So I finished the first five characters for my new film today... Since I'm modeling and sculpting and texturing and rigging and skinning and doing morphs and all that at full speed ahead I figured I should screen cap some of it or document it or something as it could be useful to someone at some point..
On this one I'M DOING LIP SYNC! So they will like talks and their mouths will move OMG haha- if you follow the podcast you know that I've feared doing lip sync for awhile and oh speaking of the podcast the reason that there are no new episodes is because Screamerclauz had some problems with his ISP and has no internet access for 30 days- he manages the podcast files and all that so yeh...
The issue I always had with lip sync is that I was just using morphs to do facial animation but once I switched over to using joints to animate the jaw now it looks good enough for me to use- so I use a rigged jaw for the open and close stuff and morphs for facial expressions... I'm creating all the morphs in Zbrush...
In Zbrush I use the layers feature to create all the morphs then I export the different morph heads as obj's to Cinema 4d- In both Cactus Dan's tools and the built in morphs you can use the exported obj to create a morph... through drag and drop with the built in morphs and through a command with cactus dans tools... HEY this would probably be a good thing to make a video tutorial for eh?
Also I was going to do all my texture painting in Zbrush for this film as its 9000 times faster and more flexible than Bodypaint BUT I found out that Zbrush isn't really good at painting low poly objects as it paints vertexes- I guess painting in projection master is an option for low poly in Zbrush but Bodypaint paints smoothly on low poly stuff just fine... more tests need to be done on that...
I'm going with a slightly different style with this film... the characters are supposed to be dolls so they have the same constraint based doll part bodies like the characters in HSM but the dimensions are all different... and the textures are all cleaner as they are not made of wood anymore....and yeh they have heads with faces that talk?! ^ ^
My workflow is this- Since I'm making 3d toys or dolls its a very modular process- I mix and match arms/legs/torso's etc....I create the characters body geometry first and rig the bodies using my premade rig so actually the bodies are already rigged... then I model the base head in cinema 4d using basic poly modeling- then I bring that into zbrush and do some low poly sculpting- the heads are only about 1500 polys- then I export the head as an obj and bring it into C4d and paint the textures using Bodypaint...
I'm using a new facial rig with this film so I built and tested that with one character and will rig all the others once their done- its good to test something once you commit to it.... the rig has a basic open and closing jaw which you can rotate and tweak a lot... it also has the brows and cheeks rigged up for animation as well.... not sure how I'm going to do the blinks yet though as I'll want to have an auto-blink system as well as manual control with sliders..
But yeh its fun to be immersed in a new film... if you have any requests of things you want me to post, discuss, make screen capture vids of let me know!
On this one I'M DOING LIP SYNC! So they will like talks and their mouths will move OMG haha- if you follow the podcast you know that I've feared doing lip sync for awhile and oh speaking of the podcast the reason that there are no new episodes is because Screamerclauz had some problems with his ISP and has no internet access for 30 days- he manages the podcast files and all that so yeh...
The issue I always had with lip sync is that I was just using morphs to do facial animation but once I switched over to using joints to animate the jaw now it looks good enough for me to use- so I use a rigged jaw for the open and close stuff and morphs for facial expressions... I'm creating all the morphs in Zbrush...
In Zbrush I use the layers feature to create all the morphs then I export the different morph heads as obj's to Cinema 4d- In both Cactus Dan's tools and the built in morphs you can use the exported obj to create a morph... through drag and drop with the built in morphs and through a command with cactus dans tools... HEY this would probably be a good thing to make a video tutorial for eh?
Also I was going to do all my texture painting in Zbrush for this film as its 9000 times faster and more flexible than Bodypaint BUT I found out that Zbrush isn't really good at painting low poly objects as it paints vertexes- I guess painting in projection master is an option for low poly in Zbrush but Bodypaint paints smoothly on low poly stuff just fine... more tests need to be done on that...
I'm going with a slightly different style with this film... the characters are supposed to be dolls so they have the same constraint based doll part bodies like the characters in HSM but the dimensions are all different... and the textures are all cleaner as they are not made of wood anymore....and yeh they have heads with faces that talk?! ^ ^
My workflow is this- Since I'm making 3d toys or dolls its a very modular process- I mix and match arms/legs/torso's etc....I create the characters body geometry first and rig the bodies using my premade rig so actually the bodies are already rigged... then I model the base head in cinema 4d using basic poly modeling- then I bring that into zbrush and do some low poly sculpting- the heads are only about 1500 polys- then I export the head as an obj and bring it into C4d and paint the textures using Bodypaint...
I'm using a new facial rig with this film so I built and tested that with one character and will rig all the others once their done- its good to test something once you commit to it.... the rig has a basic open and closing jaw which you can rotate and tweak a lot... it also has the brows and cheeks rigged up for animation as well.... not sure how I'm going to do the blinks yet though as I'll want to have an auto-blink system as well as manual control with sliders..
But yeh its fun to be immersed in a new film... if you have any requests of things you want me to post, discuss, make screen capture vids of let me know!
"So I'm making a new film" - *tears of joy* ;_;
ReplyDeletemdots making a new movie, all is right with the world...
I'm assuming this is based on the newest script? So excited that you found a path forward d00d (^_^)/ GO, GO, THAT GUY
Yeh I couldn't avoid it haha- and yeh I hope to have it done fast as there's no giant battle with armies or anything TOO crazy- story revolves around five kids who just moved to a mysterious new town- all takes place in this little town- there's still monsters and stuff but its more of a thriller/mystery/horror/coming of age haha movie- takes place linearly and in one consistent reality to keep things simple ^ ^
ReplyDeleteI wanted to ask for advice on something though- do yall think I should open up the making of and share what I'm doing all the way along? Obviously not story spoilers or anything- but you know share the designs/characters etc as I make them or keep it under wraps till its about 6 months from release?
It would be great to see your progress and development as you work through it so long as your comfortable with that.
DeleteNick Cross did something interesting. He posted his film for funding on Kickstarter then invited donators to a password protected blog for the majority of his updates.
I really like your video blogs though, would be great if you started the ball rolling on those again. However detailed or ambiguous, it's a tradition! ;)
I dont know i guess you should do what ever you want (as always)
DeleteAs a fan, i'd love to see updates and other behind the scenes stuffs, as im sure all your other fans would.
But as Azel said... by doing that you're bound to get shit tons of negative feedback no matter waht you're doing.
and i agree with him about the steep hill climbing simile thrown in there too.
Whatever you decide to do, we'll be content.
Heck yeah dude! :)
ReplyDelete>do yall think I should open up the making of and share what I'm doing all the way along?
ReplyDeleteyeh NAW DAWG NAH. Cuz sharing stuff on the internet creates feedback and as a viewer I don't really want to see feedback from a bunch of fucking internet simpletons affecting your works and such. People often have shitty advice such as TAKING DOWN ALL YOUR FUCKING DOPE YOUTUBE VIDEOS and no matter how thick skinned you are feedback can have an effect on your enthusiasm/direction.
Waiting for a dope movie/album/game or whatever is like climbing a steep hill. You wait n wait n wait and then at the end you finally get to see the beautiful view. Unfortunately most peeps now adays are wankers who just want cheep fast thrills but FUCK THAT
just my simpleton 2 cents hahaha
i'd say wait on that note too, the most recent blender movie did that and i was kinda like aww man if i go to place x i could spoil it for myself (i haven't that movie)
ReplyDeletethere're a lot of tutorials on that stuff on the internet ,what I really wish to know it's how to convert 3D to stereo, but I bet u no make that
ReplyDeleteGive us HARDCORE fans some looks into the world and the people without giving story away. Like create a profile that we can look at. Maybe release the c4d/obj file for a house you are using so we can explore or have a 1st person camera going threw a house video. Have community contest maybe animation short. Winner gets featured on DVD release. Buy business cards that promote the movie but not strait out maybe just a url put them everywhere random you can find where some stranger will find it. Get people interested in this shit.
ReplyDeleteAre Screamerclauz and you going to have crossover characters even if they are minor one or use your doll character as a prop in background? That would be cool.
I'd love you see you just setup a scene from start to finish without a lot of talking or explaining. Just show us how your work and get one scene in the can.
ReplyDeleteEach time I try to comment, page reloads blank... Huh.
ReplyDeleteAnyway good to hear you are doing a new type of story-- the epic craziness of Heart and Strange is great, but there will be new avenues to explore in this too. Sometimes smaller stories have the strongest connection to our everyday lives and hearts.
Careful with that lipsynch. It can get really time consuming!