Two Days for A Five Minute Animation?
Steve K
Posts: 3,235
In the recent Houston 48 Hour Houston Horror contest, there were two animation entries, one by my wife & me in Carrara and another done in other software (including iClone among others, I think), also a two man team but only one was animating, the other did the music and they both did voices. At the screenings, a live action team member asked how could animations be done so fast. I let the other animator answer the question (he said he was hallucinating a little by the end), offering only motion capture files as my "secret".
But in thinking about it, there are more "secrets". Unlike the other team, I exclusively use purchased 3D elements, rather than, e.g. creating characters with programs like ZBrush (a 3D sculpting program). So I have a large library of scenes, props, characters, lighting setups, atmospheres, etc. that I can easily make small modifications to (e.g. change a characters face with "morph dials") and drop into a video. Think of it as a large Hollywood studio with a huge backlot with lots of scenes (Western, City Street, SciFi Planet, etc.), a long list of actors, and a warehouse full of props (furniture, weapons, cars, clothing/costumes, etc., etc.) Add to that preset motions ("motion capture files" - walk, dance, fight, etc.) that can be dropped on any actor, plus preset special effects (the thunderstorm in my video) from programs like Particle Illusion which renders in real time (a 15 second storm takes 15 seconds to render, after setting it up). Its more like a cook deciding to make a meal using ingredients he already has. Also, I avoid dialogue to eliminate the lip syncing and the time required. Plus I use an animation program known for fast rendering at medium quality, Carrara Pro, on a fast Core i7 machine - 10 seconds of animation (240 frames, fairly long) takes typically less than half an hour. And its a lot of fun. Although two days is still tough, as the other animator mentioned.
In more specific terms, its the NLA clips in Carrara (I've got a couple of hundred ready to use), the shadow catchers also in Carrara (avoiding rendering the background repeatedly), the extremely fast effects in Particle Illusion, and the ready to go characters and sets (the live action guys have real world actors and locations - if they have releases to shoot there).
But bottom line: Its the story, stupid. Neither animation entry won anything, mostly due to some very clever live action entries.
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Comments
Yes, it is the story :)
Just do Star wars in a sandpit :)
Very inspirational, Steve. I am always amazed at your creativity under such short deadlies. Please continue to give us notice when they become avalable. When do you think we can see this one?
more cores!!
Most of the clips are from PoserMocap and aniMate (using the Carrara importer), and some from various other sites. Loaded/imported to Carrara and then saved in Carrara's clip library. The Houston Horror 48 Hour winners have not yet been announced, so they are not available yet on the website. You can see some of the winners from the regular (not horror) Houston 2018 contest here:
http://www.48hourfilm.com/houston/
You can probably find some of the horror videos on YouTube/Vimeo, searching on "Houston 48 Hour Horror 2018" or similar. Here is our entry, "Beneath The March":
Some of the 2017 worldwide winners are here:
http://48hourfilm.com/films
Not a bad idea, but there might be copyright questions. The 48 Hour contest folks are very strict about use of anything copyrighted, each team has to provide releases for anything like that. I just hand in some EULA's from DAZ, Rendo, Digital Juice, etc. The usual topic is music - apparently some folks think music is all free.
Thanks. As I've mentioned, its a good challenge. If somebody likes it, great. If they don't, well, we only had two days. The link to our enrty, "Beneath The Marsh" is in a comment above.
Indeed. I get a new machine every couple of years, primarily to get a faster Core i7 CPU. I guess I could set up a render farm, but with Carrara, 5 minutes in two days is certainly doable on a single fast machine. What I really need is a faster good story creator ...
Sorry, I meant just use Jungian Archetypes etc like in The Hero's Journey al la Campbell. Star Wars is just one of the best known examples.
No apology necessary, I pretty much knew what you meant, but wanted to point out the problems with "borrowing" stuff. I had a long discussion with the Houston 48 Hour producer (a good friend) about using captured animation sequences from games like GTA5. Rockstar games does not object to non-commercial videos using such footage, they even provide a built-in capture/editing feature in the game. There are many, many videos on YouTube and similar using such footage, "fan videos". But she was concerned about the fact that the contest sells tickets to the screenings, so that makes it "commercial". The screenings are a one time event attended almost exclusively by contest teams, the ticket cost just offsetting the rental of the theater ... but I backed off.
But yeah, Campbell type characters are a good source of inspiration. Another one for me is "Calvin & Hobbes", maybe the greatest comic strip ever. I have the complete works in a very large 3 volume box set, with a lot of my stickies showing story ... uhh ... inspirations. The last C&H strip I find particularly memorable.
https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/82i3yr/the_last_calvin_and_hobbes_strip/