A Princess Movie
cyborgty_074ff6c243
Posts: 132
Here is a link to an animation that I created with iClone and Carrara. Its based mostly on a story by my 5 year old grand daughter. :-)
Update:
The attached image is a frame from the first shot, which was rendered in Carrara.
movieThumbnail1.jpg
1280 x 720 - 245K
Post edited by cyborgty_074ff6c243 on
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Comments
Very nice, obviously a lot of work went into it. And it looks like you had a pretty good story board to start.
At first, I thought you had borrowed a plot from "Monk", where kidnappers break into a woman's house, tie her to a chair, and haul her and the chair out to a van. Turns out they were not interested in the woman, who was released pretty quickly.
What sleep aids does the princess use? My wife needs some of those. B-}
Very Romantic !
Congratulations to the production Team. We all know what enormous work is needed for animated stories.
I would like to know what parts were Carrara ?
Thanks Steve.
I don't know the Monk episode, but your sleep aid question made me laugh. : )
As it is primarily a one man production team (me), I appreciate the compliment! I have involved my grand kids in the last couple of projects in an effort to establish common interests early in their lives (they are 5 and 7). : )
What's interesting about this project is it started off as a Carrara project. But I experienced very long render times, etc. before I decided to switch to rendering mostly in iClone, which I felt gave me the best chance to finish it in the time I allotted.
My grand daughter wanted the castle to have rainbow colors. So, I immediately considered I could use a light gel on a spot light and some compositing / rotoscoping in Adobe Affect Effects to get the look I wanted. However, iClone does not support light gels (not in the way Carrara, Maya, Lightwave, etc. do). So, the establishing shots with the rainbow castle were rendered in Carrara (opening shot, night time castle shot, and shot before king's messenger reads). The rainbow color was composited in After Effects on any iClone shots that included the castle.
The fairy-tale castle terrain was created in Carrara. I used it in the Carrara and iClone renders.
The daytime sky was generated in Carrara and used in the Carrara and iClone renders.
Images for various environmental lighting in iClone were generated in Carrara.
Various small props were created in Carrara.
"Monk" SPOILER ALERT!
In the episode, a woman posts fliers around the neighborhood with a picture of a cat she's found. Two unscrupulous antique dealers see that the chair in the picture is a very valuable antique, which the woman does not realize. So they stage a fake kidnapping of her, tying her in the chair which they take to the van. After a phony demand to feed the homeless is met, they let her go, thinking nobody will miss the old chair. So in your video, I'm thinking "they're after the antique bed!" OK, probably not, but it would be a good comic video ...
B-}
Did you fiddle with Carrara's settings to minimize the render time? Fast AA, no indirect lighting, minimal lights and reflections, etc.? I am not familiar with iClone, but Carrara's render times to me are fairly low, compared to, say, Vue.
Did you fiddle with Carrara's settings to minimize the render time? Fast AA, no indirect lighting, minimal lights and reflections, etc.? I am not familiar with iClone, but Carrara's render times to me are fairly low, compared to, say, Vue.
Yeah. I'm pretty familiar with Carrara render settings. What works depends on the desired look, what you are willing or can do in post, etc. What works well with stills, don't always work well with animations or moving cameras, etc. You probably noticed I use a lot of moving cameras in my animations. Some low settings in the Carrara renderer may not yield the desired results (artifacts are usually introduced). Also, initially I was interested in using dynamic hair and other CPU intensive features to get a certain look. I would have preferred the look received in Carrara and its Raytrace rendering. But the key thing here was I wanted to complete this project within a certain period of time. I decided to change my initial scope of the project and go with lower resolution characters, no dynamic hair, etc. So, using iClone and having frames rendered at an average around one second per frame became more desired for this project.
Steve, I know you tend to submit movies to the 48 hour film projects. You should have a look at iClone and consider adding it to your tool set. You might find it to be a better tool for those short film competitions with limited amount of time to render your animations.
I'm thinking about it. : )
I want make one thing clear: I am not abandoning Carrara and I plan to produce movies rendered only in Carrara in the future. : - )
I think I understand and agree with all that. When production time is a factor (not always the case for us retirees), the render strategy becomes important. I have probably relied too much on large stills (4x+ the frame size) and panning around in the video editor. It works, but its not as effective as real camera motion. I'll take a look at iClone - one second per frame is exceptional. I have gotten Carrara to do that, but only for simple scenes.
Yes, the 48 Hour Film contest is an annual event that I enjoy. Just keep in mind you'll be up against SERIOUS (live action) film makers. That is not a bad thing, you will hopefully meet some very talented people, and see a few very good shorts. Just don't expect any special treatment for render time considerations. The judges want good plot, lighting, acting, overall production values ... my attempts to impress with nice renders does not in general work. "Star Wars" was more than that first shot of the big ship coming down from the top. We have entered (mumble, mumble) times, and had one animation liked by the judges. But it felt pretty good. B-}
I'm not retired yet. :-D
I've participated in a few 48 hour and National Film projects (various roles, but one of them was usually the editor) and produced live action movies. So I know what you mean. :-)
My congrats for assembling this in Carrara. And for letting your granddaughter play the main role as the director :).
Yet, a couple of things struck me. They're quite understandable since it's a kid's story, but let me ask:
- what types of illegal drugs the princess uses to have such a strong sleep (it has been asked previously);
- what type of villain the red-dressed prince is if he releases his victim?;
- is the texture for MFD you use in the last slide available somewhere?.
Thanks. I'm glad for you the movie evoked satisfaction and criticism. Both are welcome with any of my posts. : - )
strong sleep - No drugs. Just associated with an element requested by my grand baby. Also, some of us know people who can sleep through anything.
villain - Simply wanted an opportunity to marry her. Beyond that, he wanted to be honorable. Antagonist don't have to be completely evil.
texture - I'm sorry I'm not sure of what you meant by MFD. I searched Daz 3D and saw MFD referenced a 'Morphing Fantasy Dress'. Are you asking about the wedding dress the princess wore? If yes, this is not associated with the 'Morphing Fantasy Dress'. I created it from elements found in the Reallusion Market Place.
Or are you asking about the rainbow colored fantasy castle, which was in the last image / still (slide?) shown during and after the ending credits (as well as in three establishing shots during the movie)? If yes, this was achieved through a spot light gel and rotoscoping in Adobe After Effects.
That was a sweet gentle story, nicely influence by your grand daughter. What a great way to share some quality time and create something lasting. Big thumbs up!