Animators Club for Carrara wip thread . First animation, Week 1 . The Final Gesture.

mmoir

Hey Guys,

  Diomede, I like the name of the story.

For people who want to animate the different parts of Diomede's  The Final Gesture we should decide on a few things.

1. The resolution of the animation. Is 1280x720 okay.?

2. We could us a 24fps  framerate.

3. Also, for the figure we should use something everyone has access to.  In Carrara's Smart content tab we could use LJ boots and JS pants.  Is this okay.

I will try the opening scene and post a clip later on.  

 

 

wgdjohn

Mike,  I feel so badly... I've spent a bit of today on a nice image to map onto the gravestone I sent you earlier. Most of the day, evening, night and now early morning I've spent trying to figure out how to apply it to the gravestone... seems I need to bone up on UV mapping. :(  Bone up is a poor word since I've not even applied an image to an object before... perhaps I'll regroup in the morning and crank up my Phil Wilkes tutorial explaining how. Wait... I believe you show how for your "eyedropper" tutorial.

Anyway I apologize for not getting it together in time.  BTW the image I created is 512x512. Please let me know if that is too small... I had originally figured on 1024x1024 but wanted to keep the size down in case it would affect the animation size or speed.

I do hope that you keep doing these "Create A Simple Animation Every Week" as I intend to be back once I figure out what I'm doing wrong.

mmoir

Hey wgdjohn,

   That is okay.  Here are some steps to apply a tmap to the tombstone.

1.Select the "tombstone" in the scene

2. Go to the Texture room by clicking the "brush" icon.

3. Go to the very top of the Shader Tree and change MultiChannel to Layers list by using the dropdown list.

4.Scroll down to the very  bottom of the shader tree on the right side.

5. Click the "+" in the circle and choose "Basic Layer."

6.Select the Basic Layer , then right click on the blue "Basic layer " text. and choose "Flat Mapping" from the dropdown menu.

7.Next In the Basic layer change the Shader value from "None" to "Multichannel"

8. In the Multichannels Color channel apply your Texture Map.

9.Go to Flatmapping channel of the shader and look on the right side of the shader tree. You have a bunch of options as to which side of a cube the Tmap will be applied to . Select one until the tmap is applied correctly.   I chose the third icon from the left or Front Mapping.

 I hope this helps.

 

Also , the 1024X1024 should be okay.

 

wgdjohn

Thanks Mike,  Thanks to your instructions I was able to recreate the text as 1024x1024 and apply it to the object. I would have gotten it done earlier but ran into a different problem, not Carrara related.

After all was done I noticed that the text was a bit small. I'll enlarge it and send another zip of the .car file if I get it more satisfactory to myself.

I'll be linking my woes and your instructions to my Shader Creating & Settings for Carrara - Q&A - Come One, Come All thread for others to benefit from.

Again... thanks for all your help... I'd never tried "Layers List" before either... cool learnt 2 things already today.

wgdjohn

Mike,  Some bigger and better text for the gravemarker. Let me know if you want the gravemarker itself again or as a shader.

mmoir

wgdjohn,   it is good to learn 2 things in one day.

wgdjohn said:

Again... thanks for all your help... I'd never tried "Layers List" before either... cool learnt 2 things already today.

 

 

wgdjohn

Mike,  Excuse me for bothering you again...  Just tonight I discovered that all the files are located on page 1 in your first post.  I kinda wonder if I belong here at all. I've only created a few very simple animations in the past. I have your Animation exercises to try.  marked because I mean to get back there once I find a break. At the moment I'm delving deep into modeling, shaders and terrains. I've been entering the Carrara Challenges since early this year in order to learn creating scenes as well as diving into features, tools and render options of Carrara I've neglected to explore since owning version 4, 5, 6, 8.1 and now 8.5 all Pro of course. My mistakes have been not taking an active part in the Forums until last Fall and thinking that I could learn Carrara without any additional aid other than the manual and what I learned in Imagine3D for the Amiga starting back in the 90s.

Ok... better get to the point.  Do you mind me hanging out and providing only objects for now?  Perhaps I could be part of the Props Dept. :)

Questions about the scene file: You likely know about these already.

1. There are 2 missing texture files for Dist Grass shader. These are "grass.jpg" and "Tombstone Bum.jpg". Are they yet to come or shall I come up with something?
2. The 2 Tombstones in the background move from start to end of keyframes... no big deal I should be able to fix them easily. Should I give it a go?

 Pardon my silly questions.

Dartanbeck

mmoir said:

Hey wgdjohn,

   That is okay.  Here are some steps to apply a tmap to the tombstone.

1.Select the "tombstone" in the scene

2. Go to the Texture room by clicking the "brush" icon.

3. Go to the very top of the Shader Tree and change MultiChannel to Layers list by using the dropdown list.

4.Scroll down to the very  bottom of the shader tree on the right side.

5. Click the "+" in the circle and choose "Basic Layer."

6.Select the Basic Layer , then right click on the blue "Basic layer " text. and choose "Flat Mapping" from the dropdown menu.

7.Next In the Basic layer change the Shader value from "None" to "Multichannel"

8. In the Multichannels Color channel apply your Texture Map.

9.Go to Flatmapping channel of the shader and look on the right side of the shader tree. You have a bunch of options as to which side of a cube the Tmap will be applied to . Select one until the tmap is applied correctly.   I chose the third icon from the left or Front Mapping.

 I hope this helps.

 

Also , the 1024X1024 should be okay.

 

See what I mean by all of the Nice things I Say about Mike?

 Damn, that's some nice bit of instruction right there! He does this stuff in his tutorials, too. Didn't even pay for it... he just goes - Oh by the way... we want it to look good, right? Let's build a shader! Boom!

Mike, Moir, You ROCK!!!

wgdjohn

Dart, I still have to finish Mike's Carrara Modeling Tutorials - A Must Have for anyone who models objects.  The first time I watched Mike make that Pencil I didn't know enough yet... needed to re-learn what I'd forgotten about the Model Room in Carrara. Finally now have a bunch of objects under my belt and feel confident I can recreate the pencil then I'm off to wach his other two.. the Eydropper bottle and the Cup.

mmoir

Hey wgdjohn, 

  Everyone is welcome to participate in whatever capacity they want.  You can do only modeling if thats all you want to do but you can also try to animate a scene too.  It is up to you.

 I guess I forgot to save the Texture Maps Internally when saving the .car file which is why the 2 t-maps you mention aren't there.

Maybe I will upload another .car file where things don't move and include your tombstone so people have a complete scene to start animating with.  By all means give animating a go. 

wgdjohn said:

Mike,  Excuse me for bothering you again...  Just tonight I discovered that all the files are located on page 1 in your first post.  I kinda wonder if I belong here at all. I've only created a few very simple animations in the past. I have your Animation exercises to try.  marked because I mean to get back there once I find a break. At the moment I'm delving deep into modeling, shaders and terrains. I've been entering the Carrara Challenges since early this year in order to learn creating scenes as well as diving into features, tools and render options of Carrara I've neglected to explore since owning version 4, 5, 6, 8.1 and now 8.5 all Pro of course. My mistakes have been not taking an active part in the Forums until last Fall and thinking that I could learn Carrara without any additional aid other than the manual and what I learned in Imagine3D for the Amiga starting back in the 90s.

Ok... better get to the point.  Do you mind me hanging out and providing only objects for now?  Perhaps I could be part of the Props Dept. :)

Questions about the scene file: You likely know about these already.

1. There are 2 missing texture files for Dist Grass shader. These are "grass.jpg" and "Tombstone Bum.jpg". Are they yet to come or shall I come up with something?
2. The 2 Tombstones in the background move from start to end of keyframes... no big deal I should be able to fix them easily. Should I give it a go?

 Pardon my silly questions.

 

mmoir

Hey wgdJohn,

  Here is the link to the updated complete scene file to animate with.  I have the timeline set  to start at 1:04 seconds, nothing should move after that and you should be able to animate with this file.

The scene file link.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-aBvxIlPU5GWWo4YS0tTmo1S1k

wgdjohn

Thanks Mike... got it. I've also created a link to here in my Modeling Objects in Carrara - Q&A - Come One and All as well as the one I have going for Carrara Shaders that I mentioned earlier.

Dartanbeck

mmoir said:

Hey wgdJohn,

  Here is the link to the updated complete scene file to animate with.  I have the timeline set  to start at 1:04 seconds, nothing should move after that and you should be able to animate with this file.

The scene file link.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-aBvxIlPU5GWWo4YS0tTmo1S1k

Do you mean: Don't animate between 0:00 and 1:04?

mmoir

Hey Dart,

  Yes, you are right.  I originally set my first animation to start at 1.04 sec .  Basically , the scene is not set up properly from 0:00 to 1:03 with some objects in the wrong place etc.At 1:04 the objects are in the right location .   

mmoir

Hey guys,

  I animated the first couple of scenes as per Diomede's storyline, there is a few little issues but I am not too worried about it.  I should mention I changed the "Light" shadows to Shadow Buffer instead of Raytraced, I used 2046X2046 with 1.0 for blur and .05 for bias. If anyone wants to animate some scenes using the Shadow buffer speeds up the rendering quite a bit. 

Here is a link to the video,no sound yet.

mmoir

Here is Diomede's list of what still needs to be animated if you want to give it a try.

1. Hear sneaze, ground/stone shake, butterfly float off

.Butterfly return to stone, short pause, birds chirping

2 .Second sneeze (louder), ground shake, butterfly float off

Butterfly return to stone, short pause bird chirping,

3. Violent sneeze (loudest), ground shake, stone almost fall over, butterfly fly out of frame

4. Skeleton hand dig out of ground

Skeleton hand grab flowers and throw out of frame

(optional violation of TOS by having skeleton hand offer gesture toward feet that walked away)

5.Skeleton hand return to ground

Butterfly return to stone, birds chirp.

(Can shorten by reducing number of sneezes)

wgdjohn

Mike,  Looks great!

What about the Hand gesture as figure walks off?   Would be part of "4." and just before the tossing of flowers.  I think that it makes more of a statement and the flowers being tossed emphasizes it.

mmoir

wgdjohn, 

  Either way works for me. Before or after the flowers get tossed is up  to whomever does , after a little thought maybe before does make more of a statement.   .

DUDU

OK, I have not so much time, but if I can help for something, ask me...

mmoir

Hey Dudu,

You can choose any of the 5 scenes in the post 3 posts up from this post.  Below is the link to the Carrara scene file.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-aBvxIlPU5GWWo4YS0tTmo1S1k

 

I should mention I changed the "Light" shadows to Shadow Buffer instead of Raytraced, I used 2046X2046 with 1.0 for blur and .05 for bias. If anyone wants to animate some scenes using the Shadow buffer speeds up the rendering quite a bit. 

 

DUDU

If nobody else already does it, I'll take 1,2 and 3, there is the same work for the three scenes.

DUDU

OK, here is the link to download the first (or second?) scene with a draft render in the file.

Tell me if it's what you want.

http://mhdproductions.be/Carrarators/AnimClubWeek1Scene1.zip

mmoir

Hey Dudu,

  You did a really good job with the butterfly animation, it is very believable, perfect actually.    I like the rocking motion of the tombstone as well.

  The only thing I would maybe do is have the ground move beneath the Tombstone/Headstone right before the butterfly flies off.  I added morph targets to the grass so this should be very easy to do.  In the carrara file if you select the "Grass source with Morphs" object and look under the General tab for the "Sneeze" and "Sneeze2" morphs you will find the morph sliders which will move the grass .  

 Also , for the largest sneeze(scene 3) I think we should see the flowers on the ground as well as the tombstone but it really is up to you.  

Great job on this.

 

mmoir

Hey Guys,

   I finished off the animation part of our Animations Clubs first animation. Dudu , I used your first animation as a base for the 2nd and 3rd sneezes.  Diomede , if you have the Title animation you were working on done can you upload the file of it?

 Also , if someone wants to do the sound for this animation just speak up . I will post the video link shortly so you can sync the sound to the video.

You can download the video file here.https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-aBvxIlPU5GS1lVUmJhdXpGWWM

Here is the video.

wgdjohn

Looking good Mike.

Dartanbeck

Fantastic!!!

Yo Kakman! Can you sound this thing up? ;)

mmoir

Hey Diomede,

I am wondering if you finished the Opening Title sequence for the "The Final Gesture" animation we were working on.  In your one post you mentioned you had a carrara file , you posted jpegs of your text but not the carrara file.  If you could upload the carrara files we can finish this animation off.

Thanks,

Diomede

Oh, hey, sorry.  Will provide the file later tonight.

Diomede

I'm trying to figure out how to attach a zip file.  This is a test.  It should include a file called TextFinalGesture2 which has 3 morph zones and a half dozen morphs.  I've never tried to upload a zip fle before so let me know if this doesn't work.

.

mmoir

Diomede ,

  Yes, I opened the zip file and it works .  I will animate the text and add it to the begining of the animation.

Thanks