Are you joking ?

Getting back to the original topic. My personal reason for not having done an iclone film yet is mainly due to the visual quality of rendered output. In terms of animation, I'm satisfied that everything I need is there. But in terms of what my work will look like...well it leaves a lot to be desired. But i do have plenty of scripts and I have pre-ordered iClone 6 which seems very promising.

For me its actually more important to have manual control of the basic most stuff. Like the ability to easily texture an item, or light a scene, or render in such a way that it doesn't look like a 90's video game. And no i'm not knocking it, this is just as it relates to me and what I'm trying to achieve in my personal work. If i had a script that lent itself to this type of look I would embrace it in a heart beat. Or if a client project came up which would lend itself to this look, i would jump at the chance.

At this point in time, i cant texture the trees myself so Im stuck with that video game look. I can sort of re-texture the grass. I can't seem to be able to place more than one body of water in my scene... and many other small issues which I'm sure I'll figure out as i get better with the software operation side of things.

I'm also starting to embrace, even appreciate mocap which is something I was always biased against. With the 48hr film project coming up, im hoping to have learned enough about the software to be able to pull off my first short done entirely in iclone.

At this time my use of iClone is mostly experimental. I can use it as a compositor to create 2dcgi using a 3d environment. The camera system is a million times better than the one in CTA, and compositing CTA character stuff in iClone for me is proving to be a lot more efficient than in After Effects.




Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
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Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.

I second that idea. Some sort of community driven monthly challenge with deadlines and peer comparison/discussion would rock. Best way to learn and advance is to see how everyone else tackles the same obstacles and adapt. I need the practice too and would certainly participate. Little short tidbits that don't require too much time out a persons schedule.


Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.

Yeah, that's why I was calling "meta". The "Timewarp" is an even more meta layer above that, in that it's the same curves, but applied to a motion clip. Maybe one day it'll be at the individual bone layer!

EDIT: I actually said "macro" before, should've said "meta".

I'll start a new thread about an "11 second club" of our own.

Here's my slightly robotic coffee drinker. It was keyed with a few curves, but is far from perfect. I know I would start futzing with those curves if they were available. Maybe it's good they weren't, but with my knowledge gained since I did this, I could probably smooth it out a bit better, as well as add more motion detail.

I made only 7 videos. I'm satisfied with the rendering but not for animation. For me animation is more important than the render , but it is my opinion.
My first movie :


My second:


And I made 5 little videos for a Quebec political-satiric website: (but it is in french)

Oups I forgot this one. (sorry it is in french). It's talking about observers in the univers infiltrated in the different civilisation to watch progress....

@mtakerkart

Great stuff!

It'd be really nice to have a little bit of the making of, especially on the "Radio X". Was that primarily real-time puppeteering, or all keyed?

Thank you Rampa !

Yes , It is all puppetering , first pass for the face and second pass for the body. The hands are locked to the trash while pupetering the body . Last pass for the extra arms animation. The camera is the last animation I made.

There is small feature in AnimePro that helps the basic facial bone move according to the intensity of the sound /speech. DAZ too has similar feature. Something like that would help in ICLONE too to animate basic facial speech expression.