I’ve been working on this since iClone 3 (2007). Rebuilding my main studio computer maybe twice a year to keep up with DAWS and iClone updates etc. Not paying attention to the timeline, I went over 3 hours. I had to cut out a few things. The pandemic didn’t help with voices and musicians. I had fun learning and thank the community for the outfits and other things. I have one more animation to finish, then I will see what is next. Good luck to RL and everyone else here. https://youtu.be/TbLpYWWxqpg
4 Likes
Wow! you spent a lot of time and resources on that movie. Your writing is funny as well. You give me inspiration. I am trying to learn Iclone but as you know it can be time consuming. This is where I am right now with my iclone ability. I would love to start using Unreal to render as well. Keep up the good work.
1 Like
Kabbam, great story. But people sometimes say they don’t trust black people in business. Well Tulsa, and Wilmington, NC; and other black businesses did great until they were burned down or stolen. White folks got ripped off by white folks, were also killed. I really was in your story and felt like that demon brother was a plant, and I was really getting mad, before the handshake reviled him. I like consistency, and my only beef was that your lead character wasn’t seen shaking the hand of the guy with the money. I would have if I had the power. I love the town, and did you make it yourself? I had to really cut out a lot of my movie, because I wasn’t watching the timeline, and I was over 3 hours, when I finally looked. I can’t wait to see the rest of your project I’m and going like and subscribe, and pass it along to friends and family. My paternal grandmother was born in Wilmington, NC. So we heard the stories, they showed her parents, on PBS back in October.
Haha, you created a fantastic movie. It must have been a lot of effort! How much time it you took you to make it, and what tools you used? Did you had help to make?
Dj, thanks for the complements. The story is based loosely upon my Aquarian brother, and all his buddy Aquarian cousins. He was Captain save a bear and they had bad taste in women. Here in Queens NY we were the last to get cable, so we had a lot of time on our hands, So i started drawing in composition books, short stories of them and their ugly women, and to get back at me, when the drinking age was 18, I would get hit on by women just out of high school, so he would put them in baby carriages. We would show them to friends ad family. My friend came up with the Beartrap, and others. Back then I wish we could animate them. Back then, i got many to perform if I built them a computer etc. When I first got iClone 3, it was 32 bits, and if I put more than 4 people in a scene it would run out of memory. Then they got 64 bits, and said everything was unlimited, lights, people, etc. It might be, but the more things I added, my playback was slower than a snail. What ticked me off when I wrote the Tech guy, he wouldn’t tell me what they were using, so I could build one. I also ended up buying 2 of those 360 Xbox cameras, so I could capture motions; what a waste. I ended up buying motions. Making motions from scrap for 1 minute, could be 4 hours to get it right. I used YouTube, to make better paths. I used Sketchup when it was free to use, and kept that version, to make the streets, disco, modify the jet so it would have exit doors. I bought the jet through Reallusion, and bought most of clothes and modified many using Photoshop etc. When I bought the subway platform, I had to link many together, and each sign, florescent light was done one at a time. Placing the light source in in each was a pain. But when you link multiple same things, there is a way of doing many at one time. I wasn’t great at that. You can be plain, but I wanted color changing and rotating lights in the disco, Each light how many times it changes, rotates, etc. is up to you. I have fun watching them work. But you need a great computer, and you can keep up. For 3 months, I finally built a computer with the fastest CPU in 2019, now it’s #392 in speed. I upgraded since then, including video cards. You never know how they are going to turn out when your machine starts slowing down. I remember rendering some scenes and I went work and came back it was still rendering. I only had help with the musicians, singers, and voices. Those were the fun times. The hardest part was from iClone 3. When 4, 5, and then 6 came out, I had to start all the way back to the beginning of each scene. One of the hardest things is that you have to have the characters move their mouths to their spoken lines. But when the actual voice is recorder, the person may speak the line slower or faster, so I had to cut it up to try to catch the timing, or the vocal emotion wasn’t matching the moment. I’m not a TV person, all my favorite shows are repeats or gone, so I had from 4PM to 1AM on weekdays to work on it until I retired. I have many scenes that were done over with a newer version, because I could add more cameras etc. I always did the voice lines first. The first version of iClone I used, there were only a maximum of 4 light sources. Compared to now, every street or lights you see, has it’s own source, color and direction. The first time I put only a few people in the disco, the playback was a slow as heck, so it was almost impossible to add more people. Near the end, with faster video cards, and newer CPUs, I had 128GB of RAM for along time. With the setup I have now, I could add more people in the disco, but you don’t want so many people, that you can’t see your full character. The easiest and fun parts were recording all the different voices, the hardest was conducting and recording Richard Wagners, Tristan & Isolde. Those new graphics on iClone look great, and I could only imagine, I would need to make a new computer it would playback, so slow. My computer works fine now with my 48 channel DAW. I’ll buy a new mixer that just came out before I buy a new computer so iClone can work. My stories have multiple characters at one time in many scenes. I’m getting ready to produce another, I’ve already made the inside of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, where the event took place. I just need to finish the music first. Each room is happening at the same time, but each place will be recorder separately, and edited together in Magix, the video editor I used since I started making DVD’s and Blu~Rays. One trick I learned. When I made the Beartrap Disco. Every room has all the furniture, bars, chair, tables, lights, outside, buses, etc., and saved as one. When I film outside, I delete everything inside, because it may take up computer resources, that may slow you down, and save it. I do the same if inside. I delete everything outside. On the Jet, the front cabin and the cockpit stay together, but the back of the plane is by itself. The two subway stations? Only one, the signs are changed, and the train is moved to enter again. In the subway tunnel, only lights are moving, not the train. If you need more info or tips, just write. RG.