^^
(hint: the arrival of the horizontal rings).

[EmuandCo]

Nice one.

[whitequill]

That's pretty cool. Did you make it for anything specific? It's hard to give constructive criticism without a context. Regardless, are those 4 central-ish white reflections intentional?

I was thinking of a start up animation. It just came to me on a whim while looking at the logo and thinking of the startup sound.
The 4 white circles are lights reflecting on the sphere in my 3D scene. I'm not sure how to get rid of them right now.

[whitequill]

what I'm looking for as critisizums are.
the blue is wrong, I don't like the animation. I think the color is too static, it needs more refections. the color of blue needs to be light or darker
I never knew it was an atom before I posted it.

I'm looking for anything and everything people want to say about it. so if you don't like it please tell me. if you think it can be improved in some way, tell me, if you flame a little. I can accept that. I don't expect to get the idea right the first time.

What to you as the people that use React OS regularly think when you look at the logo.

[oldman]

In logo, the atom is the earth with the electron trails around it.
If you could get rid of the 4 or 5 bright lights and make it look as much like the logo it would be good.
How about an electron appearing from the bottom left and dis-appearing in the top right, leaving a trail behind it, then the same again, but it the opposite direction (top left to bottom right or bottom right to top left).
It looks to me, that your idea would be a real head turner, attracting peoples attention.

[bernarddt]

Criticism:
I like the animation, but it is very dark.
The middle part of the word ('act') is very hard to read. I see on the original logo, they used a type of glow around it.
The ratio between the size of the sphere and the logo text is not right, the ball with rings should be smaller, so that it only encapsulate the "act" letters. This will make the logo more "long" than "high". Currently it makes the logo look square.
Also the point where the rings cross should be a bit lower.
The blue of the ball or atom is not dark enough. And I would think to match the original logo, it will need a light source bellow, in front of the ball to make it a lot lighter on the front bottom, where the rings cross.
Don't use a black background, unless you make everything glow, it makes the logo disappear/blend in.
We definitely need a better startup sound! That is so Windows 98! We now have 48 bit sound cards.

Pros:
The color of the text are very good, I like them as is.
The reflections of the rings on the ball can work.
The font you used is perfect.

Congrats on the initiative! Rather than just suggesting we needed an animation you actually did one!

Edit:
Since the animation around the atom is focus, you can always try making the camera "zoom out" (or the ball and rings shrink in size) so that the atom is smaller before the logo appears. This will get the ratio right.

[whitequill]

Criticism:
I like the animation, but it is very dark.
The middle part of the word ('act') is very hard to read. I see on the original logo, they used a type of glow around it.
Don't use a black background, unless you make everything glow, it makes the logo disappear/blend in.

I'd not noticed the glow effect right away. but these three aren't hard to fix.

The ratio between the size of the sphere and the logo text is not right, the ball with rings should be smaller, so that it only encapsulate the "act" letters. This will make the logo more "long" than "high". Currently it makes the logo look square.

The blue of the ball or atom is not dark enough. And I would think to match the original logo, it will need a light source bellow, in front of the ball to make it a lot lighter on the front bottom, where the rings cross.

I'll work on that.

Also the point where the rings cross should be a bit lower.

It is very easy to set it up so the rings are too low, so I set it higher. I don't think they can be set much lower in any practicle sense.
Here is a picture:
[ external image ]

We definitely need a better startup sound! That is so Windows 98! We now have 48 bit sound cards.

I thought the animation's time was too fast. I based the animation's time on the start up sound. should I just adlib it?

Pros:
The color of the text are very good, I like them as is.
The reflections of the rings on the ball can work.
The font you used is perfect.

Congrats on the initiative! Rather than just suggesting we needed an animation you actually did one!

Edit:
Since the animation around the atom is focus, you can always try making the camera "zoom out" (or the ball and rings shrink in size) so that the atom is smaller before the logo appears. This will get the ratio right.

Thanks for the feed back!
I'm very happy to have it.
I'm glad you like the reflections of the rings, and the animation.
The text is nearly perfect. I need to contact someone what the font is that is used in the logo.

But if it is an atom, maybe I should use the idea of the zoom effect, but zoom in to the atom and you see the electons going around the atom in the form of the reactOS logo.
Maybe I can work on a new sound too. I am getting a package of samples and some mixing software soon.

[milon]

That's pretty cool. Did you make it for anything specific? It's hard to give constructive criticism without a context. Regardless, are those 4 central-ish white reflections intentional?

I was thinking of a start up animation. It just came to me on a whim while looking at the logo and thinking of the startup sound.
The 4 white circles are lights reflecting on the sphere in my 3D scene. I'm not sure how to get rid of them right now.

That depends on what software you're using to make the animation. There might be an option to not let the light sources reflect off certain objects (or at all). If not, you can try to make the sphere non-reflective (or less reflective).

My $0.02, try to make it look less "mechanical" and more "natural". It's too rigid right now. Does that make sense?

[whitequill]

That depends on what software you're using to make the animation. There might be an option to not let the light sources reflect off certain objects (or at all). If not, you can try to make the sphere non-reflective (or less reflective).

My $0.02, try to make it look less "mechanical" and more "natural". It's too rigid right now. Does that make sense?

I'm useing Autodesk Maya. And the material is reflective. I am working on how to how to make the lights not reflect on the surface of the material. I'm not sure how to right now. But I'm sure there is a way.
I'm not priroitizing the reflected lights right now cause the impact of color and asthetic of the logo is more important to me right now. Points of light can be removed when there is more recogntion of the idea of this being a update to the brand.
I'm thinking of just doing that in as a post-render process, in After Effects or something to get rid of the pionts of light.

This is bearly the first draft if that of the idea. I'm not going to worry about little points of light right now. If I were worried about points of light, I'd have never posted this for a long time.

What do you think of my propsed idea?

But if it is an atom, maybe I should use the idea of the zoom effect, but zoom in to the atom and you see the electons going around the atom in the form of the reactOS logo.

[bernarddt]

Here is a picture:
[...]

• Cool the colour is closer. I still notice a bit difference in the 'tint'. Maybe a bit of blue-green is needed, but I realise that with 3D, reflection and light sources, it is not as easy as just grabbing the color off the original logo.
• Is there any possibility of for your next preview, you rather use a light blue background from a spot on the website logo bar at the top of this site? The white just contrast very heavily on the dark ball. Even a gray or gradient of gray would look better.
• Congrats you fixed the metallic look of the rings to look more plastic! Ok just joking, the gray looks a lot more "natural" (like @milon suggested). And I also like this.

I thought the animation's time was too fast. I based the animation's time on the start up sound. should I just adlib it?

Yes! I also thought the animation was too fast, but it would be fine if it is used as a startup animation (and the startup is so fast), but for review purposes it is hard to realise all the animations. You can also just pause a for about 10 seconds at the end longer. Because on Youtube, they pop up suggestion videos after the animation is done, which ruin the feeling.
At this point it would be better if the animation was silent, just because I/we re-play it at least 10 times to get a good look at it, and I eventually just muted the sound, it distracts me and sounds really bad, to my judgment.

The text is nearly perfect. I need to contact someone what the font is that is used in the logo.

You would've fooled me! Thought it was the actual font you got from somewhere on the site.

But if it is an atom, maybe I should use the idea of the zoom effect, but zoom in to the atom and you see the electons going around the atom in the form of the reactOS logo.

This sounds like a lot more work. But the more an animation does, normally, the better it look. If you can pull this off, it would give a lot more depth to the animation. But it sounds like a lot more work.

Maybe I can work on a new sound too. I am getting a package of samples and some mixing software soon.

You know to give life to your animation, you should probably have sound, but just noticed that it will not necessarily be the sound the 'dev team' will want to use for startup. But hey maybe you pull a really good sound out and everyone likes it, including the 'dev team'!

[Black_Fox]

Ad the ReactOS logo font:
EDIT from here:

The font is TeX Gyre Adventor: http://dl.1001fonts.com/tex-gyre-adventor.zip

Ad the reflection of the lights, maybe this (if you use Blender) could help?

[whitequill]

Name of the font used in logo is "Century Gothic", and it's shipped with Microsoft Office 2003 (maybe with other versions, but i don't know for sure)

I would actually suggest agenst the use of Century Gothic in the use of promotional or as an image, because I can verify it is a Monotype font. and If you look for URW Gothic, you can go to URW++, who is the font foundry, and they also charge to use the font.

I would suggest this font:
It's called Geo Sans, I can verify it is free and if you want use it for Comercial use you can pay the auther.
It looks pretty close if you make it bold face.
http://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/Geosans.htm

No. it doesn't look quite right, I'll agree with you on that, but I'd suggest finding an apporpreate font for React and not go and use something that has possible license fees attached.

So if linux has a free verion of anything I don't know why or where it is from, I just know it isn't a free font on the web cause I can find the font foundy.

[whitequill]

Ad the reflection of the lights, maybe this (if you use Blender) could help?

Thank you Black_Fox sadly I don't think I can. But I found another material that I can use that doesn't reflect and I like better.

Also I thought I should change the animation to electrons going around instead of rings moving into place.
I'll play with the idea of another start up sound soon enough.