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By 3DChick - 5 Years Ago
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Hi all,
I'm new, only been using iClone since April. I decided to invest in it to make book trailers for my books and (eventually) others'. I've been using Daz for about 5 years, both 3Delight and Iray, and have animated in it, but it takes soooooo long to render, it was very frustrating. I LOVE the real-time render engine in iClone, and all other fun tools, most of which I have no idea how to use yet...
One of the challenges for me is to make my iClone animated characters look as much like their Daz counterparts as possible (the book covers are done with Daz and Affinity Photo), which, thanks mostly to Kelleytoons, I'm figuring out how to do. There are some great tools in CC3, too, that help make up for losing some of the high-def morphs I'm used to in Daz, so my guys and gals are looking pretty darn close.
Now I just need to get better at actual animation, at camera work, at lighting in iClone, AND learn how to write actual trailers, what should be in them, and how best to express what a reader will get out of a book. It's storytelling, but like writing a book description, it's harder than writing the novel!
I am not sure how to set up a YouTube channel for these yet, between my cover business and two fiction pennames, so I've defaulted back to my own site for serving up the animations: Tynan Arrives on the Bridge. I guess I'll need to figure out the YouTube thing if I'm going to post in here very often.
Edit: I set up a YouTube channel for these, so here it is in a hopefully more accessible format:
Any tips or suggestions are WELCOME! I already know one change I want to make to the set, and there's no sound (well, there was, but my girly voice does NOT fit either character, so I removed the sound), but I'm not thrilled with it and can't pin down why.
Anyway, I was encouraged to share my interest in making book trailers by Justaviking, and so here I am...chime on in!
:-)
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By justaviking - 5 Years Ago
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Greetings, Nicole.
Thanks for introducing yourself and sharing your goals. The video you provided in the link looks like a nice start. I'm going to go check our more of your blog.
There are a lot of great people here that are full of helpful advice and are willing to help newbies benefit from both their experience and their technical expertise, so don't be shy about asking questions.
Good luck! 
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By ultimativity - 5 Years Ago
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@nelm2010
Great beginning. I have plans for similar projects. Also working on a feature.
The close up between :20 - :24 is brilliant. Great job.
In my opinion, your 26 second clip here could be tightened up to 13 seconds.
Begin with a 3 second entrance (:2-:5).
Show Tynan folding arms as subordinate arrives (edit to 2 seconds).
Dialogue (:14-:16) tighter, shoulders up shot
Final shot (:20 - :24)
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By 3DChick - 5 Years Ago
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@ ultimativity--thank you for the feedback! I will look into how to do some of those things. I've made another version, using various lighting to simulate a "red alert" type flashing bridge lights, but in the process also made it slow the render way, way down, so shorter would definitely be better!
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By mark - 5 Years Ago
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Looking great! Get the audio working for you and I think you're well on your way to creating some very good work!
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By nealtucker - 5 Years Ago
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Yes it's looking good so keep at it, If you follow the general way to film a scene you can get a lot of mileage out of one animated scene. Set up 3 main (or more) cameras no'1, wide establishing shot, no'2, for the mid-shot, no'3 closeup shot, then follow the action with each camera, the wide camera will probably stay static, then use the camera switcher track to edit the scene how you like, another camera could be on the other guy looking over the shoulder to your main guy, the good thing with this is if you get a bit of animation which jumps or you can not nail it...I had lots of times "I had to use this technique" then cut to another camera, as an example, in one of my scenes three people are standing facing one way and another one enters, I render this out then set a camera to this new guy coming in, Delete all the motions from the three guys and set them up again ( AS IF they had walked over to the new guy) the new over the shoulder or side shot camera has them now in a new established believable position....render out all the different scenes and put it together in a video program, the free Davinci resolve is superb for this which is what I use, Basically find ways to cheat with the animation, turns are very hard to do so I cut away to something else while I reset the animation then carry on, multiple cameras and the switcher track is your friend.
Hope this helps.
Neal
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By Peter Blood - 5 Years Ago
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I liked your scene, it's a solid basic introduction and looks quite nice. You'll need to re-set the collision
shapes on the thighs to stop them breaking through the cloth. Easy to do but you have to fiddle with it
to get it right. I didn't see anything else except a smoothing of some of the movements.
I only use one camera. (I know...I'm a barbarian but...) Basically I make each camera change a separate project file. Why? Because
it compartmentalizes them. In other words, if I need to smooth or change something in a particular camera
shot, I can find it easily, re-shoot, and re-render (in a few minutes) without re-rendering a long series of shots tied together by
multiple cameras into one long shot. (Could take 30 minutes or longer depending.) I can easily insert a new camera angle in between
finished shots without having to move the entire sequence around to accommodate the new angle or shot. Basically it saves me time, both
on tweaking a shot, or an entire scene, and saves me time on the rendering of each shot.
I'm not saying it's the only way to do it, but I've found it makes it easier to manipulate the shots to get the flow
of the film correct. This is all my opinion and it's the work flow I use for all of my productions.
Have fun.
 pete
Edited for grammar. (Which I probably still don't have correct. )
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By ultimativity - 5 Years Ago
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The red alert would look awesome.
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