Have you noticed, there is no forum section dedicated to filmmaking. Why not having a specific section where all aspects of filmmaking (iClone oriented of course) would be discussed ?

Script writing, pre-production, production, storyboards, animatics, casting and voice acting, camera blocking, shooting, lighting, editing, vfx, performances, sound design, mixing, music, etc.. etc..

Contrary to @Kelleytoons, I do not oppose *filmmaking* to "animation". Animation is just a technical way of creating motions but you still make a film and do filmmaking. Yet live filmmaking techniques could be applied to "animated" movies, puppetering, mocap, etc..

Anyway, what do you think ? Would it be a good idea to have a Forum Filmmaking section where all this aspects could be discussed, idea exchanged, help asked, etc.. ?

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

Yep Why not? It could be cool. I think it would be a good place also to show what's going on in the realtime Broadcast world. I see some Series,
movie made with game engine , it's very instructive.

+1

I would welcome such an area in the forum.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
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Opposing filmmaking to animation?  Where did you get the idea that I thought that?

What I thought was that too many folks just create "tests"  -- I thought I was pretty clear in that explanation.  There is a clear difference between just creating a test animation and telling a story, and in my experience on this forum and many others (including some I admin) that's all they ever do.  There's nothing wrong with that in principle, but it's a bit like going out and practicing your tennis serve but never playing the game.

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Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Ah, sorry if I misinterpreted your thoughts on this, I was referring to your thread: Filmmaking versus Animation where you wrote:

Kelleytoons (1/14/2018)

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../..I thought I'd start a thread here about something I think is more important than all the discussions ever hosted here -- the differences between making a film/video/movie versus making animation../..

Perhaps "opposing" is not the right word indeed.

In my case I've always felt that iClone is more a filmmaking tool than an animation tool even if that seems a bit odd because basically you animate things (aside mocaped data).

But the way I see creating performances inside iClone is that the more you tend to do things in realtime the closest you are from filmmaking instead of animation. Ultimately you are creating a film. But in the professional industry, the two are very separated things and this is something I'm fighting against, because most 3D animated movies are made under the heritage of the 2D animation industry, which, imho, is a mistake. For instance, those who create camera blocking and framing are Layout artists, who often never shot a camera, don't know what is framing composition, etc.. In the filmmaking industry this is a specific job: Camera operator. Those who make lighting in 3D are TD Lighters, there is no Director of Photography. TD lighters do not have the same background as DPs. Etc..

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

Yup, that’s what I got from KT. Something true that many just post snippets of animation without making a film and telling a story. Like going to a batting cage, but never playing a game of baseball or whatever other analogy. Would be a good section if the forum. The other thread got many points of views. Some obvious and some rally not obvious but really great tips.

My "NEWEST" Latest  Movie Made With Amaaaazing iClone


—> High Noon”ish” in Narrow Valley<—

Just to clarify my thoughts about Filmmaking vs Animation because I think my previous message was not very clear:
I make the distinction between "cartoonish" 3d movies such as Pixar movies, and "realistic" 3d movies (realistic motions, not always rendering) such as Final Fantasy, Beowolf, Tintin, etc..
The first ones will use the heritage of 2d animated films and as such are truely "animated" movies. The second ones should use the heritage of live filmmaking.
I'm exclusively interested in the second category so I wont speak for the first one.

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

Guy,

I think it's an interesting thought that animated stories are approached differently than films, although IMX (admittedly limited to a very small portion of the industry -- we were not "the big boys" in any sense of the word) the opposite was true -- I thought the animation folks followed the live action principles TOO closely.  Folks who came to the animation platform tried to apply traditional lighting and photography techniques when in reality (or, all puns intended, when NOT in reality :> you don't need to do that.  To some degree this example has been obsoleted by drones, but I'd find that folks wouldn't consider camera shots that couldn't be captured by a real camera, and thus not employing the full power of animation (a flying soaring camera, for example, wouldn't even be considered).

I would always tell the team -- if it looks good, it IS good.  Which is a hard thing to learn, particularly if you are trying to use tools that emulate Real Life (I can't tell you how hard it was to wean these guys away from using physics tools that, while accurate, weren't nearly as good as doing things by hand).  They all came from a traditional film background and needed to break away and "think outside the box" (or, another pun, inside the box -- if the box is a computer :>.

But I think the more discussion about this stuff the better -- if it can encourage people to tell stories with iClone it can't be a bad thing.  And there are all kinds of aspects to making an animated film that could be explored and would be relevant to this product line.  This forum is more properly about the technical aspects of the software, but it certainly would help RL's sales to encourage as much thought into the actual use of their product as an end game.  Perhaps Peter will consider it -- not just a filmmaking section, but even a game making one (I know there are folks using these products for that as well.  Maybe a "Creative Section" where folks using the products can talk about all such considerations.

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Alienware Aurora R12, Win 10, i9-119000KF, 3.5GHz CPU, 128GB RAM, RTX 3090 (24GB), Samsung 960 Pro 4TB M-2 SSD, TB+ Disk space
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

@Kelleytoons
My point is not to "restrict" actions to what would be possible in reality, far from it.
I was rather targeting production methods.
Lets take an example, camera work:
- With "traditional" 3d animated films, Layout artists will set the camera according to the storyboard and pose the action in front of it, eventually with a moving camera, but in the spirit of the heritage of 2d animated movies, the idea is to create framed poses.
- With filmmaking, even if you have a precise idea of your shot framing, the action takes place in realtime and the camera operator will frame it in realtime following the action and storyboard.
That's two different approaches even if the second example is done in practice by first animating the characters and then animating a camera after that (the opposite is done in the 3d animated movie industry).

Regarding the forum yes, even a Game Making forum why not. Learning the tool does not mean learning the domain. An expert at iClone may not have a single clue at how to make a movie and vice versa. A Filmmaking forum might act as a link between the tool and the domain of application and that would certainly help seeing more movies made with iClone.

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

I understood the idea of a "Filmmaking" area to focus on the art and science of making a film, regardless if it was approached as a "live actor with live camera operators" or if was approached like a 2D "Snow White" animation or a 3D "Toy Story" animation.  They all rely on story, pacing and editing, color, lighting, wardrobe, voices, sound effects, music, and on and on.

It would really be nice to have a place to talk about all those elements that go beyond the mechanics of operating iClone, 3DXchange, and Character Creator.

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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