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Mike, May I ask what program you used to create the Storyboard? No need for an answer right away.
Sounds like cool idea. I had thought about a 2nd title subtitle, like Part 2 like "Spooky Night - Don't Go Into the Woods at Night" or instead of at Night "After Dark". I didn't mention it before since it was a bit long everyone seemed busy. No loss to me. Oooh a shorter one could be "Enter at Own Risk". Excuse my busy little mind.
Keep coming up with ideas - it's healthy
Hey Dart, I will update the first post and add your name to animate panel 1 & 3. Wow, dart you are ambitous.
DesertDude, just do your best . I will play with the cat last on my scene 6 animation.
wgdjohn, I used photopaint to create the storyboard . Far from ideal but it worked . I should create a blank story board with all the panels there but blank. Maybe I will upload a blank storyboard for our next animation clubs animation.
Mike, Darn... I would have used PageStream, I have Pro, for DTP... it can do text boxes and load graphics... I think that it will save as both .jpeg and .png. I could have imported an Illustrator or Postscript file. I've been thinking to create a page with preset boxes on it for text and places above them for the images. When/if I get it done I'll upload it to the Animation Club thread.
Folks, I just updated my welcome page at my website with a Halloween theme... go to Nevendöre Greetings page to see it... wasn't done in Carrara this year... currently I used a digital pic of our farm darkened in PSP, another digital pic for the sky, some clip art and then Javascript for the animation.
wgdjohn, cool opening page for your site. Well done.
I am waiting for a preliminary rendering of the scene 6 animation to finish and was thinking about the filesizes of the finished animation clilps at 1280x720,30fps. These files are going to be huge and I don't know the best way to deal with uploading these movie clips for the person putting together the final video to use. (Dart.)
I am thinking uploading compressed final videos(3-4mb) or the person who puts the final video together would have to render them all out . (not ideal at all) . If we use compressed finals for each scene will the final finished video look okay? I use Handbrake to reduce the final video down to a very useable filesize but from what I recall compressing a compressed file can make filesizes go up.
If anyone has any thoughts on this please let us know.
Thanks
Okay guys, here is a low res animation done at 6fps at 640X480. I think I may reduce the number of leaves blowing and somehow light the cat a little more but other than that it is okay.. Once the howling wind sound and rustling leaves sounds get added I think it will look pretty good. I also have to find a way to make it render a little quicker.
Nice! Why don't you just put the file up and I'll render it! ;)
Also, Antara put up some storyboard forms for the CCMP way back then Here
I really don't see why we'd need to make our little club buy stroyboarding software - but that's my opinion.
What I meant is that you could set the render room up how you'r like the final render to be, save it, and pass along the CAR file.I'll have to look into Handbrake some time. I save all of my animations to Full Frames, so they get quite large. Does Handbrake work on those as well?
Looks great mmoir!
I am just emerging from my Carrara cave here. I think I saw the cat in the foreground, so don't know if you need any more cat animation. After about 36 hours I managed to create a walk cycle that looks pretty awful...really stiff and like he's stepping over hot stones at the same time. Well, anyway, a massive horizon to improve it , the model, how its articulated, the rig, argh, what have you all got me into now?
I had a cat that walked just like that!!! :D
Nice job Man, stuff isn't easy, you know. There's a good reason I stick with purchased content - but I'm consistently impressed with what this community puts out! You guys amaze the heck out of me - always!!!
I spent some time a while back (broke artist that I am) searching around for free quadruped animation files. I found a few... not sure where anymore. I don't usually use them as they are, but more as an assistant to get me started.
Other times, like you're doing, I just start from scratch and go for it. When I do that, I always start off with Linear tweeners, so I get a clear representation of what really happens between major poses. Only then will I change some of them to Bezier, if that tweener helps me get what I want.
GoFigure got me to start using Linear for their aniBlocks. I have a wonderful collection of those for my people. In my AniMating in Carrara I talk about using bits and pieces of aniBlocks, deleting the rest, and making NLA clips to store the results. Using Linear tweeners to tweak out my own actions between where I've deleted a bunch of frames has proven to work (for me) much better than constantly trying to counter the behavior of a Bezier curved interpolation.
Okay, now I'm getting too deep! Your animation is fine! It really is!
Animation is something I can ramble on and on about without actually ever saying anything that anyone else can understand in the end! LOL But I can say that I've learnt a LOT from loading other animated pose files and aniBlocks, and looking closely at Everything going on all over the figure - which led me to write Carranimation Part 1 - Rotation of the Hip.
Endeavoring to make semi realistic movies can be maddening ad rewarding at the same time!
In case I've babbled too much... I just always like to help anyone looking for ideas in animating.
But I'd really like to point out that I really do like the animation you've made for that cat!!! Very nice job on the whole thing!
Would you be willing to share the animated cat file?
Mike, Looks very good so far. Would 1024x768 make the size more manageable? Below are a few suggestions... I've no idea if they are doable or how good they might work.
IMO... there are too many leaves blowing over entire screen... they need to be lower blowing leaves which do not cover the moon/cat or witch... probably ankle or thigh height would be better. I barely made out the scene. Also perhaps the branches/trees moving/swaying could be cut down which should also make the file size smaller. I'd not pictured such a strong wind...could trees not move but only a "few" branches slightly? Regarding lighting... I would add 1 or 2 lights, spot?, for the cat, one behind and a bit above to make moonlight glisten off of cat outline, top of head/back/tale... possibly one in front at "very" low setting to bring up a tad but no light in front will likely work. Only time that I noticed the witch was near end... walking across corridor opening of trees... might add another spot light, from above/behind, for witch like for cat for highlight. For each light cat/witch I would have them only shine on each only... perhaps broom also... whatever works. Regarding "render time"... I'm sure you know this but turn off any render settings which don't effect the render. I do turn on gamma correction set at 2.2... "Compatibility Shadows" mode I leave off since it does take a long time... I've never seen any positive results that having it on creates.
Silly me... all the above is easily said for someone who does so little animation. Wish I could help in that aspect... perhaps one day. For that matter I've only recently, last winter, been learning Carrara render settings and much more. I thank Phil Wilkes, mmoir, Dartanbeck and many many more for what I do know.
Thanks for the compliment about my website's "welcome" page.
For that, I suppose I could diminish the leaves as we get further into the scene... but with the wind gust sound, I like the leaves blowing heavily at the beginning. Heck, I like the whole thing!
The witch comes in around 17:00, where we might want to have her a little closer - and either extend the scene to show a bit more of an entrance, or just have her come in a little earlier.
It's tough. We need to see those leaves at the beginning - or even start blowing around just shortly after the beginning of this cut...
we also need to be able to get a good focus on the skeleton and the cauldron - which I think we have already... but if we calm the leaves - at least for a second or two, we might get a better look at the cauldron.
So we could:
If (if) we wish to make these (or other) changes to the scene, I'd be happy to perform the tweaks if you wanted to go ahead and start on Panel 8?
Just an offer ;)
Updated cat rig
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7907045/Cat_G6_rigged.car
rescaled the model to "roughly" cat size
Re-rigged,. with contraints,. (probably not correct limits)
Rebuilt morphs for the Eyes closed,. and individual Left / Right eyeclose / wink/blink.
changed the default model with the mouth open, and added a morph for Mouth open. and a slightly more open screamy mouth
Added morphs for eyes (look left / right / Up / Down)
Thanks Dartanbeck for the kind words of encouragement. I have very little experience animating, especially figures and living things. Seems like another art that requires a near lifetime to study. I will check out your threads, I know I have seen references to them sprinkled throughout the forums, so, thanks! You can never babble too much or get in too deep, any and all info and references are appreciated.
Sure, with a thousand apologetic explanations. I did consult the almighty Google and looked at various cat rigs and YouTube videos to get started. Right off the bat my model wasn't properly modeled to bend or walk naturally like a cat without breaking it. And the Target Helpers I think turned out to be an unnecessary added layer of complexity, but mid disaster I recalled reading somewhere they can help keep feet pinned to the ground or something, so I had the IK goals track target helpers but in retrospect I don't think that was needed. Yeah, I used linear tweeners - I didn't even get into any refinement with the graph editor. And pay no attention to the mislabeled bone names - they were pretty arbitrary just looking at illustrations of cat skeletons...
I'll consult some of your threads and topics and probably start a new model now that I have some idea of where I went wrong. Also experiment with rigs and IK with just bones to start. Also Constraints confuse me. Heck it all confuses me! Lol!
Those are offered according to John's coments, however.
IMHO, the scene looks fantastic as it is - knowing that the above "Better View" of everything will come in Panel 8, just before the Witch attacks us! :D
The only thing for me is that the scene we're being drawn to is so far to the bottom of the screen, then the moon is high to the top of the screen, with the far away witch just starting to show in the final three seconds - far away from where our eyes are being trained to look.
However, as the scene is progressing, according to the storyboard, we'll still be 'hearing' the witch's approach so we'll kind of already be knwoing of her coming. Sound will make a HUGE difference.
So with all of that said - and this being an incredibly short, fun project... I'm delighted with the panel scene as is.
I think these are good suggestions, also knowing these are just tests at the moment. I tried a few things to lighten the scene while keeping it dark. But first, I apologize for the weird render artifacts, I didn't even notice the first few times I opened the scene, but strangely some elements are rendering invisible and cutting and clipping out objects in the scene. I tried turning everything off one by one, but to no avail, so, maybe it's because I'm still using Carara 8.1? I don't know what I am missing, but anyway, aside from that, I turned off the realistic sky and added a bi gradient to the background. I then turned the moonlight into a regular distant light, and added a light dome of 30 replicated distant lights, bluish color (R=69 G=11 B=240), no cast shadows, value 12% with a point modifier to the middle of the scene and excluded some objects from that light dome.
Mike,. that quick pre-vis looks fine,. the camera motion is perhaps a little bit slow right now
Motion blur on the leaves,. should help too,.
John,. if you model a little leaf (or load one from the browser) add that to a particle system, set to emit particles from the ground object,. then set up a flow force to make the leaves move around in the wind.
I've been playing around with the title idea , with metaball particles.
For compression,. H264 Mp4 for the final youtube , and wherever possible,.keep uncompressed working images,. Zip them as sequences, or something like quicktime .Mov files with alpha,.
I can upload any sequences or clips I make to my Dropbox account, then Dart, or whoever is compositing/editing can download from there.
It is a little robotic but the timing of the feet look great and the tail is nice too. I am sue you learned lots doing this ,nice work. For scene 6 what I have is fine I think .
3dage, I did the leaves as you described and I will look at blurring the leaves. I am always thinking of render times so I am leary of adding complexity to the leaves. Your title looks awesome.
The third one looks really nice.
Hey Dart, The changes you suggest to make do make sense but I think we have to speed up the creation of the scenes. I will see how quick this renders out at the larger size but I think I will move on to the next panel, not sure which yet. I will upload the scene 6 carrara file shortly.
Okay , here is the carrara file for the Scene 6 panel . Hopefully the forums here allow a fairly large zip file (30mb), no go . I guess I will upload a link shortly.
Here is the Scene6 carrara file. I may condense the animation a bit like 3dage suggested which would make the camera movement a little faster, right now it runs from 0-20seconds.
I just did a test render using "blur" on the leaves and it was 44seconds a frame with the leaves blowing around. This time is not bad but still works out to 7.33 hours to render out the animation at 1280x720 at 30fps. The beginning frames should render quicker.
Desert Dude :)
They added "fast mip map" as the default for Texture map setting,.
it looks like some of the tree's may have texture maps which aren't loading correctly in 8.1
have a look in the shader room ,. see if it's using a texture and try changing the setting to "sampling"
Nice work on the Cat walk cycle animation, .. try using bezier tweeners, it may help, but it's a matter of adjusting keyfames until it looks right.
the bad news is that I've changed your rig,. sorry :)
but,. they say,.. the more you do it, the easier it gets.
they also say,... you'll go blind if you do it too much.
I'm not sure which to believe,. but it's getting blurry and dark
Oh... noooo.... for me to attempt Panel 8 I'd hold the project up until late Nov or Dec. Judging from how well The Final Gesture worked out, very well, I'm sure this one will look even better... after all Dart's animations are always fun to watch. Ignore my crazy suggestions.
Dart, have you started rendering any of the final animation you were working on? I just started rendering out the scene 6 final and switched to 24 fps but kept the size of1280x720. Let me know if you are okay with rendering at 24fps for the final animations.