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Yeah, I noticed that most people just don't like my stills... oh well....
Perhaps for writers. I've always been more into visuals. Not being a writer or a filmmaker, I was most inexperienced with what all was involved. Believe me, when I first started learning 3D modeling, texturing and animation, I had all manner of story stirring - I thought it would be a piece of cake once I learned how to get my vision in motion properly.
Now I'm learning Filmmaker stuff as well as Screenwriting, and I think that the workflow worked really well. Although you're right... if I had already written some sreenplays to work from, I'd likely have produced them by now - which is why I'm glad that I didn't. I like my renders that I do now much better than what I was making a few years ago - and I'd likely have settled on what I did then to get some stuff out.
Although I have an entire Browser library of ready-to-go sound stages for my animations, I never feel 'tied' to use them in my stories. The stories will dictate the locations. But having them gave me a lot of experience in setting up lighting and shaders for scenes that I want to render in a minute - even with my characters in there.
I have a very detailed outdoor scene where Rosie gets attacked by four Orcs, and seven more Orcs are also in the scene, running down a big hill toward them - and it rendered at just over two minutes per frame - which is perfect in my opinion. Rosie did kick their tushes, but eventually got overwhelmed by their resistance to being knocked out combined with their numbers. And have I mentioned their sheer brute strength?
Dart ran to the rescue, but they were already gone whe n he got there :(
That was a couple (at least) years ago - just to test having Rosie beat up Orcs. One nasty blow launched the heavy beast backwards through the air in this great arc... one heck of a punch, it was!
First let me straighten out what day it is, brb... calendar says it's the 17 today which means that Voting Ends Tonight at Midnight for Carrara Challenge #27: “Carrara 9, Give us a Sign” Voting thread. I should look before typing. :)
Join my club... most folks don't vote for my stills either. I thought all of yours are excellent... it was too hard to not vote for anyone's this time around.
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Computer Art for myself has been first and I've still more to learn. Before that I'd watch a commercial or a movie and ask "how do they do that?" which led me down this path. Oh... check out Shader Creating & Settings for Carrara - Q&A - Come One, Come All my latest thread endeavor.
35 really good renders and only 3 votes - it's a tough call. Even my "short short list" had 12 entries!
All the entries deserved some votes - and you were one of my votes, Dart!
Regarding stories and animation, I tend to recommend to people not to be too ambitious initially, as it can be somewhat daunting to tackle a full length story. Not that I'm trying to dampen anyone's enthusiasm, far from it, but I know how much it takes to make a 5 min short, let alone an hour or even feature length. So my advice is to aim for something manageable and that way you are more likely to succeed - and if spurred on by that success, you can then develop that into something longer. So the options (as I see them) would be:
- start with a simple story which can be told in 5 mins. If that works out, you can maybe look to develop the characters into a sequel or even a series.
- if you have an idea for a longer story, think about doing a "trailer" for it, featuring key action scenes without having to do more functional linking scenes. Again, if that goes well, you already have some of the main scenes done for your blockbuster movie!
- look at breaking the story down into chapters or episodes and look to tackle one at a time. This is the approach that SciFi Funk started with, and look how how he has now done (and how much his style has evolved too!).
Just some ideas - feel free to take on board or ignore!
I appreciate your work greatly Dart (and everyone on the forum also, I am sure), but for a challenge wich promote Carrara,my favours goes to the final renders without postwork, or very few.
With regard to the creation of a film, I did exactly what Phil has just said: first tests with C6 and C7 then I belatedly discovered that I could use DAZ/POSER characters, to dress them and animate them.
It was very new for me, just before that, I used Carrara 1 and ULEAD Cool 3D... I never read any book because I'm sleeping after 2 minutes.
A scenario came in my head and I started without anything writed because I didn't know yet what I was able to make.
Thanks to this forum and many of the tutos online, I have evolved for four years with this film made up of a dozen parts.
With my new knowledge of the program, I often remake scenes which I have made four years ago but I want to keep the same style from the beginning to the end.
For the moment, I carried out twenty minutes of images, recorded a good part of the voices of the characters, the sound FX and started to write the musics.
To come back to the challenges, the main thing is not to win but to take part (Pierre de Coubertin, the inventor of the modern Olympic Games).
Thanks to be always present on this forum, we need you every day!
Yes, I can see how it's important to keep the goal of the final product to a shorter time frame to keep things more managable, which can sometimes be a challenge in its own on the story writing process - trying to get the elements of good screenwriting to fall within such a short span.
As an example from my own experience, Just a Bit of Fun was super simple to make, it's not short, and the only time-consuming aspect of the things was the actual learning - which is what provided the clips - testing my own interpretations of what I've been learning - much of it simply by trying out features of Carrara.
I could have made it a lot shorter, but was having too much fun - since I was very new to splicing the clips together as well as adding sound and music.
I'm working on some practical examples of my techniques in the form of tutorials to help aspiring digital filmmakers. I'll, of course, need to establish an example of the end result, so I'm putting more push on the finishing of Episode 1 for now.
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Whew! Couldn't type more than that one silly comment last night. Too darned beat! Another 3 tons + of stone picked and installed. That's over 6,000 lb.s!
It's not just picking things up and setting them down either. I have to pull them out of the piles, load the into a van (gets harder and harder the more full it gets), grab them from the van and walk a pretty good distance with these things in my hands and dig them in so they 'sit' nicely in the end. I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm fine during the whole process. Some of the biggest one's inflict a good amount of pain at the time, but a good stretch sets me straight again. It's after I get home - just as I'm climbing into the shower... then the day kicks in - full force! Ouch!
Today I had a fun gig to play my drums - and here I am, ready to pass out once again and I read the replies to my rather strange post I made last night! LOL
Thanks guys! I appreciate your wonderful friendship!
I don't think this is the case at all. Your work is AMAZING!! I'm sure you noticed everyone agonized over voting with regards to the recent challanege.
I was invited once to be a juror on one art/entry type thing and it is not fun deciding who gets "in". It is painfully subjective with limited entries and criteria and such.
Meanwhile, I thought I could remove the bag from over my head for a moment and share another set of clips of old work. Flying directly in the face of Phil's advice above, this is a video "sketch" of the final moments of...a trilogy(!). Yeah, keeping it simple...
Apologetic explanations on the YouTube page.
Dart I love your entries and all of your artwork.
This round there were a lot of entries and I really thought yours were good but as I was having issue's determining ho got which my daughter used here art lessons and helped me decide how to placed them. You just missed it by the skin of your teeth.
How is the script writing course going, she finally has a chance tonight tolook at it for this week.
LOL! Thanks guys!
Hey, I wasn't meaning anything serious! It was late, I checked the latest votes... made a silly comment - nothing meant by it! ;)
But thanks... I appreciate your comments. I like a lot of my stills simply because I get to see the whole animation, if there is one. Most everything I do is part of one. So when I add post, a lot of the times it's either practicing what I want to do to the animation (color grading, visual effects, selective motion blurs, lighting effects, etc.,) and/or to attempt to 'show' some motion within the still - something that I'm not always that successful with just yet - I rarely ever focus on doing that.
That's awesome! Yeah, particles can drive a person Mad at times! LOL I'll think I have the settings just right, so I save and render. Wake up... argh! What happened?!!! (referring to your notes on YT)
I've been getting the crap eaten out of me with stone work all week, and totally missed the whole first week :(
The brilliant part is that they keep these things up forever - once registered, we can take them at our own pace. I bring my book with me to work and continue reading (not much in so little time) during breaks - I really think I'm going to have a great first episode - and fairly soon, too.
As Desert Dude Illustrates in his video, it's amazing how much we can fit in in just a couple of minutes - same with Pjotter's video shown toward the beginning of this thread.
Think big; not small. If you think small, you stay small. Most think small.
You should be ambitiouse. Otherwise you will get nowhere. Yes, you start with one thing, but in the back of your head there should be thoughts of making it big. You cannot have a complete idea for a big project with a few thoughts. This comes in little steps once you get started. But have to think in terms of big or more. Not "small, maybe, if it doesn't work, if others like it, tomorrow" or worse "one day."
It is fear. It is fear of failing. Fear of not being capable of doing it. And because of that, there are many excuses of not starting a project of your own. "No time" is also very often used. Well, you can do heavy rock lifting and also study animation. All the tools, info and making it public are available. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, the Beatles, etc, they all started small. But they made it, because they believed in it. It is all about motivation.
Cooperation with others doesn't work most of the time. It will result in mainly discussing what to to or not to do. It will slowly die. It can only work with a supervisor and employees, because a supervisor can create a certain direction.
Not my thought, but I like it: Even a walk around the world, starts with a first step.
Probably this is one of my last replies in this thread. Dartanbeck has lifted off and cannot be stopped anymore. I am afraid others are not interested in doing the first step. So there is no point in keep on trying. But I hope I have challenged someone. So I hope someone else will say "Yes, got it, going to start something too."
My personal opinion on the subject, of course: I think that every render done in Cararra, postwork or not, in some way or another promotes Carrara ...
If we gonna split hairs (lol), I could say that using DAZ content does not promote Carrara as well (well, it promotes DAZ, not Carrara's modeler), but I will not, because, at the end of the day, all I care about is the final image.
How someone got there, as long they used Carrara in the process, does not matter to me
RE: voting criteria - I am a fan of the Latin phrase, de gustibus non est disputandem. Depending on how bad autocorrect works, it means that we must not argue about tastes. Different voters have different criteria and that is OK. The same voter might use different criteria in a challenge in which only the final image is submitted versus if the challenge requires the use of some specific tool with an explanation of how that tool was used, or might use different criteria for a gallery of children versus a gallery of hobbyists versus a gallery of professionals. It is all good. Worthy images typically do well under multiple criteria because they are robust. The only time an unworthy image won the Carrara monthly challenge was the Cards in an Unusual Deck challenge (I won that).
Hi my friend Diomède, King of Argolide!
What is your country ?
The diversity of thought is what characterizes the democracy and the credibility of the elected peoples and you're right in your words.
Afflicted Pjotter, but the thread about the challenge moved here...
Well, ten + tons later (over 20,000 lb.s in total), all picked, loaded, unloaded and installed with my bare hands, I'm finally done with the preliminary stone work for this small project. Four days total.
We went over my next several projects - I think I'll be able to work here for the rest of my days ;)
My studies in Screenwriting have taught that working outdoors is good for the writing process - so this sort of thing will remain in my flow.
This first image is part way through the process. First I've carefully prepped the slope around the tree. This White Pine is HUGE and has been alive for over a century, so I put its health to the forefront of everything. It's now enjoying better breathing and water intake, while also keeping the nasty turf from stealing all of it's nutrients.
The following images show the initial finished product. I say "initial" because we'll be adding some cool containers for planting annuals and other plants.
Some closer views
I like using old fence posts in situations like this... helps create the illusion that all of the landscaping around this tree has left a long past behind
The ride home from this last day was truly magical!
Half way home
Getting much closer
A few blocks away
And Home at Last!!!
Oh... and those streaks in the sky (God Rays) were even more visible in plain sight! I did not use any post on these, and they didn't turn out in the photo nearly as awesome as they were in real life!
Truly magical!
cool work DB, profitable as laborious I hope
ps you live into a terragen world I see, very inspirational place
Yes!
Thanks Dartanbeck for sharing your world - beautiful and inspirational!
I'm not sure I can capture my own insirational world well enough on camera but, even here just blocks from downtown central, when I walk to the store or wherever I am surrounded by the majestic Catalina, Rincon and Tucson mountains. Especially the Catalina mountains...they almost always have these jewel-like saphire colored glowing shadows. I moved here without a car 14 years ago so I have to walk/bike or bus it...not for everyone but I feel blessed I can live a very low overhead lifestyle...saved so much money not owning a vehicle these past years. Yes, moving around/getting out can really get creative juices flowing...just thinking and walking ...problem solving starts flowing in...
I hear that... I'm doing this stone work to try and save up enough to fix our car! LOL
Wow... beautiful world, isn't it? Perhaps some day I could come visit your lovely neck of the woods!
If I'm guessing correctly, you live in one of the states I haven't been to yet - I've been in 36 states so far.
I totally sympathize with car repair bills from past experience.
The desert is an alien, bizarre world.
If you haven't been to Arizona, then yes, come visit!
great pics, Dart. Thanks for posting. Magnificent setting. Could inspire a landscape product with multiple cameras.
Very good and inspirational pics. Are you sure they weren't created in Carrara... hmm could even be some of evilproducer's rocks in them. :)
Check out this rock!!!
Cool stones just Rock! Sure... they're heavy... but they totally Rock!!!
BTW, getting some awesome ideas for my screenplay! ;)
Often great ideas stem from observing People and Mother Nature.
Future Learn sure is a great way to increase knowledge of a particular subject at one's own pace!
(click the links on their names for more credentials)
The course is excellent towards, well just as it's name implies, getting started in script writing!
Here's the introduction video:
https://view.vzaar.com/6186437/video
Michael does an amazing job of leading the class in a perfect way to help us grasp such deep ideas, transforming us to learn to prepare our work into professional screenplays. He is a founding board member of write2screen, which was established in Norwich UNESCO City of Literature in 2012. Its objectives are to encourage writing for the screen and to help new writers establish themselves in the film and television industry. Originally funded by Creative England, write2screen now works as an independent agency. Michael joined with Christabelle Dilks to serve as mentors onwrite2screen’s successful “Screenplay Hothouse”, an escalator-type scheme. write2screen is planning to expand to online courses and an online Screenplay Hothouse. So it's a great thing to consider joining - if screenwriting becomes an interest to you!
While the book celebrates it's Sixth Edition, with many valuable updates making the tome more formidible and up-to-date with current trends, while also building upon material that was already there, I bought a used copy of the older Fourth Edition, and am learning SO MUCH!
But I already know that I'll be getting a copy of the latest edition to gain the new updates as well as to support the author for his hard work.
He also wrote Freelance Writer's Bible, based on his popular national seminar17 Ways to Make a Living as a Writer.
For more info on David, click on his picture to the right. He's certainly worthy of teaching this topic! His website also has options to hire him to evaluate your script, and other means to get your script sold! Pretty sweet for those wanting to write screenplays for a living - or supplemental income/hobby!
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So I've been continuing on reading the Screewriter's Bible, a few pages at a time, while working my way through the Introductory course, which has been really helpful both to me, and for my ability to answer some of the questions by other classmates - which, for me, is always fun! The book is obviously aimed not only as an introduction, but as a complete means to become proficient at the craft - and so it's taught under the assumption that: A - the user might be brand new to this, and B - the user wants to become a professional Screenwriter. And there's also the idea that: C - the user is already a screewriter and wants/needs some extra ideas, techniques, reminders, etc., hence the awesome way in which the book is laid out.
So... yeah... I could probably have done just fine by pushing through the book and not taking the course. But, like every subject, each teacher has their own methods of teaching, and different views upon what is important to understand for the student.
So I'm very glad that I'm taking the approach openly - to learn from as many sources as I can - without bogging myself down spending all of my time learning without getting any work done.
The course had some real added advantage of capturing views from the panel of all four, Michael included, showing that succesful writers all have their own favorite methods and techniques - and opinions on the most common methods used across the board. This is all reinforcement to the whole process of learning not only the material to hand, but also how to decide when and where to stray for the sake of the story. This is where I would warn some of my classmates to not stray too far until they feel comfortable enough to do so. After all... there are important reasons for these tried and true methods to become tried and true! ;)
Thanks Pjotter for starting me on this path of external knowledge - for without it, my first episode might have really ended up not being all that it could (should) be - even though I'm hoping to make it fairly short.
My next course starts next week and is an Eight Week course: Start Writing Fiction, which I'm taking to help improve upon my skills as an author in general.
Intro video:
https://view.vzaar.com/2648205/video