Today I finished the second big scene of my movie and started right away with the third scene. The prgress I make is good. I am in time scedule.
But in this little update I just want to talk a bit about light - a torchlight. First, I show you a short clip, so you can watch my torchlight in action ...
Tot create a torchlight like this in iClone, you will need at least three lights and some additional lights to brighten up some areas of the screen, which can't be covered by the initial lights.
iClone knows three differnt types of light. First you have the "directional light", which illuminates the whole scene like a sun. This light can cast shadows. Then there are "spot lights" to simulate a lightsource with one direction. The Third is the "Point Light", which casts the light in 360 degrees, but this one dosn't cast any shdows.
here we have the Character with the torch. You can see, there are three lights attached to the torch. There is one Pointlight (3) and two Spotlights (1)(2). All three lights are linked to the torch.
The Pointlight is there to brighten up the scene, where the charackter is moving. The Spotlight with the number (2) is targeting the face of the character, the other Spotlight shows in the opposite direction. Both are there to simulate shadow coming from the torch. Both lights have a wide angle, so they can cover most of the area.
With this three lights you can create a pretty convincing torchlight in iClone. But in this scene, that wasn't enough. When Lara enters the scene, she turns around and the foreground gets brighten up and a dead skeleton reveals from the darkness. To achive this I needed more lights. So I created a third spotlight (4) which shines directly in the skeleton. This light will be animated as the character moves on towards the skeleton.
You can see the light in the timeline (5). It's Light 4. There is a "Multiplier" tab, which determines how strong the light shines. As you can see, the light gets turned on, when the charakter is turning. Form this point on, you can see many following "Multiplier" keyframes. These are there to simulate the flickering of the torchlight. I did the same thing with the other three lights, which are conected with the torch prop.
And then, there is another Pointlight (6). I created this to brigthen up the skeleton face a little. With all the lights from behind, it got to dark in the front, so i created this little backlight.
Now the face has a good structure. Off Course, this Pointlight (6) is turnd off at the beginning of the scene. When the character tirns towrds the skeleton, then it becomes a bit brighter to simulate stray light.
This is it for today. I will update, when I have more to share. Last thing today is to show you another final render. This time, its from the second scene ...
i'm a fan of yours Direx... am subscribed to your youtube channel as well... when this contest was announced i was like if Direx will take part... he'll most likely win... Thanks for sharing your work in progress... it looks amazing...
I am really busy at the moment, so there were no further update in the last days. But the movie and the animation grows bigger and bigger. Scene 3 is finished now and I will start the new section in thursday.
One other thing happend today. I finally got the recordings for the voice of Lara. She will be performed by Christine Slagman. Maybe some of you know her. She is quite popular in the machinima and mod scene. She is really talented ...
To show my prgress I decided to publish a short clip of the movie. Every animation you'll see is keyframed by hand, except the walking motion of lara. This is a canned motion bought in the Reallusion marketplace.
Re embedding from Vimeo, it's not working for me either... and yes, I did try to get the old code thru the paper plane icon at the top of your video (and my video when I tried earlier for my own blog), but the old code is no longer supported at all... I wonder if that's why the competition rules only mention youtube as the place for uploading videos?
So I'm also wondering if any other members of this forum know if vimeo is supported here.
And in the meantime, I'm really looking forward to your next post
USE AT YOUR RISK; do not use abusively. May 2015a.d. Me is intending to participate with the contest, and curiously looking at the forum posts. Thanks for posting the 90 k polygon counts. Me has been making 1 M polycount models, decimating to 16 k, but the results not satisfactory. Maybe me will try the higher count, but rendering time is a consideration. eof
Today in Germany was a bank holiday, so I had a lot of time to work on my movie. As I mentioned in the last update, I started with Scene 04. Only one scene ahead and I am finished.
Today I did a 30 seconds animation with 5 avatars. In the morning I created the set. It's an old medieval prison. This took the whole morning. After that I started with the animation of Lara and the skeleton. I used some walking/running animations (which came form my library), but most of the time (around 20s) it's all keyframed by hand. This took some time. I finished the facial animation of both characters half an hour ago ... :poly121::poly121:
Her you can see the timline of both main characters ...
More updates will come, but I will concentrate on the movie. When the movie is finished, I will talk a bit more about the project ...
Another small update. I really miscalculated the amount of work I had to put in my movie to get it just like i want it to be. That's the reason I didn't do much here in the thread. I will change that when the movie is really finished.
Today I reached a milestone. All the rendering is done, so - shooting is finished. The editing is finished too, because I always edited the seperate scenes once I did the rendering. The reason is simple. I just wanted to look, if everything works out as intended. During the editing I skipped some scenes, because they didn't really work.
But my work on this movie isn't finishjed yet. Now I have to collect all the sounds I need and choose the movie score. This will take some time, because there is alot of stuff happening in those 8 minutes.
Just to tease you, here are some finished renderings. I will do some small tutorial videos, once I finished with the product ...
Bad situation, don't you think??? :poly122::poly122::poly122::poly122:
Rendering looks nice... but this is an animation contest ! Stop teasing ! Show us some cool movement The posings are looking good.
"because there is alot of stuff happening in those 8 minutes". Careful, one of the rule of the entry is the submission must be between 1 to 5 minutes max. You probably should think about cutting some actions.
Don't get disqualified because of a stupid mistake like that ^^
Rendering looks nice... but this is an animation contest ! Stop teasing ! Show us some cool movement The posings are looking good.
"because there is alot of stuff happening in those 8 minutes". Careful, one of the rule of the entry is the submission must be between 1 to 5 minutes max. You probably should think about cutting some actions.
Don't get disqualified because of a stupid mistake like that ^^
I know, there is a max length of 5 minutes, but I asked if it is a problem to go over and they said, no problem. Besides, I am not finished yet. The movie is now how I like it to be, but when I do the sound and music editing there will be changes. That's for sure.
You know. I am not a professional animator, I'm in the movie and TV business, so all I care is about the story I want to tell and if this story goe's longer than 5 minutes, so be it ...
Direx, I totally agree. My entry will be the same, if it's under 5 minutes great but if I go over I'm not bothered. This comp is to test me to try and live with some talented artists for my own growth.
Thanx for all your comments so far. I really appreciate your thoughts.
Lucifersam02 demanded some animation and I think he is right. Today, I finished about 3 minutes of my movie, editing sound and music to the rendered footage.
Thats a real tough task and I have to go really far into my archive to get the right sounds. So, the short clip you gonna see is already with sound. Enjoy ...
I really wanted to embed this video, but somehow this forum prevent this from happening. I don't know what I am doing wrong. This pisses me of a bit, because it should work, as I can see it at all the other threads ... :poly118::poly118::poly118:
Mannn I love those eyes. Perfect comic timing... and great use of sfx. But then I knew I was going to love this one from the very first frame. Can't wait for more!
Oh my god. Its a busy time for me. I have to work a lot so I couldn't do anything her on the thread. I used my little spare time to finish the movie and I did it today.
I submitted the movie and all I can do for now is to watch what all the other participants come up with. I have high expectations ...
So many things a like about this entry, the story, animation, camera, lighting. But the most impressive is that you've used iClone 5!
Great work, so many great videos, such a hard job to judge, glad it's not me
You can achieve a lot with the old lady iClone 5. Most of time it is not so important to have the newest software. If do not have a story to tell, you are lost, even with the most sofisticated tools ...
I enjoyed your contribution very much. You provided a humorous twist to the game genre and it was well executed. I find it very hard to be funny in my movies, so kudos to you.
As to the YouTube link, you don't use the embed code but the regular YouTube link, the one with "watch?v=xyz" in it. Took me a bit to find that out.
Love your use of lighting and staging. Eyeballs on skeleton are maybe a little to white? Nitpicking - I know. Perhaps more of an ivory or lesser luminance? Man, you have mad skills.
As promised, I did some "Making of" videos for you, if you wish to know more how my movie "Trouble in the Tomb" was created. I finished two parts for now and there will be at least on other part when the competition reaches the finish line.
One thing I need to tell you. i am a german guy and when I have to speak freely in english language, there will be some terrible sentences. Just ignore this and watch what I am doing ... :):):)
The first video show some information about the lighting and the set design.
Replies
Today I finished the second big scene of my movie and started right away with the third scene. The prgress I make is good. I am in time scedule.
But in this little update I just want to talk a bit about light - a torchlight. First, I show you a short clip, so you can watch my torchlight in action ...
https://vimeo.com/125402217
Tot create a torchlight like this in iClone, you will need at least three lights and some additional lights to brighten up some areas of the screen, which can't be covered by the initial lights.
iClone knows three differnt types of light. First you have the "directional light", which illuminates the whole scene like a sun. This light can cast shadows. Then there are "spot lights" to simulate a lightsource with one direction. The Third is the "Point Light", which casts the light in 360 degrees, but this one dosn't cast any shdows.
here we have the Character with the torch. You can see, there are three lights attached to the torch. There is one Pointlight (3) and two Spotlights (1)(2). All three lights are linked to the torch.
The Pointlight is there to brighten up the scene, where the charackter is moving. The Spotlight with the number (2) is targeting the face of the character, the other Spotlight shows in the opposite direction. Both are there to simulate shadow coming from the torch. Both lights have a wide angle, so they can cover most of the area.
With this three lights you can create a pretty convincing torchlight in iClone. But in this scene, that wasn't enough. When Lara enters the scene, she turns around and the foreground gets brighten up and a dead skeleton reveals from the darkness. To achive this I needed more lights. So I created a third spotlight (4) which shines directly in the skeleton. This light will be animated as the character moves on towards the skeleton.
You can see the light in the timeline (5). It's Light 4. There is a "Multiplier" tab, which determines how strong the light shines. As you can see, the light gets turned on, when the charakter is turning. Form this point on, you can see many following "Multiplier" keyframes. These are there to simulate the flickering of the torchlight. I did the same thing with the other three lights, which are conected with the torch prop.
And then, there is another Pointlight (6). I created this to brigthen up the skeleton face a little. With all the lights from behind, it got to dark in the front, so i created this little backlight.
Now the face has a good structure. Off Course, this Pointlight (6) is turnd off at the beginning of the scene. When the character tirns towrds the skeleton, then it becomes a bit brighter to simulate stray light.
This is it for today. I will update, when I have more to share. Last thing today is to show you another final render. This time, its from the second scene ...
Greetings, Direx ...
I am really busy at the moment, so there were no further update in the last days. But the movie and the animation grows bigger and bigger. Scene 3 is finished now and I will start the new section in thursday.
One other thing happend today. I finally got the recordings for the voice of Lara. She will be performed by Christine Slagman. Maybe some of you know her. She is quite popular in the machinima and mod scene. She is really talented ...
To show my prgress I decided to publish a short clip of the movie. Every animation you'll see is keyframed by hand, except the walking motion of lara. This is a canned motion bought in the Reallusion marketplace.
https://vimeo.com/127646105
Until next time ...
Direx
P.S. I have trouble to embedd my videos here. The link vimeo is providing doesnt work here. Does anyone know what i am doing wrong?
Re embedding from Vimeo, it's not working for me either... and yes, I did try to get the old code thru the paper plane icon at the top of your video (and my video when I tried earlier for my own blog), but the old code is no longer supported at all... I wonder if that's why the competition rules only mention youtube as the place for uploading videos?
So I'm also wondering if any other members of this forum know if vimeo is supported here.
And in the meantime, I'm really looking forward to your next post
Today in Germany was a bank holiday, so I had a lot of time to work on my movie. As I mentioned in the last update, I started with Scene 04. Only one scene ahead and I am finished.
Today I did a 30 seconds animation with 5 avatars. In the morning I created the set. It's an old medieval prison. This took the whole morning. After that I started with the animation of Lara and the skeleton. I used some walking/running animations (which came form my library), but most of the time (around 20s) it's all keyframed by hand. This took some time. I finished the facial animation of both characters half an hour ago ... :poly121::poly121:
Her you can see the timline of both main characters ...
More updates will come, but I will concentrate on the movie. When the movie is finished, I will talk a bit more about the project ...
Direx
Until next time ...
Direx
Another small update. I really miscalculated the amount of work I had to put in my movie to get it just like i want it to be. That's the reason I didn't do much here in the thread. I will change that when the movie is really finished.
Today I reached a milestone. All the rendering is done, so - shooting is finished. The editing is finished too, because I always edited the seperate scenes once I did the rendering. The reason is simple. I just wanted to look, if everything works out as intended. During the editing I skipped some scenes, because they didn't really work.
But my work on this movie isn't finishjed yet. Now I have to collect all the sounds I need and choose the movie score. This will take some time, because there is alot of stuff happening in those 8 minutes.
Just to tease you, here are some finished renderings. I will do some small tutorial videos, once I finished with the product ...
Bad situation, don't you think??? :poly122::poly122::poly122::poly122:
Angry girl ...
Will he succeed?
That's it for today ...
Direx
"because there is alot of stuff happening in those 8 minutes". Careful, one of the rule of the entry is the submission must be between 1 to 5 minutes max. You probably should think about cutting some actions.
Don't get disqualified because of a stupid mistake like that ^^
I know, there is a max length of 5 minutes, but I asked if it is a problem to go over and they said, no problem. Besides, I am not finished yet. The movie is now how I like it to be, but when I do the sound and music editing there will be changes. That's for sure.
You know. I am not a professional animator, I'm in the movie and TV business, so all I care is about the story I want to tell and if this story goe's longer than 5 minutes, so be it ...
Direx
Keep up the great work
Thanx for all your comments so far. I really appreciate your thoughts.
Lucifersam02 demanded some animation and I think he is right. Today, I finished about 3 minutes of my movie, editing sound and music to the rendered footage.
Thats a real tough task and I have to go really far into my archive to get the right sounds. So, the short clip you gonna see is already with sound. Enjoy ...
https://youtu.be/Ea0Lv7rzRM4
I really wanted to embed this video, but somehow this forum prevent this from happening. I don't know what I am doing wrong. This pisses me of a bit, because it should work, as I can see it at all the other threads ... :poly118::poly118::poly118:
Direx
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea0Lv7rzRM4[/ame]
Hope this helps
Oh my god. Its a busy time for me. I have to work a lot so I couldn't do anything her on the thread. I used my little spare time to finish the movie and I did it today.
I submitted the movie and all I can do for now is to watch what all the other participants come up with. I have high expectations ...
So, here is the finished movie ...
https://youtu.be/KH994GMX6K8
As always. I don't get it how to embed the video. I tried everything. I give up. Why doesn't the code work, youtube provides??? I don't know ...
Whatever ... have fun.
Direx
I like it... Very funny :thumbup:
[ame]
Just you have to copy the Link....
now I am really curious what is your Lara doing ... can't wait.
I copied the link but it always shows only the embeded code, but not the window. I don't know. Maybe it's something with firefox ...
But the final comp is really good with the DOF...great dude...
Best of luck
Great work, so many great videos, such a hard job to judge, glad it's not me
You can achieve a lot with the old lady iClone 5. Most of time it is not so important to have the newest software. If do not have a story to tell, you are lost, even with the most sofisticated tools ...
Direx
As to the YouTube link, you don't use the embed code but the regular YouTube link, the one with "watch?v=xyz" in it. Took me a bit to find that out.
I am producing a "Making of" right now. So expect some heavy mistakes in english grammer ...
Direx
As promised, I did some "Making of" videos for you, if you wish to know more how my movie "Trouble in the Tomb" was created. I finished two parts for now and there will be at least on other part when the competition reaches the finish line.
One thing I need to tell you. i am a german guy and when I have to speak freely in english language, there will be some terrible sentences. Just ignore this and watch what I am doing ...
The first video show some information about the lighting and the set design.
youtu.be/6aPqEI9Z6yo
The second part will show you how I animate my characters. I do a little animation for example, so thats why the video is a bit longer ...
youtu.be/MFDsM1B3DSo
Hope you like it ...
Direx