Skip to main content

Project Updates - Things I Either Am, or Have Been, Working On

TET, hard at Work.
I've been particularly busy lately working on various projects. Scheduling my time much better so I work on several things for just an hour or two each day. I thought I'd give you a quick run down of what I've been doing of late. Starting with JAC the Cat character...



JAC Cat,
Crazy Talk Animator 2


I haven't really advanced this enough to warrant a full post dedicated to my progress on this. However I have been working on it daily, trying to solve all the body part import issues that I outlined in my Part 4 update.

JAC Cat body Parts.
I can tell you I've pretty much resolved everything with regard to importing my DrawPlus template into CrazyTalk Animator 2. Body parts are all in the right place, none are missing or color inverted.

I'm now fixing up the various joint masks - which I've discovered don't do their job nearly as well if you use a lot of gradients in your coloring. I'll need to plan my character design better next time, possibly stick to flat color.

I'm also trying to resolve the issue of the cat's tail. I've discovered I can import the tail segments but, for the moment at least, there's no way to make sure they're showing in the correct layer order. I haven't done enough with this to know if the tail is going to work as part of the character or whether I should create a tail prop and attach it to the character once it's in the scene.

Dan.

New Animation 4 Business Promotional Videos,
Crazy Talk Animator 2 and iClone 6


Speaking of CrazyTalk Animator 2, I recently completed a short promotional video for my relaunched Premium 2D service that utilizes that software instead of GoAnimate. The video focuses on the wonderful hand drawn characters and props by Australian cartoonist, Gary Pye, who I happen to have bought a sizable chunk of his content from.



My video is a little rough around the edges and is again voiced by me (personally I don't think my voice suits Gary's Dan character but it'll do for now). I'm quite happy with the animation I did on the two main characters but my attempt at humor with Wendy's changed look falls flat - better luck next time!

As I write this I'm working on a second Animation 4 Business promotional video using iClone 6. This time to promote my all new Premium 3D service. You can see a behind the scenes image from this video below. Note it is a true behind the scenes image, being a screen shot of the unfinished set I've put together and not a frame from the actual video - which I haven't even started animating yet.

Behind the scenes screenshot of my latest promotional video.

The script for this one was written by one of my Animation 4 Business contractors, Commedus, who came up with an interesting angle to showcase a little of the 3D aesthetic.

Hoot Game Creating

Hoot

Long time readers of this blog my remember Hoot, a character by TheseStars (from GoAnimate), that I helped bring to life for her animated, anagram videos.

Currently we're developing a game featuring Hoot and his Anagrams using Scirra's Construct 2 software. I can't really show you anything as yet but we're making some really great progress with our latest work in progress game file having a fully player controlled Hoot running around the screen.

I can't even speculate on a release date but if we get it done by early next year I'll be very happy. Expect the game to be available on a mobile device near you when it comes out.

I'll also write some reviews about Construct 2 and my experiences with it in the near future 2. If you're an animator interested in creating 2D games it's certainly a great option - the basic version is quite powerful and free.

Bat Storm.
That's about everything for now. I do have other upcoming projects. I particularly hope to be working on my iClone version of Bat Storm real soon too.

Topics:

Comments

  1. CommedusAugust 26, 2015 at 9:16:00 PM GMT+9:30

    This looks so much better than I had imagined! Even though it is not finished I can see where you are going with it and I love it! I always knew you would take my little idea and make it into something big! I love it! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. CommedusAugust 26, 2015 at 9:18:00 PM GMT+9:30

    I am really looking forward to the Hoot game! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

This blog is monitored by a real human. Generic or unrelated spam comments with links to sites of dubious relativity may be DELETED.

I welcome, read, and respond to genuine comments relating to each post. If your comment isn't that save me some time by not posting it.

Popular posts from this blog

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D  which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Wonder Unit Storyboarder - Free Storyboarding Software for People Who Can (or Can't) Draw

Wonder Unit Storyboarder.  As an independent and solo animator I'm always tempted to try and skip storyboarding my animated shorts because they're usually only single scene sketch comedy type jokes. As a result I have many unfinished projects that kind of petered out due to having no clear finishing line. Storyboarding your productions, no matter how small, gives you a step by step guide of every shot that needs to be completed (no planning shots as you animate). It also allows you to create an animatic that gives you a rough preview of the finished production. In short, you shouldn't skip storyboards as they, generally, increase the chance of the project being completed. Disclaimer - I'm Not a Fan of Storyboarder Upfront, Wonder Unit's Storyboarder  is not my preferred storyboarding software. However it's completely free, has a number of very compelling featu
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Glif (Alpha) - Make Your Own Tiny AI Powered Niche Image Generator Apps

I  first heard about Glif through a YouTube video that mentioned you could get access to Flux Pro (the latest 'game changer AI' generative image model) through the site for free. While I had a vague notion from the video of what Glif was, I wasn't expecting it to be so easy to get started with, and so good with my very first results. Glif is an easy to use, low-code platform for creating tiny AI-powered generators called Glifs. While that may not sound inspiring, what Glifs allow you to do is create a tiny app that niches down to a specific type of AI generation that the user modifies with their own inputs. The best way to really understand is with an example.  My First Glif I've recently been using VivaGo's AI platform  (free and unlimited at the time of writing) to consistently generate full body characters in a front facing T-Pose that I can rig as front facing characters in Cartoon Animator. Unfortunately it can be a bit hit or miss maintaining the T-Pose part
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Krita AI Diffusion - Generative Image AI For Krita is Seriously Useful, Powerful and Free (If You Can Install it Locally)

Generative AI sequence of a woman in a business suit. From sketch to refined image using Krita AI Diffusion - by TET G enerative image AI, where you describe an image with a text prompt to an Artificial Intelligence model and it produces a new image based on your prompt, is gaining a strong hold as a tool for many artists. Krita AI Diffusion brings generative AI image tools right into your favourite free and opensource, graphics editor, Krita. Not only that, if you have a computer with decent specs (and at least 10GB of hard drive space), Krita AI Diffusion is completely free. What If I Don't Have a Powerful Computer? If you're in my situation, with a computer that was around before anyone in the mainstream had even heard of generative AI, you can still access Krita AI Diffusion for free, using a cloud based AI server, Interstice  and 300 tokens, to get you started. Once your initial tokens run out, purchase 5000 more for 10€ (approx US$11.00). Tokens never expire. I would
1 comment
Continue Reading »

The Ultimate Independent Animator's App and Resource List 2019-2023 - Animation and Video Life

Image created with Cartoon Animator 4. Being an independent animator is not like a studio animation job. There's so much more to do that is indirectly related to the actual task of animating. Over the years I've sought out many apps, tools, and services that can help me achieve that one single task, expressing myself through animation. Below is my Ultimate Independent Animator's Resource List for 2019-2022. It started out as a list of free or low cost apps that could help you in every stage of producing either 2D or 3D animation, and then just kind of grew from there. You may not have been looking for a Time Management App as much as you needed something to get you started in 3D animation but when those commissioned projects start coming in you'll have a head start on maximizing your time. All the apps and services on this list had to meet two main criteria: They had to be useful and relevant to an Indy Animator/artist. The base app/service had to be US$
9 comments
Continue Reading »

Dollars Mocap: Full Body Webcam Motion Capture (Including Hands and Fingers) For iClone and Cartoon Animator

Even though I should be further away from the camera Dollars Mocap MONO still does a good job of  tracking my arms, hands and fingers. Ever since I wrote my series on becoming a VTuber , discovering it was possible to do full body motion capture, including hands and fingers, with just software and a webcam, I've been on the look out for any motion capture software that can bring that functionality to Cartoon Animator. Dollars Mocap is a low cost motion capture application with a free trial that I learned about through the YouTube Channel Digital Puppets  and their test video . It can record full body, upper body, arms and hands, and facial mocap from a live video source or pre-recorded video. Investigating further, I discovered not only does Dollars Mocap have a free iClone7, iClone8 character profile file download (look for it at the bottom of the main program download page), so you can use the saved motions with iClone8, they've also got a demo video for how to convert your
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Review: Headshot Plugin for Reallusion's Character Creator 3

Headshot for CC3. Quite possibly the best 3D Avatar I've made of myself in any 3D application. Creating a realistic 3D human avatar is a whole lot easier with Reallusion's new Headshot Plugin for Character Creator 3. The plugin is an AI powered extension that can generate 3D digital humans from one photo. Which sounds like an amazing proposition but, in practice, if you're trying to achieve a specific likeness to an actual person, Headshot will give you an excellent base to work from. Headshot has two modes, Auto and Pro. Auto Mode Auto is well worth a try if you have an ideal photo of a front facing person that is properly lit and posed to Headshot's optimum requirements. It's also the only mode that will take a crack at generating a hair model. I grabbed an image of Harrison Ford, dragged it into Headshot without changing any of the default settings (other than specifying 'male' and selecting an 'old male' setting) and this is what I
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »