UNDER THE TOP
It has been mentioned to me before that not everybody can go out and spend the money on the latest greatest tools and software out there to make their movie. As I brought up in one episode of Anigen, you don't have too, and realistically you probably shouldn't. I know I have spent my share of money on tools and software that I didn't get equivalent use value out of.
When it comes to Vue 5 Infinite, I got it as part of a bundle with a Lightwave upgrade, so it was really like getting it for free. I am sure this was good for E-On Software because it probably greatly expanded their user base and gave them reach into the pro world. I was able to then upgrade to Vue 6 Infinite for a very low price. The point, though, is that you don't need the "Infinite" version to create great artwork.
There will always be people who will tell you with convincing reasons why you must use some expensive tools like Maya or don't bother. These are likely the same people who will tell you their movie must be on the level of Pirates of the Caribbean or a Pixar film or it's not worth doing. They don't want to make their El Mariachi and build up to their Once Upon a Time in Mexico. They want to skip the small, cheap movie that many great directors started with, like Raimi with Evil Dead or Cameron with Piranha 2, and get right to their Spider Man or Titanic level films. Well don't listen to them.
You can have everything you need, computer, software and all, for less than the cost of one copy of Maya Complete (the cheap low end version). With time and effort you could make a dazzling movie for the cost of one copy of Maya Unlimited (The version needed to do anything great). Now I have nothing against Maya. We have all seen great things done by studios like ILM using those tools, but I think most of us are against spending $6000 for software and so we can't allow ourselves to think that way or we join the group who will go to their graves saying it can't be done.
So what then do we think about? Well take a look at the image above. This was done with Vue 6 Esprit, the $159 version of the Vue product line. Now I suspect some will immediately complain that it lacks the features of Vue 6 Infinite, but really look at the image. I think it's really cool. The real key is what are you going to let hold you back? If you could be doing something right now today because you can afford Vue 6 Esprit or you have to wait for months saving for Infinite, which is the better choice? You can always upgrade down the road, and that's if you need to. I know that Vue 6 Infinite contains a lot of advanced functionality that I will never use, because the defaults are usually more than good enough for me.
Another tool I have been giving far more serious consideration lately is Poser. This is made even great by the fact that it works so well with Vue products. Poser has gone up in price to $249 but it is still very much worth the money. I still remember the days when pros, myself included, would laugh at Poser, thinking it was a toy and nothing good could ever come from it. They have come a long way since that time. It was Poser 6 that first attracted my attention enough for a revisit. Poser 7 actually blew me away. The thing is, with both Poser and Vue, when you go to those galleries and see a great image, chances are its not the pros that did it. It's some artist at home, probably just having fun!
There's absolutely no reason to break the bank to get your project made. Some of the cheapest tools out there can do amazing stuff. On top of that, there is the growing popularity of Open source. Someone sent a link for the CeltX preproduction toolset. Take a look at what it offers. Most of us are very familiar with Blender, which has grown more and more competitive with each revision. Some may choose to go the machinima route with Iclone. The number of options available are staggering and the quality of low price software impressive. There are always going to be bad attitudes, such as seen on some art sites, against low cost software. There will always be people who feel like you didn't struggle enough to create something great because you used great tools. If we get our projects done and have a great time doing it, do we really care about the negative attitudes? You don't have to aim for the top in hardware and software. Aim for what lets you create now and, more importantly, have fun doing it!
When it comes to Vue 5 Infinite, I got it as part of a bundle with a Lightwave upgrade, so it was really like getting it for free. I am sure this was good for E-On Software because it probably greatly expanded their user base and gave them reach into the pro world. I was able to then upgrade to Vue 6 Infinite for a very low price. The point, though, is that you don't need the "Infinite" version to create great artwork.
There will always be people who will tell you with convincing reasons why you must use some expensive tools like Maya or don't bother. These are likely the same people who will tell you their movie must be on the level of Pirates of the Caribbean or a Pixar film or it's not worth doing. They don't want to make their El Mariachi and build up to their Once Upon a Time in Mexico. They want to skip the small, cheap movie that many great directors started with, like Raimi with Evil Dead or Cameron with Piranha 2, and get right to their Spider Man or Titanic level films. Well don't listen to them.
You can have everything you need, computer, software and all, for less than the cost of one copy of Maya Complete (the cheap low end version). With time and effort you could make a dazzling movie for the cost of one copy of Maya Unlimited (The version needed to do anything great). Now I have nothing against Maya. We have all seen great things done by studios like ILM using those tools, but I think most of us are against spending $6000 for software and so we can't allow ourselves to think that way or we join the group who will go to their graves saying it can't be done.
So what then do we think about? Well take a look at the image above. This was done with Vue 6 Esprit, the $159 version of the Vue product line. Now I suspect some will immediately complain that it lacks the features of Vue 6 Infinite, but really look at the image. I think it's really cool. The real key is what are you going to let hold you back? If you could be doing something right now today because you can afford Vue 6 Esprit or you have to wait for months saving for Infinite, which is the better choice? You can always upgrade down the road, and that's if you need to. I know that Vue 6 Infinite contains a lot of advanced functionality that I will never use, because the defaults are usually more than good enough for me.
Another tool I have been giving far more serious consideration lately is Poser. This is made even great by the fact that it works so well with Vue products. Poser has gone up in price to $249 but it is still very much worth the money. I still remember the days when pros, myself included, would laugh at Poser, thinking it was a toy and nothing good could ever come from it. They have come a long way since that time. It was Poser 6 that first attracted my attention enough for a revisit. Poser 7 actually blew me away. The thing is, with both Poser and Vue, when you go to those galleries and see a great image, chances are its not the pros that did it. It's some artist at home, probably just having fun!
There's absolutely no reason to break the bank to get your project made. Some of the cheapest tools out there can do amazing stuff. On top of that, there is the growing popularity of Open source. Someone sent a link for the CeltX preproduction toolset. Take a look at what it offers. Most of us are very familiar with Blender, which has grown more and more competitive with each revision. Some may choose to go the machinima route with Iclone. The number of options available are staggering and the quality of low price software impressive. There are always going to be bad attitudes, such as seen on some art sites, against low cost software. There will always be people who feel like you didn't struggle enough to create something great because you used great tools. If we get our projects done and have a great time doing it, do we really care about the negative attitudes? You don't have to aim for the top in hardware and software. Aim for what lets you create now and, more importantly, have fun doing it!
28 Comments:
For those Indies wanting to get into 2d animation, but perhaps unable to afford the Anime Studio Pro version or ToonBoom route should check out TweenMaker.
http://www.elecorn.com/tweenmaker/
TweenMaker handles auto in-betweening in a different fashion. As the animator draws his characters in key poses, the software then morphs between the keyfames, allowing one animator to do the work of four.
This would be a good tool for anyone use to traditional animation methods or who are confused with rigging characters in Anime Studio.
Just another arrow in the quiver for the Indie animator.
The negative attitude thing blows me away sometimes. Recently I noticed on some 2D forums an opinion expressed that in-betweening causes an un-natural look, so it shouldn't be used. So in-betweening is no good, and mocap is no good either according to some. Incredible.
But then on cgsociety, people don't want to admit that in-betweening saves any time at all, and want to point out how much work they have to put into tweaking the graph editor. But they don't seem to have any problem with using it. I guess 3D just wouldn't be feasible without it. Maybe there's a job-saving mindset behind it all, which shows up in weird ways.
I'd rather do as you suggest, and just find ways to fulfill my own dream. Thanks for your inspiration Terrence, it really helps.
The funny thing with Poser and Vue you can make a professional looking movie.
It would look anywhere as good as Final Fantasy the first one, or you can stretch it really good and pull off a film that can have almost a similiar look to Final Fantasy Advent Child.
The technology is there and in the palm of your hands. My dvd will show folks how to use things like Poser to get that finished look. I want film making to be available to everyone.
In fact you'll see use of Poser in my upcoming film.
I descided against using strictly Poser and Vue but still think I will use Poser to animate and C4D to render. :)
Where there is a will there is a way if you ask me.
I tire of the negative people. I think they are merely threatened. Honestly I hope my film makes it big and I can hire those negative people :) They can work as my minions instead of leading the pack.
I know that some folks are going to hate my methods but I don't care. Yes I'm using Mocap, yes I'm using Natural Point, I'm using Poser. I'm using every shortcut I can find to make the film look good and work fast.
I am spending a lot of money but you don't have to to make your movie. Poser and Vue would be all you really need in your arsenal to make a realistic looking movie.
Throw in Wings3d for free and you got a whole Animation suite.
Shortcuts are the friends of indies and story is key.
You may not have to shell out a lot of money for motion tracking. I found this link while surfing the Renderosity forums.
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=23967
Apparently, it is a poor man's mocap that can export BVH motion, usable in Poser, Character Studio, Daz Studio, or anything that can read BVH motion files.
I personally have never used it so I cannot vouch for it, but I've had my eye on it for awhile now. Price tag $50.00. Not too bad.
shawn: I don't think that people are negative because they feel threatened. It's not a zero-sum game: the success of a particular animated work does not contribute to the failure of all other animated work -- much the opposite, in fact. More likely, it's that the negative people have only learned one way to do things, so they won't believe you when you propose another. And it's hard to blame them, when the stand-out successes of animation today are made by huge teams using traditional methods and expensive software. If Terrence is right, though, this will change with time.
anonymous: Interesting side note: I followed links from the motion tracker you gave, and apparently it was made by the same guy who made this:
http://www.destinymovie.com/blog/
It's a 23 minute animated short made with Poser. It could be better in a lot of ways, but it's pretty impressive for just one guy.
Oops, scratch that. Reading his production blog, the guy made it with a lot of different software, none of it Poser (XSI, MotionBuilder, Max, Combustion, and Premiere). I assumed he used Poser because he sells a lot of Poser-related stuff.
It sounds like he also had help from others with the cityscape, backgrounds, and facial animation, and he bought some of the models, so I guess he didn't do *all* the visuals himself. Still fairly impressive.
Judging from one of the photos in the blog, he didn't use his video motion capture program for the animation but a full optical motion capture rig instead, processing the data in MotionBuilder.
Please tell me what I'm looking for
on this link:
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewP
because all I can see is people's models for sale. Is it in the blue column on right?
The new Career Coach column at AWMag about making your own luck:
http://mag.awn.com/?&article_no=3205
has some good advice in the vein of your recent entries. Even though it is geared towards working within the industry (as opposed to independently) I think there are some good points in there. Especially if you think about networking and how you might need a regular job while working on your own stuff.
BTW that production suite software was a great tip!
Hey JCL
Mark used Poser, but mainly the models themselves. He brought them into Max and Motionbuilder and rendered.
Those are Poser models. I know them a mile away. :) Not to look down on that. I think the fact he told his story was awesome.
I look at those negative people off other sights and they downplay Poser and believe in being a purist, but I don't. The average viewer is going to like the story and think it looks cool and not know how it was made so who cares what you use.
That is the thing we as filmmakers should focus on and that is telling our stories. How we get there is irrelevant, especially to the viewing audience.
Poser matched with Vue will give you a look that would be just as good as even a Hollywood feature. I'm even up for buying props as you need them, like cityscapes and cars, saves you time. Great place to buy www.doschdesigns.com
I laugh at the purists sometimes who say to model them yourself (this coming from pro modellers). It's easy for them to say when they can model a beautiful girl. What about the dude who can't where does he go? Practice? You can only go so far with your talent. Personally I didn't want my ugly mutant girl models running around the screen, so if I have to I'd use Poser to give me a beautiful look. Add in Zbrush morphing and you got yourself a cool non-Poser looking model.
What Mark did was impressive, he made that movie in about 9 months and I like it. It is very well paced.
I've been chatting with him a bit off his website. www.cgfilmaking.com He has a lot of information on MOCAP. He rented a mocap facility for half a day and pretty much caught all the motions himself.
I'm going to do that myself to get the mocap or if it comes out in time try out that new Naturalpoint motion capture.
If I rent I have a big place to use for FREE! Perfect for motion capture. I'm going to dress each actor up in a Gypsy (rent) and have them work through there scenes with the other actors.
Gypsy has real clean animation so not much tweaking is needed to fix.
To give it that more flowing approach I'm going to rent Naturalpoint for a month to add a few dynamics to the characters. I may get the student version then rent it when I'm done with the motions and export the files through the rented version to make it legally commercial :)
I'm looking for all the nice short cuts that will beef up and speed up production. It's going to cost but I'm seeing it as an investment.
There are cheaper ways to do it, again hand doing it in Poser, Vue and Zbrush. I may still go that route if my funding doesn't go through.
I'm just glad we have Terrence's sight to keep us motivated and we are all in a like mind. Cheers
The product you are looking for on this link, Tyler Zambori is the picture of the guy with the tracking marks on his body. This is the motion tracking software I've been talking about.
In order to purchase this software, you have to create a free account with Renderosity. Once you sign in, a "add to cart" button appears under the picture of the guy with the motion tracking marks.
The Renderosity Marketplace is a little confusing in their layout. The artist offering the motion tracking software also sells a lot of Poser related items, which appear at the bottom of the page. I hope this has cleared things up.
Tyler: The URL is too long for the formatting of this blog, so it gets cut off. But you can select the block of text and paste it in another application to get the link. Or, assuming I get the HTML right, you can click here:
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=23967
Poser 7 allows you to do ZBrush style morphing directly to the poser models. The morphing brushes are similar to the ones used to sculpt in ZBrush.
Still, from what I've seen ZBrush is an amazing tool set for those who can afford it.
On the open source side of the tracks, Blender now has a sculpting feature that is very easy to use and as powerful as what I've seen from ZBrush. I judge this by my own limited experience in 3D modeling, and if it is easy enough for me to understand, than surly everyone else will be miles a head of me.
Honestly, if you are going to try to make a movie largely on your own or with a small group, you have to look at all shortcuts you can. You aren't trying to compete with the quality of Pixar; you are just trying to finish a piece of entertainment. And the best way to finish the project is to reduce the amount of work you do, and to make the work that you do wind up doing go faster.
So go ahead and buy what content you can use from www.daz3d.com, www.renderosity.com, www.contentparadise.com, www.turbosquid.com, or wherever else you need it. If you can buy it and can afford the price, then that will save you a lot of time. Save your modeling energy for the things that you can't buy, or the things that need to be unique to your film.
Buy motion libraries if it works with your production. Find sounds at freesound.iua.upf.edu, www.filmsound.org, or www.ccmixter.org, as well as recording your own sounds. Find voice talent help at places like http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/, http://www.voiceacting.org/board/, http://voiceacting.proboards62.com/, or from any of the groups doing audio dramas for podcasting.
As a filmmaker, your job isn't to do every little bit of the film yourself. Your job is to come up with the vision, gather the needed resources, and direct these resources towards creating your vision. You will do a lot of the work yourself, but it is counter-productive to try and do it all. There are only so many hours in the day.
Use the tools that are available to you.
Cheers,
Michael Duffy
This is the furute I see...
Non-pro animators/artists reaching theres dreams and seazing the day...
the pros losing all sence of time and retiring..and being shown that they were wrong all along that it is possible to make you're own film!!! ahhh..you pros are in for the ride of you're lives...we will take over..maybe. (now I have nothing agianst the pros with expensive-software-impossible-to afford,but I think they will get whats coming to them. Proven wrong!
nice post terreance,very imformative. I should consider buying view(when I have money)
The one and only omnimegnalon.
I must say, we are forgetting about Hash Animation Master(www.hash.com). It's an incredible animation filmmaking tool. I know that, because I have done one 21 mins and another 30 mins film with it. And I'm going to make another. If it's about animation and acting A:M certainly scores well above poser.
And now A:M comes with a DVD full of models of almost every variety for free. And I have found them useful in chasing production deadlines.
I wanted to share this other movie with folks. It is another 90 minute movie using Flash.
I hope you enjoy it and keep up with this cool series
http://www.minushi.com/site.html
He will be releasing the feature length film pretty soon on DVD.
If you put your mind to it you can make a movie.
Satyajit,
You are definately the master of A:M.
Folks you should see Satyajit's work, he is one filmmaker I think sometimes goes unnoticed but he himself has made some great films.
I just wish Satyajit would make a film for himself in a longer format :) I bet he could come up with something cool.
A:M is a tool also available to folks. Personally I think it's a powerful program but you are also stuck with the way A:M wants to do things. There is no using props you want to buy off turbosquid or any other shortcuts. You are an Island when you use A:M. It's a nice island but still an island.
If you can get past the having to model in splines and you can do it all in one package this is the program to use! :)
They have an indie attitude, one artist and one program that everyone can afford.
Thanks Shawn,
I'm definitely moving towards making my own film. But I need to experiment and make small films for others before that.
Regarding Hash, you're absolutely right. It's nearly impossible to collaborate with Non A:M craftsmen in a A:M project. However in my next project, I'm planning to incorporate Vue. I have my eyes on that software for a long time. Lets see...if the opportunity calls.
Satyajit
Just wanted to also share a post with folks about MOCAP. Accessible to everyone!
http://www.cgfilmmaking.com/storydetails.php?id=100220
It trully will be affordable!
So it looks like, depending on how they price their software, one could really have a MOCAP setup for less than $5,000. Maybe even less than $4,000. Now that would be amazing!
Hmm... I guess the real question is: how much time does it save you? If you just need rough motion, you can get it nearly realtime using motion capture (ignoring retakes, setup/teardown, and the upfront cost of learning the system).
But if you need believable motion, you need to edit the captured data. I may be too picky, but I don't think the raw Poser previews they show are very good; the feet slide all over, there are noticeable pops, and the extreme motion feels sluggish, especially the jump. So... How long does it take to whip the data into a usable form, and how does it compare to the time spent with more traditional methods (or using a motion library)?
Iclone....I want this. Wow! looks like machinima is making progress.
Motion packs, cool! I wonder if Poser would still be useful for this? And Vue?
Ok, never mind. I installed the demo and it messed up my dual monitor setup. I don't need that.
I guess Poser it is - maybe the best thing would be if one could do some basic movements in poser then move that over to a 3D animation app to fine tune it. I'll go ask on some Poser forum, thanks.
I am in total agreement. I think using whatever is available to create your film is a must. Too much time is spent on trying to wait until you can create your first masterpiece to is the end all to film making. I think of Don Herzfeldt's (SP?) art work of just stick figures and they are amazing. As for me, I just spent the last 28 days creating my first episode on a series that I hope will be successful. I told myself, it's not going to get done if I wait until I have powerful computers, or this software or that, and I have to have lots of money. I just sat down and started with what I had. If interested, visit www.animace.biz/projects.html to view the trailer. I think as filmmakers we have to start somewhere, even if it isn't the film you want to make. At least you're making something and from there you can grow and continue. If anyone is interested, I used Animation Master and Mirage.
Ok, I think I'm figuring this out, ha: I will use cg cel shading because I find I like that look, (and it saves rendering time right?). I found a LW plugin called unreal extreme that does that. I will use motion capture and also this program I found called TAFA:
http://ta-animation.com/FA/
that does facial animation and lip sync in real time. I saw very good comments about it by LW users. It's not cheap, but it looks good. Heck,
softimage is charging almost $100,000 for something like this. So I see this as a deal. This could be a major time saver. Then maybe I'll check out "Make Human" for Blender, but I'm not against making my own basic human model to build on. BAngola!
Tyler: If you're interested in the unReal Xtreme2 plugin for Lightwave, I did develop an English-language guide to using the ToonTracer feature of the plugin over on the Spinquad forum (since that is the one area that I think unReal does SO much better over Lightwave's Edges);
the URL to the current guide is http://www.spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13884
I'll be updating the thread sometime next week (since there are several new settings added since the guide's last update), as well as introducing a series of training videos to using certain features of ToonTracer.
Speaking of short cuts, I was shoked beyond description when someone said non-linear animation is 'inferior'. Perhaps that statement is true when you consider a 90 minute film with a hundred animators who will handle less than one minute of animation (assumption)...but the discussion that brought about that response was a one man animation project.
Are we squeezing ourselves in a corner under the guide of using 'superior' and unrealistic methods for a one man or limited team project?
The bottom line is to use whatever shortcut at your disposal to get the job done, be it non linear animation, mocap,'poor man's' mocap,'model swapping'...etc.
Jason: Thank you very much, I checked it out, and look forward to seeing your tutorial videos.
Obinna:That's unreal, man. There is something majorly wrong going on there. Ah well, we here can choose to find ways to get things done.
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