Uups, gave Walt_R a tip and forgot to comment
Wow, an epic story... No time to watch it completely now, but what i saw was cool...
Nice you put some funny moments in it
Polishing the sliding feet would have been quite a big effort so it's not really disturbing.
Altogether a nice job, some tricky scenes accomplished and as others mentioned a big + to the voice actors!


Toystorylab on Vimeo :     Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: 

Gary, thanks again for all your encouragement. As I have mentioned a number of times, I know my animation has issues. I'm finding better ways to solve some of the problems, and Iclone has gotten better in some respects too. But I'm still quite a newbie in the process.

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Thanks, Sonic.  I am very interested to know what you mean by character to background separation (outside of DOF). What tools would you use to achieve this? Is it that the background distracts from what should be the main focus? Or are there other reasons to try to do this?

 I have been trying to use lighting to help define the characters more clearly, working with rim lighting and double-lighting effects. But some scenes succeed better than others, and that's going to be harder tp do when I am not doing night scenes. 

Would love to hear any advice about this. 

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Hi Shadoesword ...
Yes, as you say, it's the background that 'sometimes' distracts (or is a tad 'busy') - but only on (very few of) the "wide shots".
When watching this through again for the second time - I actually noticed a lot more of your DOF usage - and it looked really consistent (and in proportion) to what you'd expect at the different focal lengths. So I don't quite know where *my head* was before, but it may simply be that with a 'cartoon look', albiet 3d, (and I seldom see cartoons), that there's inherently more detail than in cinematic films (what I'm used to). So really it's my perception problem that's mostly involved here. Plus, I think I *skimmed over* the first viewing and was in a bit of a rush when posting - which invariably isn't doing yourself justice.
As you know, it's 'all too easy' to be a 'critic' and I have to keep bringing myself into check and *realize* the tremendous amount of work that's gone into something like this.
But that audio track is *really great* and your visuals are way ahead of what many could achieve, especially myself, so what you've achieved here really is a credit to you .... 


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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time!   - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Wow, thanks for actually going back and watching a second time. I don't think it's a "perception problem" of yours, I think that a lot of the Daz backgrounds and characters I use are extremely detailed and the textures highly ornamented and the like. The result is there are a lot of different texture patterns that compete with each other at times. So I'm grateful for you bringing this to my attention.  I think I am drawn to the detailed texture look, but not as aware of how too much of it starts to get busy and distracting. I also got interested in messing around with substance tools for a bit, which only added to the problem. 

I am experimenting more with DOF and trying to understand the best usage for it. I've read some posts on this forum, but often they get technical, and I'm often not sure exactly what the creator is trying to accomplish with the use. Sometimes it seems to be an attempt to make the video seem like it was shot with a "real" camera, but I don't see a lot of point in that unless you are mixing Iclone effects in with actual camera footage. I'm not trying to make my stuff so photoreal that I would expect it to fool anyone. I want there to be a subtle kind of stylized quality in the visuals, something that has a comic book feel to it. 

Other times DOF is used as a way to shift or draw focus, which is maybe what I see as its primary use. But I'd love to hear others talk about different ways this tool can be used effectively, and different situations. 

I am a newbie at animation and though I have some experience in video production, it's been more in the editing process than in creating the actual camera shots and the like. As you may have guessed, I have a lot more experience with audio production. 

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I skimmed through your creation again, and it seems to get better with each viewing .... You know - I've never been one for the *feel* of 'fighting' or 'waring', even in cartoon fashion. But there's so many *different* feels within this production. To me, there's some truly *magjc* moments you've captured during the 'quieter' scenes. So well done. To be honest, it's those 'quieter' moments that seem more *realistic* or believable, not just because your audio 'carries' it so well, but because 'action' visuals are (by comparison) - so hard to do. As an audience, our senses have been trained (with modern 'action films' - cartoons included), to *expect* a very, very high standard, - which is exactly why (I think) they're so so difficult to do. Not that you haven't done a *good* job - because you have, - but for me (and everyone's different), I find your non-fighting *other scenes* to be very powerful in their own right - and so well done .... 
I loved the scene from around 22:30 to about 23:45 - great atmosphere created here I thought....

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time!   - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

I would be repeating what others have said so I'll keep this short and simply say:

I echo every compliment given to this project.  VERY impressive!

Support your fellow enthusiasts by visiting:

Thank you, I very much appreciate the kind words. 

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Episode 6 will likely not be finished until around Christmas, but here's a teaser pic from it to keep this thread alive a lottle longer.

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Awesome and epic video.  A Herculean undertaking.

As mentioned by those before me, great voice acting, etc. etc.  I echo all their compliments!!!  

My "constructive feedback" would be to try and smooth out a lot of the motions, easing into and out of a lot of them.  It is an issue seen in many iClone videos.  I know that would be another large effort to add to your workload, but to my eye would really elevate it to the next level.

Great job, and thanks for sharing.

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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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