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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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The next episode of my super-hero graphic novel with fantasy overtones is now posted. Of course, would love to hear any comments. Big project, I know, I will try to post some shorter clips.
As a disclaimer, I did not create a number of the background video textures such as clouds and fractals. They were obtained from a variety of sources including a video blocks subscription and from the web.
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By Walt_R - 6 Years Ago
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Shadoesword,
First of all the voice acting (especially the villains) is the definition of professional, and your directing them is on a Steve Spielberg level. Keeping track of all the voice, music and special effect sound files that are used in these episodes must be a task and a half, but are fantastically executed.
Visually, great special effects, lighting and wonderful scenes and characters.
Overall animation is excellent except for the age-old iClone sliding feet problem in some scenes and some motions could use smoother transitions. One scene that impressed me the most as far as animations skills was the character moving under the bed covers 22:50 into the episode. How did you accomplish that? Did you pin the edge of the material (covers) to keep gravity from sliding it off the bed?
All the hard work and effort you are putting into this production is well worth it and can be admired by any iClone user.
To sum up, well done sir. Looking forward to Episode 6 
Walt
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By Peter Blood - 6 Years Ago
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Shadoesword: 
Excellent work sir!
,
First of all, I have to agree with Walt, the voice acting was of a superb quality. Please give your actors my compliments on a job very well done.
Visuals were entertaining and provided a 'wow' factor at different points. Sets were well done. Two other things I want to mention, first the scene with
the man descending the spiral staircase was a very gutsy thing to attempt and I thought you did very well with it. I don't know that I'd be brave enough to
attempt it. Well done. Also, I thought the discussion around the campfire was scripted and animated in a realistic manner. Dialog scenes, I feel, are the hardest
thing to pull off in a way that holds the viewers interest and you did it very well here.
 pete
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By CtrlZ - 6 Years Ago
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I have to agree with Pete and Walt!! Another fantastic job by you Sir also your animating is improving and of course your voice actors are amazing!!
Gary
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By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago
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This is the very *first* I've seen of your great work ...... what can I say?
● A well written script...
● Strong sound track...
● Animation that endeavors to match your epic audio ...
● A mammoth undertaking - and very well done!...
● Would love to see a 'tad' more character to background separation (just me) - though your closeups introduced nice DOF...
● Overall - this is of a very high standard and as a critic - I can only marvel!
Tremendous achievement - did I say the 'sound track' was strong? ....... yes! .....
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Walt_R (7/10/2018)
Shadoesword, One scene that impressed me the most as far as animations skills was the character moving under the bed covers 22:50 into the episode. How did you accomplish that? Did you pin the edge of the material (covers) to keep gravity from sliding it off the bed? All the hard work and effort you are putting into this production is well worth it and can be admired by any iClone user. To sum up, well done sir. Looking forward to Episode 6
Walt
Thanks, Walt. You put your finger on one of the most difficult few seconds in the film. I got some ideas from a tutorial made by Mark of Small W Studios. Still, I couldn't get it to work well, and spent a lot of time wrestling with that part. I have no idea how to pin the softcloth, and my efforts with weight maps were producing weird results. What I finally did was to create two big dummy boxes and give them static physics, then butt them up on either side of the blanket to keep it from sliding away. Of course they didn't render in the scene. Not an elegant solution, but I got it to work long enough to give me the few seconds I needed for that shot. Here's Mark's tutorial on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=wFhP64xBKdM
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By Walt_R - 6 Years Ago
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Thank you for the detailed information and the link to the tutorial. I do appreciate it. In my last video I had a character under the covers and tried what you accomplished but the best I got was the blanket to quiver (it seemed like it was alive), so I defaulted to static. It's amazing what we spend hours on if not days in trying to accomplish. Presently I have a character standing idle in front of a control console. I want him to turnaround and walk in the opposite direction but the turning just doesn't look natural. Today is day 3 of trying to get it right. As Captain Ahab said, "He tasks me..." 
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By toystorylab - 6 Years Ago
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Walt_R (7/12/2018)
I want him to turnaround and walk in the opposite direction but the turning just doesn't look natural.
Hey Walt_R,
why don't you use those from Mixamo:
https://www.mixamo.com/#/?page=1&query=turn&type=Motion%2CMotionPack
I use them a lot and they are very handy...
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By Walt_R - 6 Years Ago
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Thanks, toystorylab, I will check them out.
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Peter Blood (7/10/2018)
Shadoesword:
Excellent work sir!
,
First of all, I have to agree with Walt, the voice acting was of a superb quality. Please give your actors my compliments on a job very well done.
Visuals were entertaining and provided a 'wow' factor at different points. Sets were well done. Two other things I want to mention, first the scene with
the man descending the spiral staircase was a very gutsy thing to attempt and I thought you did very well with it. I don't know that I'd be brave enough to
attempt it. Well done. Also, I thought the discussion around the campfire was scripted and animated in a realistic manner. Dialog scenes, I feel, are the hardest
thing to pull off in a way that holds the viewers interest and you did it very well here.
pete
Peter, I appreciate the comments. Regarding the spiral staircase, when I saw that in the set, I thought it would make a nice transition to have a character coming down, and kind of leading the viewer into the scene. I was fortunate to find an animation clip which matched the space between stair steps pretty closely, and that made it a lot easier. I just had to keep rotating the avatar around as he descended. The hardest part was getting it to end at the right spot. Had to break the clip at the ending point and then try to blend it backwards into the previous clip. It didn't quite match, but seemed close enough to fool the eye. The scene around the campfire was animated mostly through manual keyframing., since there wasn't much movement and a lot of closeups. Glad it worked for you.
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By toystorylab - 6 Years Ago
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Uups, gave Walt_R a tip and forgot to comment 
Wow, an epic story... No time to watch it completely now, but what i saw was cool...
Nice you put some funny moments in it
Polishing the sliding feet would have been quite a big effort so it's not really disturbing.
Altogether a nice job, some tricky scenes accomplished and as others mentioned a big + to the voice actors!
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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CtrlZ (7/10/2018)
I have to agree with Pete and Walt!! Another fantastic job by you Sir also your animating is improving and of course your voice actors are amazing!!
Gary
Gary, thanks again for all your encouragement. As I have mentioned a number of times, I know my animation has issues. I'm finding better ways to solve some of the problems, and Iclone has gotten better in some respects too. But I'm still quite a newbie in the process.
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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sonic7 (7/11/2018)
This is the very *first* I've seen of your great work ...... what can I say?
● A well written script...
● Strong sound track...
● Animation that endeavors to match your epic audio ...
● A mammoth undertaking - and very well done!...
● Would love to see a 'tad' more character to background separation (just me) - though your closeups introduced nice DOF...
● Overall - this is of a very high standard and as a critic - I can only marvel!
Tremendous achievement - did I say the 'sound track' was strong? ....... yes! .....
Thanks, Sonic. I am very interested to know what you mean by character to background separation (outside of DOF). What tools would you use to achieve this? Is it that the background distracts from what should be the main focus? Or are there other reasons to try to do this?
I have been trying to use lighting to help define the characters more clearly, working with rim lighting and double-lighting effects. But some scenes succeed better than others, and that's going to be harder tp do when I am not doing night scenes.
Would love to hear any advice about this.
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By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago
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Hi Shadoesword ...
Yes, as you say, it's the background that 'sometimes' distracts (or is a tad 'busy') - but only on (very few of) the "wide shots".
When watching this through again for the second time - I actually noticed a lot more of your DOF usage - and it looked really consistent (and in proportion) to what you'd expect at the different focal lengths. So I don't quite know where *my head* was before, but it may simply be that with a 'cartoon look', albiet 3d, (and I seldom see cartoons), that there's inherently more detail than in cinematic films (what I'm used to). So really it's my perception problem that's mostly involved here. Plus, I think I *skimmed over* the first viewing and was in a bit of a rush when posting - which invariably isn't doing yourself justice.
As you know, it's 'all too easy' to be a 'critic' and I have to keep bringing myself into check and *realize* the tremendous amount of work that's gone into something like this.
But that audio track is *really great* and your visuals are way ahead of what many could achieve, especially myself, so what you've achieved here really is a credit to you ....
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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sonic7 (7/17/2018)
Hi Shadoesword ...
Yes, as you say, it's the background that 'sometimes' distracts (or is a tad 'busy') - but only on (very few of) the "wide shots".
When watching this through again for the second time - I actually noticed a lot more of your DOF usage - and it looked really consistent (and in proportion) to what you'd expect at the different focal lengths. So I don't quite know where *my head* was before, but it may simply be that with a 'cartoon look', albiet 3d, (and I seldom see cartoons), that there's inherently more detail than in cinematic films (what I'm used to). So really it's my perception problem that's mostly involved here. Plus, I think I *skimmed over* the first viewing and was in a bit of a rush when posting - which invariably isn't doing yourself justice.
As you know, it's 'all too easy' to be a 'critic' and I have to keep bringing myself into check and *realize* the tremendous amount of work that's gone into something like this.
But that audio track is *really great* and your visuals are way ahead of what many could achieve, especially myself, so what you've achieved here really is a credit to you ....
Wow, thanks for actually going back and watching a second time. I don't think it's a "perception problem" of yours, I think that a lot of the Daz backgrounds and characters I use are extremely detailed and the textures highly ornamented and the like. The result is there are a lot of different texture patterns that compete with each other at times. So I'm grateful for you bringing this to my attention. I think I am drawn to the detailed texture look, but not as aware of how too much of it starts to get busy and distracting. I also got interested in messing around with substance tools for a bit, which only added to the problem.
I am experimenting more with DOF and trying to understand the best usage for it. I've read some posts on this forum, but often they get technical, and I'm often not sure exactly what the creator is trying to accomplish with the use. Sometimes it seems to be an attempt to make the video seem like it was shot with a "real" camera, but I don't see a lot of point in that unless you are mixing Iclone effects in with actual camera footage. I'm not trying to make my stuff so photoreal that I would expect it to fool anyone. I want there to be a subtle kind of stylized quality in the visuals, something that has a comic book feel to it.
Other times DOF is used as a way to shift or draw focus, which is maybe what I see as its primary use. But I'd love to hear others talk about different ways this tool can be used effectively, and different situations.
I am a newbie at animation and though I have some experience in video production, it's been more in the editing process than in creating the actual camera shots and the like. As you may have guessed, I have a lot more experience with audio production.
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By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago
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I skimmed through your creation again, and it seems to get better with each viewing .... You know - I've never been one for the *feel* of 'fighting' or 'waring', even in cartoon fashion. But there's so many *different* feels within this production. To me, there's some truly *magjc* moments you've captured during the 'quieter' scenes. So well done. To be honest, it's those 'quieter' moments that seem more *realistic* or believable, not just because your audio 'carries' it so well, but because 'action' visuals are (by comparison) - so hard to do. As an audience, our senses have been trained (with modern 'action films' - cartoons included), to *expect* a very, very high standard, - which is exactly why (I think) they're so so difficult to do. Not that you haven't done a *good* job - because you have, - but for me (and everyone's different), I find your non-fighting *other scenes* to be very powerful in their own right - and so well done ....
I loved the scene from around 22:30 to about 23:45 - great atmosphere created here I thought....
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By MrStockboto - 6 Years Ago
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I would be repeating what others have said so I'll keep this short and simply say:
I echo every compliment given to this project. VERY impressive!
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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MrStockboto (7/20/2018)
I would be repeating what others have said so I'll keep this short and simply say:
I echo every compliment given to this project. VERY impressive!
Thank you, I very much appreciate the kind words.
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Episode 6 will likely not be finished until around Christmas, but here's a teaser pic from it to keep this thread alive a lottle longer.
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By justaviking - 6 Years Ago
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Shadoesword (7/10/2018)
The next episode of my super-hero graphic novel with fantasy overtones is now posted. Of course, would love to hear any comments. Big project, I know, I will try to post some shorter clips.
Awesome and epic video. A Herculean undertaking.
As mentioned by those before me, great voice acting, etc. etc. I echo all their compliments!!!
My "constructive feedback" would be to try and smooth out a lot of the motions, easing into and out of a lot of them. It is an issue seen in many iClone videos. I know that would be another large effort to add to your workload, but to my eye would really elevate it to the next level.
Great job, and thanks for sharing.
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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toystorylab (7/13/2018)
Uups, gave Walt_R a tip and forgot to comment Wow, an epic story... No time to watch it completely now, but what i saw was cool... Nice you put some funny moments in it Polishing the sliding feet would have been quite a big effort so it's not really disturbing. Altogether a nice job, some tricky scenes accomplished and as others mentioned a big + to the voice actors!
The sliding feet issue is frustrating as hell.. sometimes it seems that nothing seems to solve the problem. But other times I'm able to figure out a fix. So maybe it will get better as it goes along.
And I'm always looking for ways to add a bit of humor to the story, so thanks for noticing.
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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justaviking (7/25/2018)
Shadoesword (7/10/2018)
The next episode of my super-hero graphic novel with fantasy overtones is now posted. Of course, would love to hear any comments. Big project, I know, I will try to post some shorter clips. My "constructive feedback" would be to try and smooth out a lot of the motions, easing into and out of a lot of them. It is an issue seen in many iClone videos. I know that would be another large effort to add to your workload, but to my eye would really elevate it to the next level. Great job, and thanks for sharing.
Thanks, JAV I really appreciate the constructive feedback. I know my weakness and lack of experience in animation show. I will keep working on the issues.
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By justaviking - 6 Years Ago
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I tried to list my weaknesses once, but ran out of disk space.  
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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I feel ya, man.
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By rogyru - 6 Years Ago
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Well done a good effort your skilled with iclone. I have one question regarding the story and audio. Are you using the audio and story from a old cartoon and recreating it the way Walt does ?
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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rogyru (7/30/2018)
Well done a good effort your skilled with iclone. I have one question regarding the story and audio. Are you using the audio and story from a old cartoon and recreating it the way Walt does ?
Thanks, rogyru. The script and audio are my own creation, not a recreation of an old cartoon. I have some terrific voice actors who have been kind enough to lend their talents to my project.
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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A pic from Episode 5 
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By kungphu - 6 Years Ago
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Wow!!!! You just keep getting better and better! Can’t wait for the next one!
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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kungphu (8/6/2018)
Wow!!!! You just keep getting better and better! Can’t wait for the next one!
Thanks, I am hoping to have the next episode out ...uh... maybe around Christmas. So I'm really impressed with what you produced all in a 48 hour time limit. Creating a whole 7 minute piece in that amount of time is mind-boggling. How many people, outside of actors, worked on that project?
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Here's another screen shot from the episode:
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Yet another shot: Acrobat here is feeling out of his element in this fantasy forest.
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By CtrlZ - 6 Years Ago
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I like the way you lit the scene!
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Ah, thanks. I spend a lot of time on lighting, because it can do so much to make a scene better in terms of mood, ambience and focus. But I also spend a lot of time because I don't know fully what I am doing and have to use a lot of trial-and-error to get a result I like. :
The potential for lighting is really strong in Iclone 7, and I wish there were some advanced tutorials on it.
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By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago
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I think you do a nice job of lighting Cary.
Like you say, there's a ton of potential for what can be achieved - but when you're doing *all the other things* production wise, it can spread you a bit thin.
I think simple is best.
If the iClone spots behaved exactly the same as their real world counterparts - everything would become very 'intuitive' imo.
You can use a *real world* "Fresnel" spotlight as a Key-light, Back-light, Rim-light, Bounce-light, Fill-light, Spill-Light etc ..... It can be level Controlled (dimmed), gel Filtered, Barn-Door'd, Gobo'd, Flagged, Focussed, Softened, etc.
They're just so versatile.
But anyway - in iClone, it's really just a matter of 'emulating' the intended light sources within the scene (whether sun, moon, fire, candle, torch, room-light, street-light, etc).
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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I am not all that experienced with real-world lighting. And I'm not sure how much real-world knowledge would translate into Iclone.
Since a lot of my recent scenes have been night scenes,I have struggled to find ways to get them lit in ways that illuminate key areas but not lose the overall sense of night. I like to blend light from different angles and sources, In the above shot, the main source is the firelight, with some moonlight coming in from the side. But it takes a lot of tweaking and adjusting to get the light to blend like you want so the 3d figures are modeled well and get a nice rim effect. I often have to use extra lights to blend in, and it is always is a trade-off.
I had hopes that the global illumination would make things easier, but I don't know how to use it that well. Like I said, I wish there were more tutorials on lighting.
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Another shot from upcoming Episode Six...a shaggy nightmare stalks the heroes.
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By CtrlZ - 6 Years Ago
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looking good!
Keep'm coming!
Gary
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Sometimes certain scenes in my project just seem to cry out to be turned intro comic book covers. So...I couldn't resist After all these years it's still fun to mess around with comics.
One a real cover, the figures would need to be larger, but I mostly liked the composition on this shot, and I wanted the tops on those trees kind of framing the logo. 
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By CtrlZ - 6 Years Ago
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Nice! keep up the good work can't wait for 6
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By sonic7 - 6 Years Ago
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Certainly 'looks just the part' Cary. - All you need is a 5c price-tag printed on it! 
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By Cary B - 6 Years Ago
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Yeah, a price tag... and maybe a barcode block (do comics still have those anymore?) Anyway, maybe the new IRay render capability will have some uses for me after all. Maybe I'll do a digital comic version of my cartoon somewhere down the line. I do love the medium, but nobody reads anymore.
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