Skip to main content

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.

Popular posts from this blog

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

TimeBolt: Fast Video Editing for Anyone Creating Online Courses, Podcasts, or Vlogs.

I resisted making tutorial videos for a long time because I don't like editing. Specifically I don't like editing me teaching as I step students through a process during a screen record. I have a tendency to insert long pauses not just in the middle of sentences but between multiple words in the middle of sentences as my pace matches what I'm doing onscreen. This makes for very long and very slow paced video tutorials. To counteract this I have to edit out all the pauses. This can take hours, or even days on particularly long tutorials. For example, when I created my main course, The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator , I literally injured the thumb on my right hand, operating my mouse, as I spent weeks taking out all my pauses (seriously, I had to wear a thumb brace for a few weeks to fix the pain). Recently I came across TimeBolt , a very affordable, fast editing application with the featured purpose of removing all the pauses from your video (and even

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

KIT Scenarist - Free, Open Source, Screenwriting Software that Helps Research Your Ideas Too

KIT Scenarist Script Writing Software's Mascot, Alexander Cat. While you can write a script in any word processing app, if you're writing stories (screenplays) that feature characters and dialogue, a dedicated script writing app can save a lot of time formatting, letting you focus more on the actual story. Script writing apps are also very useful if you plan to send your screenplays out to production companies, or if you're collaborating with actors and other production people, who are used to scripts being in a particular standard format.  [Note: In case you're wondering there are reasons scripts follow a standard format and are always written in Courier (typewriter) font, including but not limited to; being easy to read by actors, plenty of space for notes, and the general rule that one page of a script (in this format) equals approximately one minute of screen time.] KIT Scenarist , in my opinion, is one of the best script writing apps out there for ease of use, simp

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

AE Juice - Animation Presets, Motion Graphics, Templates, Transitions for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Other Video Applications

Level up you video edits and animations with AE Juice's motion graphics and templates. Some days you just don't have the time to create flashy motion graphics for your latest video or animation. For some of us it's more a question of our own artistic abilities being a little less than the awesome we'd like them to be. Whatever reason a resource like AE Juice's animation presets, motion graphics, templates, and transitions packs for After Effects , Premiere Pro , and other video applications can really make your work stand out very quickly. AE Juice gives you access to an instant library of free, premade content elements and sound effects, which you can add to with additional purchases of various themed packs from their store. There are three ways to manage their content, all of which can be used in commercial projects . The AE Juice Standalone Package Manager makes it easy to browse previews of all your pack contents and to download and find just the elements yo

Murf.ai - Text to Speech, AI enabled, Real People, Online Voice Generator and Video Studio Editor

Most of us are not talented enough to perform verbal gymnastics with our voices, easily imitating people of different ages, genders, races etc. Which is real problem for solo animators with little to no budget. How do you voice multiple characters in your animations? Developments in human sounding, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Text to Speech (TTS) voices is making them an increasingly viable and affordable alternative to hiring real actors (or convincing family or friends to help out). Murf.AI is an extremely impressive online, AI voice generation service that sounds like real people. Not just a TTS service, their online studio offers a range of tools that include editing and adding AI voices to entire video projects, converting your own recorded audio to an AI voice, and uploading scripts to be converted into AI voices, and more. A selection of the 120+ available voices. Within Murf's studio you get up to 120+ AI voices in 20+ languages, as well as a library of royalty free musi