argus1000 new animation

argus1000

Is she really sleepwalking or is she only pretending? Check it out.

http://youtu.be/Ya78oBLqRlg

bryanf

Hey great short flick!
Good usage of environments and some nice camera work!
I also like how you do not make the characters 'glamorous' but more natural.
Well worth the watch!

argus1000

bry said:

Hey great short flick!
Good usage of environments and some nice camera work!
I also like how you do not make the characters 'glamorous' but more natural.
Well worth the watch!

Thanks.

DUDU

Excellent work!
Very good scenario, good animations of the characters, good framings and movements of cameras, very beautiful scenes and comprehensible comment, even for a French-speaking person like me.:-)
I would have liked that you work a little the dynamics of the hairs…
I love the morphology of the characters, how did you make them ?
Is dynamic clothing, made in MDD or Optitex? If so, you imported them in Carrara in .obj seq.?
In any case, it is a high level film which can take part in international contests!
Congratulation!

bryanf

great flick, where did you get the buildings/neighborhood?

Steve K

Good work, reminds me a little of the old "Twilight Zone" (that's high praise). A lot of my favorites in there, M4, V4, Maclean, Stonemason. I was thinking while watching that a lot of the motions looked pretty natural, but probably not available as commercial mocaps. So I wasn't surprised to see a custom mocap setup in the credits.

Looks like Carrara and Gen 4 characters ain't obsolete yet. ;-)

DUDU

Steve K said:

Looks like Carrara and Gen 4 characters ain't obsolete yet. ;-)

Those which can use them do not need the new generations (for the moment);-P…

argus1000

bry said:

great flick, where did you get the buildings/neighborhood?

I got the village from Google's warehouse

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

Just type "beachport" in the search engine. It's free. But I forgot to mention BmrCT, the author, in the credits. Shame on me. Of course, I had to put the lamp posts in and change the trees for a better effect, but it's a good set. Only 10 MB, I think. I also added the main house, which I built from MacLean's parts.

argus1000

DUDU_00001 said:

Excellent work!
Very good scenario, good animations of the characters, good framings and movements of cameras, very beautiful scenes and comprehensible comment, even for a French-speaking person like me.:-)
I would have liked that you work a little the dynamics of the hairs…
I love the morphology of the characters, how did you make them ?
Is dynamic clothing, made in MDD or Optitex? If so, you imported them in Carrara in .obj seq.?
In any case, it is a high level film which can take part in international contests!
Congratulation!

Thank you very much, sir.

I'm not familiar dynamic hairs, but for animation, on top of dynamic clothing, that would have taxed my system beyond endurance, I trink. But you are right. The hair I used is kind of stiff.

As for the morphology of the characters, I just played with the settings; I payed special attention to the face with displacement maps in Carrara, maps which were supposed to be used for Daz Studio.

The dynamic clothing is from Optitex. I applied them in Daz Studio 3 and exported them to Carrara as a Daz Collada .DAE file, which you can't use anymore in Daz 4.

argus1000

Steve K said:

Good work, reminds me a little of the old "Twilight Zone" (that's high praise). A lot of my favorites in there, M4, V4, Maclean, Stonemason. I was thinking while watching that a lot of the motions looked pretty natural, but probably not available as commercial mocaps. So I wasn't surprised to see a custom mocap setup in the credits.

Looks like Carrara and Gen 4 characters ain't obsolete yet. ;-)

Thanks. I have nothing against Genesis. But Carrara wasn't equipped for Genesis when, a year and a half ago, I started this project. But my next film is going to use Genesis.

I mostly used commercial mocaps, which I customized to my purpose. But when push comes to shove, there's nothing like a custom mopcap setup.

Steve K

argus1000 said:

Thanks. I have nothing against Genesis. But Carrara wasn't equipped for Genesis when, a year and a half ago, I started this project. But my next film is going to use Genesis.

I mostly used commercial mocaps, which I customized to my purpose. But when push comes to shove, there's nothing like a custom mopcap setup.

Do you see an advantage to Genesis characters for animation? I have a vast library of Gen4 content, and am reluctant to "start over". Plus I have not seen (yet?) any compelling advantage to the later generation characters for animation. I am still happily running Carrara Pro 8.1, since the upgrade to 8.5, and its non-trivial cost, seemed to me primarily based on the included Genesis content. Rather than, say, features, updated documentation, stuff like that.

Also, I forget the name of the mocap software in the video credits, but I recall it included Kinect hardware, Microsoft XBox 360 I think. I have an Xbox 360 but no Kinect. Are you happy with that system?

argus1000

Steve K said:

Do you see an advantage to Genesis characters for animation? I have a vast library of Gen4 content, and am reluctant to "start over". Plus I have not seen (yet?) any compelling advantage to the later generation characters for animation. I am still happily running Carrara Pro 8.1, since the upgrade to 8.5, and its non-trivial cost, seemed to me primarily based on the included Genesis content. Rather than, say, features, updated documentation, stuff like that.

I'm only starting to use Genesis, but, sine my next movie is going to include children, I understand that making figures considerably bigger or smaller is only possible with Genesis. So far that's the only advantage Genesis has for me.

Also, I forget the name of the mocap software in the video credits, but I recall it included Kinect hardware, Microsoft XBox 360 I think. I have an Xbox 360 but no Kinect. Are you happy with that system?

Yes, for movements you can't find with the commercial mocaps, Ipisoft with 2 Kinect cameras is invaluable. You don't need the whole Microsoft Xbox, you just need the sensor. Two of them (about $200). Plus the Ipisoft software (which is not really cheap, from $400 to maybe a $1000 depending on the version). You can also get away with only one sensor, but then there is the problem of occlusion. Your range of animations is limited.

For the shots in "Trance" with the male character making a salute with his arm outstretched, and then rapidly turning around, for example, I would not have been able to do those two shot. They were not commercially available.

Steve K

argus1000 said:

I'm only starting to use Genesis, but, sine my next movie is going to include children, I understand that making figures considerably bigger or smaller is only possible with Genesis. So far that's the only advantage Genesis has for me.

That sounds a little strange, unless you want your kids to look like small adults - some do, I realize. I've enjoyed using the Kids4 characters and all the add-ons available. A search on "Kids 4" returns 448 items here at DAZ (like Armor), lots more at Renderosity like the Armor Texture set below.

Yes, for movements you can't find with the commercial mocaps, Ipisoft with 2 Kinect cameras is invaluable. You don't need the whole Microsoft Xbox, you just need the sensor. Two of them (about $200). Plus the Ipisoft software (which is not really cheap, from $400 to maybe a $1000 depending on the version). You can also get away with only one sensor, but then there is the problem of occlusion. Your range of animations is limited.

For the shots in "Trance" with the male character making a salute with his arm outstretched, and then rapidly turning around, for example, I would not have been able to do those two shot. They were not commercially available.

OK, thanks, I'm going to check into it. I've been mixing commercial moaps with hand keyframed movement, and the difference is pretty obvious. Meaning less than ideal.

argus1000

Steve K said:

That sounds a little strange, unless you want your kids to look like small adults - some do, I realize. I've enjoyed using the Kids4 characters and all the add-ons available. A search on "Kids 4" returns 448 items here at DAZ (like Armor), lots more at Renderosity like the Armor Texture set below.

Daz sells a bundle called "Growing up" for Genesis. Kids are not necessarily going to look like small adults. You can change the shape of each kid with a multitude of morphs, according to your wishes. But if you are satisfied with the K4 kids, good for you. To each is own.

Steve K

argus1000 said:

Daz sells a bundle called "Growing up" for Genesis. Kids are not necessarily going to look like small adults. You can change the shape of each kid with a multitude of morphs, according to your wishes. But if you are satisfied with the K4 kids, good for you. To each is own.

Ah, now I understand, the kids will look like young versions of the adult. That does sound like a plus. The best I can do is use the same hair, e.g. "Mature Mark", for both K4 and M4, with black for K4 and some gray for M4.