Ten Years After - The Making of Dartanbeck.com

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  • PD Howler looks like a good package, but I don't think it can replace After Effects and Premiere for me.  One major downside is that PD Howler is only a 32-bit software application, and it's likely to stay that way for a very long time.  Maybe forever.  Dan R. has mentioned the entire software is tied to certain VB libraries that were never updated to 64 bit.  So unless those libraries get a 64-bit upgrade (not likely), Howler is stuck as a 32-bit app.

    This is a bummer and a no-go if you have a 64-bit system and animate or render at large resolutions where you need to use all the resources at your disposal.  HD or UHD animations/movies really require 64-bit software.  I mean you could maybe bring them in piece-by-piece, but that would take forever if it could even work at all.

    I was looking into Howler for a long time and still do have my eye on it for certain features it offers ( I really love the particle animator and the 3d generator with GPU rendering), but without 64-bit solution, I just couldn't make efficient use of it.  Most of my work now is UHD.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103
    edited May 2020

    Well it's been a long time since I've done anything with YouTube.

    Introducing Rosie 5 is a bit of a showcase of where I am with this actress, with the exception that since I've made the presentation, I've made a few more breakthroughs with the way I use Carrara's Dynamic Hair. I'll explain the upgrades in future videos, articles, etc.,

    This video is the beginning.

    This is what I felt I needed to do in order to properly launch my website, as it gives me (personally) a springboard to many things I want to talk about:

    • My Carrara Animation work
    • My Story (Movies)
    • Using various software, like Carrara, PD Howler, DaVinci Resolve/Fusion/Fairlight, etc.,
    • A guide regarding how well Carrara works (as well as Howler) for a single-person CG filmmaking crew to realize all of the elements needed to make a movie
    • Spread enthusiasm about this wonderful piece of software

    My Dartanbeck 5 character hosts this presentation although he's not really finished yet. 

    Still, we'll see him with a hybrid hair setup: Mon Chevalier Hair combined with Carrara Dynamic Hair. He's also wearing the Primordial Barbarian loin cloth, which I then animated using Virtual World Dynamics Cloth and Hair. It's a short demonstration of it, but there it is.

    This video was also my first actual video made using DaVinci Resolve - mostly Fusion. Fusion is the VFX software page of Resolve for creating and combining (compositing) images and other elements over other images and/or other elements - to build up each individual sequence of the movie. I'll get more into all of that in the future as it is a vast subject! ;)

    Okay, I'll stop babbling (for now!) After all, it's past my bedtime and I have to work early in the morn.

    Without further ado:

    Introducing Rosie 5

     

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,693

    that rox. fun watch and great work on her shape and the animation.

    I'm *really* looking forward to the website!

    --ms

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Thanks! smiley

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496

    Just saw this pop up in my subscriptions on YouTube and commented over there, but just to repeat myself: looks great Dart!

    The use of forces on the hair is brilliant - can't wait til your website is up to read more on how you did that.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Thanks! Yeah... that's my next big hurdle. I took the weekend off (still have to work today) hoping to finish that up and figure out how to connect it to my domain! LOL

    It was amazing fun using Resolve to build the video too. That is some major software. I'll be doing some video/article combos on that as well. Such a cool way to work with Carrara, Howler, all of it.

    The forces thing was a lot of fun. The newer version gives better end results in the render and calculates quicker, but there are twice as many to calculate. Some of the sits in the video also have a flow force in the scene to simulate air movement. Wind or a draft....

  • I like the new female character a lot better than the older one in your videos.  I think while she is less realistic in proportions, that's a very good thing because you won't have to worry as much about the "uncanny valley" effect if the animation isn't absolutely perfect.  Toon style characters allow the audience to be much more forgiving in how realistic everything needs to be, and it gives the artist more creative freedoms.  I still prefer realistic render styles, but the characters can be less realistic and still work in a realistic render.  In fact, outside of VFX compositing with live-action footage, that's probably the best way to do things when everything in the scene is CG.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,022
    edited May 2020

    Well it's been a long time since I've done anything with YouTube.

    Introducing Rosie 5 is a bit of a showcase of where I am with this actress, with the exception that since I've made the presentation, I've made a few more breakthroughs with the way I use Carrara's Dynamic Hair. I'll explain the upgrades in future videos, articles, etc.,

     

    Great job, Dart.  Great information, especially on the eyes and teeth.  

    Looking forward to your cinematic adventures.

    Post edited by Diomede on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Thanks guys! smiley

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103
    edited May 2020

    I'm having a bit of trouble with my domain. I'm not savvy with how it's done nor the terminology.

    In the meantime, my site is LIVE here:

    https://sites.google.com/view/dartanbeckcom/home

    I still have a LOT of work to do, but I got a quite a bit done already.

    Feedback Welcome! ;)

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,022

    I'm having a bit of trouble with my domain. I'm not savvy with how it's done nor the terminology.

    In the meantime, my site is LIVE here:

    https://sites.google.com/view/dartanbeckcom/home

    I still have a LOT of work to do, but I got a quite a bit done already.

    Feedback Welcome! ;)

    Your website looks great.  I can't wait for you to start posting your articles, still images, and videos.  The Carrara description page is much appreciated.

    Congratulations, Dartanbeck!  

    RE: your website = Its alive!  Its alive!

  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,693

    the site looks great! I hope you get the domain pointers working asap.

    --ms

  • Bunyip02Bunyip02 Posts: 7,523
    Diomede said:

    I'm having a bit of trouble with my domain. I'm not savvy with how it's done nor the terminology.

    In the meantime, my site is LIVE here:

    https://sites.google.com/view/dartanbeckcom/home

    I still have a LOT of work to do, but I got a quite a bit done already.

    Feedback Welcome! ;)

    Your website looks great.  I can't wait for you to start posting your articles, still images, and videos.  The Carrara description page is much appreciated.

    Congratulations, Dartanbeck!  

    RE: your website = Its alive!  Its alive!

    +10 Woohoo !!!! yes

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    LOL! I Love you guys!!! heart

    I have "www.dartanbeck.com" pointing to my site! 

    I was hoping that it would show as dartanbeck.com instead of the google address. We'll see if we can sort that out. At least it's working. I'm numb at www stuff - wwwhat???

    I guess I'm just as confusing as ever. I have a feeling that my site is fairly tough to navigate! LOL

    I can change anything, so let me know if you have ideas or suggestions.

    The way it is now, the upper menues expand and take you places, but I put in things that I 'intend' to write about, but haven't got to yet. Perhaps I should back off on that a bit? Anyway, I'm glad to have it up. I'm going to do more with Cripeman's memorial. Tutorials are coming! The launch of Introducing Rosie alone will be spawning a whole lot more - and I haven't finished the ones I've made so far - the Dynamic Hair, EYEdeas 3+ and Millennium Teeth. The morph reduction one is fairly complete but I want t add some images and a few more examples of how valuable this sort of workflow can be - with pictures. I like visuals.

    I had a lot of fun writing the main support article, but ran out of time, so I'll be returning to that as well. In it I also promise to write:

    Delving Deeper

    • Shaders (surface texturing) and Genesis 1 (Generation 5)
    • Creating Costumes
    • aniMate 2 and aniBlocks in Carrara
    • Animation Conversion from earlier generations to Genesis

    Those will be my next main focus

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    I've done a quite a few updates and additions to the site.

    In addition to the notes above I also want to get more information up there about all of the amazing tools that are available for Carrara - especially those made by our forum community. So please don't think that I've forgotten about all of your hard work!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Making Rosie 5 is a new article that branches off into others, and will also be getting updated further - but it will also be getting an accompanying "Behind the Scenes" video along with another such video on the creation of the Introducing Rosie 5 video, delving into making the animated renders, scenes, following a script and putting it all together in Resolve.

    You know, the kind of videos I like to watch! LOL

  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,693

    I believe a new monster has been unleashed on the (3d-cg) world...

    Does google have the storage available for what's coming?

    :)

    --ms

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Reorganizing some things spawned a new subpage of Carrara Info, Dartanbeck Articles, which provides a one-page path to articles I've written along with some of my YouTube videos.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103
    mindsong said:

    I believe a new monster has been unleashed on the (3d-cg) world...

    Does google have the storage available for what's coming?

    :)

    --ms

    One can always hope to grow beyond Free!!! :)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Whew! Got a start on the Plugins pages

  • UnifiedBrainUnifiedBrain Posts: 3,588

    Dart, your ambition is boggling. surprisesmiley

    I just looked at the Plugins page.  Terrific organization and summaries so far, thanks!

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Dart, your ambition is boggling. surprisesmiley

    I just looked at the Plugins page.  Terrific organization and summaries so far, thanks!

    My pleasure!

    LOL - I stayed up really late doing that!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    I like how Cripeman's Memorial turned out too. I started actually embedding each video, but that forces it back to the confusion I was trying to avoid by doing his index in the first place. I may still go back and embed a few here and there for some color?

  • Your website looks very good.  I'm actually impressed.  I never knew Cripeman, but I actually came upon his videos on Youtube 10 years ago, and had some of them saved to a playlist.  I didn't even use Carrara, but he had some really interesting tutorials that translated to other software packages, and his style of making the videos, the way he spoke, was very entertaining.  I'm really sorry to hear he had passed.  I thought he had it beat.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

     I thought he had it beat.

    He did - kinda... for a while. 

    Your website looks very good.  I'm actually impressed.  I never knew Cripeman, but I actually came upon his videos on Youtube 10 years ago, and had some of them saved to a playlist.  I didn't even use Carrara, but he had some really interesting tutorials that translated to other software packages, and his style of making the videos, the way he spoke, was very entertaining.  I'm really sorry to hear he had passed.  I thought he had it beat.

    Thanks! I was nervous to publish it. I wanted to make it more complete. I don't type fast, so what's there took me some time.

    What I really needed was a launch pad. So I set myself on making that Introducing Rosie 5 video.

    The video is great, and it really doesn't need to be. Already today I've done yet another improvement to her hair. Everything will be updated. But what the video Did do is to give me a fresh, complete project to launch from. You wouldn't believe how much better I feel now that I've done a project. After my Carrara machine (PC) died, it took me a long time before I could build another. But even before that machine croaked, my grandson (now 4 yrs old) got epilepsy shortly after birth, and I ended up having to become daycare every day for about 10 hours. That took a lot out of me - creatively, physically and emotionally. My PC going down just really put the cork in it!

    Back in the saddle now, though. Ryzen 7 rocks!!!

  •  I thought he had it beat.

    He did - kinda... for a while. 

    Your website looks very good.  I'm actually impressed.  I never knew Cripeman, but I actually came upon his videos on Youtube 10 years ago, and had some of them saved to a playlist.  I didn't even use Carrara, but he had some really interesting tutorials that translated to other software packages, and his style of making the videos, the way he spoke, was very entertaining.  I'm really sorry to hear he had passed.  I thought he had it beat.

    Thanks! I was nervous to publish it. I wanted to make it more complete. I don't type fast, so what's there took me some time.

    What I really needed was a launch pad. So I set myself on making that Introducing Rosie 5 video.

    The video is great, and it really doesn't need to be. Already today I've done yet another improvement to her hair. Everything will be updated. But what the video Did do is to give me a fresh, complete project to launch from. You wouldn't believe how much better I feel now that I've done a project. After my Carrara machine (PC) died, it took me a long time before I could build another. But even before that machine croaked, my grandson (now 4 yrs old) got epilepsy shortly after birth, and I ended up having to become daycare every day for about 10 hours. That took a lot out of me - creatively, physically and emotionally. My PC going down just really put the cork in it!

    Back in the saddle now, though. Ryzen 7 rocks!!!

    WOW.  You really went through some stuff there.  Hey I'm sorry to hear your grandson has to suffer from epilepsy.   I hope he's doing well.  They have some medications from what I hear now that seem to really help with it.  If there's one thing that will always tug at my heart it's hearing about children having to deal with disease or any type of disorder.  It's so unfair.  There's got to be a reason for everything, I think, but stories like that never cease to impact me somehow.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Thanks - truly.

    Meds - Yep, and he's on quite a few of them. They help. He just (Thursday) underwent a new surgery. Some kind of device that will detect his seizures (he gets repeated grand-mal) and shut them down before they start. Hopeful = I! heart

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Not much time today, but I've got a quite a bit more done on the site since my last post.

    A lot of it was just adding more information on subjects, but also added a start to my Videos Gallery with, what I think is a pretty cool little ad to PhilW's Animation in Carrara Video Tutorials product! :) I already had one for him in the Daz 3D Plugins for Carrara section. Luxus is in that section, and his resource pack is the perfect addition to that, so....

    More videos and articles are available in the Dartanbeck Articles section and added some links back to this forum, like in the Carrara Info section

    I'm certainly open to some feedback, if you have any. I'm not really used to web design at all, so I'm kinda building it how I'd like to read it in a magazine or something.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,103

    Having a lot of fun writing and editing in the new site as I await my renders. It's still not even close to what I wanted it to be at launch, but having it up seems to give me more drive and inspiration - probably because I can actually see what it looks like now! LOL

    Rosie 5 has a new version of hair again! LOL

  • mindsongmindsong Posts: 1,693

    Having a lot of fun writing and editing in the new site as I await my renders. It's still not even close to what I wanted it to be at launch, but having it up seems to give me more drive and inspiration - probably because I can actually see what it looks like now! LOL

    Rosie 5 has a new version of hair again! LOL

    interested! what did you come up with for the new hair?

    --ms

     

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