Dartanbeck's Journey - CG Filmmaking

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  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,585

    That is an awesome sneak peek!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Thanks! 

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    OMG!!! Rosie got me Predatron's LoRez Horse 2 Bundle!

    This thing is unbelievably Awesome!!!

     

    LoRez? Really?

    So I put my view port on Hidden Line. Sure enough! LoRez! 

    I'd have never guessed it seeing the thing either in working view or especially rendered! Just Gorgeous!

     

    What else is Really cool about it is that my LoRez Horse 1 animations work on this one too!!! Makes me wonder if they'd work on DAZ Horse 2 and/or 3

    of which I have neither. Crazy. I love horses! I just keep missing out on the deals on them. Just can't afford to get going with them.

     

    Predatron's both come fully loaded even without the bundles! Just the base product of each of his LoRez Horses come with several very nice breeds, a plethora of

    morphs, bridle, saddle... and they look FanFreakingTastic!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Oh... Right.

    Immediately after I found that the animations work, I set about trying to make the mane and tail into dForce hair. Worked right out of the box with a touch of planned weight painting to keep it attached.

     

    So now I'm simulating Rosie's hair after animating her riding - it looks like the animation will turn out pretty cool... we'll see when it's rendered!

     

    Like true Predatron Original Figure Form, LR Horse 2 comes with wonderful pose dials!

     

    Yo Predatron... I really Love you man!!! Thank You!!! :)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    I also Love how it comes with shaping morphs that can take it all the way from a baby Shetland (not just a Shetland pony, but a baby one!) all the way through to a massive workhorse with just a few flicks of some dials! 

    Even a sleek Arabian or, if you need a starving, poor creature... emaciated really thins it up to unhealthy proportions. And then there's a sleek, thin morph too, for added adjustability. 

     

    Really Really nice, well made product that renders incredibly!!!

    Those promos you see... yeah... that's how it looks! It even comes with HD morphs and you can take it even lower rez if needed! I think it's perfect right out of the box!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    And here's the results of frame 88 of 150 in a short animation test.

    The horse hair simulated Really Well, though I'd still like to tweak the dForce surface settings a bit more. With this trot, Rosie's really bouncing, and her simulations turned out really well even with all of that movement... Very Cool!!!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    My 3D Rosie rides horses like I do. If we see a saddle on the horse, we remove it and let our friend be comfy. Bridle? Eee Gads!!! Get that out of your mouth. That's torture!!!

    Okay, I'm overdoing it there. But I took my first riding lesson when I was quite young. I did chores in the horse barn to pay for my lessons, which mostly entailed taking all of the (they numbered in the teens) horses for their exercise. Eventually, I stopped needing or wanting a saddle or reins. I'd open all of the cells, then the main barn door, hop on the back of one of my new friends, and we'd go riding - all together. What a RUSH!!!

     

    My friends down the road had three horses. I'd go in there and clean their hooves, brush them down, feed them and take them exercising - often with me just walking and running with them, rather than riding them. I got really close to many horses as friends. 

     

    I don't really have anything against people using saddles and bridles. I just prefer to free my pal from something that must be much less comfy than being bare back.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,188

    Dartanbeck said:

    Wow! She is really doing great! Thanks!

    Wonderful to hear.  So glad.  heart

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,188

    Dartanbeck said:

    DAZ Studio : Movie Magic - Sneak Peak A

    This is a series of clips taken from a presentation I've prepared for the beginning of the webinar. Not all aspects are shown, but I think this gives a good idea of what the free portion of the webinar will bring. I've captured many procedures in advance to make better use of web time and move along more fluidly - while my Daz Studio will also be open and loaded for live demonstrations. 

     

    Check out the Sign-Up Page for more details and attendance options. Paul's got some great packages available!

    Looks great.  Sadly, I will probably have to miss this while visiting family.  I'm sure you will do another great job.  yes

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,188

    Dartanbeck said:

    And here's the results of frame 88 of 150 in a short animation test.

    The horse hair simulated Really Well, though I'd still like to tweak the dForce surface settings a bit more. With this trot, Rosie's really bouncing, and her simulations turned out really well even with all of that movement... Very Cool!!!

    Rosie rides to the rescue!  Very cool.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Thanks Diomede! You Rock, Brother!!!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Just a quick update - I'm bringing Rosie in for her Post-Op check-up today.

    Now, like our daughter, Rosie has always had a high pain tolerance. Still, for years before the surgery she was reporting between 6 (rare) and 8 (common).

    Yesterday she said that it doesn't even make it to 1!!! 

     

    I mean... the difference is Incredible! So cool to see her moving around normally - her legs I mean. None of this favoring one and pain-ridden struggling... even though she's still taking it easy so she doesn't overdo it, it's just freaking normal, and I Love that!

     

    She never let any of this hold her back from smiling, but now we can Really see her Real Smile! And it is Oh, So Beautiful!!! heart

    Rosie, You Freaking ROCK!!!!

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,585

    Dartanbeck said:

    Just a quick update - I'm bringing Rosie in for her Post-Op check-up today.

    Now, like our daughter, Rosie has always had a high pain tolerance. Still, for years before the surgery she was reporting between 6 (rare) and 8 (common).

    Yesterday she said that it doesn't even make it to 1!!! 

     

    I mean... the difference is Incredible! So cool to see her moving around normally - her legs I mean. None of this favoring one and pain-ridden struggling... even though she's still taking it easy so she doesn't overdo it, it's just freaking normal, and I Love that!

     

    She never let any of this hold her back from smiling, but now we can Really see her Real Smile! And it is Oh, So Beautiful!!! heart

    Rosie, You Freaking ROCK!!!!

    That is wonderful to hear! 

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Thanks!!!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626
    edited February 14

    In the process of working in the 2024 upgrades for Rosie 8 I'm also morking in improvements on some of her costumes along with making new ones and new combinations of existing ones, etc.,

    The new Hair workflow is working really well. Much more natural and bouncy-ish movements that just have a better look about them in animations, an example being the promo sneak peek for Movie Magic video.

    This is a fun one. Using Linday's dForce Wet and Dry Boyfriend Shirt Dress, I've (finally) unlocked the magic to be able to have the front of the shirt tucked into Rosie Metro's cool Aeon Soul Graffiti pants. It took a lot of work to get it to be tucked in without messing up, and then even more (I worked a  l o n g  time on it) to get the behavior just right. The end result is a costume I can load and simulate, just like that. So Cool!

     

    We're also seeing a subtle hint of her new 2024 expressive magic dials that I'm working in for more of a Rosie look to expressions as well as to facilitate adding micro-movements to her facial musculature throughout animations. That is a rather cool undertaking and I'm loving the results. Things like this are the major part of the docket for Rosie 8 - 2024, along with going for better, smoother animation work and better render settings.

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626
    edited February 14

    Her new smile works great with the other combinations, which are great for transitioning in and out of the smile and giving it some nice little quirks too... which always helps to inspire more of these dials.

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626
    edited February 22

    Well the webinar was fun! Thanks to all who joined in! :)

    In the process of creating all of the time-lapse workflow material, I ended up giving more wonderful Dynamic Character Animation controls and special abilities to Rosie 8. She just keeps blowing me away!

     

    Rosie 8 Page at dartanbeck.com

     

    I love the new version of how I'm working the hair. She also has new improved render settings. It takes a little longer, but I think the improvement is worth it.

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626
    edited February 22

    I've also made a new page for DAZ Studio : Movie Magic on my site with links to many of the things demonstrated during the lecture. 

     

    I really think that this whole "Animating in Daz Studio" series I'm doing with Digital Art Live is going to be an excellent resource for folks wanting to have a lot of fun animating without spending such vast amounts of time doing it. From the first Dynamic Character Animation through The Power of aniMate 2 and now this one, it all starts to snap into place and defines much of what I do on a daily basis.

     

    These practices have been proving to work well for me and using that same inspiration myself as I keep working is just getting better and better, more and more enjoyable as I go - and more cool things pop up that I'll demonstrate in future editions.

     

    This most recent one - soon to be coming to Daz 3d as well, addresses an issue that I see a lot of throughout the forum - something that plagued me when I was first starting out as well - trying to render everything in the scene at once - as if post work and composting wasn't going to be necessary and I was going to capture it all in the camera.

     

    Sure - that was fun too. But it's a very limiting way to work - and it takes So  L O N G  to render - if we don't crash our computers or the software in the process before we even get that far.

     

    Movie Magic uses ideas that are kind of built into my brain as to how I work when creating material for videos.

    You see, entertainment for me is absorbing the special features of movies, TV, and games... etc., and I've amassed quite a collection of it. There's a digital ton of it available for free on YouTube and websites as well.

     

    I have a fun little Inspirations corner on my site that is a great 'quick grab' for me to find something interesting to soak in for a while.

     

    While these things aren't telling us the how-to's (and sometimes they do), they're demonstrating or explaining what they're doing - what they did to make 'this' look like 'that'.

     

    So when it comes to my working with animations, I can get a Lot done in a short time, using methods inspired on me with the fact that All Motion Pictures Are Magic. Some less so than others, like some documentaries and such - but even they have at least some sort of trickery done to them - even if it's just bringing in a special light for the face shot. That's something that's altering what is actually real. 

    All movies defy true reality both as they're being filmed as well as in the post production process. 

    Why?

    Because the whole reason to make the thing in the first place was to hopefully get someone to enjoy it.

     

    It's all about making that final image on the screen to look how we want our audience to see it.

    This cool short video is only a teeny tiny sample of what all I have in there:

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,188

    Great work.  Rosie's smile looks terrific, which reminds me I have a dentist appointment tomorrow.  Your idea of an inspirations corner here https://www.dartanbeck.com/gallery/inspiration is wonderful.  Keep up all the updates.  I just got home from a Texas trip, and am trying to figure out where I left off on my own projects.  

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626
    edited February 23

    Oh Man!!! I was supposed to go with you! Drats! Maybe next time?

    Thanks Diomede!

    I am pretty impressed how, unlike many things, this never gets old or boring. It just keeps getting fresher, more and more interesting, and butloads more fun!

     

    Paul Bussey, of Digital Art Live, and I are working out some cool new webinars that will be completely free to everyone, where we'll be focusing on specific store items each time. Guestimating around an hour per episode, but I often take us past that - I get excited! LOL

     

    I'm really looking forward to these community workshop/demonstrations and seeing who all becomes involved, for the end of each will allow for attendees to show off their work on the items selected for that episode. I'll also have a special page on my website for each episode to further expand the whole thing.

    In addition to Zoom, I believe they'll also be broadcasted live on YouTube - which will be new to me, and I look forward to it.

     

    In the meantime, Rosie is having a blast with all kinds of new features and animation ideas, new costume ideas, revamping of her metal bikini and slight changes to her Aeon Soul Metro attire... it's all highly entertaining for us! Having a Ball!!!

     

     

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,188

    Who do you use for your website?

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Diomede said:

    Who do you use for your website?

    Google Sites

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,188
    edited February 23

    I did, but I want to know what you use.  laugh

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Diomede said:

    I did, but I want to know what you use.  laugh

    I fell right into it! Thanks for that!!! :)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Yes!

    I broke 1K views in 2 weeks on this one

    and 2.8K views in 2 months for this one

    Not viral by any stretch, but it feels very gratifying that somebody out there enjoys my hard work!

     

    I actually do it because it's a lot of fun to do. It feels like I don't truly appreciate what I'm doing horribly wrong until I see it up on YouTube - and even then it might take some time. For example, the second video above - my early 2024 work - I cannot stand the look and behavior of the new, improved hair I made. So in the first video above we see the beginnings of my improvements to my own gripe. 

    Since then I've worked long and hard to get a much better result consitent, and saved into a new wearable of the hair. After a whole lot of time spent simulating, analizing, rendering, analizing, simulating again... repeating that a Lot, I'm currently using a weable that I can load and simulate for very consistent results - resulting in a nice, natural flow that doesn't explode after over an hour of simulation.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Another massive recent achievement is this cool version of Linday's Wet and Dry (dry) Boyfriend Shirt Dress.

    Stills are one thing, but folks in my recent Movie Magic webinar got to see me work with it in a scene, correct things in the simulation using character morphs along with Mesh Grabber - something I rarely need to do with this outfit, so I purposely picked a difficult situation for it as my demo - a pre-exsisting animation that I knew had intersecting limbs with the body, so I could demonstrate how I rapidly correct these issues prior to simulating.

    This particular outfit doesn't get used much in the show, but when it does it looks really good!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    My story is also starting to take shape. Certain plot elements adding mystery and reason also lock in a way to allow for the mixing of all of the various genre I have for Rosie - something that has had me flabbergasted for years. I had solutions, but in practice it just turned out being my forcing multiple genre into the same story.

    My solution for that was to separate the genre into their own, separate stories.

    As one story kept feeling better and better to me, it unfolded itself into actually even needing the multiple genre Rosie to be present in the same story - so now parts of those other stories can be used as backstory thoughts as I progress with this one - which feels really fun right now. We'll see.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626

    Simulating the hair - it's currently on frame 290 of the 393 frame Martial Arts move Rosie is performing, and still holding up!

    This version of hair simulates really well without error for nearly eveything I've thrown at it so far. My next step was to run it through one of my favorite motions from GoFigure's Martial Arts aniBlock collections - which are always tough on simulations that aren't held down by external magic of some sort.

    I figured that the hair is performing so much like real hair now, that this was the time for such a test. Crossing my fingers for the final 100 frames!

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,188

    Congrats on the hits!  Keep them coming.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,626
    edited March 5

    Diomede said:

    Congrats on the hits!  Keep them coming.

    New Free Webinar Series from Digital Art Live!

    Paul Bussey at Digital Art Live is really into art and loves Daz 3d and he likes a lot of the cool fun I have on my website, and he wanted to figure out a way to harness some of that Daz 3d love I have into some kind of free webinar series.

    So together, after a few meetings, we've come up with something that I think will be a Lot of fun for everyone!

    Creative Cart - DAZ Store Highlights

    ...and our first episode is coming Saturday, March 9th

    The series will be a showcase conducted live by myself of various products from the Daz 3d store that work together in some way and will be selected according to a related theme of some sort, and each epsiode will include a short special section that I call "Animation Corner" where we'll explore something from the store that works well with, is designed specifically for, or even facilitates animations within Daz Studio.

     

    There's also a new special section at Digital Art Live Studio forums for Creative Cart, and there will be a special article/discussion made for each episode, and we set that up before the episodes begin so that we can chat before and after the show. Pretty cool stuff!

     

    Our first episode highlights Ravnheart - the Star Ship Marcoor series, specifically. Inside and out, the Star Ship Marcoor has delighted me for years and is delivered as a wonderful set of products that allow us to just grab what we need and nothing more - and also has some Killer Aged texture addons!

     

    Who better to help us demonstrate such a wonderful kit of Sci-Fi goodness than DzFire's amazing Cyborg Generation 8! So we'll feature that as well!

     

    Hmmm... what should we do about Animation Corner?

    I know... Reisormocap's Sci Fi Moves Genesis series!

    This was a very cool set of animations for M4 and V4, but then Reisormocap brought them up-to-date and added even more animations for Genesis 1, 2 and 3!

    Whoa... even a certain nasty supervillain force-choking someone in a two-character setup!!!

     

    Each episode also includes a community discussion section where attendees have the opportunity to share their artwork and stories related to the episode. To make that part even easier, Paul will include a special topic as a bit of a challenge that is completely separate from the genre of the episode - our first being:

    Create a scene that weaves these elements into a story only you can tell. Whether it's a fantasy feast or a historical reimagining, show us how these assets can come to life in your hands. Share your creations against this post and/or during our Creative Cart event  and inspire fellow artists by showcasing your unique vision. 

    Let's embark on this creative adventure together and explore the endless possibilities that DAZ 3D brings to our fingertips!

     

    If you can't tell already, I'm really having a blast with Paul at Digital Art Live! When he sends me the recorded Chat from each of my webinars, it's become clear that the audience likes my lectures as well - so I just want to keep on doing this... Forever!!!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
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