M dot Strange's blog

Do you want to be the snarky person sitting in the corner uttering short remarks that whilst they do provide instant gratification leave everyone else empty inside... Do you want to give what is known...make known what is already known yet in a shinier, faster "more hip" manner? Do you want to be the person afraid to go in depth into anything or anyone because you are afraid of those unknown depths within yourself.... Do you want to tell the same old stories in "new" ways? Leaving the cultural and mythical reservoir empty with only a few tired tumbleweeds rattling around the same territory they always do? Even though it may make people angry some times the truth is the best medicine... So as a filmmaker...artist...whatever... I believe its your responsibility to tell YOUR emotional truth... no matter how "insane, random, bizarre, disturbing or "pointless" it may seem to people... This is where film has been FUCKED... FUCK the whole business thing... F

I really LURVE using procedural animation... whenever I can I try to use it... Whether its Xpresso Noise driving Position or rotation... or C4d's own very useful Vibrate tag OR CStools VibrateNull or SineNull... and recently I bought a little plugin called smarttween That does a great job automating some simple animation tasks... I've already used it for some character animation in the new film.... I MEAN most "animators" would not use procedurals I guess if they prided themselves on they keyframe animation skills or somethin BUT I just make films... I love animation BUT I'm making films so I use whatever I can to get the result I want lest I spend a month animating one shot ^ ^ In the future I see myself using more and more puppetry techniques in 3d and procedurals... So that I can work faster... Eventually I'd like to create an animated feature a year ^ ^ K back to work for me....

Things just keep getting better for c4d users making films ^ ^ The guy who made the ScoobyCam steadycam plugin and the Splinespread plugin...both of which I own...he is going to release this SurfaceSpread Plugin It looks REALLY useful for building and filling out sets as it can distribute objects randomly and naturally with ease... it also builds the terrain?! Now I already finished building my sets and I spent MOST of the time laying out the objects trying to give them a random appearance... I used the plugin PaintonSurface on Mograph cloners in Object mode with random effectors and it worked pretty well but this new plugin is SO much faster... So now I can create set extensions with ease.... it should be released before August 14th... ALL THAT and a new version of C4d comes out in August ^ ^ Pure WIN I say_EtH!!!

I've been following this thread on cgtalk about Linear workflow... I tested out the Linear workflow setup in C4d... you has to adjust the output gamma and adjust all the materials gamma to do this until that plugin comes out... and yeh its pretty interesting... the lighting is a lot more even and less dramatic than non linear NOW it seems this would be a lot more useful for architectural stuff or mixing 3d/Live action... since I'm doing an all 3d fantasy film I WANT it to be more dramatic so the mega contrast and hotspots works for me... I was thinking of going linear on HSM but then I'd have to apply a filter to every single material on every single file... BUT if this plugin comes out before I go into production I might check it out agains... So next month NEW versions of Cinema 4d AND Zbrush come out....I go into production the following month....hmmmm.... it will be close but if there are some awesome new features in the new C4d that will really add to the production

So I just finished the template rig for HSM... since I'm animating alone and I want to make HEAVY use of Cinema 4d's new NLA w/ Motion Clip system... I'll be using the same skeleton/rig for most all the characters... this way there's only one to rig/setup and I can share the motion clips with all the models... With your generous donations ^ ^ Thanks AgaiN! I bought Cactus Dan's Character Suite of plugins... I used his Joints and Skin plug to create the joints or "bone" *cough* Then I used his C4DIK tooks to rig it all up AS I followed his FREE 4 HOUR video tutorial on how to set it up right .... I also LOVE C4d's visual selector... I used it a ton on WATS and will use it even more on HSM... So yeh... I'm also using Cactus Dan's new hand tags which allow you to store and re-use hand poses which will be... ummm... HAND_E...ha ha ha...ummmm yeh... but seriously I was able to make an easy to use superlight rig.... Since I'm away from studio st