Reinventing Bat Storm - Muvizu to iClone (Part 1)

Bat Storm Muvizu (left)
In development Bat Storm iClone (right).

If you've been following my work for a while you'll be familiar with my Batman parody character Bat Storm. The character first appeared as a GoAnimate Comedy World design. When GoAnimate dropped all its fun themes in favor of Business Animations I moved the character into the 3D realm of Muvizu shortly after I purchased a license for it in 2016.

I really love Bat Storm's look in Muvizu. The thing is, as easy as Muvizu's developers claim their software is, I find trying to do any form of character animation with it to be infuriating. Which is why you haven't seen a single Bat Storm animation created in Muvizu so far.

My Muvizu Bat Storm
Character.

Lately I've been experimenting with Reallusion's 3D Character Creator 2 for iClone 7, which is soon to be released as a stand alone application in version 3. Although I haven't done a lot of 3D animation with iClone I actually know my way around the software enough to get by thanks to the User Interface and character animation process sharing many similarities with CrazyTalk Animator 3 (2D Animation App).

I already toyed with the idea of animating Bat Storm in iClone using a modified Batman character rig I purchased but the realistic human proportions weren't inspiring me. I really liked my Muvizu Bat Storm character designs.

Over the years I've purchased a lot of content for iClone and Character Creator because I really want to try Pixar style animation. Initially I bought the Toon Maker packs for iClone because the character styles were clearly intended for that type of animation. However the limited range of body types left the idea a little flat.

Character Creator was generally for making more realistic, human characters so I didn't do a lot with it. Then iClone Content creator TokoMotion released his stylised human morphs for Character Creator and finally the application had the ability to create more Pixar like character designs.

I've had TokoMotion's morphs for a while but it wasn't until recently that I decided to really take a serious look at reinventing Bat Storm in iClone using these morphs in Character Creator.

My goal isn't to recreate my Muvizu design exactly. What I want to do is create similar cartoonish proportions but with improved, more detailed designs that come with a more advanced 3D animation studio like iClone.

What's really great about Character Creator is that almost every aspect of your character, down to the smallest detail, can be adjusted just by moving sliders backwards or forwards. It looks daunting at first because there are just so many settings (it's got to be in the thousands per character) but once you narrow it down to just the part of the character you're trying to modify, it becomes much more manageable to play with each slider to see how they affect the character.

Character Creator 2 settings can look daunting.

I haven't finished my Bat Storm character yet but I wanted to show you where I started to where I am now just by playing around in Character Creator.

1. TokoMotion Ramon
Character Base.

Here is the TokoMotion stylised character I used as a base (see image 1). This one I felt had the real top heavy look that I wanted to maintain from my Muvizu design. Initially I removed all his clothes so I could just work with getting the body proportions right.

My goal was to transform this body into a more muscle bound look, with longer legs. When it came to his face I wanted something that looked a little more handsome with a really strong, Batman like, jawline because Bat Storm pretty much wears his cowl 24/7.

2. Bat Storm Base Mark I

Here's what I came up with after a couple of hours of tweaking (image 2). I also dressed him in clothes that I felt I could modify into a Bat suit with minimal texture customization. The shirt he's wearing used to be black with lime green highlights. I liked the texture of it but changed the colors to Bat Storm grey just through using the sliders.

The character is also wearing boots, a belt, and gloves from a pirate character Reallusion gave away free with Character Creator 2's release (I think).

3. Bat Storm Base Mark II

After even more tinkering, this is how the character looks (image 3). I've dropped the pirate belt in favor of the belt he already had on his pants (because I worked out how to tuck is T-shirt in). I'm still working on reducing the distortion of his belt - it's reduced quite a bit but I'm sure I can probably fix it more.

I also just bought an Apocalypse Combo Character Pack that contains a lot of accessories that wouldn't look out of place on a Bat suit - such as better boots and gloves, and more Christian Bale Batman style armor.

The Extraordinary Tourist.
Now with long coat.

This pack also includes a trench coat that I've been waiting for Reallusion to make so I can finally complete my iclone The Extraordinary Tourist avatar and start making animations with him.

So that's where my iClone Bat Storm character is at the moment. I'll continue to tinker with him, and will bring you an update when I arrive at the final, full costumed design.

Using Avatar Maker with Cartoon Animator - Free Vector Cartoon Avatar Creator with Four Art Styles

I'm always on the lookout for cartoon avatar makers of any kind, whether it be ones that 'cartoonify' your photo, or ones that let you build a cartoon likeness from a library of individual features. Free Avatar Maker falls into the latter category and can be used for making head and shoulder cartoon avatars. While it doesn't have an extensive library of character features (you may struggle to get a good likeness), uniquely it will make your avatar in four different art styles concurrently, allowing you to save the one you like most, or even all four. I wasn't overly impressed how my TET avatar looked in the first two styles, but style three is quite possibly the coolest looking version of my avatar I've ever seen in a third party avatar creator. It's a very contemporary style. Style four, line art, is also not too bad. Avatar Maker's User Interface. Switch between the four different art styles shown across the top at any time. I particularly like the

Make Disney/Pixar Style Characters with Reallusion's Character Creator and Toon Figure Bases

The Extraordinary Tourist Classic Coat outfit created using Reallusion's Toon Designer for CC3. I've talked before how I've wanted to get into 3D Disney/Pixar style character animation since I first saw the animated cutscenes for the very first Tomb Raider game back in 1996. It's why I initially bought Reallusion's iClone 3D studio app as soon as I could afford a computer that would run it. But then Reallusion released their 3D Character Creator (CC) for iClone and I wanted to create my characters with that (and I did try with Bat Storm ). But the focus of CC was realism, even with ToKoMotion's stylised body morphs . Now with Reallusion's Cartoon Designer bundle for CC3 which features two packs, Toon Figures , and Toon Hair , designing Disney/Pixar style 3D characters just got a whole lot quicker. The two packs are the bare essentials for creating Toon style characters. Five body morphs (2 male, 2 female, and one adolescent body morph that w

Can You Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 for Free Using Their 137 Official YouTube Video Tutorials Sorted Into a Logical Learning Order?

Or you could just buy The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator . While Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is one of the easiest 2D animation studios to get up and running with quickly, learning it from all of the official, free, video tutorials can be more overwhelming than helpful. With more than 137 videos totaling more than 28 and a half hours of tutorials, spread across three generations of the software (Cartoon Animator 3 through 5) it's hard to know if what you're learning is a current or legacy feature that you either need to know or can be skipped. Many of the official tutorials only teach specific features of the software and don't relate at all to previous or later tutorials. As a result there are many features either not mentioned or are hard to find. To make your learning easier, on this page, I've collected together all of the essential, official, free video tutorials and sorted them into a learning order that makes sense. Simply start at

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

Moho 14 Released - Still the Best 2D Animation Software for Indy Animators on a Budget

Moho 14 Released. Regular readers know I am a Reallusion, Cartoon Animator advocate through and through. Hands down I would recommend Cartoon Animator 5 first over Lost Marble's Moho 14 to anyone who is just starting in 2D animation, is a team of one, or just needs to animate as quickly as possible. However, feature for feature, Moho is, arguably, the best 2D animation software for the rest of us who can't justify a Toon Boom Harmony , or Adobe Creative Cloud subscription (and even with their applications Moho is very competitive on features). You can get started with Moho Debut for just USD$59.99 which is a cut down version of Moho Pro but it still has the most essential features needed for 2D animation. While Moho Pro is a whopping USD$399.99 (Cartoon Animator, which only has one version, is just USD$149.00) upgrades to new version numbers come down to a quarter of the price at USD$99.00. Even though Reallusion just released features like Motion Pilot Puppet Animation and

Artbreeder - Using AI created Character and Background Content in your Animations

A selection of User/AI generated images from Artbreeder. If you're looking for an endless supply of 2D character and background images for your animations then Artbreeder , an online Artificial Intelligence (AI) that generates image mash-ups you can tweak as much as you like, could be the ultimate content library. What is Artbreeder? Artbreeder is free to use though there are various paid plans, that give you additional features, such as higher resolution download images or more settings to play with. All images created on the site are Public Domain (CC0 License) and can be used in commercial projects. Using Artbreeder's online app you can generate head shot portraits, full body characters, landscapes, and other scenes simply by choosing two or more existing images to mash together then, using a series of sliders, to select which traits from each image you wish to lean toward in the final image. Photo Comparison - Top is my original uploaded photo. Bottom is Artbreeder's ap

Reallusion Releases Cartoon Animator 5 - One Version, More Features, Lower Price!

If you're serious about producing 2D animation as quickly as possible, while still achieving professional results, Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 makes the most compelling case yet as your animation studio/tool of choice. Cartoon Animator's point of difference has always been its ease of use and accelerated workflow. Creating fast, 2D animation using puppet, bone rigged based characters and props, on a stage with 3D depth for easy scene parallax effects. As it has developed Reallusion has incorporated more advanced features like motion capture for both face and body as well as being able to export scenes to post production tools like After Effects with the addition of plugins. After moving away from Flash based vector image support for a few years, Reallusion is back with full .SVG (scalable vector graphics) support for resolution independent graphics. They've also added Spring Dynamic physics and Full Form Deformation tools, both of which make it ridiculously easy t

Animation and Video Life

Search This Blog