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Joe,
What you say is true..the technology is escalating, and we with ancient Carrara should all just pack it in and take up knitting ..but if that mechanism is so - Why do people still read books. With all the offerings on TV and from the big studios how is this possible ? - maybe somebody should tell them to stop reading and start watching. Millions of books are sold each year...and most don't even have cute little pictures. Why is this ? The answer is not in our stars but in our minds.. We all are suckers for a good yarn. It probably started when Cro-magnon Man was sitting around the fire after a hunt. One of these hairy gentlemen was able to embellish or distort the days happenings in an amusing way and thus captivated his fellows..He became a story-teller. Even today, if the story is interesting enough people will put up with all sorts of distractions to hear its conclusion. But if the story is not compelling, then all the glitz and eye candy will not save a movie from the dreaded red ink. I am not saying that Disney does not have a good story..they probably do and if so the movie will probably be a success. What I am saying is that amazing 3D by itself is not nearly enough to maintain an audience. A few nights ago on PBS they had a documentary on Thomas Edison. One of his inventions was a Kinoscope device that allowed movie clips to be shown by looking into a peephole. It was a sensation, a phenomena, and people flocked to see these moving images. The effect at the time was far greater than any rigging magic of today. However, once people had seen it once or twice they lost interest and the business slumped. It was not until stories were added to movies that the business took off. The point I am trying to make is that first, last and always it is the story. The proof conclusive of this is Turner Classic Movies....They are still going strong showing movies that are 60, 70 and 80 years old. Some are B&W, and some of these are very good. I don't know if you have seen "From out of the Past" with Robert Mitchum, I would put this up against anything that is presently playing..Why.. First a great story, and then superb acting and directing. I think TCM is going to be around far longer than this new 3D rigging will continue to amaze.
Getting back to Carrara -I believe it has all the magic needed to captivate an audience. The images do not have to be as ambitious as the big studios, need not have the high tech fidelity, what they do need to be is..entertaining.
Starboardtack
On the other hand, while Carrara is way behind the times, I think another misconception that many have is that the way you make feature films is to do the entire thing in Maya....or whatever.
And that certainly isn't the case. I'm sure with Maleficent they did compositing in Nuke, since, well, DD owns the Foundry. Or at least they did before their bankruptcy. And I'm also pretty sure they used maybe Mudbox and ZBrush for some modelling, and maybe cleanup of the scanned data. And I recall hearing that the subsurface scattering was done in VRay, which is really good for that. And the scanning and mocap, of which there was a TON of in this feature (and I mean a TON), was likely done at the USC scanner. And I'm also pretty sure they used some other proprietary stuff, especially for the rigging. And yeah, I'm sure there was Maya in there somewhere.
So while Maya might be used for some aspects, the entire pipeline of stuff that is needed includes a ton of software and a cast of thousands of talented experts who can make a lot of stuff up on the fly.
So even though Carrara might not be able to do any significant portion of a feature production, obviously it can do some portion. I think I recall seeing a very nicely done demo reel of live action in a space ship composited with some Carrara 3D stuff. As I recall it was a guy walking thru the spaceship eating an apple, then it turns out he's a movie projectionist who projects a movie on the moon for everyone to watch...or something like that...But in order to pull that production off, they needed a whole lot of other software and hardware and skillsets...like greenscreens and actors and cameras and studios and sound equipment and audio mixing and editing and on and on....
Thanks for sharing those videos....made one feel deliriously happy and sad at the same time.....don't ask why!
Yeah, it was Modern Times.
http://vimeo.com/17631561
Yeah, no one man band is making Maleficent, so it's kind of irrelevant that Carrara need to compete with those softwares. Carrara needs to compete with the South Park of 3D animation. That's where its focus should remain.
To illustrate what you said here, in this nice clip, Carrara kissed and made up with Maya (and Photoshop, and AfterEffects.....so we can all go live happily ever after.
This is the video you were referring to here, by Ben Craig Used to be the finest reference on the Daz website to what Carrara could do in capable hands, unfortunately there's no Carrara software landing page where stuff like this should be hosted for marketing. There are other examples. In good hands, Carrara can make magic and if anyone is too keen on Maya, just to please the crowd, we'll find some small task for Maya to do in the pipeline.....:coolsmile:
.....the making of....
BINGO !!! Thanks, I was trying to remember...
Now see, here's a group of guys who recognized that to do a nice demo reel you don't need to do "Carrara or die", you can stray outside the Carrara environment and use all kinds of different tools. And they also realized that if you want your demo to have impact, don't just plop an M4 and a V4 in there and try to animate it or use a canned mocap or whatever. Instead, there's no better actor to tell your story than a real live one. Much easier, and much more likely your audience will like it. In this case, the main character is a cool, likeable guy, has character, and moves like a real person. Trying to match that with a canned mocap and an M4? Uh....no..
Which is why I'm always surprised nobody here ever gets into live action and compositing, especially since almost everyone owns a video camera in the form of a smartphone or whatever.
And also, just because they did some models and rendering in Carrara, doesn't mean Carrara is super awesome. Heck, any 3D app could have done the same thing. What made it stand out was the skill and talent of the crew.
And another point to mention...I guarantee if you showed that demo to a prospective employer, they wouldn't really care what software you used. They'd say, "wow, that's nice. Short, tells a good story, likeable characters, good integration and compositing, and a great punchline at the end". They'd recognize that it took a whole cast of characters and different skills and talents and hardware and software, and the real skill was planning all that and putting it all together and using the right tool for the job, and telling a story and making people feel good for watching it. That's what's important.
Anyway, I'd encourage folks here to try to emulate something like that, but the last time I did that (I think I challenged people here to duplicate just one frame of the video..) I got in trouble and nobody wanted to take up the challenge. :) :) :)
Exactly. And that's the point I've been making all along. It's not the software, it's the content and the story. People always tend to focus on software, as if that's the key to making awesome stuff. It's not. It's telling a story and engaging the viewer an tugging their heartstrings and making them laugh and cry and excited and taking them away from their world and into yours. It's not about Maya or any other software.
Nice to see the Modern Times video again, and thanks to Joe for posting those very impressive facial rigging videos. I am sure that DAZ are more aware than most of us on what the latest developments are in the industry. And while as an individual, we could never hope to match the technology that goes into these, maybe future DAZ characters will offer something similar in years to come, so compatibility with DAZ figures will be more important than ever for the serious 3D hobbyist and small independent. And I think that is why Carrara most probably has a future, given it's unique position.
Now that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of....maybe DAZ will notice this technology, especially the advanced facial rigging, and develop something similar for its newest generations of characters. Though much of this technology is quite new, and takes some specialized and probably proprietary technology, or at least some really skilled people who know a lot about facial rigging and characterizations.
Though I'd be a little surprised if they attract people with that background, since I'm sure folks who can do advanced rigging and wrinkle maps and texturing and stuff like that would be in relatively high demand. And a lot of this technology revolves around advance scanning and mocap technologies, but it would be nice to see some super hi-rez characters with wrinkles and pores and all that cool stuff.
But I suppose we can always hope.
Rashad, by the way, where are you in NYC? Are you living downtown or outside the city?
Technology has a way of filtering down, it may take 5-10 years to be adopted by the likes of DAZ and Poser, but I can see things moving in that direction in the future.
Phil,
A timely snap back to reality. There is a saying on the wall of a local donut shop,"Keep your eye on the donut and not upon the hole". We all have the tendency to get swept up in the glitz. The arms race in "Hollywood" may effect us eventually, but our reality is what we have now and what we are going to do with it. There are huge opportunities to use this software we have creatively, and if used creatively there is enough technology under the hood to bring out a wow factor in the audience that it is aimed for. Its my humble belief that 3d should be an aid to the story - not the story itself.
Talking about WOW factor..I have finally got to your video on using a proxy on dynamic hair..Like others have said before me, thanks for the proxy figure. I am starting to incorporate it into my present project. In my situation the poly proxy, it is well worth the cost of the tutorials.
Starboardtack
Now that's an interesting point I hadn't thought of....maybe DAZ will notice this technology, especially the advanced facial rigging, and develop something similar for its newest generations of characters. Though much of this technology is quite new, and takes some specialized and probably proprietary technology, or at least some really skilled people who know a lot about facial rigging and characterizations.
Though I'd be a little surprised if they attract people with that background, since I'm sure folks who can do advanced rigging and wrinkle maps and texturing and stuff like that would be in relatively high demand. And a lot of this technology revolves around advance scanning and mocap technologies, but it would be nice to see some super hi-rez characters with wrinkles and pores and all that cool stuff.
But I suppose we can always hope.
Can already do wrinkle maps if one has Zbrush and the Go-Z plug-in for Carrara. This has been out for awhile. Even Maya users use Zbrush plug-in "blend shapes" for the animation of wrinkles (morph target equivalent - but more sophisticated).
Of course, the "doing" part can be accomplished with lots of different software. The very very difficult part is finding someone who has the skills and talent to do a very good job at making wrinkle maps for a human face. Again, the tool isn't the issue, it's the talent.
The topic of "does the tool used matter" has been thoroughly explored from all sides. Could we set that aside, please?
Future of Carrara
What a great topic! I hope to see it be a glorious future. Not necessarily from a developmental wonders side of things, but from a "whoa... that was done in Carrara?!!!" viewpoint. I was drawn to Carrara from the start. From the moment that I began exploring the promo pages that were then shown here at DAZ 3D, shortly after the release of Carrara 6, I knew which application was for me... or to be more correct, it was to be the software purchase that I was going to undertake. I really wish that I would have taken screen shots of those pages. I hope that the marketing designers, here at DAZ 3D come up with something either more like that or better for bringing Carrara forward more for folks who may have no clue what it is all about. Right now, the short-but-sweet words are, perhaps, okay... but do not come close to describing Carrara, in my opinion.
I look forward to seeing what the team deems fit to belong in the future versions of Carrara. The fact is, I already love it. I'd love to see more fluidity with the whole DUF in and out of Carrara. If a "Knife" tool coud be added to the vertex modeler, I'd love to have that as well. The fact is, most everyone has already covered stuff that they want, and I would welcome most of that, too... with a few exceptions. There have been a few requests for DAZ 3D to make Carrara's interface more like DAZ Studio's. I actually loved the version of DS where I could make that interface use the Carrara icons and look! Too bad that's gone now. For me, Carrara's interface is a strong point. Perhaps I'm wrong. I'd be willing to try other options if they didn't remove any of the immense functionality. I do love how DAZ Studio has a "build-it-yourself" approach to side panes... heck, even the entire top menu panel. With enough geeking, DS even allows the user to make a completely customized interface - which is pretty darned cool. I don't think that Carrara "needs" anything like this, but it might be nice towards each user to have the ability to customize the interface layout for his or her own needs. So... maybe I'm even on-board with those opinions as well.
The Future of Carrara that I'm most enthused to see is the results of wicked CG results coming from this awesome software. For those of us whom might frequent this forum on at least a fairly steady basis will already know that users have te tools to really create amazing works of art with Carrara - and those monthly contests have been a really helpful and healthy tool for propelling this forward dynamically - and with those WIP criteria... that's just plain magic! Now these contests WIP and entry threads are being cataloged into the forums and can become an amazing tool for picking up tips, tricks, and techniques... Bravo HeadWax(I think it was) for creating that whole affair!
And bravo to those brave souls that enter the challenges and risk hosting them! ;-)
I feel bad that I haven't been able to participate in this month's challenge, but with my job and the latest play my theatre group is staging, I just haven't had the time.
BINGO !!! Thanks, I was trying to remember...
Now see, here's a group of guys who recognized that to do a nice demo reel you don't need to do "Carrara or die", you can stray outside the Carrara environment and use all kinds of different tools. And they also realized that if you want your demo to have impact, don't just plop an M4 and a V4 in there and try to animate it or use a canned mocap or whatever. Instead, there's no better actor to tell your story than a real live one. Much easier, and much more likely your audience will like it. In this case, the main character is a cool, likeable guy, has character, and moves like a real person. Trying to match that with a canned mocap and an M4? Uh....no..
Which is why I'm always surprised nobody here ever gets into live action and compositing, especially since almost everyone owns a video camera in the form of a smartphone or whatever.
And also, just because they did some models and rendering in Carrara, doesn't mean Carrara is super awesome. Heck, any 3D app could have done the same thing. What made it stand out was the skill and talent of the crew.
And another point to mention...I guarantee if you showed that demo to a prospective employer, they wouldn't really care what software you used. They'd say, "wow, that's nice. Short, tells a good story, likeable characters, good integration and compositing, and a great punchline at the end". They'd recognize that it took a whole cast of characters and different skills and talents and hardware and software, and the real skill was planning all that and putting it all together and using the right tool for the job, and telling a story and making people feel good for watching it. That's what's important.
Anyway, I'd encourage folks here to try to emulate something like that, but the last time I did that (I think I challenged people here to duplicate just one frame of the video..) I got in trouble and nobody wanted to take up the challenge. :) :) :) Great advice.
But do try to keep in mind that the beautiful thing about Carrara is that we can all use it for what "we" want to use it for. You say that "nobody here ever gets into live action and compositing, especially since almost everyone owns a video camera in the form of a smartphone or whatever", well why not do some? Carrara certainly has the tools to do so. And I'm sure that anyone whom may have bought Carrara for that purpose has been doing that like mad.
My M4 and V4 (and Genesis, and other friends) actors will be doing stuff that just cannot be done by myself. Besides, animating 3D models is part of what has drawn me into Carrara in the first place. The really cool thing about being an artist is to have full capability to escape reality - rather than to just show more of it.
Anyways... I agree... it would be really neat to see more composite work being done. Have you seen evilproducer get eaten by a T-Rex? I mean, it's really cool that he made that clip before he really knew what to do, so-to-speak. But he did it, and it really came out to be a fun thing. When we start to get fun results, we can explore how to make them better and better. Then we can turn out excellent results that are fun... and that's cool. That's the set of pages that I've been turning... practicing and learning... having fun and experiencing. Oh... and I've been saving a whole lot of useful things to my browser. Most of all... I've been having a lot of fun learning that we should be able to do just about anything in Carrara, no matter what anybody else enjoys using.
Although I'm not much into rendering "art", nor am I looking for a job in the industry, I do a lot of compositing - video and stills - for the amusement of my family. These don't get shown in public - the internet being inhabited by so many weirdos !:)
Dart is so correct - we all use Carrara for what we individually want to achieve and have fun doing it. Because stuff isn't being seen, doesn't mean it's not being done :)
I don't think I've ever shown any work here before, so I'm coming in with a bag over my head. :-)
Here are a few clips I made several years ago. When I first started this madness I was really inspired by the videos by Markus Rothkranz. A friend of mine is a puppeteer and we experimented with some green screen tests. There are a thousand things I would like to correct in just these few examples, especially the last part with the "dog thing" in the spaceship. He was one of my first attempts and that hand pushing that lever...yikes!
http://youtu.be/SmrBTFeAA4Q
Please excuse the barely altered canned loops from Garage Band...
I don't think I've ever shown any work here before, so I'm coming in with a bag over my head. :-)
Here are a few clips I made several years ago. When I first started this madness I was really inspired by the videos by Markus Rothkranz. A friend of mine is a puppeteer and we experimented with some green screen tests. There are a thousand things I would like to correct in just these few examples, especially the last part with the "dog thing" in the spaceship. He was one of my first attempts and that hand pushing that lever...yikes!
http://youtu.be/SmrBTFeAA4Q
Please excuse the barely altered canned loops from Garage Band...
Always interesting to see people doing something a bit different with Carrara - great examples that wouldn't take too much polishing to look very classy.
BINGO !!! Thanks, I was trying to remember...
Now see, here's a group of guys who recognized that to do a nice demo reel you don't need to do "Carrara or die", you can stray outside the Carrara environment and use all kinds of different tools. And they also realized that if you want your demo to have impact, don't just plop an M4 and a V4 in there and try to animate it or use a canned mocap or whatever. Instead, there's no better actor to tell your story than a real live one. Much easier, and much more likely your audience will like it. In this case, the main character is a cool, likeable guy, has character, and moves like a real person. Trying to match that with a canned mocap and an M4? Uh....no..
Which is why I'm always surprised nobody here ever gets into live action and compositing, especially since almost everyone owns a video camera in the form of a smartphone or whatever.
And also, just because they did some models and rendering in Carrara, doesn't mean Carrara is super awesome. Heck, any 3D app could have done the same thing. What made it stand out was the skill and talent of the crew.
And another point to mention...I guarantee if you showed that demo to a prospective employer, they wouldn't really care what software you used. They'd say, "wow, that's nice. Short, tells a good story, likeable characters, good integration and compositing, and a great punchline at the end". They'd recognize that it took a whole cast of characters and different skills and talents and hardware and software, and the real skill was planning all that and putting it all together and using the right tool for the job, and telling a story and making people feel good for watching it. That's what's important.
Anyway, I'd encourage folks here to try to emulate something like that, but the last time I did that (I think I challenged people here to duplicate just one frame of the video..) I got in trouble and nobody wanted to take up the challenge. :) :) :)
I don't think doing motion capture animation is using Carrara (or any 3D animation program) incorrectly. It's an entirely different kind of media. You might as well say "Why animate the Little Mermaid? You could have just made it live action."
The two are irrelevant to compare. Most of the time I prefer animated things to live actions things, largely because I see live action things all day long. They aren't particularly interesting to me compared to something that's animated.
Like, for the most part, I prefer Vining's entirely mocapped Star Trek: Aurora to any other version of Star Trek that's come out in the last decade.
Also, if someone is attempting in their reel to showcase their animation skills, again, your advice would be irrelevant and ill-placed.
Additionally, "canned mocap" is kind of a misnomer. A good portion of indies doing mocap are either commissioning their mocaps or doing their own.
I think at this point Joe is just trying to passive aggressively put down anyone who isn't using Carrara exactly the way he feels it should be used.
I'm still trying to get over someone writing, "Why would you animate it? Just use live actors! It's better!" on a forum that, in large part, includes members who are animators. lol
Thanks Phil for the kind words!
I think you're totally misunderstanding my point. But at this point it doesn't really matter. As they say, too much heat, and not much light in this discussion. :) :)
I think you're totally misunderstanding my point. But at this point it doesn't really matter. As they say, too much heat, and not much light in this discussion. :) :)
"And they also realized that if you want your demo to have impact, don’t just plop an M4 and a V4 in there and try to animate it or use a canned mocap or whatever. Instead, there’s no better actor to tell your story than a real live one."
This is what I was completely and utterly disagreeing with. Canned mocap is largely a misnomer and doesn't mean anything. One mocap or another mocap makes no difference. Whether you make the mocap or someone else makes the mocap, so long as it's done professionally, it doesn't matter which mocap is used.
If you want to make live action things, make live action things. That's at your discretion, but saying that there's no better actor to tell your story than a real live one is basically giving a giant middle finger to animators...in what, at least in part, amounts to a forum for animators.
You can say whatever your preference is without dropping a cleveland steamer on someone else's preference. *I* prefer mocapped 3D figures over live actors. Otherwise I'd use live actors. Like you said, it's certainly easier and takes less time.
Years ago, a good friend of mine said to me "Y'know, you should try scuba diving. Really. I think you'd like it"
I said "What? Nah, it's a pain, all the gear and stuff...I don't have time...just not interested"
He kept bugging me about it. He was pretty avid about it, did underwater photography, went on dive trips to some cool places. But it just wasn't my thing.
Or so I thought.... :)
Finally, he convinced me, and he went with me to an introductory class where you actually go underwater. Well, I was hooked. It was wonderful. Quiet, relaxing, beautiful fish. Just awesome. Since then I've been addicted.
Now, did I get upset at him when he kept bugging me to try it? No. He thought I'd enjoy it. Was he trying to criticize me or drop a, whatever, on my preferences to do other things? No. He just thought I'd enjoy it.
One thing I've learned in life is that if you step outside of your comfort zone and try new things, often you find joys and fun where you least expect it. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with deciding not to try it. Heck, maybe you really WON'T like it. But when someone suggests you try something different, it's not a personal attack or a criticism. No need to assume it is, or take it personally.
By the way, not knowing what a "cleveland steamer" is, I looked it up. My mistake. Dude, that's nasty.
I don't think I assumed anything that wasn't clearly spelled out. Even the tone was pretty clear when comparing a performance an animator could get from an M4 verses a live actor. "Um...no," he says.
Saying someone "realized" that they could get a better performance out of a live actor than they could from an animation means that it's the truth. But it's not the truth, it's his specific solitary opinion.
And again, his reel suggestion is wholly irrelevant for someone wanting to show their animating skills in their reel, which is most of what we've been talking about. What he's pointing to is largely and exclusively about compositing and, to a lesser extent, modeling. That's a specific approach to 3D art. And for every person pushing green screen and compositing there are legions of creators who will say, "Green screen can't compare to real sets" and "CGI elements can't compare to practical elements".
If I sat here and said, "They realized that they would have a much better set if they just built the thing by hand," it would be just as absurd and irrelevant.
Anyone can appreciate what they want to appreciate without feeling compelled to simultaneously declare one to be inferior to something else. I have just as much appreciation for a mocapped M4 figure in an entirely CG environment as I do a live actor on location. For my latest short I literally shot live actors in downtown Chicago in full costume. I then decided that the transition from animation wasn't going to work and so redid it as an animated sequence. All that matters is what works for the piece. Try everything and do everything, and do it without denouncing the things that aren't the things you're doing. That's all.