Agreed on all points.

But he's nowhere near done.  I'm pretty sure Ken is mainly showing us that his new computer is running, and is announcing that he's gotten started on his project.

You are up and running, using new software and animating in iClone.  You have pulled all the assets together into your NLE of choice and rendered out.

Great start and keep going :D

Remember to take all the feedback and suggestions in stride.

Sometimes people post their work in process (WIP) videos, looking for helpful criticism.  Other times a person posts just to share progress, not necessarily looking for suggestions.  But you'll almost always get some feedback here anyway.  (I've been on all sides of that equation.)

You'll run into the haters once in a while, but they're rare.  Mostly it's going to be people trying to be helpful.

In the end, we need to be satisfied with our creation, taking into account our experience and skill level, and the amount of time and money we're willing to dedicate to one project.

I'm excited to see you working on your first project.  You are taking on a huge challenge, learning multiple new software packages all a once.  If you are able to complete your project, THAT is a major accomplishment!  Never forget that.

Please keep posting.  I, for one, love seeing the WIP postings.  You'll always get ideas/feedback/suggestions/critiques, but they're intended to be helpful and constructive, not to make a person feel badly.

When I watch my projects, especially months later, I alternatively feel really good and cringe with embarrassment.  But I'm always glad to have done it.

Have you checked out this tutorial on G5 Clone Cloth?

• https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic117954-297-1.aspx

The clothing fascinates me, but I've never had a desire to put my time into it.  My little projects have not required "period" clothing, so whatever Chuck, Gwynn, Mason, or Heidi is wearing has worked for me.  (Pinhead, too, of course!)

There are new features in 6, but maybe that tutorial will be useful anyway.

looks like you are well on your way.
Only criticism I have like the others have said is your narration is too low in volume

But you have the right voice for story telling!

What I often do is setting the timeline cursor to the last frame of a scene and then apply Remove Animation to anything that moves, which freezes the motion at that point as a pose. For example, if a character has their arm upward it will be saved as a pose with their arm upward. 

I then save that as a new project file, which will at the beginning be exactly the same as the previous scene at the end. I hope that's clear...:unsure:

A while ago you asked about file naming conventions.

One thing I didn't mention was on my last (large) product, I actually created a spreadsheet too keep track of my files.

I broke it into two halves (though I'm not sure if that was smart).

Part A - iClone:

• List of iClone scenes (files) - Mostly an one-to-one relationship between file and scene
• List of all revisions
• Great_intro - A
• Great_intro - B
• Great_intro - C
• Listed my top priority items I needed to fix (3 max, usually)
• Great_intro - A... Add the house prop
• Great_intro - B... Make John ring the doorbell, add close-up of doorbell button being pushed
• Great_intro - C... Fix lip sync, add camera cuts when Cindy answers the door
• I also added some "status"
• [X] Have I done the animation fixes listed?
• [X] Have I rendered it yet?

Part B - NLE (editor):

• Similar to the iClone list
• Mostly listed by scene
• A list of "files" (iClone render output, mostly)
• Which version is in my NLE (Great_intro - C)
• A priority "To Do" list
• Add title overlay
• Add doorbell sound effect
• Replaces iClone audio with cleaner speech files
• Some "status" similar to my iClone list

It wasn't perfect, but it helped.  I started doing it about a third of the way through my project.

The best thing, I think, was having one place to collect my prioritized list of what needed to be fixed the most, and if it had been done yet.

Maybe I could upload it in a Zip file if anyone's interested.  It's sort of hard to describe.  I'm not saying it's great, but it might work as inspiration and you can make an improved version of it.

I'm attaching a couple files in a ZIP file.  I saved them into a slightly older format so anyone who hasn't upgraded the Microsoft Office lately will still be able to open them.

I split it so I could scroll the top-half and the bottom-half separately.

Column A:

• i = iClone
• S = Studio (my NLE video editor)

Column B:

• X = I finished that work
• I maybe had a differentiation between the "X" and the color coding.  It's been 8 months since I used it, so the details are fading.  I might have indicated if it was rendered and if it was incorporated into my NLE yet.  I know at least once I went through all the work up updating a scene in iClone but forgot to put it in Studio.

Column C:

• The filename
• I told you I do "Save As" a lot.
• Usually I put my "version" letter at the very end.  I experimented with changing that format for a while, putting it nearer the start of the filename, but I think I like it at the very end better.
• The "S" indicates the scene, such as "S6" and "S8"

Column D:

• Notes
• Some are "To Do" notes
• Some are "What was done"
• Sometimes I did a "Save As" to serve and as backup and to be ready for the next editing session

I almost forgot:

• I had multiple Studio files too, one for each scene (more or less)
• Partly because I was having issues with that particular version of Studio, and since I made title overlays for subtitles, there were a lot of items in the project
• That worked pretty well, even though it added another step and another layer to my project complexity
• Each scene has subtitles, voice-overs, sound effects, songs, and stuff like that
• I rendered out each scene from Studio, and then put those renders into a master project
• In my master Studio project, the only thing I had to do other than assembling the scenes in order was to add music if it crossed over from one scene to another (J-cut)

One last thing:

• Some entries in Column C are shaded blue.
• That's because I started making a "new version" of the project
• I still daydream of "finishing" all the work I'd love to do... lighting... ambient sounds... visual effects (like the explosion)... more sound effects (car doors)... and re-do the final scene... stuff like that.  Now with iClone 6 I could use SpeedTree and things like that, too.

As a bonus:

• I really baring all, and including my script, too.
• It's a "working" document that evolved over time, so you'll see everything.
• Pay attention to the watermarks
• The actual script starts on Page 13 (yeah, lots of notes first) and ends on Page 56
• Rule of thumb is 1 page equals 1 minute of movie
• 56-13 = 46 pages
• Video was 44 minutes long (including credits)
• Notice how I numbered all the Scenes and Dialogue Lines.
• I literally have an MP3 file (from Audacity) for each line of dialogue.  I recorded longer sessions, but did sound cleanup, selected my favorite takes, and exported one line at a time.
• Don't know if that was the best way, but it worked for me.  It made it easy to use them in both iClone and in Studio
• Everything after that was a list of songs, with all the lyrics, and some notes.

Lastly:

• I'll embed the video here, in case anyone looking at these notes wants to be able to reference the video.

Hope I didn't scare you.  I'm not saying it's the best way.  It is the first time I've done anything on that scale, and it sort of evolved during the project.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this subject.

Have fun.

.

Wow, I was skimming over my Pinhead script.  That sure was humbling.  It's not the sort of finished product a person would submit to a movie studio.  It was "for me," and was definitely a "orking script, full of notes and even some discarded ideas.

The main point was that, AFTER WRITING IT, I went back and numbered the scenes and lines.

Anyway, I shared it hoping it might inspire some ideas for people to use and improve upon.  Or maybe it will show you what you want to avoid.  :rolleyes:

@Ken... Wow, you have more strange stories of misfortune and trials and tribulation.

When you're done with the book of Ruth, do not film the book of Job.  Do the book of Ken!  :crazy:  I think your life could inspire multiple drama scripts.

Seriously though, I'm glad you're okay, and that your computer didn't get destroyed in the collapse.

I agree, my life is quite boring...:doze:

Yes, setting aside, and then returning to a project can be very enlightening in that regard.

And, even those of us who now work with iClone 6 are quite familiar with iClone 5 and can assist. Just mention what iClone version you are using.

It's a pity no-one lives near you, because I think you are in need of some serious technical assistance. Many members here are quite computer-savvy, but it's hard to do without seeing the actual system. What you reported in the other thread about how you "lost" Windows 7, that just shouldn't happen.

EDIT: corrected typo...:unsure:

100% agree with everything you said.

Also, while reading Ken's posts, I have felt a mild lack of trust in his local computer shop.  I feel he's getting questionable support, and maybe worse than that.  Some of the problems just sound so strange and out of the ordinary.  But maybe it's the way business is done there.

If I was an hour away, I would have been there helping weeks ago.

This happens to me as well sometimes that I start adding things without the timeline at "0" and everything will move mysteriously out of place.

One way to fix this without starting over is to move the timeline to the point where the prop is in the right place and then right-click the prop and select "Remove object animation". It will then stay in that position everywhere along the timeline.