The Element movie - Episode one

acloete

Hey everyone,

This is my very first post on the Daz Forum. I've been a Platimum Club member of DAZ since 2017 and have collected hundreds of characters and assests from Daz store over the years.

And I finally have something to show for it :)

Not sue if this is the right place to post it but this is the first episode of a 3D-Animation web series/movie I'm working on. I morphed and rigged the characters in CC3 and used iClone for the body and fascial animation. This version was rendered in iClone but I'm currently transfering it all to Unreal for the final renders.

Amongst all the many, many DAZ assests used you'll see 3D Universe's Sandy Bay Village. I also used the Toon Generations 3 character morphs to help design my characters.

This is still very much a work in progress, so I'm happy for any constructive critsim.

Thanks,

Allistair

 

 

junk

Hey that is incredible work!  Some of the best animations and story telling from Daz artists that I've seen.  

Great work Allistair.

acloete

Thank you. Really appreciate the kind words.

3WC

Yes, really good. Your animation is great, and your camera work, editing, everything shows you put a lot of work into making the movie.

Most DS animations I can't watch more than about 30 seconds because they are so stiff and boring, people just standing and talking, even their heads aren't moving at all, they look like mannequins with moving mouths. LOL. Yours is some quality work, keep it up.

Interesting story, too.

acloete

Thanks 3WC.

LOL, totally get you on the 'stiff heads''  and poor animation. It's very easy to get free (Miximo) and cheap animation clips (Daz and ActorCore) these days to give life to your characters.

Mollytabby

Great storytelling. You had me hooked right from the beginning. 

FirstBastion

The editing choices are especially professional. Solid storytelling too. Good voice acting for the most part. The interactions and dialogue within the family drama were good.  Really liked the juxtaposition of the bubbles floating up against the backdrop of the military base and the arrival of the helicopter as film-making money shots. The narrator's voice work is well done too.

If there is an area for improvement it would be the authenticity of the military response. The dialogue for that part seemed labored and inaccurate. 

But overall  this is a very good animated production.

acloete

Mollytabby said:

Great storytelling. You had me hooked right from the beginning. 

acloete

Thanks Mollytabby

acloete

FirstBastion said:

The editing choices are especially professional. Solid storytelling too. Good voice acting for the most part. The interactions and dialogue within the family drama were good.  Really liked the juxtaposition of the bubbles floating up against the backdrop of the military base and the arrival of the helicopter as film-making money shots. The narrator's voice work is well done too.

If there is an area for improvement it would be the authenticity of the military response. The dialogue for that part seemed labored and inaccurate. 

But overall  this is a very good animated production.

Thanks FirstBastion, I love your Daz stuff, by the way :) I bought quite a few of your assests.

I really appreciate you taking time to give such helpful critique.

The only voice not done by a human actor was the Watchtower Guard. His voice is actually an A.I voice from Replica Studios. (Which is hood for an AI voice but can't compare with a real voice) But yes, the scripted lines does need re-looking at... Any assistance or advice here (from anyone) would be appreciated.

The plan was also to fill the tower base with a lot more military guards but my poor PC battled to handle all the polys (even though I decreased the LOD to the max)

Thanks again for taking the time to comment.

 

FirstBastion

acloete said:

...

The only voice not done by a human actor was the Watchtower Guard. His voice is actually an A.I voice from Replica Studios. (Which is hood for an AI voice but can't compare with a real voice) But yes, the scripted lines does need re-looking at... Any assistance or advice here (from anyone) would be appreciated.

 I find this quite interesting. I have also used Replica Studio's AI voices for some projects, and yet,  did not detect the uncanny valley computer voice with your guard. It sounded montone and not very dramatic,  but it still came across as a human voice. That bodes well for Replica. If you add a few more lines of dialogue, perhaps a second guard to bounce banter off of,  and perhaps a different "more agitated voice" preset,  along with some radio chatter,  the scene will develop nicely.

acloete

FirstBastion said:

acloete said:

...

The only voice not done by a human actor was the Watchtower Guard. His voice is actually an A.I voice from Replica Studios. (Which is hood for an AI voice but can't compare with a real voice) But yes, the scripted lines does need re-looking at... Any assistance or advice here (from anyone) would be appreciated.

 I find this quite interesting. I have also used Replica Studio's AI voices for some projects, and yet,  did not detect the uncanny valley computer voice with your guard. It sounded montone and not very dramatic,  but it still came across as a human voice. That bodes well for Replica. If you add a few more lines of dialogue, perhaps a second guard to bounce banter off of,  and perhaps a different "more agitated voice" preset,  along with some radio chatter,  the scene will develop nicely.

In my opinion, Replica has the most 'realistic sounding' voices of all the A.I options. They do give you some limited voice deflection options (with some of the voices) to help 'sell' the voice but it will unfortunately never beat a voice actor.

The only reason I ended up using It was because I knew that I would be adding a 'megaphone echo effect' in post and thought that this would hide the fact that it was not a real persons voice.

And thanks for the suggestion on including a second guard to interact with. I'll definitely look at this as an option in the final product.

Allistair