Question for Dartanbeck
Pjotter
Posts: 274
You know your stuff, you like it and you are creating a lot of content and instruction videos. But have you ever thought creating something structured for yourself? Like a family or story with several short videos. Let's say Donald Duck as an example. Stories, adventures, etc around a person or group of persons. There are several good books for creating stories. I can name a few if you want.
This is also on top of my head to. Only music is more important to me, so this one goes first. But because I need something visual for my music, I am starting with Carrara again on a small level.
If you have something structured, you develop something in one direction. And maybe submit to film festivals, create subscribers on YouTube, etc. In these days you can create and publish on your own. With easy Carrara, BVH files and Daz content, the sky is the limit. And is a lot of fun.
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+1
Thank you, info2, I am truly honored by your words... I really, really am!
This is the part that puts the nail in the door. I don't really have a decent story to center around. I have many characters developed and ready to rock, many stages are set and ready to bring the action into, bringing the action to the table is probably my favorite part of it all... now my biggest drawback is coming up with my main plot to write my episodes around - in a good story form.
The studio is all ready to record the voice acting... it's all just waiting on me... and I'm always busy trying to do other stuff... the story suffers, and never comes to be. :(
I meant to answer your question here with, Yes... my whole Carrara experience is centered around that thought and, yes, I would love some advice on books! ;)
I have a college course starting in September on just this very thing... getting my stories written. So it is something that is constantly there - being thought about.
I have even written some fun short five-second or so scripts for Rosie and myself to practice with, as far as getting into character and script reading for the voice acting, and I must say... Rosie is a natural and is going to become an even better hero than I've imagined! She's really good!
I'm still a Rock n' Roll drummer/singer and play guitar and bass and write songs as a fun hobby. My latest idea is to take my song-writing into the story-telling realm so that I can get a handle on what this main overall story arc is going to begin with... it shouldn't be long now before my YouTube channel comes alive with more frequent goodies - including my cool new Carrara animation production. So many aspects are ready to go already... I just need that story! I feel it... I do... I just need to see that final vision.
(still quite young, and back when video cameras were way too rich for my blood... but it's a memory I'll never forget: Kixx Wikked at the City Center Theater in 1992, back when I first bought those drums, which I still perform with today - and love 'em!)
That video was taken by who became our Guitarist's wife, then ex-wife, and was published to YouTube by the Bass player in the video, one of my dearest friends. I'm happy to report that each member of Kixx Wikked is still performing music to this day :)
...and here's me now, playing with my current, super-fun band called "Dow Jones"
My singer has become an incredible audio master, built a beautiful recording studio, and provides sound for most events in a wide, surrounding area with many high-end PA systems using the latest and greatest (he can control everything via iPad!
LOL! I made this for posters we needed using Carrara and Predatron's Lorenzo LoRez figures!
clicking image takes you to the Band's FaceBook page
If you've ever seen my crazy YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/Dartanbeck/featured), It might become somewhat obvious that a lot of my uploads are tests from learning my way into all of this. I owe most of my learning to the members (and past or currently in-active members as well) of this forum. PhilW's video courses via Infinite Skills, here at Daz3d, were an amazing compliment to everything, because he teaches about all manner of Carrara things, not knowing what it is that the student is interested in. Which is great, because it answers so many questions that we might not think to ask about!
Dan Ritchie, author of Project Dogwaffle, is a Visual Effects artist. I don't know if he still does it (professionally) or not, but he used to work on stuff like Star Trek Voyager, Starship Troopers... cool stuff like that! Anyways, he has taught me stuff about VFX and I took a course on the subject online, which really opened my eyes to how I can use those methods to speed up my 3d rendering times by having a good grasp of what I can do to it afterwards - which is huge for me - especially since I've spent the last several years working out my shaders/rendering strategies to get my renders done in around a minute per frame - often less. Rare occasions, like heart-felt close-ups (well... any kind of close-up) will slow then down to maybe three to perhaps even four minutes per frame, which is still very acceptable for rare occasions! And by setting the shaders to work with such fast render speeds, the outcome works well for me.
So having new opportunities to make that, already very efficient, rendering work flow even more efficient really rocks! So a lot of my time over the last several years has been studying on my own, learning my way through this whole thing - all with the main underlying dream of producing episodes of movies in full CG Imagery. I'm close enough with my learning stage now to just go ahead and dive into the first few episodes (the plan is to work on several at a time so that they get done closer together in time, while laying the ground work for those to follow) voice recorded. Once that happens, the first episode won't be long after. I've got to a pretty efficient state at the rest of the gig. Music, sounds and foley, animations, rendering, postwork and effects, and then editing it all down to the final cut.
So now I just need to wrap my head around a solid plot to get the ball rolling. Once I do that, the rest of the episode stories will flow much easier.
There are two things involved if you want to this the proper way. First is learning the story telling techniques. There are many books for this. You need this. Many things are very logical, but you will not think of these things if someone else wouldn't tell you.
Search Amazon for writing script, screenwriting (save the cat for instance). Most books can be viewed inside. I always look first at the "Table of Content". If this appeals to me, probably I buy. I have at least a dozen about this. There is not much specific for animation. I have for movies and also for novels. The rules are the same. Like how to create tension (you need this, otherwise boring), plot and how to develop characters.
There is also a series of books at Amazon named: Elements of fiction writing. They are small and very good. I have several of them. Many are for 1 cent + shipping second hand.
If you have several books, I advice you to mark the things in the books that are important, otherwise you will forget. If you have many books, make notes in short of the marked parts in one file. This is my reference and very very helpful.
Second is creating your characters and a very basic direction. For instance a clown who thinks he is funny, or monsters in an abandoned house. From here you develop and add everything that comes into your mind during weeks. Write this down! You need a foundation, otherwise you will feel lost in a large forest and you go every direction without getting anywhere.
If you like space, dinosaurs, clowns and ants, you cannot combine this. You have to make choices otherwise it is not going to work. Once again, start small, maybe only one character you like. From here, build it.
I will post a link of my first (and only) published YouTube video. Never posted this here before. I do not have the time to develop this right now. But it is in the back of my head. First is creating a video clip for my music. This is on a smaller level. The YouTube video is not perfect and has some small errors that an animator will notice, but you will see this has a lot of potential for future development. I have many characters and ideas in my head and on paper. All created in Carrara. I started with one character and wrote every idea down. Even if an idea does not fit with what you got, but it is usable, write it down. Better have too many ideas for your basic plan, the too few.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F385opHKXgc
hey DB, you hadn't been using the REMO drum heads? no way!
Creating one video or multiple, has a different approach. In a one time thing, the main charcater can change at the end. The aggressive main person can end up nice. But you cannot do this with multiple videos. A series. Otherwise you have lost your character. If Sheldon (I assume you know who I mean) becomes normal, it is over. No more fun. No more tension. Sheldon has to stay Sheldon if you want to continue. Very important. One of the things I learned from reading books.
I have accepted, thought through, respected, etc., much criticism regarding this. That was awesome, because it really got me thinking about whether to keep this HD 720p format, jump up higher, increase individual pixel qualities... there's really a lot to consider. I rendered a lot of test sequences at higher resolutions and some at lower. Lower was completely out of the question, and higher (HD 1080p) looks so much more crisp that I almost made that change - but it takes so much longer at render time, the decision was made. If it ever takes off to where higher resolutions are needed, I can always (with the help of a team) switch up.
VFX has saved me from those times when a render is just right, except for one little thing - and that one little thing kills the entire sequence, so I'd go back and fix that one thing and render again. Well sometimes fixing that one thing isn't as simple as poking the object down into the ground - easy peasy. No. Some things that need to be fixed cannot be seen until certain, unknown parts of the sequence take place - invisible in the working environment!
Howler has changed all of that for me. Howler using VFX techniques help me correct these things in a few minutes - perhaps sometimes even a few hours. Much better than blindly rendering over and over again!
A forum pal bought and sent to me the latest edition of Jeremy Birn's Digital Lighting and Rendering book, which is a tremendous help. It was Jeremy who has illustrated the common ways that CGI professionals use to create this Iris Gleam, so I immediately went into my V4 Rosie character, saved as a CAR file, and did a quick edit to her Iris shape to make them concave instead of their default convex curve, which was kinda easy, but I did a very quick job of it - so to do a 'saved' version, I'd need to start over.
Earlier on than the subject of Iris Gleam, Jeremy was talking about light-linking - the process where a light only affects certain (linked) things in the scene - and that it's common to adjust the mood of a scen by linking to the eyes alone. Well in Carrara, we cannot link to specific bones of a rigged figure. Not a real issue because we could just copy the mesh and paste it in separately - Carrara will let us link lights to items that are parented to specific bones!
As it turns out, with the special shaders I made and Arki's modeling, I don't need special light linking... they just work with whatever light is already available. Special tweaking of Highlight and Shininess was the real trick - well... along with this nice eye model!
I've just added this to my characters in early August of this year... so you see how I'm still tweaking even my main figures. But I suppose full production still won't change that either. The cool part is that, even though I now render with full refraction and reflection enabled, it hasn't changed my render times! ;) Love that!
Lots of stuff here - but the one thing that sticks in my mind is the hair in the 1992 video - was that really you on the drums!
Regarding story telling, I think many people come into 3D with a view to making a movie-like presentation. Not to discourage anyone, but that is a HUGE undertaking - just look at the hundreds of people credited for an animated feature! So I would advise either (a) settle on something more modest, like a 5 min short, or (b) create a "trailer" for your full movie. You can include many key scenes and focus on the spectacular (and fun!) ones, and the target of producing say a two min trailer is much more manageable than a full feature. And who knows, if a studio sees your work, they give you a call! (I'm still waiting though...)
LOL! Yup! 1992 is a l o n g time ago!!! My new singer says that the current me blows away the old me on the drums... so, for what that's worth... ;)
Absolutely! I'm constantly studying on the many tasks across the board - realizing along this ride that one person on a professional team might take a few months to do just a small fraction of it! It's really amazing!
Right... originally I had the dream to make at least one feature-length movie. While I still think that I may do that some day... with help... my aspirations have become much more manageable - trust me!
When I say Movie Episodes, I'm not talking about hour-long shows anymore. That's why I'm so interested in buckling down on a good story arc right now - because I'm hoping to make each episode around the length of one song, perhaps plus a little here or there - if the scene requires it.
Believe me when I say that I have crossed many t's and dotted many i's over the years. As loud as I've been in the forums, most of my production material has remained tighly sealed behind the closed door of my office.
evilproducer is supposed to be coming over either next, or the following weekend to hang out for a while - always a treat!!!He has been absent from the forums lately being bogged down in his new role as Director for his community plays! I've seen DVDs of some of his previous works, and he sent me a copy of one of his latest play that he directed instead of acted in... and he did a fanstic job - first time as Director! So he's likely now going to be doing a lot more of that - which is very time-consuming. Anyways...
He is much more realistic about all of this stuff and has some great ideas and I've learned a LOT from him over the years... but I have to say that nobody that I've met so far has a workflow that resembles how I've been treating this stuff. Not that my way is better... heavens no... I'd never say something like that. Just that I think my way is really, really fast! It's mainly a thing of coming up with a standard or set of standards used across the board - basically storing everything in my browser in a special way that allows them all to work together.
For example, the light rig attached to each character is only a set of minor highlights, and require other lights to make the characters look okay during a render. This is specially set up so that I can drag them directly into any of my saved-to-browser sound stages and they look just right! So I have several "Base" scenes with the same sort of lighting found in most of my saved scenes, so that if I don't want extra geometry, I can just drag my characters into any of those to see how threy would look in one of my scenes - without the scene actually being there... silly? Yeah... maybe. I love it though. It's FAST!!
That's one reason why I'm so disinterested in Octane or anything else that would make me switch how I build shaders... I've spent years developing my own way of performing this stuff really fast... and I love the outcome. My episodes will likely look a lot like my Just for Fun test render combobulation, except with a lot more polish, and made with real renders instead of test renders destined for the recycle bin! ;)
Seriously though... you would probably be very amazed if you could see my (now considered little) eight-core machine fly out one of my renders. I go through every single shader in every little thing that I do - and if I can source several like-materials into using a single shader, I do it, and I try to make my shaders not only render fast, but look great after such a fast render - which was an early focus of mine once I got so comfortable working with shaders in Carrara, which I think is incredibly FUN!
Additionally, my lighting is geared for speed as well. Take my EnvironKits, for example. To work better as a preset for casual everyday use and examples, I used 88 lights in the artificial GI light dome. To get it to 88 I use a replication separation of 280 ft in the replicator. When I'm rendering for my own animations, I change the 280 to 980, which gives me 11 lights instead of 88. 88 lights is a good recommendation by another long-lost friend of mine, Tim Payne, which delivers beautiful soft shadows without having to use "Soft Shadows" in the effects tab. It really works beautifully - so I use that in those kits - it looks great! I also set those kits up with a default "Soft Shadow" on the Sun light, which I deactivate for my own uses.
Since watching your "Realistic Rendering" course (actually before that - back when we were talking about your discovery here in the forums) I've switched to using the linear workflow methods you've recommended, but with the twists that I've been using for my own personal use all along - and they seem to have been made for each other - for speed!!!
Ooops... am I babbling again? I think so... oh well. ;)
Dartanbeck, I am under the impression you did not read my two replies. And the discussion is going to be in a different direction as I had in mind when I started it.
Good call! In my babbling... I totally missed them - even though I've been eagerly awaiting them! I think my browser needed to refresh some... gonna go read them right now! brb
I'm not so much into animation - as Phil says, it's to big of a wall to climb for me right now, and i wouldn't want to produce something that didn't look like it had a crew of thousands! (I am incredibly self-critical!)
I would love to produce a graphic novel though, but it's still hugely time intensive. I have the stories, just not the time!
Dart: the key to becoming a writer is quite simple: write. Doesn't really matter what, just do it. Set aside an hour every day (or half an hour, or...) It's obvious looking at your posts that you don't have much trouble putting words on paper.
There are lots of techniqies for telling stories, and I personally advocate something called the Snowflake method, or at least a variant of it. It's basically top-down storytelling. Start off with a basic one line premise- your story in a nutshell. I'm going from one of your renders here:
Dart and rosie land their spaceship in a cave.
And then expand it out to a paragraph: Dart and Rosie have to land their spaceship in a cave because it's been damaged by Fenusian fire and they need to make repairs. Why are the Fenusians shooting at them? The three metric tonnes of Fenusian gold in the cargo hold might have something to do with it . . .
Now we've got the basis of a plot, a potential goodie and baddie (not saying which is which) and a whole bunch of intrigue and unanswered questions. You just keep growing it until you've got enough of an outline that you can sit down and write the words.
The second key to writing is: read. Particularly in the genre you plan to write, but others too. Want to write thrillers? Read James Patterson, Lee Child, Tom Clancy etc. See how they do it. Same principle for other genres. You get the drift.
One thing you ought to get behind is a storytelling technique called "3 act", particularly if you want to write with video in mind. Most TV is 3-act, most movies too, and a lot of novels. It's basically a framework that sets out how the story works, its pacing, when things go wrong or right for our hero etc. its beats and rhythm if you like. You can google the basic structure, then just watch out for the different beats as you watch & read things.
I've got 3 novels under my belt, plus some shorts, novellas and a stack of things that should probably never see the light of day. I'd be happy to act as a sounding board, or an alpha reader, beta reader or whatever you need.
That is very, Very cool! I loved it! Very perfectly named too! ;)
So then it back way off at the very end revealing that you've built your own whole freaking kingdom in Carrara!!! That is so awesome!!!
Sorry to spin the conversation down other paths...
Right! Write down these story ideas! I really have to make better practices of that. I've just bought myself a couple little journals I can keep with me at all times - something I need for this upcoming course I'm taking - which advises that same thing before we even begin the class!
I will. Thank you! Really... thanks for the nudges in the right direction. I have a very active imagination. I've always been known for it - all my life. I can often just rattle off a whole story impromptu without it even seeming like I'm just making it all up right on the spot.
But for some crazy reason... this whole thing has had me utterly stumped. Being such an impromptu kinda person, I've been thinking (thinking) up all of these various plots and happenings... totally got your meaning about Sheldon having to remain Sheldon! But I think the problem lies in that I don't have anything resembling an organizational system for these thoughts! I have a few things jotted down in this notebook... then the rest is filled with concept art sketches. The text is so lost in there... and I don't like it anyways, so I don't even want to keep it. It was the product of sitting down and forcing myself to write something - instead of jotting down ideas - useful ideas that popped into my head.
One of the courses I'm signed up for is all about screenwriting and getting our stories to script. Another goes through the whole process from story to feature film. The one that's starting early in September is about character writing - and finding the story through the character creation process.
That being said, I have a feeling that these course will also have some good book suggestions... but I'm not going to wait. I'll start searching your suggestions right away.
Thank you SO much for your help!
Right. I have some characters that can have things (bad or good) happen to them - but not the main ones. I have several levels of villain - a hierarchy from the grunts to those who boss around the grunts to the evil guy that makes demands on those. But even he answers to someone higher - but that won't be made common knowledge - especially since it might never become truth. I also have a good selection of 'extras' whom aren't meant to have anything to do with the actual storyline, but can if need be in a pinch. Like in Game of Thrones: get to know someone, get to really like them, then they die - sort of thing. But I don't think I'm going to pull any of that - certainly not repeatedly - but likely not at all.
The only one that isn't is the original outer bass drum head - since I just got it. But I think that one is even made for Yamaha by Remo... yeah... they are. I always use REMO heads, Remo!!!
No, keep it. Do not throw anything away. Ever. It can be an inspiration for things to fit one day. I have 20 pages of (weird) ideas during the years. Most of them I will never use probably. But reading them gives me new ideas. One good idea can lead to a complete video if you let your brain flow away. It looks your good at that.
If you have conflicting character for your setup, think what could happen if A meets B. If a reserved character meets a happy dancer, you could have a foundation for a video. And add an object, like a soccer ball for instance. If you let your mind wander around, ideas will pop up. Right them down on a seperate file for the new scene. If not combine other characters and object.
But you need a direction first, like dragons, 18th century humans, aliens. But stick to biped because of the BVH and Aniblocks. If you do not have a direction and you think "I want to do something" you will not find it. You will stay lost.
Don't worry about how to create plot, character developments, villans, etc. The books will help you with that. I will guarantee this. You first have to figure out what. That is your mean question. Choose something you like or have the characters for. And something that can be extended. Munsters in an abandoned house has unlimited possibilities.
If you have decided what kind of world you want to build (you can always modify later), create a file and add all the ideas that could fit in this world. But keep the rest also. Once again, you need a foundation, otherwise it will get you nowhere. A character to start with. A certain area. A new planet.
probably if we cannot see a great clip about what it can be achieved with carrara, this great piece of software is doomed; the only guy who might succeed to do that is our DartanBeck
LOL!!! Well, info2 has got my mind finally organizing its thoughts... so maybe soon? ;)
Paying close attention... re-reading... absorbing. Thanks info2!!!!
Just an update,
I woke up last night with an idea. I immediately woke up Rosie and ran it past her - she not only liked it, she helped to take that idea and run with it (bless her lovely heart!!)
I know I'm supposed to write this stuff down so I jotted some quick notes to spark my memory, then fell fast asleep.
Today I started writing down my design and it's evolving beautifully into a full overall story arc for the whole project - while also having a beautiful time frame for the first episode, which leaves wonderful possibilities to continue the arc with other episodes, some could even come in anywhere along the timeline of the whole arc, which is what I want.
I don't want to have to try and force viewers to watch them in any particular order or have one episode not make any sense unless the viewer is familiar with some specific previous one.
Excited with how the screenplay is coming together, I wanted to make sure I came back to this thread and report ;)
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Side note: I was also considering making some videos without any dialog - just to get some new action up for folks to see what I've been up to. But most everything on my channel is sort of test-runs and babble-sessions... I want to show something real... so real is where I'm going. Something cool, and complete! :)
Carrara Rocks and I want to help show it off!
This is a great thread for many reasons, one being we get to see vintage video of Datanbeck rockin' out in the early 90's! Yeah, that big full head of hair!...
I would gladly sport the mullet I had in the early 90's if I could just have my hair back...
OT for a moment - I'm glad you are still rockin' out. I was in a band that was more of a gothy band, and we played one gig - the San Mateo County Fair (in the SF Bay Area where I grew up) and my good friend who played Bass and Keyboards, his Mom recorded it on a tiny hand held tape recorder out in the audience. I digitized it years later and still occasionally listen to it. We kept the band going for several years after and recorded some songs on a 4 track tape recorder, but as usual, life and the universe split us all up. I still have my Roland GP-16 Guitar Effects Processor from back in the day. After we split up I got into the whole Noise scene, so I used that device in a way that it was probably not meant to be used...
Awesome! Looking forward to it! When I first started with Carrara, I had only owned it for about a month or two, and prior to that I had bought a used copy of After Effects 5.5 off Ebay (when you could still do that kind of thing...) and had been tearing voraciously through tutorials and loving everything. Then I saw Robert Rodriguez on a late night talk show talking about his new film "The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl" and he was talking about how one can create a full feature film using just a desk top computer. In retrospect he was exaggerating, but I took him at his word and I was like, "Yes! Yes you can!"
Well anyway, I have a bunch of "scenes" but no real concrete story, only a big epic story that starts and ends the same way. The first part starts off with The Nose Lady who has some serious issues concerning a rare item she bought from a high end jewelry store/antique dealer. This "item" has some curious magical power, and she feels betrayed by the dealer and starts doing some terrible things. The attached photos are some paintings of this character who has been on my mind for years.
(The black and white version is actually a painting that was just accepted to a new show at a gallery here in downtown Tucson. The show theme is "Off The Wall" and the title of the painting is "An Adumbration Of A Calamity Shocks The Nose Lady".)
Think I'll upload the Carrara video "sketches" I made of the "final" scene of this epic drama years ago (with no story...). It's before I understood the landscape editor well enough so there are a few painful shots of landscapes stitched together with terrible seams...but the best way to learn is by failing terribly, right? Why am I droning on and on? Because I also need help in telling a story. Even if it is all David Lynch style, his work still has a story!!
So thanks info2_5206216b80 and everyone!
Yes, this is how it works. Ideas pop up when you do not expect them. And yes, writing down is required. Otherwise you forget. And if you do not write it down, maybe you cannot sleep because you are afraid of forgetting. That is way you need pen and paper near by wherever you are. If you are on a picknick, bring them, because suddenly.... Or make a note on your phone. The best ideas come unexpected. You have found a direction now, keep working in that direction.
If you have a basic idea, more will follow. I think you should create a new YouTube channel for this. This one is not for animators only, but for the other 99% creatures on this planet. On that channel you do not talk about animation techniques. It is for finished videos for the public. Putting them on the channel you have, will be confusing for non animators.
But once again, you need books. With script writing techniques you can improve your idea. Believe me you need this. Another example that I read somewhere to convince you. If in a relaxed video you see a gun laying around for a few seconds, this creates tension. Because viewers now know at one moment that gun is going to be used. It stays in their mind. And you need tension or other emotions, otherwise it will get boring. If you create a perfect walk with animation, nobody will notice. They will watch it once or maybe zap away. If you make your viewers laugh, cry or scared, you get them hooked. Viewers want to know what is going to happen with the gun. Why do you think the Minnions are so popular. Because they are funny.
Awesome! Thanks Desert Dude! Yeah... it's amazing how all of this works, right?
Excellent Paintings, my friend!!! Superb!
When I first bought Carrara, after trying to get good at Pose for a while, I had a fairly clear idea of the story I wanted to use - or so I thought. But I never wrote it down. Before starting work on the actual story, I wrapped myself into Carrara like a cozy blanket and got to work learning how I could use this marvelous Home Version ILM to realize this dream!
At first I started under the thought that: this is animated... so I can't really do post work! Yeah... I knew about Photoshop and how to use it on still images before ever getting involved in 3d, and I knew that we can render to image sequences, but I was deathly afraid of trying to edit 30 frames for every second I wanted to show! Yikes!
My good friend, evilproducer, wrote this thread, Pros and Cons of Carrara DOF Vs. Postworked DOF, which droveme headlong into remembering seeing this strange image editor in the Daz3d store, Project Dogwaffle (I thought it strange because of the crazy image thumbnail it had at the time), and remembered that it said something about "Animation Tools", so I started that thread I just linked to, which lead me to watching their many, many video tutorials, which got me completely hooked - so I bought it and eventually made my own Dogwaffle Video Tutorials - Playlists to make my learning easier.
Crazy! Project Dogwaffle is made by a film VFX artist, so as I got to know how to edit my images (in a vastly different method than using PS), I was actually learning aspects of visual effects for filmmakers! I didn't realize that until I took a VFX course and found that I could easily do most of my HitFilm homework in Howler (Project Dogwaffle Pro)!
Now I have HitFilm, Fusion and Howler and several editors, and am studying methods of filmmaking, visual effects, and still continuing my education and interests in art, music, acting, etc., and it's all finally beginning to meld together into one, cohesive learning curve.
So... yeah! Add me to the thanking of info2_5206216b8o and everyone!
info2_5206216b80 really got me going with my story! Such excellent advice and a good push out the door... almost even a bit of a challenge made! Whatever... it has totally got my mind into the right perspective once again. I haven't felt this imaginative towards this tale for a long, long time!
Look out, folks... Rosie's coming!
Absolutely! Agreed with the "Still get and read the books" and continue persuing good screenwriting techniques... absolutely!
I'm just not going to wait for any of that to continue my writing, but I'm one whom isn't really happy unless I'm learning stuff. I don't like to overdo it and never get around to putting practices to what I'm learning either. I like to practice AS I learn, and try to continue developing what I pick up on.
The VFX course I took went so much deeper than I thought - or could possibly remember enough to put all of it to practice I saved the whole course and go back to it as I need to. It's still available on the web, but I wanted a hard copy for future use. Heck, I may even take that course over again some day just for entertainment value... it was really, Really good!
I'm getting some books and taking some courses... but in the meantime... I'm writing again - and I'm Loving it!!!
I doubt that I'll be starting a new YouTube channel, because I think that would be cheating folks who have been subscribing to my channel for so long. This project is what I've been striving for all along. You'll see... these shows truly Are all about Animation! And they're all about Animation using Carrara and Holwer!!!
My web manager has started a web site for me... it's still just a placeholder for now, but soon it will be filled with tutorials and stories and other goodies for Carrara and Howler enthusiasts: http://www.dartanbeck.com/
FYI: The words (except for the "About" page which was copied from my old Google Site I was working on myself, quite some time ago) are his!!! I don't write that way about myself!!! LOL
cool DB, can't wait
ps the composition of the last image is amazing and so the human facial expressions and the motion of the gargoyles; as said once there's a Buscema in you
I'd like to see it rendered in Octane
It took me a long time to set up the scene to render like that. It's the full "Walk Upon Water" set by First Bastion... and it's all faded off using various light cone lights at various depths to get those orcs to fade to white, along with the scenery - back before I knew how to Post animations.
Forget Octane... I love my good ol' PR engine of Carrara!!! :P
Maybe you should rethink about that. It is not cheating. Tell them you have a new channel. But this one is for finished video's only. The one you have now is a learning school. The new one is for the others who are on YouTube. A non animator is not interested in how you do things. He/she wants to watch good videos and have a good time. If you put a story line between the videos on your existing channel, a non animator will be confused and not be very interested. Many of your subscribers will also subscribe to your new channel. Because most will not only want to talk about animation, but also see results. And producing finished videos should be the goal of an animator. And you can do both, teaching and producing. If you build a animation channel for the YouTube public and not only animators, and you make progress, you can motivate others to do the same. Somehow most animators are not building something. They stay on the playing level.
With a well organized animated YouTube channel, you can make earnings.You are organized and you have the ideas. I am doing the same. Not the one posted here, but a smaller version in combination with my music. The movie the Minions made over 1 billion. And there is technically no reason why someone cannot create something like that (in Carrara). This is an extreme example, but on much smaller levels you can succeed. Good story line and the knowledge are all you need. Then build it, expand and they will come. In other words, think a little bit bigger.
If it is not your thing, I won't try again. But you are missing a great opportunity. And the costs are very very low because you are doing everything yourself. You have the skills and you have the basic idea. You only have to think outside the box.