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Lessons from Jackie Chan - Part 1 - Direction
Life is always better with some Jackie Chan analysis. - Directing Action and Comedy - Every Frame a Painting
Lessons from Jackie Chan - Part 2 - An Alternative Interpretation
Life is always better with some Jackie Chan analysis. - Directing Action and Comedy - The Welsh Filmmaker
Thanks for those! Very nice info!!! :)
In a world of "All CG Filmmaking", this sort of workflow could help - but we'd need a team!
I love how sincere everybody involved was in their portrayal of real, live action - especially the final comments by the Director at the end!
In 2024, I'm trying hard to put that sincerity into my own work - getting better and better results, but at the cost of time spent doing and redoing... and then redoing again some more. Watch it back again, and redo a bit more.
Being a one person team, I do have to make sacrifices and eventually call it "Good Enough For Now" in order to keep pushing forward - knowing that what I'm doing now will improve what I do in 2025.
Even with those sacrifices, however, there's an incredible amount of sincerity going into my current 2024 work. It's taking longer to complete scenes, so it's making me anxious to get something out as a demo. I have to try and hold back that urge and just keep pushing forward.
3D Blockout and Artificial Inteligence Processing
Here is the final image. I used Carrara to generate a depth pass and a toon filtered render. I used those two elements in Controlnet Depth and Canny respectively.
Here was the toon render.
Here is the depth pass.
I had a second render that included the background stairs. I find I get better results for the depth pass for two figures if I combine two depth passes. The depth pass has to be inverted for use in Controlnt (Stable Diffusion).
That's very cool, Diomede!
Thanks
Very interesting process.
Agreed. Carrara's multiple pass render output options are a lot of fun for all kinds of cool experiments. I haven't tried them in Iray yet - but it's on my list to explore one day.
Thanks, @FirstBastion and @Dartanbeck,for the comments. I feel like I am still early in the learning curve.
You're not alone! I'll be all happy with what I'm doing - then someone comes along, we have a conversation, and I discover that - Oh My! There's So Much More I can be doing!!!
The cool part is: It's just as refreshing as it is scary! :)
Another recent 3D to AI image. This one was sent back to 3D (Carrara) to fix the hand. I simply loaded the AI image as a backdrop then rendered the original blockout figure with shadow catchers to get the hand. This hand has a particularly challenging hand pose for AI internal fixes.
That turned out Really Great!!! Nice work, my Friend!!!
Thanks. Carrara is ideal for blocking out scenes for AI, and also for bringing AI images in in the scene backdrop and rendering a new detail. Blender even more so. For Daz Studio, which does not have native modelers, and which is focused on Iray photoreal renders, need some advanced info. For Controlnet's 'depth' preprocessor, the depth information can be gotten in a straight depth canvas, but Daz Studio produces that canvas in EXR format only. Solutions exist, just more steps. For Controlnet's 'canny' preprocessor, the equivelant of Carrara's native Toon III render is a little more complicated. The bad news is that I think (merely think!) that a good solution could be (merely could be) to use the canvas for Material ID and then construct your own 'Canny' assistant. The good news is that the Daz Studio plugin 'Line Render 9000' is designed to accomplish this task. The 'I'm not sure' news is that Line Render 9000 was designed for 3Delight, not Iray, so I am not sure if it will play nicely with more recent content.
Here is a helpful video introduction to Daz Studio canvases by ArtCollaboration. This is the 1st of two related videos. This one introduces and describes each Studio canvas and explains how to set them up. The second video explains how to use them for postwork. At the moment, anyone following along with me would be focused on the canvas for depth, and perhaps the canvas for material id (or the line render plugin).
Please give me any suggestions. There is always more to learn! (and as I get older, I am always having to relearn the stuff I used to know).
You know what does a really cool depth pass?
Carrara! :)
If all you're after is a depth pass, you can have everything in the scene using only a single, ultra-fast-to-render shader, and just go for the depth pass! :)
I haven't gotten into the Iray canvasses much more than looking to see how to access them. However, since then I've seen talk in the Daz Studio Discussion Forum that there is a new feature for... is it line rendering or is it toon? I don't remember. But there's a pretty decent thread with instructions.
Being one of those who has and loves Carrara, and being a fan of taking the path of least resistance, that's what I would go for - but, like you... I'd still investigate for sure!
For Carrara, if I wanted to use more modern character shapes, I'd start with a conversion to Genesis or Genesis 2 - then set myself up a library of conversions that are specifically made for my work in Carrara, yet it would still all work for DS, so it's a win either way.
The coolest solution I can think of is to have Daz 3D sharpen their pencils and update Carrara to include compatibility with all Daz! Although some might disagree, I wouldn't even ask for a newer render engine - already loving the ones it already has. For me, it was dForce (rather, a product that I NEED that absolutely requires it) that forced my hand to use Daz Studio - for which I'm grateful. I find myself having a Lot more power having both!
Note to self about compatibility of Daz Studio with recent versions of Blender. See this thread in the Blender forum started by Snow Sultan. Yes, the Blender bridge is compatible with Blender 4.4 and 4.5 currently, and this thread has a reply with the setup.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/737861/compatibility-with-4-4-and-4-5#latest
Greetings, Dartanbeck!
Another note to self - installing MPFB in Blender.
This is a video on how to install MakeHuman directly in Blender's 'N' Menu in the upper right. It includes how to use the rigging settings, and how to find and install basic skin, clothing, and hair assets.
Once installed, the video's recommended order is
- Start Blender
- Open the MPFB Add-On menu by pressing 'n' key, menu opens in upper right.
- Under 'New Human,' choose 'from scratch' in this case to start from MPFB base.
- Do NOT add eyes, clothes, or hair yet. Wait until after rigging so they can be rigged automatically.
- You can do basic shaping under the 'Model' tab to weight, gender, nose, etc.
- You can also add a skin texture under the 'Apply Assets' tab. Or you can wait until after rigging. To see the skin, Blender must be in material preview view.
- Under Rigging tab, choose 'Add Rig' tab and choose a rig, in this case 'standard.'
- Under Apply Assets, attach common body parts such as eyes, eyebrows, and eyelashes.
- Under Apply Assets, attach clothing.
- Make sure the human.rig is selected in upper right screen tab (or whatever you have named your rig if not default).
- Under Rigging tab, choose the 'rig helpers' folder if desired. It adds eye helpers and inverse kinematics for hands and feet so recommended. Click 'add helpers.'
** The character is now ready for manipulation in Blender.
- To pose, go to upper left of viewport and switch the mode from either Object or Edit mode to Pose. You can now manipulate the rig of the character and the mesh will follow.
*** Note that I followed the video tutorial but my figure is locked, and I am searching for a solution. If this has happened to you, a solution would be great. I am going to ask in the Blender Forum. If I get a working solution, I will edit this post.
Hello Diomede
Make Human in Blender was all new to me so I am flying by the seat of my pants.
First of all I followed the website https://static.makehumancommunity.org/mpfb/downloads.html
Followed your list on how to get the figure up and running.
Clicked on an arm bone and rotated it no problems, not locking up for me.
Don't know why it's not working for you .....
Note to my friends:
Daz Studio ROCKS! :)
Much more, in Daz Studio Daz 3D's incredible people have all sorts of internal workings that automatically correct shapes as the joints bend.
Okay... sorry... just me, being me! :D
sorry Dart but Blender actually rocks more than DAZ studio, or even gasp! Carrara, I am just to lazy to learn it but it is actually bloody awesome
While I now use Blender, Carrara is still my favourite program !!!
Thanks, @Bunyip02, @Dartanbeck, and @WendyLuvsCatz. Whatever the problem was is a mystery. No one has replied yet in the Blender Forum. Bunyip, you were not able to recreate the problem. I am rebooting and starting over. Maybe I did something scene specific like inadvertently tap a 'lock constraints' hot key. We will see when I start with a fresh scene.
As for Blender, Daz Studio, and Carrara, I have gone to an even darker side (gasp!). I am embracing the AI toolkit of Stable Diffusion, Flux, Wan, etc. My current interface of choice is ComfyUI. I just see it all now as a giant tool box. I am happy to use Carrara for stuff, espcially the depth pass. Blender for Stuff - mist pass is OK but often needs more fiddling than Carrara's depth pass. Daz Studio for stuff, same issue as Blender Mist. And anything else. I let my Substance Painter subscription end, but I could see a limited renewal for the right project in order to make content for which I would create LORAs. Everything Rocks!
Rant follows. This rant will prove this is me like Dart saying some software rocks to prove it is him.
I am embracing many but not all AI tools. My one caveat is that it is important to me as a person whose office was directly below the US Copyright Office for more than a decade (literally, like I could hear them stomping around up there), it is important to me that I don't profit from anything that does not have clear property rights, nor would it be OK with me if my hobby freebies deprived a rightful owner of potential sales even if I did not profit. There are many elements to copyright, but unjust enrichment (profiting) and displacing rightful owners (even if no profit) are two of the biggest. At the moment, because I don't have any profits, nor do any profits seem likely in the near term, nor do I have a big enough audience to crowd out some for-profit creator, I don't have any personal worries about copyright from my current use of AI. It brings me joy. But for the moment, my media presence is still just a few minor 3D bits on Youtube, with no AI. My Youtube channel consists of one animated crystal ball displaying a landscape scene, one toy car race, and one stylized warrior riding a battle ostrich. And I don't even know how to get to it most of the time. I don't have a tic toc channel, any Amazon presence, or a Diomede web page - I do have a DeviantArt page called DiomedeLarnin with some of my AI experiments and workflows, but it is the free DA level so I can't post any animation tests (my coffee cup spilling is not ready for prime time anyway).
But I can dream of being a creator with all that stuff - web page, youtube channel, tic toc, etc.. If I ever do have those things, I would want my creations to all be fully compliant with appropriate legal standards for public domain, or licensed use from rightful owners, or personal creations. Cue the MakeHuman add-on for Blender (license explicitly stated in asset library so i limit myself to public domain creative commons. Cue my personal meshes for Brash and Moxie. Cue any LORAs I make for a claymation style for my silly 3-fingered Rankin/Bass style figures. For personal reasons, I would want to have full confidence that what I was doing was on the up and up.
But some people think AI is inherently illegal or unethical. To them no use of it is ever OK. I disagree. ETHICS = Property Rights. To the crowd that says 'AI is theft,' or 'AI will destroy all the jobs,' all I can say is that you have a steep burden to persuade me if you are only repeating '...what everyone says.' Cite some law and some economics. (1) I was valedictorian speaker for my law school class, and (2) I was an expert research economist for the Congressional Research Service. Sorry, it may be arrogant of me, but I am not persuaded by '...I read it on the internet,' not even if the article was in a newspaper. In fact, some of the newspapers have become worse than some idiot in the basement. Theft is theft, wherever it occurs. Some AI is theft, but that is the user, not inherent in AI. Using things for which are (1) your property, (2) the property of someone else from whom you got permission, or (3) in the public domain is not theft. No, no it is not theft. Sorry, stop saying false equivelance or speaking of people's souls. That aint law, and theft is a legal concept. It is true that AI has thrown a lot of the practices and standards upon which the public domain rested up in the air because calculations that were not practical before now are, and we are all waiting for various countries to redraw their lines distinguishing public domain from exclusive property rights. The big example is sorting out their copyright laws, and then negotiating treaties explaining to what extent they will recognize each other's decisions. But that had to happen after recording devices were able to pair with radio broadcasts - to what extent did NBC and Bing Crosby own their broadcasts and to what extent could they stop people from recording them, integrating it into their own act, and re-broadcasting?. And once every speakeasy can have a radio, all live musicians will lose their jobs, right? Um, no. We worked it out. That was a century ago, but we act like law and technology don't adjust. We will work out AI and the public domain. Some of the 'working out' will be done through regulatory changes (legally restricting access), but some will be done by changes in technology - physically restricting access. And Hollywood has already issued some examples - See MoonValley's Marey.
https://time.com/7300636/ai-hollywood-moonvalley-marey/
I hear that! While I don't want to give my artistic or animation side of things over to an AI (why should I let it have My fun, right?!!!) I am not at all against its use except when folks use it to 'steal' someone else's hard work.
@Wendy, Oh my dear! When Blender can give me Rosie hair... I might just follow you on that path. But to me, Daz Studio ROCKS!!!
I can let my art department (Daz 3D) work away on making cool conceptual art for me. When they deliver it to me, I simply plop it into DS and it looks Great!
So then I use my Premier Geometry Sculptor to fashion their Concept Art into something more to my needs. Something More Rosie!!! :)
@Dartanbeck, one thing we can all agree on... Rosie Rocks!