Moving along with this project. I took the bike model and made it work for animation, meaning the wheels turn, the handlebars turn and the pedals turn and the whole thing can be moved as one object. Then I put the main character on it and, after a couple days of work, managed to attach his feet to the pedals so if they move his legs move and look like he is pedalling the bike. I cheated on the wheels and pedals turning in a way. There is a technique for making them turn when the bike moves forward but it involved math so I just couldn't handle it. Instead, I animated them by hand for 10 seconds, long enough for any scene this will be in and can drop it in and it will look fine. There are no close-ups of him on the bike, just medium long and long shots.
Original: 25 Years Later (2020) 4 minutes 19 seconds
The story of a man taking a bike journey from Montreal to Boston, where 25 years earlier, he had taken care of a sick friend and the memories invoked along the way. Made in Cinema 4D.
New version.... about the same length of time I'm thinking. More or less. I cut a couple shots while making my shot list for this new version but I think some of the other shots will get lengthened as I try and improve on them. This will be made in Blender. The characters a re made the same as the first version but since switching to Blender I have a much better handle on how to make them more realistic. I am going to have much more cinematic lighting, I hope, and more atmosphere to each shot plus better movement and emotions on the two characters.
Above is the cyclist character in all the versions I will need throughout the film. The second character changes more dramatically and will be more of a challenge.
A big challenge will be remaking all the sets. There was A LOT and I don't plan on cutting any out. Interiors and many exterior shots of cycling from Montreal to Boston. As this is a deeply personal film for me, I want it to be special, though I doubt even as many people who saw the first version will watch this updated one.
Story: As I usually do, the original story had to be stripped down to its most simple and basic form. Lovecraft had the characters traveling internationally for their adventures and the hound chases them intercontinentally. As a one man band making animation, having too many elements, locations and characters will make doing the animation impossible accomplish practically. I felt the 2 characters were not likeable and Mike and I tried to get that across. The narrator is a bit pompous despite his degrading mental state as events unfold.
Production: My animation style is usually very stop motion inspired, this is as well but not as much previous efforts.
This was a challenge, more so than my other short films because my older version of C4D stopped working in my OS and I HAD to learn Blender or not make any more animations. I have been trying to learn it for a decade without any real success. Recently the software has been advancing in leaps and bounds, not just technically but also changing it’s interface to a much more artist friendly one that is closer to industry standards. My work has dropped to almost nothing so while that is certainly panic inducing and financially disastrous, I was able to put a full time effort into learning and since Blender is free it didn’t add to my money woes.
After 3 months I was ready to try and start production and gathered my research, worked on the script and started to make the sets and characters. I made a couple of plugin purchases ( OK more than a couple) to help me get the look I wanted which included a human character generator that works within Blender and also does the rigging automatically which saved me months of time. It is limited in that clothing options are all modern and no third party additions so far so I have to modify to give a pseudo 30s look to the costumes. I spent a HUGE amount of effort reformatting 100s of models from Cinema 4D to Bender friendly files but it was worth the effort. I was also able to easily ad fog, a gothic horror must that did not take hours to render each frame and I was very happy with the result.
I restricted myself with some technical choices to avoid getting overwhelmed on my first project so I didn’t learn how to export separate passes of elements that would normally let me do post motion blur and give me more control over the final images. I also rendered in the faster real time engine EVEE that Blender has developed and it was more than good enough for this. The full force render engine is really great but I would be rendering until next year if I used it, partly because I have to learn how to optimize it for my needs.
Conclusion: I love Blender! Now I finally have a beginner’s handle on it I think I go upwards from here. It is up to you if this is a step up or down from my previous work but it seems a step up to me!
Voici une version avec des sous-titres français :
Histoire: Comme je le fais d'habitude, l'histoire originale a dû être dépouillée dans sa forme la plus simple et la plus basique. Lovecraft a fait voyager les personnages à l'étranger pour leurs aventures et le chien les poursuit de manière intercontinentale. En tant que groupe d'un seul homme faisant de l'animation, avoir trop d'éléments, de lieux et de personnages rendra l'animation impossible à accomplir pratiquement. J'ai senti que les 2 personnages n'étaient pas sympathiques et Mike et moi avons essayé de le faire passer. Le narrateur est un peu pompeux malgré son état mental dégradant au fur et à mesure que les événements se déroulent.
Production : Mon style d'animation est généralement très inspiré du stop motion, c'est aussi bien, mais pas autant d'efforts précédents. C'était un défi, plus que mes autres courts métrages parce que mon ancienne version de C4D a cessé de fonctionner dans mon système d'exploitation et que je devais apprendre Blender ou ne plus faire d'animations. J'essaie de l'apprendre depuis une décennie sans aucun succès réel. Récemment, le logiciel a progressé à pas de géant, non seulement techniquement, mais aussi en changeant son interface pour une interface beaucoup plus conviviale pour les artistes et qui est plus proche des normes de l'industrie. Mon travail est tombé à presque rien, donc bien que cela soit certainement induisant la panique et financièrement désastreux, j'ai pu mettre un effort à temps plein dans l'apprentissage et comme Blender est gratuit, cela n'a pas ajouté à mes problèmes d'argent. Après 3 mois, j'étais prêt à essayer de commencer la production et j'ai rassemblé mes recherches, j'ai travaillé sur le scénario et j'ai commencé à faire les décors et les personnages. J'ai fait quelques achats de plugins (OK plus que quelques-uns) pour m'aider à obtenir le look que je voulais, qui comprenait un générateur de caractères humains qui fonctionne dans Blender et qui fait également le gréement automatiquement, ce qui m'a fait gagner des mois de temps. C'est limité en ce sens que les options de vêtements sont toutes modernes et qu'il n'y a pas d'ajouts de tiers jusqu'à présent, je dois donc les modifier pour donner un look pseudo des années 30 aux costumes. J'ai dépensé énormément d'efforts pour reformater des centaines de modèles de Cinema 4D à des fichiers conviviaux de Bender, mais cela en valait la peine. J'ai également pu facilement ajouter du brouillard, une horreur gothique qui n'a pas pris des heures pour rendre chaque image et j'ai été très satisfait du résultat. Je me suis limité à certains choix techniques pour éviter d'être submergé sur mon premier projet, donc je n'ai pas appris à exporter des passes séparées d'éléments qui me permettraient normalement de faire du flou post motion et me donneraient plus de contrôle sur les images finales. J'ai également rendu dans le moteur en temps réel plus rapide EVEE que Blender a développé et c'était plus que suffisant pour cela. Le moteur de rendu pleine force est vraiment génial, mais je le rendrais jusqu'à l'année prochaine si je l'utilisais, en partie parce que je dois apprendre à l'optimiser pour mes besoins.
Conclusion : J'adore Blender ! Maintenant que j'ai enfin une poignée de débutant, je pense que je monte à partir d'ici. C'est à vous de décider s'il s'agit d'un pas en hausse ou en bas par rapport à mon travail précédent, mais cela me semble être un pas en avant !
Part of the "Another Hole in the Head" San Francisco, "Warped Dimension" is a fun online festival I have been a part of for many years now. It was wonderful be voted for an award!
If you missed the film, it's on Youtube. Be sure to like and subscribe and all that so more people can see it.
Further along. The interior structure I thought would be a breeze. I would simply use the manor model and delete everything I didn't need. Turned out to be a nightmare and I wasted a couple days. Instead I made a trace of the floor plan in an EPS file and converted it to a mesh and just extruded upwards to make the walls. Lesson learned.
I am now adding the furniture and textures. There will a lot of books and weird paraphernalia like full animal and human bones on display. The characters live in a secluded manor so no one gets wind of their "collection".
The animation will be in black and white but I thought the colour rendering might be interesting to show as well.
Loosely based on the 1904 story "Oh Whistle and I'll Come for You My Lad" by M.R James. This film has no spoken dialogue and French translations of some written text. A woman living alone is joined by a surprise addition to her isolated beach location where a hidden horror is revealed.
This was a much delayed project for many reasons. The pandemic made it difficult to create oddly because I didn't have enough isolation and family issues became a higher priority. It was also started, sets designed and a computer glitch made all the set files corrupted and they had to be redone. This made them much better in the end, I think. There is no spoken dialogue and the 2 instances to written text have French translations underneath for my local viewers.
I use some traditional Aztec instrument sounds for some of the effects and composed the music myself, if you can call that composing... I hope it works. I made the character with an app called "Make Human" which has is limitations and needed modifications but saved time and aggravation getting this thing finally off the ground. All of the visual compositing was done in Apple Motion, my choice for animation these days. I had a plugin that allowed me to do change the focus in post, but it was updated and that feature was deleted! I was able to get my money back but the old version wouldn't work with the current Mac OS so I had to improvise and while not perfect, I found a way to do essentially the same thing. I did make the lighting with After Effects. I could have done it in Motion but AE has a preset that makes it super easy and I felt super lazy about it.
Librement basé sur l'histoire de 1904 "Oh Whistle and I'll Come for You My Lad" de M.R James. Ce film n'a pas de dialogue parlé et des traductions françaises de certains textes écrits. Une femme vivant seule est rejointe par un ajout surprise à sa plage isolée où une horreur cachée est révélée.
Ce fut un projet très retardé pour de nombreuses raisons. La pandémie a rendu difficile la création bizarrement, car je n'avais pas assez d'isolement et les problèmes familiaux sont devenus une priorité plus élevée. Il a également été lancé, les décors ont été conçus et un problème informatique a corrompu tous les fichiers du décor et ils ont dû être refaits. Cela les a rendus beaucoup mieux à la fin, je pense. Il n'y a pas de dialogue parlé et les deux instances du texte écrit ont des traductions françaises en dessous pour mes téléspectateurs locaux.
J'utilise des sons d'instruments aztèques traditionnels pour certains des effets et j'ai composé la musique moi-même, si on peut appeler ça composer... J'espère que ça marche. J'ai créé le personnage avec une application appelée "Make Human" qui a des limites et des modifications nécessaires, mais qui a permis d'économiser du temps et de l'aggravation pour que cette chose décolle enfin. Toute la composition visuelle a été réalisée dans Apple Motion, mon choix pour l'animation ces jours-ci. J'avais un plugin qui me permettait de changer le focus dans le post, mais il a été mis à jour et cette fonctionnalité a été supprimée ! J'ai pu récupérer mon argent, mais l'ancienne version ne fonctionnait pas avec le Mac OS actuel, j'ai donc dû improviser et, même si ce n'était pas parfait, j'ai trouvé un moyen de faire essentiellement la même chose. J'ai fait l'éclairage avec After Effects. J'aurais pu le faire dans Motion mais AE a un préréglage qui le rend super facile et je me sentais super paresseux à ce sujet.
This took a while and a lot out of me. Lots of sad memories and a few happy ones thrown in for good measure. Thanks again to Mike Luce for his wicked laugh, and he didn't even ask what it was for!
This is sort of more "epic" as well as personal for me in animation. 15 locations that all had to be designed and made and then populated with two real-ish looking humans.
This is not a documentary. I wish I was still in shape like the cyclist in the animation is 25 years later after taking care of my friend but many of the events did happen. I won't bike to Boston as I planned but I will go there this spring/summer. A bike tour would take almost a week and I don't have the funds for a week in hotels, then time in Boston and then find a way to get back home with my bike. In a way this is my attempt to come to terms with the events all those years back, it was a very tough time and I though I helped out one friend for six years, there were others for shorter periods and some of that is reflected in this as well.
Some of you might recognize certain locations... like my office, street, the bridge and several locations in Boston. Nothing is slavishly reproduced but even the biking scenes are based on several trips from Boston to Montreal.
If you see this and have opinions, tell me and watch it on You Tube, give it likes etc. I would like it to be seen and promoted somehow so please refer others to it if you think it's appropriate.
Moving ahead on my next gothic horror animation. Trying for a more detailed, yet still render in a realistic amount of time look. To that end I removed a lot of reflection and the fire is an animated texture not a simulation. I also added noice to the main light to give more detail to things so i don't have to put stuff on every wall. The use of shadows also fills that space with shapes so the need for paintings and moulding is reduced. I still have t make the narrator character and his dead wife, Lenore but at lest the raven itself is ready. This set is made so I can easily make some of the walls and ceiling invisible for camera placement. There is a balcony and a street out the french doors and I think it will be snowing outside. I put a ton of work into the doorway because that is where we see the raven mostly so it have to hold up for many shots and different angles. The painting over the fireplace is temporary as it will need to be made with the image of Lenore from my model of her eventually.
This time famous actor at large, Charles Webster Billingsworth the third takes on a dramatic scene from the film classic, Jaws 2.
Voice work once again by Mike Luce.
I have finished a new animation project with the always helpful voice work of Mike Luce. Basically, it's a filmed theatre piece of a great (platypus) thespian (over)acting Hamlet's most famous speech in front of an adoring audience.
The purpose of doing this (other than getting it out of my head like all my other projects) was to expand my possibilities with cartoon-like characters. Making them and rigging them has always been difficult for me but I seem to have broken through a wall and made it to another place this time out.
I normally rig my characters using Cactus Dan's tools for C4D, but sadly, he has passed and I realized if I ever upgraded C4D above version 16, I will lose access to those tools and needed to try the character object autorig. Very luckily, Everfresh (from the C4D cafe) has made a cartoon rig template for the character object and provided it for free and it is a glorious thing. His tutorials on how to use it also clearly explained some things about the auto rigging that had prevented me form using it before so I expect for now on, I'll be going that route. My cousin Sheila helped a bit by reviewing the look of Charles and critiquing some early animations, especially his theatrical strut.
Mike Luce was an amazing help getting this done and always encouraging. In fact he has already voiced a second one of these to be done... soon-ish.
I hope people like this, it takes a lot out me mentally and even physically to incarnate this sort of character and bring it to life. To Be or Not to Be in sort of proof of concept project - meaning I made it more difficult than it needed to be to see if I could pull it off.
My first attempt at Edgar Allen Poe. This was challenging on several levels, mostly getting it done in a much quicker pace than I normally would so it could be presented to the "Another Hole in the Head" film festival before I leave for a photo voyage soon.
The original story is short and pretty basic, perfect for animation but it was pretty flowery in prose as a lot of Poe is so some of that had to be cut down and worked into something where the text isn't competing with the visuals to the point of being distracting.
This marks the 5th gothic horror animated short in a row that I've done and unless I can somehow start getting paid for them, I would like to switch to something more cartoon-y next as a break. I have plenty of other horror stories lined up so I doubt this will be the last but it's good to shake things up a bit!
My adaption of the short Ambrose Bierce story done in Cinema 4d with the voice talent of Mike Luce as the doctor. Unlike the Lovecraft shorts I've done, this one needed some addition plot points to give the characters motivation and help it work as a short film. The written piece is very short and light on background details. Ambrose Bierce was not on my radar for this series of animation until he was mentioned by my friend Arthur Dion of gallery NAGA in Boston and I might take up another of his stories in future. I think I continue to refine my animation and rigging techniques with this project. I also delved little more deeply into effects work with the spectral hound and the fireplace details. I also discovered limitations to C4D i wasn't aware of.. like simulated hair doesn't show up in operate passes, like the depth pass, making it difficult to add focusing effects in post.
This went faster, much faster than Music of Erich Zann (which took 5 years to get done) but I think I managed to improve in several areas. The characters talk, there is depth of field in the shots and I think I boiled the story down to its essential elements. My voice is terrible, of course, but what can you do?
Problems still abound. The character modelling is not much more advanced than the last film, the rigging is better but still not where I think it should be. Texturing of the sets is fine but I am looking into a way to hand paint characters and objects with a software outside of Maxon's C4D Bodypaint which I have yet to get to work right.
So this is the final version. Thanks to Mike Luce who took the time and effort to narrate the film which allowed me to replace the titles cards which were not exactly loved by everyone.
