Hi everyone,
I've been asked to set up a very complex scene of 10 minutes with 17 camera angles, many actors and lots of props. I'm trying to figure out the best way to set up the scene so that eventual changes would be easier to apply.
The script is not finished yet, but the other departments need a visual reference, so many tweaks occour on weekly basis while the script evolves, based on their feedbacks on my previs.

By far I've been asked to:
- Change one of the supporting actors from male to female
- Add a new action and a new camera in the middle of the timeline
- Change the duration of a specific camera/action
- Change a prop on the background which will be visible in many shots

WORKING WITH 1 HUGE FILE: changing a prop or an actor will affect all the clip, so this operation is easier. On the other side, stretching a camera shot by 2 seconds will force me to shift a huge amount of keyframes for every other camera, motion and animation.

1 FILE FOR EACH CAMERA: better control over the action and the shots lenght, but changing a prop would force me to edit all the single files in which that prop is visible. Same goes if I'm asked to change/add a light source or anything that globally affects all the scene.


At the moment I'm using a very huge file with all the cameras and switch set up, but it's really a lot of elements to keep track of. Any tips?

@m.gherardi
Usually, previs/layout work is done using one DCC scene per Sequence (can be called 'Scene' too), yet mostly using proxies or low-def assets.
It does not mean the all scene must be continuous in time and apparently this is the trap you fell into.
Each shot can be spaced by 100 or 1000 frames, this has no importance, you can even have a new shot added at the end even if it is the new second shot of the sequence meaning it does not matter if the shots are in order inside your iClone scene file.
Then you just have to keep track of the in and out frame of each shot and render those separately (you can even render the all sequence at night then cut and reorder your shots later).

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guy rabiller | GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS
"N.O.E." (Nations Of Earth) Sci-Fi TV Show, Showrunner.

Try to break up the scenes and use a video editor to edit it all together unless you have a card with 8 to 12 GB of memory which will get used real fast...
This scene I created takes 11Gb of video memory in project mode. If you create 1 large scene you will need lots of video memory.






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Well, adding lots of "blank time" between the shots it's a very handy solution!
The "switch" realtime playback will not be possible, but it's a fair trade in order to overcome the 2 major issues listed above.

Thanks for the tip! ;)

Memory is not a problem. But yes, I'm considering to split the file in many different shots and, to avoid the problem of the scene tweaks, render the backgrounds separately and merge them with a video editor. That could be a valid solution too.

Thanks for the tip!

Suggestion from experts are always very welcome! Thanks a lot! ;)

It's for a storyboard, so it shouldn't matter breaking it up even if there is some weird seam somewhere. The brute force way is just to copy the file a few times and segment each shot.  You can delete everything not needed before and after the shots. No need to change cameras this way.

I'm not an expert, but I have struggled with this issue too.

I would recommend keeping a "single scene" (even a long one) in one project if at all possible.

Why?  Because of the situations you described.  If you make any changes, such as changing a character, or lighting, or anything, you then need to make the same change in multiple files or you'll have discontinuities in your scene.

But notice I would not suggest you put an entire 90-minute multi-scene movie in one project file.

A great friend for me has been the "Insert Frame" (and Delete Frame) that you can do on the timeline editor.  If you need an extra second where you want to insert some action or extend a camera shot, place the cursor there and simply insert 60 frames.  In iC5 it was horribly slow, but it has worked great in iC6, both insert and delete takes only a second or two whereas it could take 5 to 20 minutes in iC5.  (I like to think my feedback had an influence on it, but who knows.)

Since Insert/Delete frame works so well, I sometimes put in "plenty of space" between segments to give myself room to work, and then as I neared completion, I could delete the extra space.  A person could cut out the spaces in your NLE, especially if it coincides with a camera cut.  In my project, I was waiting for the actual voice-overs from my vocal talent, so I used my own voice to get started on the project, but I knew the final lines might be a bit longer (or spoken more slowly), so that is why I had a lot of buffer zones in the project.  If the lady spoke for 6 seconds instead of 5, I didn't overlap other things in the project.

One quick tip about camera angles...
I originally used the camera "switcher" to change from camera-to-camera, but found myself often getting confused between one camera or another.  People with real-world experience might render the entire scene multiple times, once from each camera angle, and do all the cutting in their NLE, just as if they filmed on location in real life.

I now often use just one camera, and use a "Step" function to "cut" from one angle to another.  If I needed to re-use a camera position, I could just Ctrl-Drag to copy a camera's Transform keyframe.  I might still use 2 or 3 cameras, but this had really minimized my camera count.

It might not work for everyone, but I found that approach to be much less confusing and error prone than trying to do the bookkeeping on half a dozen different cameras.


Lastly:
Will you be able to share some work-in-progress (WIP) video clips with us?

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Just to precise my suggestion, using one file per Scene at the previz/layout step is quite mandatory at first because this is precisely the step where you usually decide of the actual shots, so you can't do this with split files at first if you don't know the shots. But even with a storyboard or a precise list of shots it is convenient to start with a file per scene/sequence.

It does not mean it stays that way for the all duration of the fabrication of the movie.
Previz/Layout -> Animation/VFX -> Lighting -> Rendering -> Compositing -> Grading

Usually the difference between Previz and Layout is that at Previz step, if any, the assets do not exist yet (no characters or sets or props are available) while at Layout step, those are often available, modeling is done, at least low-rez version but sometimes high-rez ones too, and sometimes texturing and shading is already done too or done at the same time.

Once the Layout is done, the Animation step can start and there should be some sort of validation by the client/director regarding the number of shots and their order. It is very annoying if not difficult then to change these in production (unless they inject more money ; ).

The Layout scene files are then split into 'Shot' files for animation, with usually low proxies for everything except for contact zones and what's animated will usually be kept high-rez except if you have special version of your character having 'light' skinning in order to speed up the display.
VFX will be done either before, after or in parallel of the animation. Lighting will be done with another set of Shot files, not the same used for animation, with high-rez elements, subdivided (tesselated) at that point, baked animation integrated, sometimes rebuilt from scratch automatically from scripting. And Rendering will be done usually with the Ligthing scene.

You see, it is not as simple as opening a file and doing everything in it, or creating 50 files and do every shots in those, it is slightly more complex but for a reason: The Layout defines the shots and what's in those and how elements are placed and how they roughly move and of course camera work. From that you can efficiently split your scene in Shots, adapted for Animation, for VFX, for Lighting. Elements that are not seen by the camera can be omitted in the split shot files for instance.

Of course this is how it is done in the industry and this may be a bit overkill for an Hobbyist, but nonetheless this may help anyone to better organize his work when confronted to a large amount of data for ambitious projects.

Having soon scripting capabilities, iClone7 may help a lot in this area to ease pipeline building, and this is very exciting : )

--
guy rabiller | GOETZIWOOD STUDIOS
"N.O.E." (Nations Of Earth) Sci-Fi TV Show, Showrunner.

justaviking (1/15/2017)

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A great friend for me has been the "Insert Frame" (and Delete Frame) that you can do on the timeline editor.  If you need an extra second where you want to insert some action or extend a camera shot, place the cursor there and simply insert 60 frames. 

Wow, THAT'S what I was looking for! Thank a lot, pal! Didn't know about this feature! :D

justaviking (1/15/2017)

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Will you be able to share some work-in-progress (WIP) video clips with us?

Unfortunately not yet, but I hope soon :)

grabiller (1/15/2017)

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Usually the difference between Previz and Layout is that at Previz step, if any, the assets do not exist yet (no characters or sets or props are available) while at Layout step, those are often available, modeling is done, at least low-rez version but sometimes high-rez ones too, and sometimes texturing and shading is already done too or done at the same time.

Unfortunately the director I'm working with wants something "well refined, visually astonishing, but heavily editable".. With these assumptions I need to optimize the workflow as much as possible :P

grabiller (1/15/2017)

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Having soon scripting capabilities, iClone7 may help a lot in this area to ease pipeline building, and this is very exciting : )

Can't wait for it! :D

Thank you all for the good advices! :)