Video test of my Galactica bridge...

[martok2112]

Here is a visual pan and slight tour of the bridge of my Galactica. This is generally a demo, so yes, there are a few little visual hiccups here and there...LOL! But, I think this turned out alright.

[Titon]

That's lookin pretty cool there Steve!

[martok2112]

Thanks, Don.

[BST]

Nice work, amigo!!

[martok2112]

Muchos danke, mein ami.

[Apolloisall]

Steve, awesome work! Views of the bridge we've never seen before!
Nice.
Hmmm... female Viper pilots...

[martok2112]

Thank you, Apolloisall. I'm glad you liked the dynamic nature of the shot.
Oh yes, plenty o' female Viper pilots.
The one who was traversing the forward area of the bridge was Sheba (based on the likeness of Eliza Dushku-- Faith, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.... 'cept I made her a dirty blonde. ) Athena is based on Ellen Page (Kitty Pryde from Xmen III....or more recently, the chick from Inception).

[Apolloisall]

Originally Posted by martok2112

The one who was traversing the forward area of the bridge was Sheba (based on the likeness of Eliza Dushku-- Faith, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.... 'cept I made her a dirty blonde. ) Athena is based on Ellen Page (Kitty Pryde from Xmen III....or more recently, the chick from Inception).

Your technical design & execution expertise is equaled only by your finer feminine aesthetics.
Seriously, I was very impressed by the character movement, slight hiccups aside.

[martok2112]

Thank you most kindly. Yes, Eliza and Ellen are hotties. (The new character I'll introduce in the story, Lt. Shaen, is based on Natalie Portman.) The characters operating controls, yes, those were home made animations by yours truly. The walking animations were already available in iClone.

[Goliath]

This is great.Good work!^^

I like it

[Apolloisall]

Originally Posted by Goliath

This is great.Good work!^^

I like it

Yeah, Steve rocks, eh?
And BTW, welcome to the Fleets, Goliath!!!

[martok2112]

Thank you, Goliath, and thanks again, Apolloisall. And welcome to the Fleets.

[martok2112]

Here is a visual pan and slight tour of the bridge of my Galactica. This is generally a demo, so yes, there are a few little visual hiccups here and there...LOL! But, I think this turned out alright.

[Thunderstruck]

That was quite good, impressive.

have to ask you, what how you did the characters?



I used to use old w3d models I had and the animations for them but, sadly I cannot use them anymore, the tools for them do not work anymore and could not figure out why.

I used to green screen them into video and it worked well, were Good human and character models and tons of animations for them.

Curious how and what you did to make these?

Regards,

[martok2112]

Howdy, QH.

The base characters for male and female are already in iClone. It was a matter of making sure I selected the right body type mesh (for male...casual, for female...bodysuit).

Each mesh is usually consisted of an upper and lower body. In order to make the clothes, I had to export the upper/lower body meshes into Photoshop (although you can use other photo editors as well...such as MSPAINT or even GIMP--GIMP recommended if you do not have Photoshop). For the warriors' uniform jackets, I was able to take an image of a fan-made Colonial Warrior jacket, and position it onto the upper body mesh. Witness the result, a pretty authentic looking jacket for my virtual warriors. The tunic and pants (pants for lower body mesh) I hand drew with Photoshop. After making all the adjustments, I saved them as .jpg files so that they can be imported onto the upper/lower body meshes. (I had to do this for both male and female separately, for build reasons.)

Hair is also available in iClone. So, I just had to select certain hair types for the characters. (I'm thinking about seeing how to fashion my own in Blender.)

As for face-morphing...well....that's fun. iClone has the ability to take images of faces, and graft them onto the heads of your virtual characters. I was able to get good, front-on images of Eliza Dushku, Natalie Portman, Ellen Page, and graft them onto Sheba, Shaen, and Athena respectively. The faces are key-frame animated, and can even do lip-synching (either with sound files --.wav preferred, text to speech, or recording your own voice onto the scene).

iClone is very versatile as a character creator, and there's even an online service that (for a price) allows you to create even better detailed characters.

The characters are pre-rigged for animation, and there are TONS of animations (some available automatically in iClone, some available at the Reallusion content store, and you can also custom-make your own animations.) Animations such as operating the bridge controls were made by me. Other animations like walking were default animations available with the app.

I can also create neato overlay effects on the characters. If you noticed, the guy who went to check out the scan of the Cimtar class moon, I made his face look as if it were reflecting some of the readout screen (ala ALIENS or CLOSE ENCOUNTERS of the THIRD KIND).

[Thunderstruck]

okay, that is one of the best descriptions
thank you


Now I got to go and get iclone lol

have heard of it, maybe seen a few vidz of its use.
along with Daz 3d. So it helps to get info.
Seeing how this 3d Gfx fling for me is not going to go away LOL


Doing a char in C4d , well, is to actually model one, rig it,

It can also do hair and clothes, but this stuff is for Professionals,

But the results can be stunning and so realistic.

I always imagine that the CG Yoda in Star Wars with his Cloak flying round was done with C4d. Due to the Cloth Engine,Dynamics,
C4d is Unreal if you can learn all of its Modules and be good at all aspects --Not recommended for a beginner but I did


is fairly easy to learn how to use, but gets bogged by all its power ,abilities and uses. But I would not turn it in ever, I love it. It also has some default human meshes (unrigged) and still trying to learn how to get it right for use. Also, it can be setup with controllers to do any all animation, from facial to running using
like grab bars and a cappuchino to animate in real time by auto KF all elements, but am not that far into it

Maybe why am afraid to try new apps.
1. Disrupt my learning curve of C4d
2. will take me years to grasp and learn all that it can do (if not decades)

But since your reply , I think I will try iclone before Daz3d or IPP
and check it out. Really want to add chars to vidz, and since losing ability to use the Old w3d models,animations from a game i had
(crying) I cannot. and they were pretty decent ones too with good skins that I could change also in Photoshop.

hey here is an example of one of them I used. I re skinned her
into some lace stockings and underwear.

1. here was the released skin of her for game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVkAP3CRP8U

Bet you would like that in your vidz LOL j-k



2. in A full Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpnVpCmWu_Y

was not a lot of animation use but it worked for the video


If you dont mind also, what did you use to create the scene,set, was it 3d app,models or did you do that also with iclone??

Thanks regards,

[borjis]

Originally Posted by Queenhunter

I always imagine that the CG Yoda in Star Wars with his Cloak flying round was done with C4d.

Maya Unlimited & Renderman with lots of custom scripting.

[martok2112]

QH, consider iClone as a sort of "entry level" character and model animation tool....a very good one to be sure. There are people who get even greater results out of their use with iClone than I do...and I consider myself to be pretty decent at it.

iClone has a pretty robust demo you can download at their store, or you can buy the latest version of Magix Movie Edit Pro, and it usually comes with a demo of the latest iClone for free. You can do a surprising amount of stuff with the iClone demo.

And the app itself is relatively inexpensive compared to other 3D apps. Around 150-250 bucks (depending on if you get the standard or pro editions.) I went with the PRO edition.

iClone, if you think about it, is really more "machinima", but it's a machinima you can control....since machinima is generally taking video games and making the characters act, largely in multiplayer set ups. iClone is "one man operation" machinima. You can make the characters do just about anything you can imagine.

I would not recommend iClone for complex model building...it's really just not that app.


Here's what I would recommend, QH.

-iClone (latest version) PRO. (150-250 bucks)

-3DEXchange (which is a program that allows you to convert 3DS and .obj models for use in iClone. (Probably about another 150 dollars there...but well worth it). You can also convert iClone made objects into .obj files for altering in external 3D apps.

-Blender (free, yet very powerful 3D modeling, animation, and game making application.) That's what I build my ships, and some of my sets and all of my props with.


That's my set up anyways.

[borjis]

iclone and 3dexchange (i think) are both currently on sale at cornocopia3d