Any courses that you recommend?  I bought a couple of Blender courses over Christmas (which I have yet to look at) and one on film scoring (since I got into animation because I wanted to make music videos, now I want to tell some stories too, which will need soundtracks).





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I've been considering starting a spin-off thread.

The posts about "animating to a script" added some additional motivation.

Rather than start a new thread for that, I put a post in my "Corner" thread.  There I volunteered some "filmmaking and "animation" critiques from a video that I animated to a script (one that I wrote, but I wrote it prior to doing the animation).

It's sort of an experimental post.  I don't know if it will work or not.  You can let me know over there.

Here's a handy link to it:  https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost354841.aspx

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
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Alfred Hitchcock "To catch a thief" was one of my favorites. Very suspenseful. :)

Thank you Delerna,

Animation - Wise:
I would love to start with one of the many given film making techniques and make the character perform according to the script.

Blending mocap is an awesome start, but my focus is on how to animate (the difficult part)... to follow a script.
Would love to see someone demostrate iclones abilities doing this.:w00t:

Rampa (1/17/2018)

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...It can also be challenging to animate all the activity of it for people without animation experience. It is for me.

Me Too. :crying:

Hopefully I understand what you are saying correctly.
I have been looking into how to produce interesting stories based on the discussions here and at the moment looking into making short stories.
I see that having a point I want to make through my story is what will make it interesting and have been working on some points  to make that will be easy for short stories.

It has dawned on me that maybe making short stories that highlight iclone animation methods might be some good points for a short story and I am thinking about posting them on the forum with explanations of how I made the story and how I did. the amimations, scene constructions etc. Well at least as well as I can explain them at least (I'm getting old.....rolling my eyes)

Im not exactly sure what Im going to do yet. Still thinking about it but I am thinking things such as the new partical effects.

     Pick some of them and come up with a story that higlights what I find I can use those ones for.

     An obvious example for me is the magical particles and using the purpose of demonstrating what you can do with them trough a short story about a wizard.
    I hope that will help me improve myself with telling interesting stories and hopefully it will help beginners with doing things in iclone.

Another one I was thinking about was character walking styles.
Maybe start with a character who cant walk for some reason but something happens that enables him to start walking. I can use that to show lots of the walking styles in iclone?
I not sure that would make a good story yet.........maybe? It all depends on what I can come up with. But the point is I would be using the story to show iClones walking styles in an interesting way.

And that is the kind of starting points I am thinking of using for making stories. Demonstrating iclones abilities

I will be definitely starting new threads based on that and if anyone else thinks its a good idea and do the same/similar then great.
Also if anyone happens to post comments/suggestions to improve what I have done then again....great



UPDATE
Wasn't going to post this here but after seeing your post I thought I might as well

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With all of the awesome (Detailed Advice) given on filming.... this thread should be labeled, "Film Making Techniques."

As for 3d animation... there's mention of the seminar, but no (Detailed Advice) on animation techniques.
It would be super helpful to hear experienced users discuss how to actually animate "To follow a Script."

...blending mocap is one thing, but to actually animate with detailed steps to follow a script... wow!:)

On a related note, check out "Vantage Point" (2008).
The same story (a political assassination) is told several times, each time from another person's vantage point.
It sounds like it would be boring, but it's not.  Each telling is unique, and brings more clues, so by the end of the movie you know who did it and why.


P.S.
I confess I did not "stop reading right now," but I will check into Rashomon after writing this.  ;)

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

iClone was initially marketed as a Machinima or real-time filmmaking tool, which attracted users such as myself. (RL also claimed it was easy...:unsure: ) The application to games came later (3DXchange contributed to that), so you will find filmmakers (good or bad) among iClone's users. In a way it's good that the user base is so broad, as each have their own requirements that help the product move forward. I'm not a gamer, but I appreciate the technological advances in graphics card quality and speed that come from that segment of users.

There is a tendency of this board to get hung up a bit too much about the technology, so it's nice to see a discussion about filmmaking, animation, and story-telling. 

I think colour pointed out an interesting distinction: with animation you cannot just tell your actors what to do; you have to animate them, which is quite a daunting task when you think of it. Now if you have Mocap, you can alleviate that to some extent, but not everyone has the funds or the space to use that option.

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Interesting contributions all round. Thanks, all, I appreciate it.

Coming on to the thread title as Filmmaking versus Animation, I must admit I did not read it in the same way that everyone here seems to have read it.

I know that a large part of the iClone community is involved in using Unity or Unreal game engines to write or add to games. I assumed that ''animation' referred to this activity.

I am glad indeed to see so many that opt for the storytelling in cinematic style. I had no idea that so many were doing this. I thought that the majority were game-builders.

As a pattern for this several contributors have instanced the ninja-type character crossing the bridge in a recent seminar. I thought that this kind of activity - and additionally the same ninja falling into each and every trap - was the kind of animation that would be pieced together in UE4 or some such to form an element in a game.

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The Rashomon Effect

One of my all time favorite themes is summed up in the fantastic movie, "Rashomon" (which, if you haven't yet seen, stop reading right now go out and find it and watch it!).  It examines the nature of truth as four people recount their own version of a story, which reveals that every person has their own viewpoint and perhaps the truth is always somewhere in-between.

Kurosawa was most likely not the first to explore this, but this classic film has certainly inspired hundreds of variations on it.  But as much as I love this (and have used it myself) perhaps the most important takeway is this: EVERYONE IS THE HERO OF THEIR OWN STORY.

It's so significant I want to repeat it: "Everyone is the hero of their own story."  As you live your life, you don't see yourself as a supporting player.  Oh, you may well recognize others accomplishments, you may even understand and appreciate the part others have to play in your life, but you don't see yourself as anything other than the lead.  And so does everyone else.

This is so critical to understand and so often missed by almost every writer: even the baddest bad guy thinks of himself as the "protagonist" (which isn't necessary "good").  And so does the smallest bit player.

If you can write like this, with this understanding, your writing will soar.

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Mike "ex-genius" Kelley