how many of us have actually completed an iClone film ?

how many of us have actually completed an iClone film ?

Home
»
Archive
»
iClone 5 Forum
»
General

https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic208767.aspx

Print Topic | Close Window

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

Just a pointless, fun topic for discussion

honesty time!
I'm not talking about trailers, teasers or dancing videos. I'm talking about a film with a story - beginning to end. It could be a 5 minute film, as long as it's complete.

I have to admit in the several years I've played with iClone, I've never completed a film. I've been working on one now for about a year (on/off) and up to version 3 now after a few major stuff ups which required me to start a clean slate lol :) I'm determined to finish this one though, it's the closest I've ever been. It's only going to be a 5 minute film (maximum) so I can actually finish one.

It is a little surprising I guess how few people actually complete films. So how many people here have finished a film ? And if you haven't why ?
Do you think that sometimes we just get too wound up in showcasing the technical features of the latest version of iClone and in the process lose focus in regards to actual movie creation ?

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

Writing a good story is the hard part. It's relatively easy to get help about animation questions here but few like to share their story concepts before they are completed. There has been an upswing in the number of complete story videos lately and it's a trend we all hope will continue. It is true however that the vast amount of work we see on the forum is under a couple of minutes and consists mainly of tests and trailers.

I've attempted a few and am working on a new one now.

:cool: pete

By thebiz.movies - 11 Years Ago

I've managed to complete 5 or 6 story based flicks over the last couple of years. I agree with Peter, writing is the hard part for me. I think the job of acquiring voice actors is also a road block for lots of folks. After you've done it a few times its a much smaller issue but can be quite daunting the first time or so.

By justaviking - 11 Years Ago

I'll boldly raise my hand and say, "I have."

Check out all the Pinhead project videos. The Pinhead projects tend to focus more on story and are less of a "technical showcase," though a lot of people do stunning work.

Here are three posts (with some spoilers), that provide comments and links to the latest round of Pinhead videos:

https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost192090.aspx
https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost192158.aspx
https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost192166.aspx

(If you open my video (last on list), please follow the link in YouTube to v1.1 of the video.)

There have also been other projects like a "Best Fight" contest and others I've seen, but my heart belongs to the Pinhead projects.

Maybe I should collaborate with PeterBlood and TheBiz. I can spend weeks refining a story, and then they can spend months making a high-quality movie from the script. I think I like that plan.

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to collaborate like that.
Someone posted a request for iClone talent, and provided a rough concept of what the project was about. Just for fun, I wrote my version of the script, which was more detailed and included some changes.
Lo and behold, my script was used by an iClone artist to create the video!
It was really interesting as a script writer to see my contributions appear on screen. There were distinct differences in interpretation, which is as it should be. (A writer should not "over-direct" the script.) But there were other parts where I could totally see my contributions and changes to the original version. It was the first time I had that experience, and it was really fun.
It's not my project, and it's not fully completed yet, so I can't say more than that yet.

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

Typically whoever ( ICLONE or any other software user ) attempts a 30-60 minute animated film, he does it with a purpose e.g. for selling / playing on a TV channel. A channels will not consider the series unless they see a pattern in 6-7 episodes. They usually take decision when you submit atleast 13 episodes.

It takes atleast 12-18 months to do that many episodes.

Once you do that many episodes, you try and get busy in selling them. By then the mindset changes. You would have moved away from seeking peer appreciation to hardcore selling, because you have been waiting too long for the revenue to flow in.

So it's not surprising that you don't see completed long episode based animated films on this forum.

Sometimes I share my Title Music for my animated series here. I am holding the animated part to be submitted to the TV channels first. ( These are my personal projects after semi-retirement. My company does different set of creative work.)

Here's another Music Track for another Animated Series that I composed 2-3 days back. This is the instrumental version. The Voice version I am recording after few days.

This is about two sisters ( Joy and Jingle ) and JJ2 (a "poetic" Robot )

=================================
https://soundcloud.com/prabhat-mohanty/who-gonna-be-with-you-1
=================================

The lyric for this goes something like this....

When you wanna fun, who do you call
Chorus : Joy
When you wanna fix the bullies, who do you call
Chorus : Joy
When you wanna fire up the stage, who do call
Chorus : Joy
When you wanna somebody get you tons of gift, who do you call
Chorus : Jingle
When you wanna somebody sing you a song, who do you call
Chorus :Jingle
When you wanna somebody crack you a joke, who do you call
Chorus : Jingle
When you wanna somebody get you a cup of tea, who do you call
Chorus : JJ2
When you wanna a somebody rap a song, who do you call
Chorus : JJ2
When you wanna somebody drive your car, who do you call
Chorus : JJ2

hey...hey..hey....hey...hey...hey..hey....hey

ha...ha..ha..ha...ha...ha..ha..ha...ha

hey...hey..hey....hey...hey...hey..hey....hey

ho...ho...ho...ho..ho...ho...ho...ho..ho

We are Joy Jingle and JJ2
We are fun, we are the power
We teach baddies a lesson or two
hey...hey..hey....hey...hey...hey..hey....hey

ha...ha..ha..ha...ha...ha..ha..ha...ha

hey...hey..hey....hey...hey...hey..hey....hey

ho...ho...ho...ho..ho...ho...ho...ho..ho

We are happy three
We live a life worry free

We are special, not just some regular kids
We will take you on many adventures
we will show you many feats

Joy Jingle JJ2
Joy Jingle JJ2

Joy Jingle JJ2
Joy Jingle JJ2

Joy Jingle JJ2

Note : The actual lyric is slightly different with few more stanzas in between

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

What a nice topic! I am going to tell you a story...;)

The first animated movie I was involved in was a project I did with my mother, who was a visual artist. My father's contribution was building a simple animation stand. We had an 8mm camera that could do frame-by-frame as recorder. We used cut-out figures and moved them over paper. Very low-tech, but it has a story .It's about 4-minutes. We create a kind of script first with the length of the various scenes, etc., so we did plan.

We completed it in a few weeks over the Christmas vacation, finishing in the beginning of 1971. several years ago I had it transcribed to video and then more recently I put it on YouTube. As there is no dialog or narration I added subtitles for clarification. There is sound in the form of edgy electronic music that I created. There was no stripe on the film, so the music played via a tape recorder that could synch the projector. It didn't work too well... But, I like the project, not because it's very sophisticated, but because it shows that you can do things with primitive means. You just need the drive.

Anyway, for the brave, here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtMiYs_2qIM.

I never expected to revisit animated films, because I was more into music. I was involved in a few animation projects as film music composer, so there was some animation in my life. It never became a career, and I eventually ended up in the IT industry...:crying:

Many years later, by chance, I discovered Flash and found that you could now do animation on your computer. Just like home studios for music you could have one for animation! Around 1999, I enrolled in a multi-media production class and was taught 3D-Studio Max. There was also a course in Adobe Premiere. I like to work at home rather than in a lab so I invested in student versions of the software and a Dell workstation. One of the student projects I did was a short computer-animated movie, called Water Worlds. It had a story actually and I remembered being complimented for that, that it was more than just "eye candy".

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqpeQ0IXjf0.

You're still there?

Besides a few student projects I didn't do much with 3DS Max. I guess I still dreamt of being a famous film composer... Anyway, I worked my way through a series of 3D animation software programs: Animation Master, TrueSpace, and then Poser. Poser was the first program I could do something with and I created one unpublished animation. Long render times, by the way...:doze:

Are we there yet? Almost...

In mid-2006, I came across iClone. I don't know how actually, but in August 2006 I bought iClone 1.52. Animations had to be done in a separate Motion Editor, so there was no real-time feedback and I didn't do much with the program.

Then came version 2 with everything built in, and so much easier to work with. From then on I started to create many tests, but it wasn't until 2009 that I made my first story-based animation in iClone. It was based on a radio play and about 25 minutes total...:w00t: Since then I have produced one or two movies a year, usually up to 15 minutes in length. But always with a story.

You can check out my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/zuijlen.

But why...:crazy: That's worthy of another post...:P

By colour - 11 Years Ago

I've been knocking-out @ least 4 iClone Pinhead Clips each year, since iC1.5.

Unfortunately those who do Produce completed clips, don't get the attention they deserve from other Forum Members, some of whom appear to spend some considerable time in indulging in mindless drivel & Flame Wars, rather than submitting completed Clips. Others just can't be bothered to comment, although they "might" view some clips. :ermm:

Pretty discouraging, IMO.

By toonarama - 11 Years Ago

This is an excellent topic.

I have owned Iclone for many years but have only just managed to make my first film and there are a number of reasons why.

It took me a long time to build up enough assets props/characters/animations to make something and I think this is an issue as it is an expensive business if you do not have the time/ability to make your own

I was a bit daunted by all the functionality within Iclone and despite playing with it a bit I tended to fall back on the "easier to use" but "limited" Muvizu. Muvizu gave me the confidence to publish my videos and learn the trade a bit before I stepped up to Iclone.

Voice actors are an issue but the emergence of services like FIVERR.COM and the willingness of members of this community and others (such as the Voice acting alliance) mean that this should not be an issue.

But time is probably my biggest issue. My film was only about ten minutes long but took me about 6 months to make. Don't know if I'm particularly slow or not but there is a lot of work involved.

I also do think that Reallusion could support their film makers a bit more as if the videos are good enough they will sell more products at the end of the day. It's a crying shame when you look at the view counts at some of the great movies made. I am sure that Reallusion could have a dedicated youtube channel to promote the best content which is "advertised" in the correct way to get more views.

By tom weston - 11 Years Ago

I was lucky enough to have my first film, There be Monsters!, accepted to several film festivals and even win a couple of awards.

We also have a new film called Christopher Wren Builds a Cathedral due for release in a few days. While that film is live action, the opening credits and a number of transitions were done in iClone.

Regards,

Tom

There Be Monsters!

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

I have not completed an iClone film yet. Well, anything I would consider a film, anyway! :D

As to the why? Self-doubt and lack of focus, I suppose......

By rgreenidge - 11 Years Ago

Great topic, I can't speak for everyone, but I'm working on a long project and I've changed and added a few scenes, spoken lines. I'm also doing the music, which involves other people, hours of re-mixing, recording, playing and buying new audio toys, instruments. It's like what's coming first the music or the animation, and I'm trying to do both, and like doing both. I'm in no rush, and have come to a temporary halt with the animation until iClone 6 is here. After the animations are done, I'll have voices come in for the characters, and I'm using real faces of people I know of for the main characters. I've retired since I first bought iClone, I'm not hungry have a roof over my head, no schedules, and I do things when I want to. And looking back now,I'm glad I didn't press the issue because I really want special lighting for effects. Most of my scenes are shot at night or inside. Same thing happened a few years ago, I want to make surround sound DVD's and there was no affordable software, so I stopped production and 4-6 moths later, 2 new video software programs came out with 5.1 audio that I could afford. I've always say there is a reason sometimes where something just don't happen. Every month I buy more things for my studio, (UPS just came), and items for iClone. I built from scratch most of my scenery using sketchit, and when iClone went to 64 bits, I was able to add more objects and background characters. I keep playing around with the first couple of scenes to maximize find the best angles, redo, add and modify motions, finding bloopers like shadows that shouldn't be there. I'm not really a animation perfectionist, but if something is out really of place, I'll try to correct it. I'm still learning how to make things work, and find the easiest way for me. I still have problems with the motion puppets, and getting the avatars to do the motions I want with all the locking horizontal/vertical rotation options etc. And that usually takes a lot of time for me. I've not so far a fan of my motion detection stuff, that won't be included with the release of iClone 6. I'm always tweaking something in the scenes though, and I love doing it. I'm not a TV person, so it's either the music, iClone, The NFL, or the internet. I could rush, but I'm in no rush. The biggest question is really once I'm finish, will I create another project? Just like music, sometimes the first one is the best one. I can also say I have too much freedom, and my biggest problem is laziness and motivation, and that most days seem to go by so fast for me. Biggest obstacle? I'll do it tomorrow or after I eat.

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

I have, long ago, created things that I considered "complete", but they were in Moviestorm. That's where I cut my teeth and started really learning a bit more about 3D animation.

Now I'm in "wait" mode for iC6, and not even doing tutorials, because they would just be out of date by the end of the month!

By Capemedia - 11 Years Ago

Sadly due to client work, life and time constraints I've not released any of the films I wanted in 2014.

But please free to check my website which has everything I have done to date:-

http://www.capemediauk.com/films.html

I really hope 2015 gives me a little free time to complete many personal films and music projects :)

Cape :D

By james_muia - 11 Years Ago

I think there are many reasons for this. Time is always a bummer because we're all busy and creating films is time consuming. It's not exactly easy. I mean you've got to take into account writing the script, which is difficult because a lot of times you need to know what is possible. "At this point in the script, the catapult blows up the castle wall...." How do I do that in iClone, or can I do it in After Effects? Sometimes you have to know what is possible, and for me that changes the script slightly based on what I can do in the software.

I had no idea what was possible in iClone, so I just started playing around and then wrote the script for "The Huntsman" around what I had created so far. But from there you've got to actually create the film, add the lighting, effects, etc, and set up all the camera angles. At this point you have to then do a casting call and get some VA's on board and wait for their audio which could be a week or longer. After that, go back in to iClone, add in their audio for lip syncing, and tweak everything so its correct. At this point some people might export right out of iClone, but if you do your effects in After Effects, then you're only halfway done! So at this point I'd export out to AE, then add in more effects, color correction, and export it out again to Premiere Pro where I do the final film edit.

There's a lot of moving pieces and quite frankly the reason why a lot of people don't make films (not just in iClone but in other software too) is because it's a lot of hard work! I can also tell that a lot of people here like me are perfectionists. I like to make sure something looks good and will spend countless hours making sure it is. That's also part of the problem because it means I'm spending too much time on one part of the film. One phrase I tell myself is "always keep moving forward". At some point you just have to say "Ok, that's the best I can do with the lighting on this film, I'll try to make it better on the next one", and move on to the next piece. Creating roadblocks for yourself will ultimately keep you from reaching the end of production.

With my latest film, "The Huntsman", which you can view on the showcase yourself forum; there were a couple things I wasn't happy with.

1) The lighting. Because I used an imported prop from DAZ, the ceiling and walls were causing some shadow blocks to appear on the wall, and it looked strange. But I spent about 2 hours with the lighting, got it the best I could and moved on. I didn't let the lighting become a roadblock.

2) The background in the forest, sort of ruined the immersion. Adding fog in the distance would have eliminated this problem but I didn't want fog in the scene. I told myself on the next film I'll try to create a more realistic background for the scenes.

I went to school for film, and my biggest passion is making films. The challenge is what drives me forward; that, and the feeling you get when you're finally done creating something cool!

By Shaky - 11 Years Ago

Darren01 (12/8/2014)

I never intended on doing any movies. I'm using iClone to create a graphic novel, and I'm already 342 pages into it. Here is my thread if you would like to check it out.

https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic164284-36-1.aspx

By KenCoon - 11 Years Ago

I bought iClone a few months ago and have since made 2 movies.
The Nativity Rev2
The Boys Halloween

I want to do more but just don't have the ideas firmed up in my mind yet.
The topics I have thought of were My Roger Wiley book that I never finished and published
The book of Daniel from the Bible and now and then another one will pop into my mind.
When I get the thought and it seems something I can do rather quickly without too much cost, I usually dig into it and it gets done.
I really need to be into the project before it will materialize.
A good example of what happens is that I will go shopping for assets and if I cannot find what I am looking for, I just set it aside until I can figure that part out and then it gets sidelined.
With Roger Wiley, it was the cave he falls into and the underworld scenes.
With the Book of Daniel it is Babylon and the armies of the Medes and Persians. I have the lions and some caves already. That part is okay but the other parts are not firmed up in my mind yet.
Guess that is where I am now.
I am also waiting to see how iClone6 works out. I don't want to begin anything and then have to move it all over and begin again.
Ken:)

By mark - 11 Years Ago

This is a pretty scary thread for me. I start many projects and tend to get bogged down and or side-tracked all too easily. 'Course I do have a business that needs attention from time to time..that will be my excuse :P

I have finished a few films though and will keep working on projects that have been started and hopefully will continue..

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

Mark is the 'man' when it comes to output. He creates quality videos at a rate that I can only dream about. (Not to mention his many, many tutorials) I told him once that, as an animator, he's a sports car and I'm a model T. :P

You can't go wrong watching his vids. :D

:cool: pete

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

Pete, the Model T was a very reliable car, right? And, it would get you there slowly but surely without speeding tickets! :P:hehe::P

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

I consider Mark as a man of Cinema, not just an animator. His cinematic sense is obvious in every frame !

By mark - 11 Years Ago

Thanks!
Yep, I don't have the skills of swoope, never will I'm sure, but I'll keep pluggin' away, just glad someone gets a kick out of it :P:P:P

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

Thanks, sw00000p, for the compliment! :blush:

I also hope we get a curve editor one day...:unsure:

By mike_20090922183240664 - 11 Years Ago

I've done plenty. http://www.michaelgingrich.com
Today I posted my New Freebie Page for iClone users. I'll have many to add now that I've got the page started. The page is http://www.michaelgingrich.com/JSC/demos/Downloads/earthworm.aspx

By 4413Media - 11 Years Ago

I guess one and a half... or one and three quarters. I had a few shorts somewhere.

This was my first, it was made in iClone 4.

No Peace at All (Visual Fix) from Autumn Machinima on Vimeo.

And this was released recently.

There's another, but I am waiting for the music to be completed. Everything is shot and gone through the post-production treatment.

Set design is a major weakness... it takes me days to weeks to complete a set. I'm a huge perfectionist when it comes to set design and one little thing- the entire things comes crashing down. Angles are a big thing, there's at least 4 reshoots to every shot in the final cut. It's a long process and getting the right effect is key.

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

Thanks Darren for introducing such an interesting topic.

I'm not one to blow my own horn (God knows I would if I could :P ) but I'm going to use this thread to note that my 'Desperate Measures' machinima series has garnered over 10,000 views on TMUnderground. I would have been happy if the 50 or so guys I sailed with in Napoleon Total War had been the only audience so, even though it's not viral or anything, it's still mind blowing amazing to me. It got alot of exposure due to the fine follks at the Spotlight Radio Show. Odette, in particular, was very kind with her attention to the story. Thanks guys.

Anyway, I'm done now. Thanks for listening and to those who watched, I appreciate the time you spent with the story and thank you from my heart.

:cool: pete

By mark - 11 Years Ago

That's awesome pete, quite and accomplishment !!! :D:D:D

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/9/2014)

Just My Opinion:
To me, a CGI animated film, regardless of how good the story is...
• Requires "Standard Industy Animation Techniques!" (To even consider it being.. COMPLETE!)
___________________________________________________________

Just My Opinion:
• Good Story
• Proper Animation (Arcs and Curves) :cool:
• Flapping lips and moving limbs... just don't cut it. :pinch:
_________________________________________________________________

Hats off to animagic for having the 'stones' to submit a clip to the "11 Second Club" contest.
NOW, that is impressive. :w00t: :cool:

THEY are Pro's.

They show you just how worthless a good story is Without Good Animation Skillz.

• 11 seconds of "Proper animation" (Arcs and Curves) :cool:

• ...to breathe life into "A GOOD STORY"

• HIT MOVIE (Material)
_________________________________________________________________

iClone Needs A Curve Editor! :rolleyes:
To (aide) in this kind of animation! ;)

I have no interest in ever creating a "Completed Film." I find joy in creating shorts.

Kind Regards
sw00000p :cool:

You have got the ICLONE users wrong.
They are mostly story tellers, not aspiring to be Professional animators. They are looking for creative expressions through ICLONE.
RL recognises that segment and created ICLONE for "REST OF US".

BTW just check the ARCHER series, what could be done with CHARACTERISATION and without ARCs.... It will fail every test of "11 Second.." but WINS AUDIENCE in just "11 Seconds".

Learn and understand why the RIGID TECHNOCRATS ALWAYS MISS THE BIGGER PICTURE: Just a sample...

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/9/2014)

mark (12/9/2014)

Thanks!
Yep, I don't have the skills of swoope, never will I'm sure, but I'll keep pluggin' away, just glad someone gets a kick out of it :P:P:P

Sir, I WISH I had your patience. You achieve remarkable results with your current tools.
...man, a curve editor would polish your awesome vids. :)

It's not patience, it's the cinematic eyes. You are mixing it up or NOT recognising.

By Step Animations - 11 Years Ago

I have completed two movie productions in 2014 using iclone and combine other software too. I hope to release more movies in the future. :)

The Odyssey

and a short fairytale movie The three little pigs

By Fliphouse - 11 Years Ago

An iclone film is very possible. The problem I see is that there is little to no collaboration between iclone users. Yes, we do have great tutorials and tips submitted by iclone users but making a film requires several people in my opinion. Some of us are great at lighting, some great at animation, some great at building sets, some great at editing. There is the rare individual who does it all. Maybe iclone can allow a collabo license of some sort so people can share models and project files.

PS.....If I see another dance video:alien:

By wendyluvscatz - 11 Years Ago

I have made a handful of somewhat more lengthy animations but not using just iClone
not sure if they really count as "movies" though
certainly iClone has been used extensively in the few longer animations I have done but interspersed with Carrara and DAZ studio renders too
this is probably the closest one to a movie, there is a lot of iClone in it but plenty of other stuff too

By wendyluvscatz - 11 Years Ago

actually one way to tell is all the scenes with the dynamic nightie were not rendered in iClone
you probably could not pick what is and is not otherwise :w00t:

By pinguintje - 11 Years Ago

Here is my "advertisement"

I bought iClone in December 2012 and have completed 22 movies. (one movie is about 200 hours)

My You Tube channnel: https://www.youtube.com/user/RandstadRailRETBW/videos

I have 300.000 views and 191 subscribers.

The Top 4 is:

End of this advertisement.

Best Regards,

Arie

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/9/2014)

animagic (12/9/2014)

Thanks, sw00000p, for the compliment! :blush:

I also hope we get a curve editor one day...:unsure:

WOW! Imagine these "Animation Curves" applied to iClone animation. WOW!

HUGE DIFFERENCE! :w00t:

Sounds like you are giving more credit to the software than the actual animator. At the end of the day most of the tools available today have everything you need to create advanced work relatively easy. iClone is one of them. As long as you have the ability to pose things across a time line and have access to the key frame you can do it.

The thing to keep in mind is that there is still are two schools of people in the animation world. There are those who are better "animators" and those who are better "software operators".

A "software operator" doesn't necessary know how to draw, or animate, but they know how to operate the software to achieve results. Though such results may not always be the most visually stunning. Sometime they might learn to animate.

"Animators" don't necessarily have to know how to operate the software but they understand motion, timing, and performance, and can create compelling performances with just a pencil,paper, and a basic webcam. But you teach them where the key frames are on a timeline and they can get some great visual stuff done without ever touching an "animation curve editor" or anything technical. Eventually they might learn to use the software LOL.

I can tell from experience that the first video was done using traditional key framing and a basic understanding of timing and animation performance. The second one, is using fairly generic motions, it gets the job done but clearly there was not the same amount of effort placed.

Now, I dont know if that effort (on the second video) was the result of the animator relying on the software or on his own creative intuition to animate, but I have played with iclone and all the tools seems to be there to allow the same type of performance to be achieved in iClone.

In the end its an unfair comparison. Cause you are judging the performance based on the tools as opposed to the actual person behind the perforce. (which clearly has the tools at his disposal).

P.S. No negative comment intended to whoever animated the second vid, its a good video, it's very well done. And 11 sec club is a great way to exercise and improve your animation skills. So great work, keep it up!

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

Ibis Fernandez (12/10/2014)

"Animators" don't necessarily have to know how to operate the software but they understand motion, timing, and performance, and can create compelling performances with just a pencil,paper, and a basic webcam. But you teach them where the key frames are on a timeline and they can get some great visual stuff done without ever touching an "animation curve editor" or anything technical. Eventually they might learn to use the software LOL.

I have a creative team who does lovely professional work in flash. Mostly Cel animations. They use FLASH more like a Digital Sheet using just the Pen tool and Onion Skinning feature. I tried to enthuse them to use CTA. But they prefer drawing rather than learning a tool to manipulate drawings.

They don't need animation curve editor. They are just natural with the organic motions.

They refuse to learn any animation software.

I can't complain, because they deliver.

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

@Ibis Fernandez

Your explanation is like to say : I can make red color with a green pen....
Yes all pen can draw everything but if I want red , how do I do?
The standard character for exemple has 3 torso bones.
In Iclone the Timeline give the ability to edit a "general" keyframe (Torso),
you have only one keyframe for all of them for all rotations and translations so , if you want a pelvis moving with an easy in and out transition curve but you want the shoulder rotate fast with only an easy out , you can't... This is the subtility of curve editor for all bones to make convincing animation. I suggest you to see this great tutorial for animation and the utility of curve editor. :)

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

@prabhatM

They refuse to learn any animation software.

Hahaha!! My son is exactly like this , he's working at Ludia for character animation for portable app and he made all with draw!! He doesn't want to learn app because he can't have what he want.....

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

A curve editor will be cool, but very few 'Cloners are likely to use it. It will introduce a lot more subtlety of motion for those who need it though!

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

mtakerkart (12/10/2014)

No, i was being pretty literal. And no it has nothing to do with color. But yes technically you can make red with a green pen, it's basic color science LOL.

What i was saying is you don't need curve editors or fancy technical stuff, you just need to have a sense of how something should move and the ability to move it. And cant blame the tools for ones own inability to create something a certain way. But while you can learn software operation over the curse of a weekend, animation itself is something that is honed with years of experience and practice, which is why most of the master animators are really old farts.

Now for a bit of color fun, yes one could can make green out of red and vice-versa. You see in the color spectrum Green is the exact opposite of magenta, so shining a red light onto an object will cause you to see that objects shadow as a shade of green and vice-versa.

That tutorial you posted is mislabeled. The fact that you referred to that actually reinforces my original point. That tutorial, It's a tutorial on software operation, the animation part is sort of a side note. If you want to learn some basic character animation you can start with the basic principles, timing, follow through, stretch and squash etc, anticipation etc and maybe take an "overacting" class. If you know how something is supposed to move then whatever tools you have at your disposal are just the medium. You can animate with pencil and paper, using software cgi, using paper cut outs, mac and cheese, or clay or foam puppets etc... animation is animation regardless of the medium.

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

mtakerkart (12/10/2014)

@Ibis Fernandez
Your explanation is like to say : I can make red color with a green pen....
Yes all pen can draw everything but if I want red , how do I do?

By the way this is one way... I used only a "green pen".

Stare at the green dot at the center of the animation. You will start to see a red dot magically appear flying around with the others. The more you stare at it the brighter red the dot will become.

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

Cool trick!!! ;)

It is complex as curve editor to build ! ;)

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

animation is animation regardless of the medium.

Ok. What is a good animation ? What is a bad animation?
What is an animation sticking my attention? What is a boring animation ?

Why having update of lighting ? update of texture? And why not with animation?

I don't understand your point of view about curve editor. Curve editor could be in iclone. If you don't want to use it's up to you.
By the way , good drawing animation use as you said "timing, follow through, stretch and squash".
How do you do this in Iclone without curve editor?

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

There is very basic curve editing in iClone already. Any motion be time-warped, or cut into smaller motions and time warped. This is kind of "macro" curve editing, as was mentioned. Whether or not iClone will get curve control at the individual bone level is an unknown. But we do know there is some effort going towards a curve editor.

How many of us here would use a curve editor? Five? Seven? The current curve tools are barely used! :D

By colour - 11 Years Ago

"How many of us here would use a curve editor? Five? Seven? The current curve tools are barely used!"

If you exclude the Pinhead Community Projects, 7 is about the Annual number of completed iClone Storyline Clips, theses days, Rampa :ermm:

So - Maybe less discussion re; Curve Editors & more discussion re; encouraging more Storyline Editors to produce more Storyline Clips. Good, Bad & Ugly. It doesn't matter. ;)

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

Yes Rampa , you're right :) But lot of user don't use normal ,specular, reflection map and Iclone will make an big update of the texture feature . Lot of users don't use the selfcast shadow settings and Iclone will make a big update of lighting ! Lot of user don't use the physics toolbox and there will be a big update too :D
I just hope that Iclone will make an improvement update with animation for the seven of us ! :)

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

@mtakerkart

By the way , good drawing animation use as you said "timing, follow through, stretch and squash".
How do you do this in Iclone without curve editor?

What can a Curve Editor do that KEYFRAMING can't do ?

Curve Editor, I guess, only smoothens out the Keyframes that you generate. So understanding the Poses and Keyframing is still the key thing.

Timing, Followthrough are achieved through keyframing, either manually or using AI.

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

mtakerkart (12/11/2014)

animation is animation regardless of the medium.

>>> What is a good animation ? What is a bad animation?

"good" is a subjective term. What is good to one person is not good for someone else.
The only thing that really would "sort of" classify as good animation is basically what is accepted by the mass majority.

I'll give you an example, lip sync in western animation is generally thought of as "good" when the mouth actions match the vocal sounds as closely as possible. However in Japanese styles of animation, for example, lip sync is generally done with no regard for accuracy in phoneme usage but rather basic mouth cycles synced to whether the character is speaking or not. This is also evident in certain media such as ventriloquism and puppetry (like sesame street puppets). The illusion is created simply by meeting the viewers expectation of what the laws of physics should be within the world that has been created by the animators themselves.

You look at something like South Park, no one expects these characters to more around and behave like hand drawn Disney characters, therefore within that world, as long as the style and execution remain consistent, the illusion of life is achieved.

So if I were to define something as being "good animation" then what I would say is that good animation is the ability to fool your audience into suspending disbelief and accepting your performance as "life". If you can active this through your characters performance then it doesn't matter how accurate, or subtle, or realistic the actual movements are or whether or not they even follow the laws of real world physics. "good animation" is achieved by combing story telling, production value, performance, and just good old trickery.

I suppose "bad animation" would be the opposite of that.

>>>> Why having update of lighting ? update of texture? And why not with animation?
I don't disagree with you there. But seems like there plenty of updates coming in terms of animation centric tools in iclone. So maybe they'll get the curve editor thing added at some point. As long as it doent get in the way of basic keyframe editing i dont think it would cause a big issue for most most people.

I recall a few years ago flash introduced a new way of tweening and motion curves editing, they even added bones. Fortunatelly they kept the old tweening method intact. The end result, most character animators continue to avoid the hell out these features and contind to use the classic tweens and basic key-framing procedure. In the latest version flash they have done away with bones. I dont personally don't miss it, it was a useless feature. More of a handicap really to those who opted to use it.

>>>> I don't understand your point of view about curve editor. Curve editor could be in iclone. If you don't want to use it's up to you.

Again, this I agree with you. They should always strive to make their software not only feature ritch, but most importantly user friendly and intuitive. I'm not against such a feature, Im sure it will come handy. My only point is that it's not necessary in order to create effective animated performances. Iclone already has everything you need for that. The time line could be improved though. Cause with better access to the keyframes, the better performances you can achieve.

>>> By the way , good drawing animation use as you said "timing, follow through, stretch and squash". How do you do this in Iclone without curve editor?

Answering that question could literally require me writing up an entire lesson. No way i could answer that within a forum reply. I'm actually including quite a bit on this topic in my next book, which will have an entire section on iClone and CTA2 as production tools.

A good start however would be to focus on obtaining an understanding on how the eye perceives motion across time. For example. The faster an object moves, the less frames it takes to achieve that motion. The slower the motion, the more frames it requires. That is the basis for everything. In most actions an arm, a hand, a leg, etc, does not move at the same speed as other body parts, so you start animating things at various speeds to create the overall illusion. Sometimes incorporating slow-in and slow-out (easing in and easing out) which is the reducing of frames on one end of action while drawing more frames closer to each other at other ends of the action to achieve sense of physics. If you look at movies like Snowwhite, or any of the pre-computer animations, how do you think these animators achieved these effect without a curve editor. It was because of their understating of movement across time as it relates to the speed of film. iclone has a timeline, its has the ability to manipulate characters keys across time... it's all there.

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

This is the only curve editor that iclone give to us ok? :

Not very precise and as I said above ,there is only one keyframe for the 3 bones Torso :
-bone 1 , x, y,z,translation, x,y,z rotation
-bone 2 , x, y,z,translation, x,y,z rotation
-Hips , x, y,z,translation, x,y,z rotation
we should have access to 18 keyframes for the Torso with more precise curve editor.
Same thing for the legs, fingers , etc....

Hope this explanation is more clear... :ermm:

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

We should think about what kind of animation tools will help the most users to make more actual movies, and then we should ask for those tools! :)

There will be an iC7 wish list after iC6 is released. I know what I'll be asking for, and it is not a curve editor, but a way to have avatars move from point A to point B to point C without pacing-in-place and not being attached to path making all other animations more difficult.

I can say 100% that that would make much more difference to the entire iClone community.

Now, I'm not disparaging the creation of a curve editor, because I know the usefulness it can bring. Perhaps we should start our own, iClone only, 11 second club. We could all use the practice! Well.... I could, anyway.:blush:

Version 6 is primarily visual enhancement. Five was animation enhancement. Both are very important to stay competitive.

@Colour
I'm pretty guilty there for not getting a complete movie out yet! :D I often get caught up in the tool rather than the story aspect of iClone.

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

@Ibis Fernandez

Thank you for this very short curse of animation. I'm an after effect user and My job is to make motion graphics , I know what is animation ;)
Disney or Pixar don't make realistic animation , I never saw real people move or behave like this!
And that's the problem today with Iclone animation , It's formated for realistic animation and it is very difficult to input stylistic animation without access of all the "key-bones" with a cool curve editor... :cool:

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

how do you think these animators achieved these effect without a curve editor

Are you joking ?

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

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.

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

rampa (12/11/2014)

Perhaps we should start our own, iClone only, 11 second club. We could all use the practice! Well.... I could, anyway.:blush:

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.

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

mtakerkart (12/11/2014)

This is the only curve editor that iclone give to us ok? :

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". :blush:

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

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

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.

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

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)

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

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....

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

@mtakerkart

Great stuff! :D

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?

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

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.

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

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.

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

mtakerkart (12/11/2014)

For the satire clip, a less camera movement would have been nicer. Also a bit of LOOK AT CAMERA would help involve the audience.

Cool.

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

@prabhatM

The problem is that today you can't import bone facial anime in 3dxchange in a easy way. you have to convert your character on an non-human for each sentence.... Lot of works.And Facial blendshape is impossible to import.

The idea in the satiric clip is that there are two radio-speakers who doesn't care at the audience , there're in there mind-world , that's why I never made a "look at" camera. :)

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

mtakerkart (12/11/2014)

Idea of using main facial bone react to the sound intensity is to infuse some subtle life to the face while talking. This could be achieved while doing facial animation in ICLONE.

You may use more of Closeups once you establish the actors' location and environment. They may not care about the audience. But take the audience into their private world.

By guidocornia_20100928110210516 - 11 Years Ago

i have completed something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPWuK6EVlGc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uqnbkv4vak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93lPTjca2LY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ATvYiRwBK8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohCjXR-YDsk

guido

By sbaerman - 11 Years Ago

This is the best we could get out of Iclone. We used the weakness - it looks like the "Sims" from 2004, to make it to look like a video game.

Hopefully Iclone6 will come with a much much better render quality to make a believable animated movie from it.

The movie is about a "One Person Shooter Game" and the character turns against the player as he is tired of killing people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4MUnmDZ0R0

The movie is in German

By james_muia - 11 Years Ago

Ibis Fernandez (12/11/2014)

I get what you are saying and I think it's important for iClone to eventually have all of these features so that if you want to texture objects, you can, and so forth. I too, want to achieve greater visual quality, and hopefully with iC6 and Indigo, we can achieve some better detail. The reason why I like iClone so much is because it takes out the difficult parts that I don't have interest in doing. IE: Texturing, or modeling 3D characters. Granted, in the industry, you have 3D modelers, texture artists, and animators. All 3 different jobs. I honestly can't produce films if I have to create everything from scratch - it would take too long. iClone allows me to dive right in, and focus mostly on the animation and scene building (which can be a lot of fun - except when you realize you weren't on frame 1 when you dropped in your objects, lol) :)

Animating in iClone is easier than any program I've ever used, and I really love that.

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

A curve editor (and viewer!) is a great tool if you do keyframe animation and want to improve on it. We now rely on iClone's interpolation between key frames without having a good visual aide. It would expand on what iClone has now. It would help to bring subtlety in animation. And it would help ME, which is an important reason.

I've used curve editors in 3D Studio Max, Poser, and even Source Filmmaker, and they are a joy to work with.

Tell you what: I will support the addition of better toon-shading whenever it is proposed, all matter of AI and automation and what not, if others support adding a curve editor.

I also have to make another comment. I think technical discussions are important, even, or especially for those who create storyline animations, like myself. You always want to improve and delight your audiences, I believe.

@sw00000p: one thing I don't have to worry about is getting fired...:P

One further comment: the lack of a curve editor or any other tool we might consider essential is not an excuse not to make films...:hehe:

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

I'm fine with iclone not having a toonshader or some sort of cartoon rendering thingamagig. I hate those things. I prefer the stuff look exactly the way I paint it. If iclone could replicate the lighting inside of SketchUp I would be in heaven. Everything evenly lit by default and any shadows on the scene are the ones i place there.

By justaviking - 11 Years Ago

animagic (12/11/2014)

Tell you what: I will support the addition of better toon-shading whenever it is proposed, all matter of AI and automation and what not, if others support adding a curve editor.

One further comment: the lack of a curve editor or any other tool we might consider essential is not an excuse not to make films...

How does that old saying go? "A bad craftsman blames the tool."

iClone 5 gives you all the tools you need to make an interesting and engaging movie. Of course more and better tools and always desired, but their absence is no excuse for not creating something.

What if this was said throughout the history of films:

I need sound.
I need color
I need stereo sound
I need 3D effects
I need better visual effects

Buster Keaton movies, Casablanca, King Kong (original), Jaws... Did any of them have "ideal" tools?

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

I rebond of the Swooop thread ,
Curve editor is not ONLY to make animation from scratch. Iclone is the best tool for generic things ok ? So We can put generic animation , walk for exemple , and with the accessibilty of all kerframe with curve editor , we could customize very very fast our own animation!!
Like we do with generic genesis characters or generic props .... For the rest Iclone 6 will give me everything I want for my purpose. :D

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/11/2014)

mtakerkart (12/11/2014)

...walk for exemple , and with the accessibilty of all kerframe with curve editor , we could customize very very fast our own animation!!

...and give a TRUE Persona to the characters.

Just look at how a group or crowd... ALL walk the same. NOT GOOD at all!
____________________________________________________________________________

So many have created completed cgi movies.
Be nice to (Quickly) change the personas to match a specific need! :w00t:

...at the end of the day... this would definitely create better iClone movies.

And that is, in my opinion, a more basic building-block that needs to be addressed. Good scripted movement to knock out the basics.

That foot sliding is far more jarring for me then slightly rough gestures and facial movements. :D

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

Regarding this John Martin interview , I think the emphasys of the 6.0 version is the Render improvement, may be with the 6.1 or 2....
It start at 9:30

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

Ibis Fernandez (12/11/2014)

If somehow, somebody generates a Sketchup DISPLAY like rendering inside ICLONE, it would be a great starting point.

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

doomstepef (12/10/2014)

I have completed two movie productions in 2014 using iclone and combine other software too. I hope to release more movies in the future. :)

The Odyssey

I just watched your film 'The Odyssey'
great work. The animation, scenery, cinematography and sound was inspiring. And it almost an hour long! That's a big solo (I assume) achievement on iClone

Glad to see the thread has prompted some healthy discussion. It's good to see there are a few iClone users here following through with full productions. I'm actually a little surprised to find some of the hidden gems here. I've missed most of these in my previous searches.

My goal is to actually finish a film myself. I guess my excuse for not completing a film is a combination of things. Time being one thing. When I do get a bit of time, I eventually get somewhat comfortable with using the basic functions of iClone and start getting somewhere. But then life gets in the way and I don't get back to it for another few months, and I have to re-learn a lot of what I knew before. Secondly whilst iClone is a damn fine animation tool, I can find it to be very unpredictable and frustrating at times to carry out fairly basic animation tasks. During animation sequences, Avatars will sink into the ground or twist their limbs into some eerie unhuman form for no apparent reason... I then have to go back through the time line, inserting multiple key frames throughout the animation to get the avatar to stay where I want it to stay. My main wish for iClone, is that RL works a lot harder on stable, predictable animation so we can spend more time moving forward creating new animation sequences in our productions, rather than spending so much time trying to fix or work around bugs in a sequence. Granted some issues are probably down to my inexperience, but I find a lot of the problems I have are just iClone conflicts/glitches/bugs

Then there's my own lack of skill lol.... I've often had to restart productions from scratch because they weren't well planned, or I stuffed it up bad enough that I needed to start again. I was probably 3/4 of the way through my current film (best position I've ever been!) and then when I rendered a few scenes to load into my video editor, I was horrified to find on playback that everything was playing back at around 3x as fast as it should..... turns out I had created the animations in 'by frame' mode instead of 'realtime'.... I tried to insert frames into all the animations to slow it all down, but it was too much of a task. So I'm back to the start again :P

Another reason is storyline. Originally I tried to make movies with reasonably complex story lines, with the intention of making the movie last around 45minutes to an hour. I soon figured out that I would be old and grey before I could finish a production of that length. So the next challenge was finding or coming up with a story line for a 5-10 minute film that would have enough substance to grab the viewer in some sort of way. Seemed like mission impossible. Usually a film of this nature requires you to spend considerable film time establishing at least one character so that the audience becomes passionate with that character, whether it be love, hate, sympathy etc. In a short film, you only have a few minutes to build this sort of emotion. I watched several short films (not animations) to try and get some sort of inspiration, but most of them didn't appeal to me - they were more 'arty' than substance. But then it struck me that there are a lot of songs out there that manage to tell an emotional story within a 4-5 minute time frame (or less!). And after some searching, I have chosen a rather short song to base my current film on. I don't want to reveal too much at this time or I risk spoiling it. But it's a very basic story that if done right, should evoke emotion in the viewers. For my first complete production, I'm not aiming at perfection/getting overly tied up in fancy lighting, scenery etc, more-so concentrate on the animation side, putting it all together, completing a film and posting it up here on the forum for a bit of feedback

anyway keep the discussion going, it's very interesting to hear other people's perspectives and to see some of the good work posted up. Good luck with your films, I'd love to see lots more completed films

Darren

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

sbaerman: :)

I liked your video but I think you judged Iclone too quickly and too harshly.

To say "This is the best we could get out of Iclone." does not equate to "This is the best that Iclone can do." Your movements were pretty much straight out of the can and your use of facial expressions was minimal at best. The lighting was about as basic as can be done and showed no understanding of how it should be used to enhance a scene.

I really don't mean to be harsh, but I am intending to be honest. I believe you should spend more time with the software and learn it's many facets before passing judgement. It could be that your expectations were a bit high for what you were willing to spend, so you may need to lower your expectations, raise your budget, or spend the time to more fully understand, and utilize, the Iclone software.

:cool: pete

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/11/2014)

3. Apply the varous technics, i.e. aniticipation, etc...

I am very curious, excited and on the verge of being Delighted.

How do you "Create Anticipation" with a Curve Editor ?

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

prabhatM (12/12/2014)

sw00000p (12/11/2014)

3. Apply the varous technics, i.e. aniticipation, etc...

I am very curious, excited and on the verge of being Delighted.

How do you "Create Anticipation" with a Curve Editor ?

CE is very powerful... when used correctly!
Re-Timing, is KEY!

Words / expressions must be used carefully, not casually when one is in the middle of a Technical Discussion.

Each word must be Technically Qualified, not casually thrown in.

CE is powerful when used correctly, but does not "CREATE ANTICIPATION".

Period.

Curve Editor is a Secondary and Supplementary Tool, not a PRIMARY TOOL like KEY FRAME CREATOR / EDITOR.

Action / REaction is created with the help of KEY FRAMES. Learn POSING with KEY FRAME and then you can IMPROVE the interpolation with a Curve Editor.

The threshold must be clearly marked. Not Blurred.

And I would love to be corrected.

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

prabhatM (12/12/2014)

sw00000p (12/11/2014)

3. Apply the varous technics, i.e. aniticipation, etc...

I am very curious, excited and on the verge of being Delighted.

How do you "Create Anticipation" with a Curve Editor ?

CE is very powerful... when used correctly!
Re-Timing, is KEY!

ummmm key frames are the key LOL. thats why they are called key frames. Like prabhatM said, the curve editor is really just to tweak the interpolation between two keys. without the keys to work with, I'm pretty sure you got nothing.

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

Man, all this techno-babble not only has me bored to tears, :doze: it's totally off-topic. :angry:

Which, if anyone remembers was: "How many of us have actually completed a video with iclone.

So anyone else who has done one? ;)

:cool: pete

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

kick a dead horse, this should all be in the Iclone6 subforum.

:cool:pete

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

peterblood (12/12/2014)

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

kick a dead horse, this should all be in the Iclone6 subforum.

:cool:pete

R u kidding? This topic is pure gold. Fine sticking to the original topic...
Question: who here has produced an iclone film...
Answer: some have, some have not. Next topic..

Not very entertaining is it? Just enjoy the discussion :) its all perfectly relevant. Some one says why they haven't, they say why, it creates dialogue and debate.

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

...Yeah, Noobs think this is all it's for.

I used the wrong term. Care to make more out of it?

Nah, but it would be nice if you explained it for us noobs. I'm always looking to learn something new. That could be a whole new topic thought. So we can post followup questions without boring peterblood lol.

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

swooop, you are very smart when it comes to what we all need to be better animators, but unfortunately you're cold, technical, and sorry to say, boring. You beat your subject to a bloody pulp with no regard for the consequences. In this case you took an interesting post by someone with a sincere interest in the people on the forum and turned it into a boring, dull, uninspired and basically useless discussion about some techno-baloney that you don't know will ever be available or useful to anyone.

Your entire discussion wasn't about curve editors or whatever, it was about you. You monopolizing the original post like a schoolyard bully. Just pathetic I must say from someone who has yet ,to my knowledge, produced a video that we have had the pleasure to enjoy. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.

Don't get me wrong, I like you, but sometimes you get carried away with yourself. Hate me if you must, but I'm honestly letting you know what I feel about your posting on this topic.

"That could be a whole new topic thought. So we can post followup questions without boring peterblood lol."

Thank you Ibis, that would be much appreciated. The Iclone6 subforum is the correct place. =)

:cool: pete

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

Just once, I'd like to see one of these "So-Called" Complete iclone videos....
Pass an 11 second club ANIMATION TEST.

Here's the counter proposal :

You make an INCOMPLETE 3 sec Animation with ICLONE and pass the "11 Sec Club" test. Invite us and we will celebrate with you there.

Use your Professional knowledge to best of your ability.

[ Learn to use an EXIT route when offered politely. ]

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

prabhatM (12/12/2014)

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

Just once, I'd like to see one of these "So-Called" Complete iclone videos....
Pass an 11 second club ANIMATION TEST.

Here's another counter...

No Thank You!

Thank you for finally using the EXIT route.

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

prabhatM (12/12/2014)

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

prabhatM (12/12/2014)

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

Just once, I'd like to see one of these "So-Called" Complete iclone videos....
Pass an 11 second club ANIMATION TEST.

Here's another counter...

No Thank You!

Thank you for finally using the EXIT route.

I'm NOT taking any EXIT.

I simply cannot fullful your request because...
TODAY... iClone doesn't have the tools to pass the test.

...and I'll NEVER sit and keyframe 1 million times to get it right.

I was waiting for you to say that.

We presume you are an expert on 3DSMAX.

Use your competent and great 3DSMAX, create an animation and participate in 11Sec Club contest.

Win.

Invite us.

We will Celebrate with you.

Special Note : Don't forget to use your CURVE EDITOR. Without it your animation may not be complete.

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

I'm not familiar with this 11 second club, but does it really matter if any of the movies would qualify for it or not ? 99% of us here are just solo hobby animators who are either completely new to animation or still on a steep learning curve. The only way we'll learn is to release movies and put them up here for feedback. Our animations are likely to be a bit rough around the edges, but I'd rather see more people not being afraid to have a go and come up with a movie that might be fairly amateur, rather than never release a full production out of fear of being looked on unfavourably. Fortunately most people here are very supportive of people who are fairly inexperienced with animation/iClone and only tend to offer constructive criticism when the producer requests it.

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

I'm NO expert.

Remember that.

It's good for your career. Because you will work harder.

And you will be more acceptable in a peer group.

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

Darren01 (12/12/2014)

I agree 100 %! The Topic should have read, "Show what you've done with iclone."
Not "Show Complete Videos"

Submitting videos IS the only way to learn. But, when someone tells you the animation is not complete... they say, yes it is or so what.
You learn nothing like this.

There's already countless threads on this forum which already cover 'show us what you have done with iClone - in fact there is a sticky at the top of the forum for this. It's not what I'm asking. I'm not talking about small clips or artwork. All that has it's place, but to see a production through from beginning to end is an entirely different discipline - one admittedly which has escaped me so far!. There's nothing more I'd love (when it comes to iClone) then to proudly post my finished 5 minute movie up here for others to watch and hopefully enjoy!

And I'd imagine most of us here have a goal in mind of eventually producing from beginning to end, a complete film that we can be proud of - whether that be just 5 minutes or 2hrs. And by 'complete' I don't mean it has to Hollywood quality. I know mine won't be. But I'm referring to a film/production with a story from beginning to end, like any other movie rather than short clips, teasers or dance videos etc

And several people here have posted some fine examples in this thread. That's what the thread was about

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

I agree 100 %! The Topic should have read, "Show what you've done with iclone."
Not "Show Complete Videos"

This reminds me a real case. Very unrelated, yet worth quoting. Take it as a refresher break. Please allow me.

There was a time in my business career, I just could not afford a lawyer and I had to fight all my cases.

In one of those cases, the other side lawyer ( of a big corporate house ) could not appear on a scheduled date i.e 25th September.

The next date came, but did not materialise. Many dates passed by.

Finally, as the luck would have it, the date came exactly after one year i.e. 25th September !

The other Lawyer opened his argument saying "He mistook the date as '25th December', not '25th September'. Then ARROGANTLY flashed his diary and showed having made an entry for the case on '25th December'.

I took his diary and scanned the pages. I pointed out to the judge that :

1) The pen used for the entries on 25th September is DIFFERENT from the entries on 25th December.
2) The handwritings differ. All entries on 25th September have one type of handwriting....and the "Graphological test would determine that the SOLE entry made on 25th December is done in a hurry and with anxiety.
3) Then I snubbed the lawyer VERY HARD by saying that even a 4 year old school kid would know that 25th December is a holiday and the court is closed. Then how could he make a professional appointment entry on 25th December ?

4) I turned to the judge as my final argument, I said :

"Had the date been 26th September, he would have SAID that he HEARD it as "26th January" ( holiday, Indian republic day)....2nd September as "2nd October" ( holiday, Gandhi Jayanti )....15th September as 15th August ( holiday, Indian Independece Day )....

The Judge and the whole court laughed....the case was thrown out at that very instant....

===================
Some people just say things for the heck of saying...then try to make a case out of it !
===================

:)

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

Darren01 (12/12/2014)

[quote]And by 'complete' I don't mean it has to Hollywood quality. I know mine won't be. But I'm referring to a film/production with a story from beginning to end, like any other movie rather than short clips, teasers or dance videos etc

And several people here have posted some fine examples. That's what the thread was about

From this point of view... You are correct!
...Many have posted AWESOME VIDS!

just wish I could help them make better animation... maybe iClone 7! :)

In regards to animation quality, I certainly agree iClone could be a lot better and it's limitations in that regard do show up in most iClone productions. But at the same time, we can't just keep blaming the tools. Yes it could be better, as I mentioned earlier some of it's inconsistency and unpredictability often knocks my enthusiasm. But let's face it, most of us have a lot to learn as animators as well. We can't entirely blame iClone's flaws for not producing reasonably good quality animated movies. And if we wait indefinitely for the version of iClone that will make us all great animators, then we never will release a movie.

I know that if I put my mind to it, spend the time, that I can make a short movie that I can be proud of and that others hopefully might enjoy. Even before I release it, I know there is going to be a lot of animation errors and shortcuts. But I'm hoping people enjoy it for the complete package it is. That is a good story that is portrayed through animation

Does that make sense ?

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

to be honest I have no idea about the features you mentioned, but of course I'm all for continuing to improve iClone, particularly if it means the animation process is streamlined, more stable/predictable and more realistic.

And in regards to the CGI crew approval, fair enough if your ambitions are to be a professional animator, but how many people here actually expect to get to that sort of level ? Most of us don't have the time (or money) to dedicate to this level of animation. That's probably why we've chosen a more affordable animation package that is more aimed at a hobbyist animator rather than professional animator. If you want the best, you've got to pay 10's of thousands of $$ on a package like Maya....

I purchased iClone because I wanted a reasonably easy to use and affordable tool that allows me to be creative in telling a story/expressing myself. I don't plan on entering my creations in film festivals etc. I'd be just content to share it with family/friends and the iClone community. If the amateur animated film community outside of that give it the thumbs up, I'd be stoked, but I don't expect it. And I might be wrong, but I'd imagine the vast majority of iClone users would have similar expectations

By planetstardragon - 11 Years Ago

a good story, is more important than it's medium, would say a bard before television was even conceived.

if you have a weak story, then you better hire swoop to fix the characters and distract people with sparkles.

By planetstardragon - 11 Years Ago

some people are necromancers in the entertainment business,

others are Animators - verb (used with object), animated, animating.
1.
to give life to; make alive:
God animated the dust.

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

I totally agree planetstardragon. You can have the very best in animation and scenery, sound but if the story sucks all the rest doesn't matter. However if it's a good story, with only basic animation, the viewer tends to be a lot more forgiving.

And that has been one of the most difficult stumbling blocks for me, especially when we are talking about short stories eg 5-10 minute productions.

Hence the reason I started looking at song lyrics. Clever lyric writers can tell a story and in the process conjure up quite a bit of emotion in relatively few words.

By planetstardragon - 11 Years Ago

yep, for me too....if you want to see some legendary movies come out of all of this....start a role playing thread!! :w00t:

-kicks feet up on table, leans back in chair adorning a slight wicked grin while cleaning his nails non-challantly on an elven steel dagger-

yes...yes....many tales to tell in that life...

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

Darren01 (12/12/2014)

However if it's a good story, with only basic animation, the viewer tends to be a lot more forgiving.

NOT if the viewer is the "11 Second Club!"

Well there isn't going to be much of a story told in 11 seconds, so naturally something like that is going to focus on animation. That sort of thing is a good exercise in building animation skills, but otherwise it doesn't really interest me. I'd rather see an interesting story portrayed in a 10 minute movie with less than perfect animation

By planetstardragon - 11 Years Ago

i've been looking for a way to tell it in 3 minutes in a song, not crazy about the subtitles approach though ...

By planetstardragon - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

• Good Story
• Good Animations
• Good Level Design

bingo. without a story, yer just a necromancer :p

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

planetstardragon (12/12/2014)

i've been looking for a way to tell it in 3 minutes in a song, not crazy about the subtitles approach though ...

ah.... a bit of Matrix in there I see.
Nice work!

Subtitles aren't great, but a better option IMO to the robotic text to speech convertors. I've seen far too many well produced iClone animations spoilt by the speech convertors.
I was considering doing the same on my current production, because it can be difficult finding suitable voice actors. But I checked out that site that someone earlier in the thread -fiverr.com ? (sorry forgot who it was!) and there is a really good range of voice actors willing to start at $5 for around 100 words. So I'm rethinking things now and plan on using voice actors. I haven't got a lot of dialogue, but having proper voices will certainly overcome my fears of having to resort to subtitles.

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

Darren01
That sort of thing is a good exercise in building animation skills,...

THIS is my whole point.

If you get a chance... just view the animation... it's AWESOME!

If you have no interest in building your animation skills... little by little... OK.
...but I do and sure many others do to.

• Good Story
• Good Animations
• Good Level Design

All balanced =Complete Movie! :)

Darren01, just keep up the good work! What you are doing is great! :)

cheers for the words of encouragement

Look I totally agree with you it's all about a balance of story, animation and good production/planning. Problem is I think too many people get too tied down in the animation and never get further than just making short clips. If you have plenty of time, retired or something then you are probably going to have the time to dedicate to all 3 disciplines. But I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to all this, and after all these years of playing with iClone I'd love to finally start and finish a complete movie - it would give me some sort of sense of accomplishment. My animation skills are still fairly basic, but so are my story telling and production skills. So rather than just spend another couple of years trying to perfect my animation skills, I want to jump in the deep end and work with what I have. And who knows, maybe the movie might turn out ok :)

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

A simple 11 second club submission... results in utter failure.

I have to step in here, because it was my clip. It didn't result in utter failure, it is just that it didn't get many votes, which is something different. Either you believe in peer-judging or you don't. I don't.

Also, it is not that the other entries at the time were that brilliant, it's just that the iClone look is outside the comfort zone of the participants. (Too game-like or too Machinima.) If I had taken it seriously, I would have given up at that point. The 11-second club promotes a particular school of thought about animation which is very good if you want a low-paying job as animator. If you're doing your own thing it is not relevant and there are better ways to improve. For example by finishing a complete animated story.

I also disagree with the statement that only by using industry-standard tools you are worthy to call yourself an animator. There are many forms of animation and many different tools are used, including pencil and paper.

I think we can now go back to the topic at hand. :cool:

@Darren01: it may seem a daunting task to do a complete animation from beginning to end, but it does get easier over time. Most of us are our most severe critic, I think, which prevents us in a way to continue, because it isn't good enough. My first attempts were pretty pathetic.

I think you have to allow yourself to fail, but then have the stamina to continue, because it is something you really want to do. The story part is important and what helped me with that is to learn how to write a screenplay. For longer projects it gives you a kind of guidance and answers the question what do I do next. It divides a large project into manageable steps.

The script also tells you what you need in the way of locations, props, actors, etc. It's pretty much the same what you would do when planning for a life-action film, except that it is all virtual. It is one of the aspects I like.

Well, more later. It's past my bedtime...:doze:

By Lost Filmmaker - 11 Years Ago

planetstardragon (12/12/2014)

Ooh. Or some sort of Round Robin.

By planetstardragon - 11 Years Ago

i actually came up with a group role play idea that would inspire everyone to make their own movies ...

it's based on a dungeons and dragons concept, where there is a common world setting, and everyone joins in the conversation as their own story line. In a setting like this, My story line can run into yours and end up in a movie collaboration.

so for example, in this fantasy world.....there is a rumor of a stargate that exists in an unknown remote area of the land .....now different people can be from different parts of this world ...and tell their adventure of looking for this legendary "StarGate"

One person may want to find it for evil reason, another person wants to expand his business, another person could care less and is just looking to make money on this popular legend, another guy just goes around telling tales about how he met some strange blue people in one of the stargates - no one believes him of course heh! ....another person can be a scam artist looking to con people by selling fake maps, another person may just want to get drunk and adventure the universe for even more places to get drunk at lol ......another guy could be wanted by the local authorities and is just desperate to escape... etc

everyone could be their own story, based on a central world - The world has to be magical and mystical to give everyone the freedom to write whatever they want or be whomever they want....the only rule is to recognize that your character lives in this world .....and a thread for it would have to be pure role play, and only posting in character. The whole thread would be videos and dialogue based on the world theme.

something structured like this could easily turn into a group made movie series

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

animagic (12/12/2014)

[quoteI think we can now go back to the topic at hand.:cool:

@Darren01: it may seem a daunting task to do a complete animation from beginning to end, but it does get easier over time. Most of us are our most severe critic, I think, which prevents us in a way to continue, because it isn't good enough. My first attempts were pretty pathetic.

I think you have to allow yourself to fail, but then have the stamina to continue, because it is something you really want to do. The story part is important and what helped me with that is to learn how to write a screenplay. For longer projects it gives you a kind of guidance and answers the question what do I do next. It divides a large project into manageable steps.

The script also tells you what you need in the way of locations, props, actors, etc. It's pretty much the same what you would do when planning for a life-action film, except that it is all virtual. It is one of the aspects I like.

Well, more later. It's past my bedtime...:doze:

I'm already discovering the merits of some sort of plan or script.
I really have no prior film making experience, so up until recently I was trying to tackle the entire project as one file or scene. Which meant things had to be done in chronological order and if I decided I wanted to add something earlier in the timeline, it then became a bit of a headache and could easily throw out the timeline ahead of the changes.

Ok I'm a bit slow lol ;) but I eventually realised I should break up the project into short scenes, I guess that's just like real filmmakers do. That way I can create the scenes in any order I wish and then arrange them in the correct order in the video editor. And if I need to add something in between, it's just a matter of creating another scene and inserting it with the editor.

By jari.peltola - 11 Years Ago

Darren01 (12/12/2014)

animagic (12/12/2014)

Hi,
I thought I'd barge in since I have written several dozen animation screenplays for a 15-minute/episode-format political satire. The script phase is definitely the easiest one for making small or even larger changes to the story. After the story was finished, the characters' lines were recorded, and only after that the whole thing entered the animation phase (thus character audio preceded the animation).

When animating - assuming the story is complete by then - you can do the actual work in whatever order you feel is the best. I have used iClone for fun to make different stuff, and I tend to make one scene at a time, preferrably chronologically. I then render the scenes separately and combine the whole thing in video editor, adding sound, fx etc.

To be honest, I pretty much suck using iClone, but I don't really mind since it's all for fun. If I can make the embed link work, I insert below one short clip I did a couple of years back. It includes all the workflow stuff I mentioned above in practise:

By justaviking - 11 Years Ago

Darren01 (12/12/2014)

Another reason is storyline. Originally I tried to make movies with reasonably complex story lines, with the intention of making the movie last around 45minutes to an hour. I soon figured out that I would be old and grey before I could finish a production of that length. So the next challenge was finding or coming up with a story line for a 5-10 minute film that would have enough substance to grab the viewer in some sort of way. Seemed like mission impossible. Usually a film of this nature requires you to spend considerable film time establishing at least one character so that the audience becomes passionate with that character, whether it be love, hate, sympathy etc. In a short film, you only have a few minutes to build this sort of emotion. I watched several short films (not animations) to try and get some sort of inspiration, but most of them didn't appeal to me - they were more 'arty' than substance.

How long does a story need to be to engage a viewer?

Watch television commercials with a fresh set of eyes. In 30 or 60 seconds, some can tell a very rich story. See how they imply a lot of history and backstory without spending 45 minutes of exposition. Notice the use of props and background.

A good Hallmark greeting card commercial can bring some people to tears. Other commercials make people laugh. What's talked about more after the Super Bowl, the game or the commercials? It's a toss-up.

Lastly,. check out the Pixar Shorts. You can get a collection of them on DVD now. They are just a few minutes long, but wonderful stories. Camera work, music, lighting all constribute. You aren't likely to get the visual polish that Pixar does, but we could probably match some of the older ones. After all, look a "Red's Dream" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_mXN-hv8zI. See the clown's face? Not quite up to today's standards, but it is still a delightful clip that tells a story.

Then there's my own lack of skill lol....

Ha, you and me both, buddy. iClone is limited by me, much more than the other way around. ;)

By justaviking - 11 Years Ago

animagic (12/12/2014)

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

A simple 11 second club submission... results in utter failure.

I have to step in here, because it was my clip. It didn't result in utter failure, it is just that it didn't get many votes, which is something different.

a) You completed it. That alone puts it in the top 1%.

b) It didn't suck. That's always a bonus. :P

I think you have to allow yourself to fail...

How many people ice skate or ski for fun? Falling is part of it. And so is getting back up. Most will not become Olympic athletes, but they can become "adequate" enough to enjoy it.

And you have to be willing to please yourself. Sure, be your own worst critic. but don't be a self-hater. Once in a while enjoy the result. If you accomplished what you wanted, take satisfaction in that.

As hobbyists, we do this for fun, don't we?

By thebiz.movies - 11 Years Ago

justaviking (12/12/2014)

How long does a story need to be to engage a viewer?

Watch television commercials with a fresh set of eyes. In 30 or 60 seconds, some can tell a very rich story. See how they imply a lot of history and backstory without spending 45 minutes of exposition. Notice the use of props and background.

A good Hallmark greeting card commercial can bring some people to tears. Other commercials make people laugh. What's talked about more after the Super Bowl, the game or the commercials? It's a toss-up.

Lastly,. check out the Pixar Shorts. You can get a collection of them on DVD now. They are just a few minutes long, but wonderful stories. Camera work, music, lighting all constribute. You aren't likely to get the visual polish that Pixar does, but we could probably match some of the older ones. After all, look a "Red's Dream" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_mXN-hv8zI. See the clown's face? Not quite up to today's standards, but it is still a delightful clip that tells a story.

Agree totally. Consider also that your project is not likely going to be viewed on a tv. More likely it will be viewed on someones computer or even their ipad or mobile device. And how much time are they willing to invest on these devices?

I try to keep anything I work on to under 5 minutes if possible (multiple 5 minute parts are possible - see BurnsFilms Invaded series which was a 20 minute flick cut into 5 episodes and released one a week to positive results). Its just the way I now think of storytelling in this medium.

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

it's just that the iClone look is outside the comfort zone of the participants. (Too game-like or too Machinima.)

Strange. Because some have made Hand drawing anime and have been selected.
I thing there is very good Machinima but there were made today only by big studio:

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

mtakerkart (12/12/2014)

it's just that the iClone look is outside the comfort zone of the participants. (Too game-like or too Machinima.)

Strange. Because some have made Hand drawing anime and have been selected.
I thing there is very good Machinima but there were made today only by big studio:

ICLONE animations look odd or game like because of the "stare look" of the G5 characters. It gives certain rigid look about the characters.

I think it will change dramatically with G6 characters. Same animations with G6 characters would look way better in ICLONE 6 with/without a curve editor.

A Curve editor just gives a non-linear approach to the key frame interpolation, thus adding an Organic Look. But it certainly can not help BAD KEYFRAMING / Posing.

Many friends here do not use PAUSE effectively while animating. If a head turns, then it turns almost 270 degree at one go. PAUSING / STAY must be used effectively.

So it's better to practice with Keyframing now rather than waiting for a Curve editor to change the Quality of Animation.

Garbage in > Garbage Out. A curve Editor ( now ARC ) can't even change that.

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

Sw0000p,

1.) 11sec club is just a community for animators and people who want to improve by participating in a common interest in some sort of structure. It is not reflective on what animation is or should be. It's simply a training ground for amateurs, students and pros to keep themselves motivated and continue practice. Being judged by anyone in that community doesn't mean anything. every knows (at least the professionals do) that stuff submitted there is just practice and will offer constructive criticism.

Also this is how you can tell who your peers are and who are just regular jagoffs that will provably never advance themselves, should provably pay no attention to...

Jagoff: great attempt but your feet are sliding and your lipsync looks like shit.

Peer: your feet are sliding around, try attaching X to X or place more weight on X as you shift this way. Also your lipsync looks-like shit, here is why and here is an option of what you can do to improve it, have you tried doing this...

in other words, don't be jagoff.

2.) You really don't seem to have an idea on what your talking about at least when it comes to animation. Im sure you have iClone down to a science and have a general understanding of animation theory, but seriously, If you feel so passionate about how something "should" be, you should put all your energy into either actually creating something the way it should be or teaching people about it rather than just refer to generalities that you cant seem to back up.

3.) the only person who can judge what "completed" film is the filmmaker himself. having said that, "a well structured" film is one possesses a beginning, middle, and end. But even this is based on literary story composition as viewed by our culture. There are in fact quite a lot of stories/films/works of literature that don't follow these rules, for example a typical parable, a marketing piece, or even a muse or a recollection.

4.) good animation doesn't even have to follow what is known as "the twelve principles" of animation. In fact those principles are just tricks and cookie cutter techniques that are recommended as a base or as shortcut to producing acceptable character animation. The idea being that if you can master those techniques you can go on to use your own creative judgment in how a performance is interpreted. Kinda like advising an amateur graphic designer to use the Helvetica font for a logo. No one is telling them that thats the font they should use, but that font is so ingrained in our collective minds that just using it in any configuration will almost always give you a decent looking logo.

5.) While you may call me a noobie, which i definitely am, I've only been playing with iClone on and off for a couple months on my free time, you should know that I have been in the animation business, working as a professional, for over 20 years. Ive done work on Batman, Freakazoid, the new woodpecker show, Barbie: my scene, and a million other things here and there for tv, film, games, educational use etc. My first animation book was published in 7 languages and is still used as a text book in various colleges, also my coloring software is an industry standard used by Disney, cartoon network, nickelodeon. At the risk of sounding arrogant, while I may not know anything about iClone in terms of software operation, and I just recently started feeling comfortable with CTA2... I do know a little bit about "animation". And I can tell you quite authoritatively that iClone is perfectly functional for creating good character animation. I wouldn't have joined the bandwagon otherwise. Iclone is great for hobbyists and beginner level animators and machinima artists to get their visions produced. This is their target market, but as a professional (and yes as an expert) I see the possibilities in such as tool as a way to create stuff that rivals the work being produced by the big budget studios are ridiculous lower budgets and turn over rates.

Put this tool in the hands of any seasoned animator and the results might blow you mind. We don't need curve editors or dopesheets, or any fancy stuff. Everything you need is there. Learn animation and you can make your own curves LOL

(Hint: it has something to do with something called breakdowns and inbetweens, look it up ;) yes there is such a thing as more than one type of key frame, though most software manufacturers don't really take them into account. provably why you never heard of them.)

By Ibis Fernandez - 11 Years Ago

sw00000p (12/12/2014)

Ibis Fernandez,

I won't start calling you names. I'm above that.
Nobody likes to here their animation is not up to par, with standard industry practices.... I get that.

11 Secondard Club is an excellent place to give "Correct" constructive critisim.
iClone tools do NOT produce animation that's stands a chance on receiving a favorable rating.
(Without keyframing 1 million times)

Nobody wants to hear this either.
Arc and Curves movements yields awesome results, Period!

You can keep your name calling to yourself!

1. Dude I didn't call you any names!
2. There is only one type of constructive criticism, thats why its called constructive criticism.
3. you should worry more about producing animation that you can live with as opposed to creating stuff based on the idea that you need favorable ratings. Thats just the wrong reasons for doing anything.
4. iclone doesn't produce anything. maybe thats your problem, you should try producing it yourself as opposed to expecting the software to produce it for you.
5. and yes, anyone who is interested in improving their own work would be more than happy to hear whats wrong with it and how to improve it.

You are just wrong in every point man. im done with this discussion, i have better things i can waste my time on.

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

prabhatM (12/12/2014)

So it's better to practice with Keyframing now rather than waiting for a Curve editor to change the Quality of Animation.

Garbage in > Garbage Out. A curve Editor ( now ARC ) can't even change that.

I do agree with you there. I view the curve editor as a way to refine. If it's no good to begin with, all is lost.

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

@Ibis: it is encouraging to hear the views from a professional regarding iClone.

I'm always more interested in hearing and learning what iClone CAN do than in what is supposedly lacking. I know I'm lobbying for a curve editor, but I've been able to work quite well without it.

I would also request sw00000p to refrain from any further comments and opinions regarding my 11-second entry, how low it rated etc, etc. That does not fall under the category of "constructive criticism". I only posted it in the thread about the 11-second club to give people an idea of what such a short clip could look like.

I hope we can now go back to the actual topic.

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

While you may call me a noobie, which i definitely am, I've only been playing with iClone on and off for a couple months on my free time, you should know that I have been in the animation business, working as a professional, for over 20 years. Ive done work on Batman, Freakazoid, the new woodpecker show, Barbie: my scene, and a million other things here and there for tv, film, games, educational use etc. My first animation book was published in 7 languages and is still used as a text book in various colleges, also my coloring software is an industry standard used by Disney, cartoon network, nickelodeon. At the risk of sounding arrogant, while I may not know anything about iClone in terms of software operation, and I just recently started feeling comfortable with CTA2... I do know a little bit about "animation". And I can tell you quite authoritatively that iClone is perfectly functional for creating good character animation. I wouldn't have joined the bandwagon otherwise. Iclone is great for hobbyists and beginner level animators and machinima artists to get their visions produced. This is their target market, but as a professional (and yes as an expert) I see the possibilities in such as tool as a way to create stuff that rivals the work being produced by the big budget studios are ridiculous lower budgets and turn over rates.

Seriously? WOW! Can you , please , make a very good tutorial to animate with pose-keyframe inside Iclone? I can assure you , all , yes all Iclone users since the version 1 will eat your knowledge!!! :w00t:

Really , I'm sooo waiting for this tutorial.

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

mtakerkart (12/12/2014)

I am also waiting for Ibis to do things with ICLONE. Because I love every bit of stuff he has done so far with CTA2. He is a natural mentor. His presentations are very pleasing.

Actually, I have such high opinion about his talent that I find it funny and really laugh whenever he complains about getting stuck up with things. ;)

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

justaviking (12/12/2014)

How long does a story need to be to engage a viewer?

and that's the big question
Really I think it all comes down to the skill of the story writer.
IMO, it is so much easier as a story writer, to write a lengthy story where you establish character/s, get the audience involved with the character and the story line. All of which takes time. Let's face it, that's why full length big screen movies are so effective.
But of course as solo hobbyist animators, most of us don't have the time or resources to create such lengthy productions. So we need to capture the audience much faster.

As I've mentioned, there are good examples however where a good story writer can capture the audience, even with a degree of emotion. Song lyrics, poetry and as you mentioned commercials. As you suggest, the skill is in trying to create a snapshot of an implied bigger story without actually telling that story. And that's where I guess I struggle. But the song lyrics are a good place to start I think.

By Rampa - 11 Years Ago

About a minute has me pretty engaged.

A Tale of Momentum & Inertia from HouseSpecial on Vimeo.

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

Haha :P Yeah rampa, that's an awesome and funny example.

:cool: pete

By mark - 11 Years Ago

Darren, bottom line for anyone starting out is to "keep-it-simple" and just DO IT!!:D I did this awhile back when someone mentioned trying a little animation exercise on the forum. I kinda liked it...:P

By KenCoon - 11 Years Ago

Mark. I was expecting the little guy to take it up and drop it and smash it in front of him. that would have made a sort of short story out of it.
Just my thoughts.
Ken:)

By KenCoon - 11 Years Ago

I haven't done anything for awhile so I thought I would do this short one. 5 seconds.:)
http://youtu.be/goiHzw89eJ8

Ken:)

By Peter Blood - 11 Years Ago

mark:
I haven't seen that one in quite a while. It was fun to view it again. :)

Darren:
I did this two minute story as a pinhead project a couple of years ago. It was only my second attempt with iclone. Errors abound but, considering my skill level at the time, it came out alright. (The rules of the event required all entries to be 2 minutes or under.)

:cool:pete

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

@Mark

Did you do this with Maya / 3DSMax ?

By Darren01 - 11 Years Ago

peterblood (12/13/2014)

lol, that's a very polished production Pete, well done :)

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

The contest Pete mentions was to create a commercial for an imaginary product. We had a lot of fun with that. It was quite challenging to do something meaningful in under two minutes.

There were some very inventive entries...

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

Robot Revolt is indeed a great clip by Mark. I mean, it is extremely well done.

So I watched it to see if I could determine the Max or Maya question. Amazingly, I believe you will find certain iClone elements in it. For example, I recognized the reflection map used for the reflective helmet of some of the robots.

I think I also recognized the very determined walk of one of the young women early on. So I think it's iClone, which would prove again that in the right hands there is no limit to what you can do.

By mark - 11 Years Ago

Oh my that's an old one...
but it's all iClone for sure, as I'm certain swoope could see right away:P:P:P

I wouldn't know where to begin with Max or Maya. I don't have those crazy good chops that swoope has with those programs :D

At one time, years ago, I worked with Lightwave but the render times just killed me...the quality was great but I'd rather tell a simple story and let the technical perfection aspects fall where it may!!!!:P:P:P:P:P

I did edit in SONY Vegas but it's that lousy iClone program all the way :D

By prabhatM - 11 Years Ago

Are you sure you did not use any Curve Editor ?

How can you think of animation without a curve editor ?

BTW watch the Unreal UDK 2013 movie....your 2011 movie has some similarity with their 2013 game.

By mark - 11 Years Ago

Curve Editor? I'm still tryin' to figure out what a Bump Map is!!!:P:P:P:P

Yep I'm going to sue 'em!!! They stole all my ideas!!!!! NOT!!!

WOW!!! Just a bit more detail I'm thinking!! I could do it if I could figure out them bump maps and curve thingy things!!!!:D:D:D:D

By mtakerkart - 11 Years Ago

Curve Editor? I'm still tryin' to figure out what a Bump Map is!!!

Seriously Mark? you're movies are the best of Iclone I saw, I can assure you that when you'll know what is a bump (normal) map, soon vector displacement and what is curve editor, your next movies will blow us!!!

Good job

By animagic - 11 Years Ago

Mark, you are an inspiration...:cool:

You sure know how to create compelling cinematography. Don't tell me you don't know anything about that either! :P

By mark - 11 Years Ago

Thanks! And OK, I do know which end of the camera to point...:P:P:P:P:P

By colour - 11 Years Ago

I think Mark's proved his point re; iClone v the Max, Maya, Poser, Bryce, Blender & "Uncle Tom Cobbly And All" Brigade ;)

Most of what Mark accomplishes is covered in his iClone Tutorials, with a bit of Sketchup thrown-in. ;)

By MrStockboto - 11 Years Ago

I have been playing with iClone for years but have only recently reached a point where I can produce a 1 or 2 minute sketch video in less then a month. My main issue has always been making the characters movements somewhat realistic. I have at long last rebooted my Cube Space series, think office humor sketch comedy. I'm also working on a series of training videos.

So, it's taken me years and thousands of dollars, and I haven't done much yet, but I fully intend to produce a Cube Space episode and a training video each week for the next year.

Now, hopefully life doesn't happen so I can keep up on this project :w00t:

By mark - 11 Years Ago

I'm with you on movement Tex'. That's still the hardest thing for me...those simple turns and twists just drive me nuts. I pretty much gave up ;)

By scarimike - 7 Years Ago

Something always seems to go wrong, I finally got past the viruses and updates, now it seems to be slow internet. I will be getting a new provider tomorrow. I have a western scene setup with all the props and Avatars. I have a total of 18000 frames to work with, but I am only at 2000. When I try to add voice scripts it's all most like reverb or echo. a word will almost sound like a twang instead of a word. I will know tomorrow. It seems as though I have ran out of space or time. Very frustrating. To answer your question, I have one more scene to do to complete the story. It will have to be a series I have 5 complete scenes but I have one I am doing over. I want to take a class. No one else seems to be interested in animation. I have started a Facebook page, no one looks at it.. Friend me if you do, "Mike Bowcutt" I will be grateful.

By headrushindi - 6 Years Ago

yes I have finished a full feature lengthICLONE film , and around October of this year 2019, I will post a new one far better than the ones I have done prior/ they can be found on youtube
(iclone movies from headrushindi )

By nealtucker - 6 Years Ago

First up Marks Iclone projects are great, I love the backdrop videos he has Taped into, I think I watched everyone and learned a lot from his Tuts.
Anyway, after a year of playing and learning Iclone, I got my first major 15.mins project finished which as a starter I'm very pleased on how it turned out.
A link is in my footer.

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/42f4ce68-66ba-42e8-88c4-69ab.jpg