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Sorry, I've not quite got the command of the puppeteer, I never use it...
I am currently working on a set of animation tutorials so maybe that will help once it comes out. I have been hampered by hardly having a working computer for the last few months, which has been a nightmare, but I seem to be back in business now (fingers crossed).
The graph editor can be useful in fine tuning animations or spotting where they are going awry. So for workflow with Puppeteer, you would create you animation in Puppeteer and then do fine tuning (if required) with the graph editor.
You can also use the Puppeteer as a way to hold a bunch of poses and apply them at different points in the timeline, to build an animation, rather than recording the mouse animating the figure,. which carrara can have issues with,. the animation can seem slugish,.
or drag the mouse over those pose dots to animate the figure,. and recors that animation ,. then send it to the sequencer timeline as keyframes,.
you can edit those keyframes,. and use the graph editor for fine tuning specific frame values,
Puppeteeer works really smoothly in DS, which it was originally designed for,.
so, you could,. animate in DS with puppeteer,. save as animated Pose,.and apply to your figure in Carrrara.
okay no goofing around today #1 priority! puppeteer and the graph editor seriously must master!!
it's motion & sound, right? sound & motion. or Sound, Motion, & Special effects.
special effects the pollish. and Directing.
Directing
Sound
Motion
Special Effects FX
Directing
todo: - adapt novel to screenplay. is all in my head right naos.
todo: - set up character presets, hair, make up, texture details, outfits - x3 outfits day, evening, battle
Sound
- set up the screaming bee presets for character voices. learn how to use screaming bee
Motion
todo: - make a todo list of basic carrara skills needing to master to start rendering movie
todo: - make a todo list of carrara skills needed to make awesome movie
todo: get new perscription glasses to read screen font
Misty, I don't know how much animating you have done, but don't try to bite off too much in one go. If you set out to make an animated feature length film, you are setting yourself up to fail (unless you happen to have a whole studio full of people that you haven't mentioned!). Start small and build up - a ToDo list is great, but just remember to take it one step at a time.
kinda got my neart set on a 60fps feature film
running the cloth sim again. set that collision margin to 300% and stiffness .3
so far looking good on the poke thru situation
gonna try dropping the cloth plane on a non moving vicki4
collides against invisble objects? i hid the taurus, but collded. starting calculations over.
There is a setting under the object's "Effects" tab which allows you to turn "Collide with other objects" on or off - it is on by default, even when invisible (which can be useful). There is also an option for hair collisions. Turning off for objects that are not interacting can make the calculations faster.
is there something with ik and the soft body?
tried more calculations scenarios, raised vicki's ams, thought it was gonnna work, but her hands poked throu.
not seeing poke, but material seems less silky.
the arms fail
is kinda like the dementors of azkhaban?
Carrara's soft body works fine with static props, but not with moving characters, the limbs tend to move through the cloth. This has been the case ever since it was introduced and it has never been fixed. This has prevented using Bullet soft body for clothing, despite many attempts to work around it. If you want good cloth sim in Carrara, I can recommend VirtualWorldDynamics - there is a separate thread on this.
it collides against infinite plane
but why up to her forearms. is there a limit of number of bodyparts?
ever try kimono sleeves?
I think it works if the figure is static - as in your third example.The issue is where the limbs are moving and pushing against the cloth, it tends to go through the cloth, as in your final example. There have been many attempts to get around this, there is a whole thread devoted to a system which involved attaching proxy shapes to each limb part, which kind of worked, but we now have a much more reliable method in the VWD product, which fills one of the few big holes in Carrara's armoury, for me at least!
thanks! by proxie, you mean like, geoshells? parenting collision props to her extremeties?
colliding against invisible objects makes sense now
i expected it to move with her walking after was draped.
thinkin there's a basic concept here i'm not understanding
testing concepts takes long hours on 4 cores.
do i need to export draped mesh then import as the start position?
lo0ks beautiful, calculation times, dunno how feasible will be for my movie. i definitely want to use dynamics, but will have to use it sparingly.
i guess everyone's tried it on dragon wings?
Yes, like geoshells. Have a look at the other thread but it really was quite complicated and even then it did not work that reliably. I have spent many hours of my life trying to get Carrara's soft body to work as a cloth simulation, but it really isn't defined as that or up to the task. Which is why I am so happy to have VWD in my arsenal! And even major studios try to use dynamics sparingly as it increases their overheads dramatically, same with hair sims (which if you get into, works well with proxy shapes in Carrara).
I can't remember seeing any Carrara animations done with dynamics applied to dragon wings so you could be breaking new ground with that. I can't help thinking that it might be easier to define a couple of morphs and hand key them in sympathy with the beating of the wings. But good luck with it!
Thanks Phil for pointing out that this problem never got fixed.
Thanks also to Misty for all your work and for showing the problem... I've not tried this yet. I've been keeping an eye on the VWD thread Phil mentioned Interested in a New Cloth Sim Plug in For Carrara? Please show your support. One day in the future, hopefully near, I plan to have it and Philemo's plugin for Carrara.
btw: Wings are are leaning against wall at front door... only wear them outside, too much gets knocked over indoors. :)
lol. next to the umbrella stand ?
taking lil break from cloth to try plant editor. rendering 422 frames to see leaves rustle in wind.
carrara render won in the pc july challenge, gives me hope
is it better to attach mp4 as mp4.zip? or better to put on stash and link?
willow tree in basic plants
happy tree and 1 happy volumetric cloud.
keyframed the cloud. in plant editor set wind direction, doh, forgot what i set the leaves, pc busy atmo will check later
60fps
http://orig09.deviantart.net/6792/f/2016/206/1/f/tree_rustle_deinterlaced_by_realmgal-dabc8nu.mp4
is there a weepy willow tree for plant editor out there somewhere?
Some helpful tidbits for ya:
I recall you mentioning wanting to render out this really long sequence, all in a single clip. There is no need to do that, since with digital media, we can easily pick up one where another left off. But, more importantly... many l o n g clips are just plain boring. Try to use different camera angles to have many short clips piece together to make the whole. It will look much better in the end, plus it keeps the rendering process going in a positive direction.
Anyways... to each their own on that.
Tweeners: Bezier tweeners can really help smooth out motions, but try not to over use them. Some things just need other tweeners. For example, blinking eyes often look much better with linear tweeners, as Bezier will tend to go too far one way or the other with morphs unexpectedly. An easy fix is to just just Linear tweeners instead of trying to fix what the Bezier is fighting with.
I've spent a lot of years studying the timing of various human expressions - watching how people move. One big thing that I see is that eyes change direction incredibly fast. So whenever there's a slow translation from one target to the next, it just doesn't look right... even if we can't tell why it doesn't look right. People usually have to try to turn their eyes slowly in order for the eyes to actually turn slowly!
Oscillating and Noise tweeners are fantastic for making flickers, jitters, bounces (one of the Oscillation methods happens to be "Bounce") and stuff like that - but can also be used to simply repeat the difference between two poses several times over any period of time - which is really helpful and can save a LOT of time!
I know you were looking at editing software. I have a few different ones. But if you're still looking, I'd suggest giving HitFilm 4 Express a try.
It is both a compositer and an editor all in one nice UI, is Free but upgradeable, and has a lot of Really nice features. I'm going to upgrade to 4 Pro ASAP... I really like it!
Compositer - This is what we use to blend various elements together, not stitching one clip to another, but more like adding effects, backgrounds, animated changes to individual clips, which will later be edited together with all of our other clips, sounds, music, transitions, etc., to make a movie. That's all done in the:
Editor - This is what Sony Vegas is. I own a low-end version of Vegas, which I like very much. But I've often wished that I do more with this or that... it's limited in some ways, while it is still nice and easy to get a project completed. HitFilm has a lot of incredible features, like keyframing volume changes or video opacity and other nice Pro-level goodies.
So we can render out the gist of the action in Carrara and then bring that clip into HitFilm to add the explosions, sparks and smoke. The compositor works in both 2D and 3D environments seemlessly and comes with a decent array of presets to get us used to how to set things up, like particles, animated text, 2D procedural fire... lots of cool things.
As we make effects for one clip, we can save presets of them so that we can carry that over to the other clips that need the same treatment. They have a bunch of video tutorials and are always happy to answer questions. Simon was one of my VFX instructors ;)
The more we (as 3D animation-rendering artists) learn about VFX (Compositing), the better we understand about how we best go about setting up our renders. Why spend weeks setting up a 3D render which will takes weeks more to render, if we can spend much less time setting up and rendering, and finishing it off in a compositor with real-time feedback?!!!
thanks.
i was listening to royalty free cinematc scores last weekend. couldnt find one i like yet though. they have filters for instruments.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/productionmusic/all
lame shortcut, but (shrug)
You need a (free) Google account to access this, but this Audio Library contains Lots and Lots of music tracks of many genre and sound effects for use in video projects with the proper license for even those whom monetize their YouTube videos.
You'd still want to be aware of what you can and cannot do with it before distributing it in a DVD or Blu-Ray of your video, though. But it's intended for those who make money on their YouTube videos who have a hard time finding music that doesn't flag them for copy rite issues.
I've downloaded some of it just to listen to because I like it.
Just as a warning: When I bought Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum it came with a bunch of songs and sound effects - which was the real reason why I bought the Platinum over the other bundle which came with Acid (music maker for use with loops) - and I got flagged for using some of the music that came with it!
Oh... EDIT:
I guess I've acquired this possibility due to my YouTube video ranking, so I'm not sure if everyone with a Google account has access... check it out and see?
This is the video with the issues. I like the music edits and it took me quite some time as well... so I never changed it! LOL As well, there were very very few Bezier tweeners used in this video. The camera moves use Bezier, and there are a few other tiny spots when Dartan unsheathes his sword. But if you check out the blinks and eye movements... that's all done with linear tweeners to make them look more natural.
The way that I now determine when to use a Bezier Tweener:
Animations that need to start and end slowly, with a climactic middle. These get a Bezier.
Nowadays I am a lot more used to animating, so I know ahead of time whether I want to use Bezier or something else - so I leave my default Tweener as Linear, but change it to Bezier when I want to design whole details along the timeline with them in. Otherwise I just select the tweeners I want and set them to Bezier manually.
Use what feels most comfortable to you. The big thing to take away from all of this is that, if things are looking all wonky, like the eyelids are getting way too wide open or way too closed... switch the tweener before head-aching over endless tweeks! ;)
Bezier are fantastic for times when you want to set one pose at 0:00, and then move a few seconds away and change the pose... the Bezier is the tool to make that sort of thing look very natural. But when you need to make eyes blink or switch targets (what they're looking at), try using linear ;) If you want a subtle movement of the blouse to make it look like there's a breeze in the air, try a Noise tweener - set the movement morph at the very end of the animation, or even a few seconds beyond, and put a Noise tweener between that and the beginning, set the type to "Cubic", the bottom radio button, and adjust the T-Scale to make it either change quickly, many times, or slowly, just a few times. Magnitude will adjust how close to either end the morph is applied.
Animating is a real joy! Have fun with it!
While on this subject, I'm working on a sequence now, where a buried space craft is making its way out of an underground cavern. The way through is tight, yet it requires a bit of momentum to move, so as it hits a formation of solid stone with its wing, I switch from the smooth motion of the Bezier Tweener to Linear tweeners, animating the abrupt changes, switching back to Bezier to regain control and cruize past the camera.
So, to build this animation, I've started with the smooth path from start to finish. There will be many shots before it completely escapes the cavern, so this one is just a 2 second sequence - and I'll likely trim some of that short clip, making it slightly more than a single second... which is still a lot of footage for a scene this intense.
I knew ahead of time that I was going to animate this collision so I started with the ship back away from the camera, tilted as if this is a continuation of the flight path... because, in the end, it will be. I anticipate how the ship will rock on its axis' as it collides with the rock, and give it a good ending pose - almost completely past the camera, setting the new tilt that it needs to continue along it's imaginary path.
As mentioned earlier, my default tweener is Linear, since I most often need it that way. This is because most of my Bezier tweeners are long and easy to select, meaning that there are often a lot less of them. So it's nice and easy for me to just select a few tweeners and make them Bezier. Anyways....
I switch my timeline cursor to the "Add Keyframe" tool and scrub the time scrubber until I can see the wing make contact with the rock. Boom. I paint a keyframe down, locking in what the Bezier gave me to this point.
Now I forget all about which tweener is what, and I sort of the rocking of the speeding ship as it's path stumbles through the air. After I get my few keyframes added, rocking the ship around, I go back and make sure that the first and last tweeners are each Bezier, leaving the rest at the default of Linear. Now I scrub the sequence and check out the animation... beautiful... I like this one. Other times I might not like it. In that case, I'd do the simple task of selecting all of the collision keyframes in the middle and delete them... start over.
I have the path of the ship sorted out, so now I want to add a subtle 'hand-held' motion to the camera - without sacrificing the angle of the overall shot, since I already like what's going on. So let's do that using the Cubic Noise tweener I've mentioned in the previous post:
I don't want to change the aim of the camera, but I do want to add some motion to it. So I select the "Bank" tool to roll the camera at the beginning, and again at the end, the other way a bit.
With just those two keyframes on my Film Camera (one at the start, one at the end), I change the long tweener between them to Noise and, as shown in the above post's image, select the 'Cubic' method of noise. Ulike that image, however, I don't want that much noise, with that high of magnitude. So I start by calming down the magnitude until the noise line is almost flat and then work the T Scale to provide a nice, subtle movement to the camera's bank.
Now I turn OFF "skip frames" on the sequencer and play it back. I type in numbers into the "Seed" value of the Noise Tweener until I get the greatest amount of movement in the tweener to coincide with the collision, so it looks a bit like the camera was hit, or the camera operator was startled, etc.,
Just some fun Virtual Thoughts on animation for your virtual pennies! ;)
LOL! It's done rendering now... it turned out Sooo cool!!! :)
So now I set up particle emitters and make some cumbling rocks, dust and debris from the collision, using the background spherical map from badlands to get the right surrounding atmosphere - but I'll render to alpha so that nothing renders but the particles. Then I can use that render in a compositor to complete the shot.
I am really comfortable doing this stuff in Howler, my most often used compositor. But HitFilm can do the same things, and more. HitFilm has particles built in, so we can do this stuff in there, getting real-time feedback on the whole effect. Too complex of effects simulations can slow down the performance in HitFilm as well, but it has controls to help correct that while we're working. The particles are limited in the free version.
Howler is a LOT less expensive than HitFilm Pro and is also a painter with a lot of other tools. I love using it as a compositor though, as well as all of my other VFX I've been learning.
There comes a time, however, when an artist needs to settle on the software. The stuff takes some time to learn. My plan has evolved to where I still want to use Howler as I'm using it with Carrara now, and add HitFilm Pro to the flow - running the free express version until that time to continue getting the grasp of all that it has to offer - and how it works. I already own and somewhat understand the use of Sony Vegas Movie HD and Corel's VideoStudio Pro so I'll be keeping those around just in case... but I have a feeling that HF will be replacing them entirely, in time.
I also have the free versions of Fusion - both versions 7 and 8. 8 is still in beta and, for some crazy reason, they've switched around a lot of the commands that are taught via their tutorial videos - so I find it clunky and awkward compared to 7 - so when I do use Fusion, I use 7. I really like it but the free version is limited in resolution. Not too badly... but it still pushes me towards HitFilm. I'll keep plugging away with that as well... one never knows where the software dust will settle by the time final production time comes - which is FINALLY starting to show itself to me! LOL
Seems like a long wait - but I wasn't waiting. I was doing as you've mentioned above: planning, learning, preparing, learning, building, learning, collecting...
Soon the script will be written, Rosie and I will start rehearsals, and we'll go to my singer's studio and record for episode one! After everything is cut together into a full production, I'll take the music that I've been writing and play it to the video to fit and capture the timing and essence - the emotion of the show. Then it'll be time to present it... somehow! ;)
Dart, Very good advice... I'd not realized that eye blinks/movements needed to use linear... glad you mentioned it. Agree that mutiple cameras work great for cuts to different angles, characters or even to show where the actor(s) are heading or what's coming. Applies to all video/film making whether it be a love story or an action packed film.
Explains why the clip I acted in wasn't in the movie... ended up on the cutting room floor. :)
They don't really have to be linear... I just wanted to warn against the pitfalls that might come along with Bezier interpolation ;)
My bad... I just re-read it.
Can't wait to see it!!! Just from lurking here in the forums I know you have been cooking up some awesomeness in the kitchen for quite some time now.
Years and years!!!