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The "Animators Assemble!" thread for Daz animation WIPs, clips, and tips

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 22,089
    edited May 4

    More:

    I normally animate tons of motions to a particular theme based on a story that's rolling around in my head. So I have a pretty good idea of where the video is going.

    When I feel that I have a good selection to make a video from, that's when I fire up Magix Music Maker and start building music that makes me feel the right attitude of what I've been animating. Having Music Maker for many years now, I've collected a nice assortment of commercially licensed soundpools - so when I create the music, I can put my name on it. 

    Being a drummer myself, I often begin with percussion, but not always. Sometimes I just have some kind of a beat in my head and I start building in other ways - it really depends on the feel that I'm after. For example, I might want some soft strings playing mysteriously, so that will be where I being and start evolving the rest of the instruments around them. Other times it might be the guitar that's my driving force, or a specific bass sound that I'm after. When it comes to creating the music, it's always a new experience starting something completely different. Of course, there are also times when I revisit themes to extend them to further a story arc along.

    The music video shorts that I made recently were created using ComfyUI, where I get a lot less control over everything - so I still prefer building my own from scratch using Music Maker - but ComfyUI is fun too, always being surprised on what comes out the other end! :)

     

    Music Maker is also very powerful  for making modular tracks that can fit right next to each other on the timeline when making a movie. This way I can have a full theme, a looping chunk of the prominent 'feel' of the theme, and emotional changes that take us either into or out of of the 'modules' of the music, and I can then edit the movie together emotionally.

     

    The big trick with foley, as I'm sure you already know, is to Not overdo it. Just because it looks like something should make sound doesn't mean that it needs to be realized - yet, if we're focusing on that thing, and it really should be making noise (like the camera tracking footsteps along the ground, for example) we better put some foley there!

    In that example, which is a common sound to add, for footsteps that are being focused on I'll use a sound file of footsteps on the appropriate material. I use DaVinci Resolve, but I'm still a noob at Fairlight Audio in many ways - so I do most of this stuff in the Edit page. I'll chop the footsteps audio track into single, individual footsteps, keep a few and discard the rest, drag them all out of the way and copy one of them.

    Then I play the video forward to just before I should start hearing the sound and paste it in and align it to sound right with the visuals on screen. Skip ahead a few steps visually and paste it again - depending on how many footsteps I need. Then I can go copy another and repeat that, keeping them from not repeating that same pattern each time, then repeat that with the third and final sound (using three as an example), then just go back and make sure that I like what I see and hear together.

     

    Because of the way I make my music tracks, I often find myself editing the video with music first - so I get the feel and timing right visually. So then, when I need to do foley I may mute those music tracks so that I can focus more intently on the sound effects.

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • wsterdanwsterdan Posts: 3,443

    Tugpsx said:

    Wow lots of great information here. Love the stuff we are able to do with Daz and augmentation. Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing. 
    Keep an eye out for Foley deals on Humble Bundle. I picked up some great packs in the past for a few bucks. They work great in Davinci Resolve and other editors. 

    Great idea on the Humble Bundles, I've bought a few over the years but don't monitor them too closely unless I'm looking for something specific, I'll keep 'em in mind. 

  • FrankTheTankFrankTheTank Posts: 1,565

    @wsterdan, the animation you are doing with AI is with a local installation or are you using an online free or paid service? I tried installing Pinokio Wan2GP locally, but my video card is just not up to snuff to handle it. 

  • wsterdanwsterdan Posts: 3,443

    Dartanbeck said:

    More:

    I normally animate tons of motions to a particular theme based on a story that's rolling around in my head. So I have a pretty good idea of where the video is going.

    When I feel that I have a good selection to make a video from, that's when I fire up Magix Music Maker and start building music that makes me feel the right attitude of what I've been animating. Having Music Maker for many years now, I've collected a nice assortment of commercially licensed soundpools - so when I create the music, I can put my name on it. 

    Being a drummer myself, I often begin with percussion, but not always. Sometimes I just have some kind of a beat in my head and I start building in other ways - it really depends on the feel that I'm after. For example, I might want some soft strings playing mysteriously, so that will be where I being and start evolving the rest of the instruments around them. Other times it might be the guitar that's my driving force, or a specific bass sound that I'm after. When it comes to creating the music, it's always a new experience starting something completely different. Of course, there are also times when I revisit themes to extend them to further a story arc along.

    The music video shorts that I made recently were created using ComfyUI, where I get a lot less control over everything - so I still prefer building my own from scratch using Music Maker - but ComfyUI is fun too, always being surprised on what comes out the other end! :)

     

    Music Maker is also very powerful  for making modular tracks that can fit right next to each other on the timeline when making a movie. This way I can have a full theme, a looping chunk of the prominent 'feel' of the theme, and emotional changes that take us either into or out of of the 'modules' of the music, and I can then edit the movie together emotionally.

     

    The big trick with foley, as I'm sure you already know, is to Not overdo it. Just because it looks like something should make sound doesn't mean that it needs to be realized - yet, if we're focusing on that thing, and it really should be making noise (like the camera tracking footsteps along the ground, for example) we better put some foley there!

    In that example, which is a common sound to add, for footsteps that are being focused on I'll use a sound file of footsteps on the appropriate material. I use DaVinci Resolve, but I'm still a noob at Fairlight Audio in many ways - so I do most of this stuff in the Edit page. I'll chop the footsteps audio track into single, individual footsteps, keep a few and discard the rest, drag them all out of the way and copy one of them.

    Then I play the video forward to just before I should start hearing the sound and paste it in and align it to sound right with the visuals on screen. Skip ahead a few steps visually and paste it again - depending on how many footsteps I need. Then I can go copy another and repeat that, keeping them from not repeating that same pattern each time, then repeat that with the third and final sound (using three as an example), then just go back and make sure that I like what I see and hear together.

     

    Because of the way I make my music tracks, I often find myself editing the video with music first - so I get the feel and timing right visually. So then, when I need to do foley I may mute those music tracks so that I can focus more intently on the sound effects.

    wow, thanks so much for the info! Very, very much appreciated, and good tips, too! 

  • wsterdanwsterdan Posts: 3,443
    edited May 5

    FrankTheTank said:

    @wsterdan, the animation you are doing with AI is with a local installation or are you using an online free or paid service? I tried installing Pinokio Wan2GP locally, but my video card is just not up to snuff to handle it. 

    I'm currently using OpenArt with their various tools and models, mainly for the convenience and simplified layout. I Spent some time trying Pinokio and ComfyUI locally, but I ran into issues with my Mac, either not getting it to use 16-bit with different engines or running out of GPU RAM (I had roughly 40 GB). For now, I've got an annual subscription for another 10-11 months that I'm going to use, but I'm still peeking at other options. If I could have gotten ComfyUI to work – even slowly – I would have put a future M5Pro with 128 RAM in the future budget, but I just couldn't get it happening well enough. 

    Post edited by wsterdan on
  • KrevivalProduccionsKrevivalProduccions Posts: 8

    Hi everyone! 

    I’d like to share my new work, "Parapapam!, a short film about a girl playing the drums and... a little twist. Let me know what you think of the animation (it was pretty tricky and the result isn’t perfect, but it’s the best I could do, it was quite complicated xDD).

    It’s available on YouTube. The language is Catalan, but English subtitles are available. The voice was recorded by a friend. I didn’t use any AI at any point in the short film.

    Video de YouTube

    I hope someone enjoys it. Cheers! ^^

    Link:

    https://youtu.be/LsDgNxDQGDU?si=dtIDb87qsgaxX0Up

  • ImagoImago Posts: 5,728

    Nice to see something done with own effort with no AI or premade animations! laugh

  • wsterdanwsterdan Posts: 3,443

    KrevivalProduccions said:

    Hi everyone! 

    I’d like to share my new work, "Parapapam!, a short film about a girl playing the drums and... a little twist. Let me know what you think of the animation (it was pretty tricky and the result isn’t perfect, but it’s the best I could do, it was quite complicated xDD).

    It’s available on YouTube. The language is Catalan, but English subtitles are available. The voice was recorded by a friend. I didn’t use any AI at any point in the short film.

    Video de YouTube

    I hope someone enjoys it. Cheers! ^^

    Link:

    https://youtu.be/LsDgNxDQGDU?si=dtIDb87qsgaxX0Up

    Very nicely done! That was lots of fun, and very impressive animation! 

  • csaacsaa Posts: 1,009

    wsterdan said:

    Bit of fun on a Sunday morning, it's the toonified Creeper, Moira and a toonified Cryptozoic Worm by Antfarm https://www.daz3d.com/cryptozoic-worm

    If pressing the image doesn't lauch the video, it can also be found here: https://sterdan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Dont-touch-the-EGG.mp4

    wsterdan,

    Bravo! That was fun to watch. smiley

    Cheers! 

  • wsterdanwsterdan Posts: 3,443

    csaa said:

    wsterdan said:

    Bit of fun on a Sunday morning, it's the toonified Creeper, Moira and a toonified Cryptozoic Worm by Antfarm https://www.daz3d.com/cryptozoic-worm

    If pressing the image doesn't lauch the video, it can also be found here: https://sterdan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Dont-touch-the-EGG.mp4

    wsterdan,

    Bravo! That was fun to watch. smiley

    Cheers! 

    Thanks, the little clips are fun to do. 

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