Dialogue? We don't need no stinkin' dialogue!
Steve K
Posts: 3,242
I've mentioned how I try to avoid dialogue in short animations, mostly because its a visual medium - show me, don't tell me. But another reason is that dialogue can be really bad. A favorite from the inimitable Ed Wood: "He's Dead... Murdered... And Somebody's Responsible!" - Plan 9 From Outer Space. But I'm not alone. Here is a funny explanation by Mark Hamill about problems he and Harrison Ford had with George Lucas' dialogue in the original "Star Wars" (should start at 3:30, the relevant part):
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Yup. Carrie Fisher said: "They always say you can write it, but you can't say it" when talking about here line to Admiral Tarkin.
Getting some dialog written and recorded is the biggest drawback I have - as I do want to have some dialog/banter. So I started studying screenwriting, creative writing, all this stuff... it's just time to stop studying so much and get some art 'on paper' (done).
It's easy to fall into a trap of studying so much that we lose sight of the initial project/story.
I mean... I do want to keep studying, yes. Just not so much to where I'm not getting anything on film
There are, of course, some dialogue writers that I really like: Tarantino ("Pulp Fiction"), Goldman ("Butch Cassidy", "The Princess Bride"), the Coen Brothers (everything they ever did), Noah Hawley ("Fargo" the TV show), Joss Whedon ("Firefly"), etc. But as I mentioned a while back, I really like Stanley Kubrick's approach, especially like this:
"At some point about halfway through 2001: A Space Odysseyhere's what everyone should be thinking: 'WTF Stanley Kubrick? There's no more dialogue in this movie? I hate you.' No one thinks that because the film is a complete transfixing masterpiece." - Mario Aguilar, Gizmodo
I always read out loud whatever I write, and especially the dialogue, because if I can't say it, then for damn sure nobody else can! (and I WILL sell the movie rights one day. Really . . . )
mr bean didnt need dialog
Neither did Buster Keaton in 1927's "The General", No. 18 on AFI's "100 GREATEST AMERICAN FILMS OF ALL TIME". A very good movie I think, even for today's audiences. OK, me, anyway. The whole movie is on YouTube, give it a look. (Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" is another silent on the list, and another favorite of mine.)
Oh, to have Buster's or Charlie's wit.
And I salute Oskarsson for a pretty good related product for the G2 male.
http://www.daz3d.com/slapstick-for-genesis-2-male-s
Indeed. Both were geniuses, but I think Chaplin got a lot more attention. I recall Keaton got an award late in life, in Europe maybe, and was asked if it felt good. He replied yes, but too late. Thankfully, we are still remembering his genius. The compilation video of his stunts is hilarious, and amazing. Imagine an A-list Hollywooder doing those stunts today. And BTW, your mention of Oskarsson's "Slapstick" product hits home for me. The 48 Hour Film contest has started giving two genres to each team, pick either one. Our last pick was Fantasy or Slapstick. So ... two days to do 4 minutes (minimum) of character animation in the Chaplin/Keaton style. That was like Science Fiction, it ain't gonna happen. We took Fantasy .... if you're interested:
Always amazes me. 48 hours? Couldn't do it in 48 days! Well done.
To stay on our territory: Tom & Jerry, Roadrunner, LaLinea (not real text) Donald Duck and other old Walt Disney. Much more fun as today's animation. Talking is boring, especialy after watching it 3 or more times.
Thanks. I've been focusing on fast methods for a long time, e.g. Carrara's NLA clips (I've got lots in the browser), Particle Illusion Effects (render in real time or faster, really), no Global Illumination or other fancy lighting, etc. Also, its 720x480 ("Preview" size to some), which Carrara can really crank out quickly. And the local contest producer can make it look good on the medium size theater screen with her projector.
Yes, Roadrunner in particular brings back fond memories. The Wikipedia article points out elements of Rube Goldberg and slapstick, plus a TV Guide list of the 60 Nastiest Villains which includes Wile E. Coyote. Pretty high praise for a villain who never pulled off a successful caper.
I remember watching Dreamscapes when it first got released publicly. I love this show!
I love all of the cool models in this movie, like Ravnheart's Spirit of Punk Train and Airship and cool stuff from 1971s and Cybertenko and much more that I have no clue where you got them... very, very nicely done!
I really enjoy paying attention to your timing. Your editing skills are awesome! You do a fantastic job on telling your stories in an elegant and enjoyable way.
What is that submarine model by Nemo's lighthouse? That thing is Awesome!
Man... now I find myself back in the stores of 1971s and Cybertenko with the filter on oldest to newest (I wish we still had filters like that at Daz) and just love what I see.
I've really become a big fan of Ravnheart and Petipet too. So cool to have all of the amazing and impossible vehicles in the runtime - even better to bring them to life like this!
I enjoy the 720 x 480 as well. And, like you say, it really renders quickly in Carrara.
I love the water effect you have above the submarine and other particle and/or particle-like effects you have going on.
Before I ever got into using particles I started using Nerd3d's fun products that simulate particle effects, and love them. It just goes to show how many different ways there are pull off visuals that we need. It's really fun to experiment with stuff so that, when crunch time comes, we can act quickly and get the job done. One of my plans that I've yet to explore is the fact that Howler can make/use animated height maps for its 3D Designer. Well I want to test them in 3D Designer, but save them first and test running them in Carrara's bump and/or displacement channels. I have some specific reason of my own, but these ideas would also work well for simulating all manner of moving visuals that render in no time at all!
Anyways... Bravo, man! I love your work even though it always puts me in the mood to buy more models! LOL
<Blush> Wow, many thanks. Have you ever considered becoming a judge for the 48 Hour Film contest? (In Houston)
But you do point out the great models, to which I give a lot of credit (I did none of them). I'm sure I concentrate too much on them (much easier and faster animation in a 2 day contest, e.g. moves from here to there, 20 seconds, render, repeat with another model ...), rather than character animation, which is what I suspect audiences (and judges) prefer. And which the live action teams (all the rest) concentrate on, generally (meaning human action). Some of the other 48 Hour team members make very nice comments about the animation, the effects, the models, etc., but not so much about the characters. Our most successful contest entry was "Blown Away" which probably has the most human story, and even got a few audible (positive) reactions from the audience during the screening. Kind of rare, except for the good comedies which get big laughs - the local producer told me Houston is big on comedy, so many other genre teams add in comedy, i.e. mixing genres like horror-comedy, something the contest encourages.
Its the "Steampunk Sub" from Cornucopia3D, the VUE content site. The modeller, Peter Pohle, has a lot of great models, one of the main reasons I try to stay up to date with VUE. They do offer "unlocked" versions of many products including this one (.OBJ), but the price is higher ... plus VUE has nice features anyway, especially environments.
http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=8492
Thanks again. "Particle Illusion" is one of my alltime favorite apps, and probably why I've never gotten very much into Carrara's particles. PI is, for me, easier, more flexible and especially way faster - as I mentioned, being 2D it renders in essentially real time. Some might think of it as fireworks and sparkles, but there's a lot more there.
on the Last Airbender was a human actoer doing the voice of momo.
Futurama i think it was Fry did several character voices
Cool. Very cool. Do you use SE or Pro? Reasom I'm asking is SE is significantly less $$$ than what I'm waiting to get for myself for these needs (HitFilm Pro) while Pro is right up there - about the same price. I didn't get a chance to look too closely at it yet, but I certainly will be! HitFilm Pro's are 3D particles which respect or ignore other elements in the scene, which works really nice for what I'll be doing with it. I already have HitFilm Express, and know that I like the software. They give us a few simple effects which use particles, but Express doesn't give us access to the actual engine, which I really want!!! ;)
I'll look into the differences and capabilities. It looks really cool.
Another of our forum users whom does animations for his DVD titles uses BluffTitler, which has some particle features as well. I'm trying to keep my toolkit compact and specific, but I also want it to be flexible, so I'm certainly not opposed to seeing what all is available. Thanks for showing me ParticleIllusion (is this the right thing?)
I guess I thought that I mentioned that I like your character animation... but only implied it in there... easy to miss. So hear we go:
I also really enjoy your character animations! :)
I have one thing from Cornucopia 3D made for Poser - Elven Temple. I was going to get more, I like it so much, but most of what they had was for Vue... and I don't have that :(
They do have some stuff for us Poser model users that's really cool! Although pricey for the full licence of that Submarine, I might just get it eventually anyways... it's really cool!
I use Particle Illusion Pro, a low cost upgrade years ago from magazine version of SE. And I think the SE version is discontinued - I see it shows up on your compare link, but here is the front page:
http://www.wondertouch.com/index_2.asp
"Particles that ignore other elements" ... PI has "blockers", which are basically just outlines you draw around part of the frame that don't show the particles inside. Like a mask? I don't think they are animatable, i.e. the blocked object has to be stationary ... but e.g. you can have a spacehip in the middle of the frame shooting flame out the back, and space debris passing by "behind" it. I did this in "Space Commander Luther".
Thanks on the character animation, I'm finally getting comfortable using Carrara clips and NLA, which for a long time I didn't understand. Easy stuff, especially using imported AniMate files. If you watch "Dreamscapes", the V4 figure walking to the Steampunk Copter is actually several M4 clips, at the time all I had was an AniMate Walk Construction Kit for M4. You may notice her walk is a little ... manly. I recently got the V4 version on sale, so now I can have M4 walk a little ... womanly ...
The Temple looks great. I knew Cornucopia started offering Poser stuff a while back, but I haven't explored it much. Besides Peter Pohle's great models like the Steampunk Sub, I like Luigi Martini's environments (Vue only), like "Old Wild West", which has an entire town in the middle of a large landscape. He's got a lot of these for ~ $12 (on sale sometimes), a great value. Carrara's included terrains are good, but not this good.
http://www.cornucopia3d.com/purchase.php?item_id=3927
Did I miss a question? So many toys, so little time ...
LOL! I started the other way around, which was worse! I had the V4 walk cycles... Dartan walked like a girl! LOL
Yeah, HitFilm and Fusion deflectors don't just block particles, particles interact with them according to how we set their parameters, like friction, bounce, etc.,
So we could make a deflector to the shape of anything in our film, track the 'anything' and apply a point layer to it (null) and the deflector will now follow what it's supposed to follow, and scale accordingly. Then out particles will interact with them however we set them up to - which is super powerful.
I don't know how many preset come with Fusion if we spend a grand on the full Studio, but HitFilm Pro comes with a lot of them - all geared towards feature film VFX.
This is an older video but it shows the idea of deflectors well
Even the free version of Fusion has powerful dynamic particles. I haven't yet explored to see if it comes with presets... but it's so powerful and simple, presets would mostly just be time-savers. But we can store presets of any tool or set of tools we create in Fusion
A while back, I bought an inexpensive pack for HitFilm Express which adds this cool Procedural Fire to my workflow
I really like HitFilm, but I should really practice in Fusion more before going on about purchacing HitFilm Pro. It's just that HitFilm feels a lot like I'm working in my video editor, and I like that. But Fusion's node-based workflow is certainly powerful and probably more versatile
Check out this killer demonstration - making rain in your eyes from a sunny still shot!
But, of course, just because Eric is a genius doesn't mean we can just crank this stuff out of our heads. I mean... check this out!
The Stero Conversion is pretty impressive. The 48 Hour Film contest allows use of stills done pre-contest, so that could be a big time saver.
Yes, and both HitFilm and Fusion workflows work great for transforming still images into rather interesting videos. So does Howler.
I originally bought Howler in response to my NOT wanting to pay Adobe anything for their pay-us-for-life campaign - especially after speaking to them about it.
Anyways, it took quite a lot of time for me to figure out how to use it to replace Photoshop - the workflows are quite different. But after getting used to it, I just love it.
So then, when I was in a class for Visual Effects, we were given the previous version of HitFilm for doing our homework, and I really liked that too - but as the class progressed, I couldn't help but notice that Howler has the tools I need to perform a lot of these functions. Not all... but many. And after spending so much time wih it, I was finding Howler to be really nice for a lot of it.
So now I have Howler, HitFilm and Fusion. Natron is an OpenSource compositor too, but I didn't want to add another one to my workflow - again, trying to keep a somewhat tight set of tools instead of just grabbing everything I can find.
Here's a cool Still conversion by Simon from HitFilm
...and here are a couple more containing workflows I'm using in my production. Not this particluar effect, but the idea - I love how these tools work!
Really nice HitFilm examples. I haven't had time to play with these compositing techniques yet, but good to know what is possible!
...and this is barely tipping the berg, so-to-speak! Example (Fusion):
a visual example of Fusion VFX for the movie, Anonymous