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Work is going very well on the movie.
It's a bit slow because of work and being in a band. We've been practicing a lot for a really busy season that has just started this month. Lots and lots of gigs!
I'm currently working on a list of necessary Rosie scenes because she's the most time-consuming of any of it. Once I'm done with her animations, the rest will move along quickly.
It begins with the animation. I use a technique that I call Hybrid aniMation, which uses both aniBlocks (or animated PZ2 or DUF) and key framing by hand. Working directly with the story, it's fairly straight-forward to understand what she needs to do within the scene, so I look for specific movements within my collection of animation data files (mostly aniBlocks), first for leg and hip motions, which often (but not always) will also provide the abdomen and chest data that I use - although I almost always have to tweak something in there to get her doing what I need her to.
Then I often grab another aniBlock for arm movements and include that only on the arms. When I get it close in aniMate 2 (article) I bake to the Timeline and spend much more time with the full animation using key frame by hand techniques - either moving keys on the graph, or deleting chunks of them, replacing them with my own joint rotations.
This is all followed up with secondary morphing, like expressions and eye and mouth and hand movements along with things like breathing and torso movements that add life to the action - even though it's only going to be a few short seconds long.
When I'm done with the animation process, I run her once through VWD for soft-tissue simulations, then again for her clothing. Both of those combined take very little time as VWD is very fast.
Next comes the Hair, which uses dForce simulation. That process normally takes around 2 hours or more for a 5-6 second animation, depending on how much motion is going on. Straight-forward walks and idle-type motions will take roughly two hours, while some fighting wildness can add a lot of extra time as it flails the hair around.
While the hair is simulating, I often come to the forums or type in Dartanbeck.com
Once the animation and simulations are all completed, I start working with OctaneRender to get the environment lighting set just right, and then add the mesh lights which I might attach to nulls if I need to animate them along with the action.
When I'm happy with the lighting from the first frame to the last, I set OctaneRender on its way to render the final action.
The next step is to bring that render into Carrara and work it into the scene with other characters in a full environment with volumetric lighting and animated everything.
I also use Carrara and Daz Studio/OctaneRender along with Howler and Particle Illusion to make my own, custom VFX elements that will be composited into to the final shot when putting it all together at the end.
There's still a bit more to it that that, but that's a nice little "catch-me-up" on what I've been doing with my precious little time that I have working on this right now. Summer's coming and time limitations will get worse - but I'm going to just keep pushing myself to take this work over sleep as much as my body and mind will allow - currently operating on 3-4 hours of sleep for most nights, until my body forces me to remain unconcious to recharge! ;)
On days when I work at my job I still often get one of these animation renders completed. On days that I don't work I can still usually only get two done, unless one of them is really short. The difference being that I have to wait for the first one to be rendered before working on the next.
Genesis 8.1 now has facial controls based on FACS (Facial Action Coding System)
Daz 3D is taking leaps into higher-end technology with Genesis 8.1, like that used in Alita Battle Angel.
While 8.1 is Not made using all of the advanced tech of Alita, it Is leveraging a lot of the philosophies used. Daz 3D has always been on the forefront of delivering some (some) of the utmost latest tech in their CG Characters.
That said, we Carrara users also have a huge boon of this same nature that was gifted to us by a high-end, amazing animator collaborating with one of our brilliant plugin designers. Her Carrara call sign then was "Faba" and she worked with Fenric to help him produce a plugin that's so powerful that few of us truly understand how to put it to full use - besides Faba, that is.
But she tried to teach us all with amazing details that are still available today.
In Carrara, we could use Fenric's Carrara Enhanced Remote Control to create an interface almost exactly like the 8.1 FACS interface, or we could customize it however we want.
Read the full article here
So why Genesis 1?
In my Genesis 1 Rocks!!! article, I go into details on how I can use nearly any shape and/or morph from any generation of Daz human figure from generation 3 (V3, A3, M3, Freak, etc.,) to Genesis 8 with Genesis 1.
This includes, but is not limited to everything from Arki's EYEdeas for Generation 3, Genesis 8 tooth shaping morphs, character shapes, body styles, expressions, etc., etc., making for a powerful combination to enable us to turn our Genesis 1 unisex, unimesh figure into pretty much exactly what we want - with the ability to use clothing from any generation!
We won't end up with a different rig with the new facial bones, etc., but in my case I'm not only fine with that, I actually like just using morphs for these controls.
What I haven't included on the site yet, but is coming in future tutorials and demonstrations is how easily we can use animation files made for nearly anything, and works especially well with previous generation aniBlocks and animated pose files - Genesis 2 and earlier.
A while ago I bought some of PoserMocap's awesome aniBlocks for Genesis 3 and 8 figures, which don't work well with Genesis 1 but he also includes the raw BVH files used to create the aniBlocks, and those work amazingly well on Genesis 1 imported into Daz Studio, and then save them as aniBlocks! It totally Rocks!!!
Shopping for clothing is completely open for me now. Most dForce items made for Genesis 8 can be converted down to Genesis 1 items while retaining full dForce capabilities. See my Content Generation Conversion article for the easy-to-follow procedure, which was taught to me by our one and only SickleYield - an absolute Expert at this stuff!
Animals, creatures, monsters and any generation character between Generation 3 and Genesis 8... yeah... Genesis 1 Totally Rocks!!!
Any tips on creating an interesting storyboard?
Carrara artist (and friend) /another former Daz 3d PA, Mike Moir (mmoir) did nice storyboards for us for our Carrara Community Movie Project projects, and were very nice to have and use. I have a consolidated list of the first year of those threads here:
► The Carrara Community Movie Project
This is a consolidation of CMP links
(storyboard on right was the first one Mike did for these projects, and had done some much more detailed ones since then - but they don't really have to be highly detailed - or even great drawings. Just enough to get a sense of what the audience needs to see for each shot)
For myself, I use a different approach, as follows (and will be detailed more with an article w/support video on my site, when I get that far):
Since I pick a lot of my actual 'film stages' through grabbing content that fits my general idea*, I begin the whole thing by opening that content (sometimes it's several products that I get to work together) and optimize it for the scene I'm after - so it's actually ready, or nearly so, for a final render.
Then I bring in the main character and do some test Hybrid Animations to get the action as close to what I was intending - and I do this in an otherwise empty scene - no scenery, just a few lights**.
When I render to animation, I always output to image sequence and, when I'm rendering the animated main character, I render that to Alpha so that all but the character is completely transparent.
I can also repeat this process for other characters if needed - and at this stage it can be done in a very simplistic, basic way, just to be able to 'see' if the timing and direction is correct.
To test the scene in a very simple way, I'll combine the animated character render with a test render of the scenery using Fusion***, but one could just as easily use HitFilm or whatever compositing software you use.
Much like what they did when making the series: Star Wars - The Clone Wars****, this makes my version of what they call "Previz", which is a storyboard in motion, and is used instead of a storyboard. These clips can then be further edited down and mixed in different ways (even replacing scenery very easily and quickly, if needed) to show in a fully visual means, how the story is unfolding - what is missing, what changes need to be made, more ideas for the future, etc.,
I've already started laying out some of the materials that I need to help explain all of this in a few places on my site as follows:
* Using the store/purchased content to drive the story:
These (above) pages were actually started to be able to smoothly discuss these sorts of topics in future articles and videos
** Basic Character Lighting (this is all I'll use when shooting "Previz" style animation renders, perhaps with one other enhancement light added)
*** Quick and Simple Scene Visualization using Compositing Software
**** Inspiration from how they did it for The Clone Wars:
This one in particular. This is the final(?) series featurette "Declassifying The Clone Wars", basically a Goodbye to the show after season six.
At 2 minutes in is where they begin to tell the story of how they research and build stories and, two minutes later, they're transitioning from storyboards to "Z-Viz", their version of Previz software. While I'm putting this video here for that purpose alone, the whole video is quite an excellent watch for anyone interested in learning more about the planning and execution of animated cinema and TV.
The entire playlist is even better. They give real examples of the voice acting process, writing, editing, visual effects, story composition and when to not take the little things too seriously, etc., etc.,
I hope this helps answer your question.
Like I said earlier, we'll be digging deeper into this subject on my site in the future ;)
Cheers, and have fun animating!!!
After all of that, what I used to do is this, followed by why I don't do it this way anymore:
I used to use pose files on my characters and render them 'in action' within the scene in a sub-quality test render, and save that iamge as a storyboard frame.
Eventually as I got more comfortable and efficient with animating I started doing it the way I described in the previous post, because
The downside is that, even though I don't need to at this stage, I cannot seem to help but to simulate the hair and clothing, even on these tests/previsualizations, which takes time. That's where the "load a pose and shoot a test render" method becomes really fast for just sketching out a storyboard.
So it's really up to our own tastes - and the efficiency level that your team enjoys using, if you have a team. I'm doing this all solo, so the only person's workflow I need to please is my own!
This thread also has a whole bunch of cool topics, so I've edited a link to it into that (above) Carrara Community Movie Project index
Animation Club for Carrara Users - Inspiration Thread
Thanks a lot - I do not want to steal your thread for my questions. I just adore, what you are presenting here.
I love how you have a well thought out production schedule. Can't wait to see it all come together.
Ask anything you like ~ It inspires me! ;)
Thanks for the kind words, my friend!
Me too. After years of not really knowing what to do next - so I'd just keep experimenting... testing... finding my way into the subjects of cinematography, filmmaking and VFX really opened my eyes!
...and, Ditto! I love watching your progress too!
I must say, though:
I never look at those 'wandering' years as lost time. I truly needed to just "get lost in Carrara" in order to be proficient enough as to not have to change everything about how I do things in the middle of eveything.
In watching that playlist on The Clone Wars, I've learned that it's perfectly okay to grow and change within a production cycle and, being artists, we're always learning and discovering newer, older, different ways of doing things that change how we want to approach things - and that's fine.
Just that, after years of trying things, liking things, learning how Not to do some things... it really helps us to have the ability to even push forward - accepting and celebrating these changes in our work, rather than having to look back and laugh! ;) (like I do a Lot with my older experiments!!!)
Dartanbeck.com was the perfect move for me.
It gives me the perfect outlet for when I'm waiting for simulations and renders.
I had a few hours last night. Instead of writing in the site, I opened my Carrara Studio 3 Handbook to the bookmarked page and indulged for a while. I can already see that my learning days are far from over.
An important message that I'd like to convey here is that, while 3D, CG, filmmaking, etc., technology and practices mature and push ever forward into all new ways of doing things, I've seen how incredibly healthy it can be as an artist to take a step back and look at what was done before ~ how we got to where we are today to a lot of exciting, courageous steps. Some of which may have become trodden, and forgotten.
"Nobody does That anymore"
Hmmm... then mayb e I should give that a try! :)
In my Inspirations Gallery on my site, the William Forsche page has a few of his recordings as a Hollywood monster makeup artist - and it's really fun to take a look at that. Well, for me it is because I was Always a big fan of old (they weren't always old!) moster movies, filled with imagination and fearless artists ready to transform actors into the writer's vision, sculpt clay over an armature and stop-frame it to come alive...
Very cool stuff!
But in the same light, taking a look through a less distant time frame - like just with good ol' Carrara and Daz Studio, Poser, LightWave, AMAPI, etc., it compells me to make this little statement to anyone trying to 'find their way':
If someone says: "Don't even use that tool (or feature, etc.,)", try not to let that hinder exploration. We all have different tastes and needs - and even likes!
Example: "Don't use Carrara's Fog primitive - it's not even volumetric"
The Fog primitive is Amazing, and I think it is volumetric in nature, as it is controlled via an invisible bounding box within Carrara, where we can change it's effect in three dimensions, so....
Here's the thing:
It can be very easy to get cheesy with the fog primitive - but we don't have to keep it that way - as was taught to me by a good friend, ExtruD a long time ago. He said that, with the Fog primitive, subtlety is key!
So I started experimenting further, even though I've already had a style that I really quite liked using it. It makes a nice, foggy or smokey effect that is animated with a "Completion" slider, so we can speed it up and slow it down and then even alter that behavior with any of Carrara's many tweener options - I love that!
But there's still those words of wisdom lingering in the subconscious: "Don't ever use the Fog primitive - it's not even volumetric"
This can have an impact to accidentally cause us to 'forget' to use it when it is probably a Much better option that volumetric clouds, which are far less simple to control for moving changes in fog-like haze and add a big hit to render times.
As we push forward at Dartanbeck.com, I'm going to do a special presentation of "Creating Stock Footage".
Stock footage is a term I've picked up when learning VFX (visual effects) which mostly refers to video stoch that we acquire from another source, like on the internet, for example. While I do also get stock footage from an excellent supplier, I prefer to make my own in most cases.
VFX artists use these elements as Layers or Nodes that we can use to add effects to at least some piece of the frame. Adding a light fog in front of the camera is as easy as applying a layer of fog and scaling, rotating, moving such an element over the video, and adjusting how opaque or transparent it is - but we can use the same element to do something entirely different, like displace or alter hues or....
I like to render out various results using the Fog primitive to create such elements and keep them in my Stock Fottage collection.
We'll cover this stuff more in depth as we go on here. It's fun and easy. You'll see!
Here's an example:
This is a CG breakdown for some of the scenes in Sin City
https://vimeo.com/30941445
That's very much like the techniques I'm attempting.
Consider:
All shots of Rosie and other characters shot on a green screen stage* like that - with the needed camera angles/movements, etc., and any interactive props - but only the bare essentials to get the shot right.
The scenes are created in CG*
Effects are applied during the phase when all elements are combined (composited) together as individual clips of their fully rendered length.
It is during the Editing phase, when the clips are all combined to form the story, when each clips is cut down to the proper length for continuity, pacing, etc.,
Then comes sound, music and color grading before the final edit, with credits, etc.,
* So in those first two phases, instead of green screen, I'm rendering to alpha. So it doesn't matter whether I'm rendering in Daz Studio or Carrara. I also have the convenience of rendering the scenes and extra elements in whichever software - because in the end, it really doesn't matter.
So for any of you, your software choices are entirely up to your own tastes. For me, this workflow Entirely removes compatibility issues - just use the software tha works.
Even compositing software will vary for me, as I use all three of these for different reasons: PD Howler, Fusion and HitFilm
Oh my!
I just got the Drago Fire and Fury Bundle, which turns Genesis 8 Male(s) into an incredible Dragon!!!
So strange how these things happen...
Well I was checking the store and decided to click on the Fire and Fury promo. I was shocked at the price! All of this? Wait... what's the catch?
The catch is this: Joe Quick did an incredible job on these sculpts, FenixPhoenix did an outstanding job on their Drago Alternate Textures and Horns pack, and Muscleman really came through with beautifully draconic poses! Between these amazing artists and Daz 3d, even I was able to grab this treasure!
The bundle includes three products from Joe Quick as well as the two from FenixPhoenix and Muscleman - Drago HD for Genesis 8 Male(s), Hatchling for Drago HD, and Drago Fire VFX Props!
I wrote a whole subpage to my Dragons section just on Grago HD and the Fire and Fury Bundle, because after my first tests, I am utterly impressed, shocked, and entirely thankfull!
Special thanks to Posermocap and Valheimer in the article as well - it was an amazing test! Rendered out two animations in OctaneRender and the motions turned out looking Spectacular!
Anyway, just thought I'd let you all know!
Animal Kindom - Dragons!!!
Speaking of Animal Kingdom, I've updated my Animal Kingdom - Wild Animals page to include something that I just got for the Deepsea's Eagle Tree Environment kit (amongst others, too) - SickleYield's SY Sky System Iray.
I never really knew there was a sky system built into Daz Studio.
SickleYield, as always makes it really easy to set it up, and includes a system that really rocks! No more stagnant HDRI backgrounds with no parralax!
After my successful animation tests with Drago (above) I decided to put together an animation that's on the docket for the first episode. The plan was to use Eagle 2.0 in my Carrara EnvironKit - Woodlands, but when I saw Deepsea's incredible bundle, I switched gears a bit!
Kinda cool, I hope - I wanted to make it look like I 'happened upon the Eagle', so I'm using DOF (depth of field) with the camera to begin out of focus, and I rack it in just in time to track him flying off screen. We'll see if it turns out or ends up in the recycle bin. Either way, these fun experiments go a long way toward becoming a better CG filmmaker - so it's entirely worth the time it takes to ty these things out.
Afterall, my Drago experiments were just quick tests, and they turned out Awesome! It's going to be cool putting him in motion for real!
Initial base work done for an all new Dartanbeck 5.2 for Octane!
He still needs some tweaking and a good main costume, but he animates well and renders really nice in Octane!
Render coming soon!
Excellent work, I keep looking at your progress when possible..
Thanks Chris!
Again filling time during simulations and rendering, I've made my first Fan-Edit of a film - A film that I've recently grown to really enjoy more and more the more times I see it:
I Am Dragon
The actual movie is an incredible fairy tale, very well told both through the acting as well as the production. The cinematography is Fantastic!
It was my trying to explain the importance of dramatic lighting that inspired me to make this edit since they did such a beautiful job of it.
My Fan-Edit actually removes the main storyline to illustrate the struggles of a single character - Mira.
Mira is a young maiden who, unlike the rest of her people, admires dragons and is disappointed that they were all killed off and no longer exist - or so she thinks.
So my story cuts out a beautiful weave of a fairy tale and only shows a few minutes of a very short segment of the film:
Mira is abducted during her own wedding ceremony by the strong, sharp talons of a dragon.
Injured and terrified, isolated and alone, Mira must use every once of courage she has to make an escape - but first she must survive!
Things look even more grim when she learns that the island is actually the remains of a long-dead, ancient dragon - enormous and since turned to stone.
I hope you like it! A link to the imdb listing of the film is included in the description. At the time of this writing it's free to watch both at imdb and Amazon, and likely others. Although I've seen it free via Amazon, I'll be buying this movie at least once just to support the project!
In the actual film, Mira finds out early on that she's not actually alone, and is helped by another who is held captive on the island. So my edit actually changes it up by removing that entire aspect of it.
It wasn't really all that easy to edit it out that way, since the actual story is my favorite part and the acting is so absolutely superb!
Mira is played by Mariya Poezzhaeva who's dynaimic characteristics are truly inspiring for an emotions animator. Arman's character, who was completely edited out of this, is masterfully played by Matvey Lykov
The rest of the cast is amazing as well!
This is truly a must watch, must own fairy tale masterpiece for any dragon fan, for sure, since the story's take on dragondom is spot-on awesome and artistically represented. Also a must-have for anyone who just likes a great fairy tale, and also for those who enjoy an incredible romance. I don't usually flock to the latter, but this one makes me really enjoy all of the romantic aspects of it.
Thanks for intoducing it. Was unaware of the title. Your editing pace was still uniform throughout. (Blueray + DVD only $10 at Amazon) or stream with Prime Video free.Thanks again.
My pleasure.
Wait till you see it! Oh man!!!
I love I AM DRAGON and inspired by the special fx.
Me too. And that Story!!! Yikes, that's a great find, eh? The performances are So Good!!!
Content Driven Story
When my CG machine is busy rendering, I often come to my laptop and either peruse the store or my Product Library for storyline inspirations.
I mean, the promo pictures on content has to tell a story of some kind, or it lacks selling power.
I took just one of the many 'collections' I have going on and wrote an article about how these series-based products can help us with continuity and story ideas.
The article doesn't really tell how to make a story, but shows a series of matching products that I've been collecting for quite some time now - a collection that really caught my eye in my Library, so a whole story is now being formed within it.
Check it out!
What Happened on Odysseon Station - just updated
Daz Studio / Carrara Workflow
Cool stuff!
I'm just about on a wrap for shooting Rosie renders - exception being when a scene calls for a new one.
I have now begun production in Carrara making the rest of everything - scenery shots, other characters - benevolent and malevolent alike, vehicle scenes, etc., along with any of the visual effects that I'm shooting in Carrara - others will be done in PD Howler, Particle Illusion, HitFilm Express and Fusion.
I've been sifting through my Foley (sound effect audio) collection, preparing to record what I need.
I'm still unsure if I'll use dialog in this one, or if it'll just be music and sound. If I need dialog, Rosie and I are ready, as are my other voice actors. But I'm kinda liking what's going on right now without it. Dialog can come in later productions for sure.
All of that said,
I must say that I'm glad to have taken all of the time it took to get acquainted with using Daz Studio as a 3D production render app. There are a lot of great tools, and it's compatible with pretty mush everything that Daz 3d sells.
When I jump back into Carrara, I'm still amazed that Daz 3d doesn't find it a priority to keep this thing updated. This Carrara is still one of my favorite 3D tools I've ever used!
Back when Eovia had it, Antoine Clappier had a vision - to give artists a 3D tool that has all of the features at a much lower price, but instead of hidden - the tools and features will be right in front of your nose - and I think they pulled that off beautifully!
Daz 3d got ahold of it and made it even better - and their latest work on it is simply Spectacular!!! Why stop there?!!!!
Anyway, I'm glad to be back in Carrara. My time in Daz Studio is wonderful. I truly enjoy going in and using it now - especially after finding valzheimer's ORK (Octane Render Kit)!!! Owning the full version of aniMate 2 helps too!
Finding JGreenlees' shader presets for Iray has been a real treat too! There are others that are excellent as well, but it seems that I'm always going for the JG folder, then using V's kit to optimize them for Octane.
Going back and forth between the two apps is really cool!
Carrara is a Beast at doing real animation work with little effort. Grabbing key frames and doing things with them is not something we can do nearly as easily in Daz Studio, but that's where having aniMate 2 (full) comes in! That helps!
In Carrara, however, we can do So Much More! Like going in to PD Howler to make animated texture maps for literally anything - and any number of things - without having to use a special plugin, wave a magic wand.... we just load in an avi or image sequence as if it was a single texture map!
Beyond that, nearly everything in Carrara has easy-to-use animation controls and is set up specifically to be changed over time. Almost Everything!
A bazillion tweeners to Daz Studio's 3. Curve manipulation for individual (or groups of) key frames, stretching/compressing limits of motion, stretching/compressing the timing, Using the actual Delete key to delete key frames, Carrara even has it's own, built-in aniMate-like system: the NLA Clip system, which works very well and is ultra-powerful!!!
I'll likely be making some comparisons when I get to the "Behind the Scenes" videos, once this thing is nearing completion and I'll definitely be making videos on using them both, back and forth - how I'm coordinating my workflow. It's very cool and really fun! More importantly, it's efficient and removes most, if not all compatibility issues for Daz 3d users, like myself!
Are you using any sort of motion capture or facial motion capture for your animation? I'm trying to work out a workflow for that. Facemotion is for PC only and I'm on a Mac so that option is out.
I've been doing facial movements by hand, key framing them. Lip sync is still fairly new to me, but I have worked out a pretty decent workflow with Mimic since the last demo - which was very early testing - testing both Mimic as well as AI speech, which I won't be using for my main characters.
I've been doing body motions using what I call Hybrid aniMation - using various aniBlocks blended together, sent to the Timeline and do further changes to the motions by hand - using the timing and fluidity of the motion captured data as a reference.
I have a whole page just on the paid version of aniMate 2 filled with tutorial videos and workflow topics. I love how easy it is to take motions meant for a completely different purpose, and then altering them to fullfil what is needed in my scene. The more I did this, the faster I got at picking out the motions that will work well for the base dynamics.
Here's my crappy example of the AI voice and early lip sync. When I get into the dialog part of my animations, I'll be tweaking it a lot more than this. This was an important step, however, as mindsong and I worked through methods of tweaking the actual information that Mimic Pro uses to create the automated sync in order to get results closer to what we're looking for, and then tweaking from there.
I like using Talkia voice AI, but it isn't good enough yet for me to use as the actual voice of my characters.