CApruzzese

Software render of Fortunato. I think I made the right call using animal and not human characters this time around.

I am sure you are right. I don't have the cash to invest in these things anymore so I just try to get the most out of what I have and I honestly like the results in the standard renderer. Physical render has some nice features but it was slower. I think... not sure, that many of the third party renderers are faster and more accurate. I do motion blur and depth of field in post to save time. I think if my work was more photo real I would make the render engine a high priority.

The standard C4D render... I know it's not popular but I like it and have learned to maximize well enough to save a lot of time tendering. I find playing with the lights can get me along way to a nice image in the standard render.

Even though I plan on just using V19, I do like to see where C4D is going. The UV updates are LONG overdue and look very user friendly totally in keeping with what I love about using Cinema as an artist. Some of the other stuff seems a little light for how I use the software, the viewport enhancements are welcome but still not nearly enough.

set pieces

Fortunato I wanted a large contrast between him and Montresor. hope it's not too large a contrast. Rigging was more straightforward with this one as his only "extra" feature is that his hat has dynamics added so the top parts will jiggle as he moves.

I have made headway, finally, on my new gothic horror animation - Edgar Allen Poe's Cask fo Amontilado. The sets are built for the most part and the characters designed. This one, Montresor is now rigged. I really wanted to have cloth simulated robes but I still can't get that to work without serious intersections of the meshes. I tried the C4D cloth and Particles cloth. I ended up on my old standby, surface deformer and a little jiggle deformer. Rigged with Cactus Dan's tools. I strayed from the character look I've had for the last 8 films and went with anthropomorphic animal characters. Fortunato will be a guinea pig. Montresor is based on plague doctors from the black plague era.

I have to agree.... there is something creepy about them and to think at the time we thought they were so cool and real looking!

I am using Affinity Publisher almost exclusively now. A client uses a 12 year version of Quark and insists I use that - please kill me. I started with an amiga program called "Pagestream" in the 80s which I think they still make somehow!

Animation nodes will be on my list of things to learn. I use Mograph quite a bit so I'll need to replace some of that functionality. I started 3D with something called Turbo Silver pro on the amiga in the 80s, then went to Lightwave and finally to C4D. I have a feeling I'll be missing programs to do things more and more as I get better in blender.. X particles is hard to beat and I love cactus dan's rigging tools.

I have been thinking of learning blender for 10 years and this is the farthest I have got, and it's not so bad now with the new interface. I can not afford C4D anymore and I will hold onto V19 for the next few years and learn Blender the meantime. I have over 80 plugins in c4d and I use most of them quite a bit. It's a huge investment and another reason I stopped upgrading. I am a big believer in doing the best you can with what you have. Blender being free makes it easier to just take my time and learn it until Cinema stops working one day. The studio I worked with for a TV show is also thinking of changing Blender, they don't want a subscription software and C4D is just too expensive for the upgrades they put out for them. I have been graphic design as well for over 30 years and know Quark (ugh), Indesign and now Affinity Publisher so learning another 3d program as a back up seems fine to me.

I will have to get used to the modifier keys in Blender, which was one of the reason I never learned it before to be honest. I am drag and drop kind of guy at heart. If I had money to invest and it looked like blender was about to be my main 3D software soon, I think e-cycles would be high on the list. You are so right about the add-on being overwhelming... its amazing and intimidating!

I tried both cpu and gpu. I also don't use C4D physical renderer much because it is just too slow for me as well. I am not going for realism as a rule so the standard render engine works really well for me and I know how to optimize it to get what I want. I didn't use the Denise setting but I bet you are right they would save a good amount of time. Cycles is, without a doubt a good render engine and a great deal. I sort of was thinking it is faster on C4d than in blender because Insydium does an amazing job on everything they work with. Seems like that might be right. Evee is perfectly good for a lot of things but pretty inaccurate as final render, but accuracy isn't always the thing you are looking for in every project.

I finally put some time into Blender to see how the new version stacks up to C4D on a small test animation. I made everything in blender but did do a pass with some motion blur in After Effects as well. It was much easier than before to learn but that's not saying it's easy... just better than before. I have 20+ years in Cinema so it's not going to be easy to figure out by comparison. I did get something accomplished though and that's something. Cycles is pretty slow! I'll be using C4D and my 80+ plugins for it in the near future for most things but there is potential with Blender. My blog post on the subject

I will be 100% honest... I have no idea what Tarkov is or what he wanted this for. This is what he wanted so it's done. I did not want to go crazy with details especially as it was already a 5 hour render. As for the dog... thanks for being so kind and sharing your story as well. Watson, who died recently was all love and fun and not sick so I was not even remotely prepared to have him die in my arms after a morning walk. My grandmother warned before she died that there is no pain like the pain of losing your dog. I agree.

He is stuck home from university because of the apparent Zombie Apocalypse and asked me to do this for him. I have been working slowing on a new Poe animation but my dog died suddenly in my arms 2 weeks ago and frankly, I have been too depressed and sad to be very creative. I have to make 2 characters and am just stumped on ow to proceed so this was at least something to get me thinking about 3D again.

This is pretty interesting stuff! I am not a huge fan of motion capture but it certainly has it's uses and really saves time on production. making it simple and amiable to all is great idea.

Done... this was hard one to get through, mostly because of the sad memories but also 15 locations and more real looking human characters. I don't know any musicians anymore so I had to resort to old clips from my collection when I used Soundtrack Pro. I went for a more cinematic look especially with all the cycling shots.

I really like it! Will Iftars work on older versions of C4D or just new ones? (I use V19).

Another quick update. The cyclist is in his hotel room after a long day's ride. I wanted it to be dark, sort of lonely and the TV and what is on it will show up in the next scene which takes place in the past. I didn't want the light for the TV to be too harsh and since there is a cinematic element to the res tooth film I thought some extra grain for the ow light situation would look appropriate.

I didn't think about it, but this is my second poem in a row! The Raven, now this. Michael Keamy, the narrator has wanted to do this for a long time and I think the animation worked out. Maybe I should try more? Might be interesting!

That is good to know, I don't have nudity often... this might be the first time but it does come up time to time. I use the standard render engine with C4D, I actually like it. I have used physical redness in the pass, especially before I started doing motion blur and depth of field in post. As for getting Redshift or Octane, I simply don't have the money for anything like that. While I get into festivals, I don't get much paid work for 3D since the last few years and when I do, it's been poorly paid stuff I take to stay afloat. I have thought of getting Cycles, but it seems weird to pay for that when I also am starting to use Blender which has Cycles include for free!

I took a break from my 25 year later project to do this for someone else. I won't post the finished video here because there is some nudity in it and I am pretty sure that is against the rules here! For those who are still curious you can see the animation and my post about it on my blog: http://behemothmedia.blogspot.com/2020/01/28-young-men-animation.html It's pretty different from my gothic horror and cartoon stuff and I used some techniques I had not tried before, the ocean water for example. Michael Keamy, who this project was for also had a specific place in mind as it was going to be shot live action at first so I went to that place and had video and photo references to work from which I think added to the overall finished look. The Poem is from famous writer Walt Whitman about lonely woman imagining she is among the young bathers she watches them cavorting on the beach near her house. It's deeper than that but that's the basic idea.

Thanks! I sent it in by the post but stye haven't signed for it yet. Makes me nervous!

I bought it! It's pretty good and it fills a hole in my C4D workflow that I was looking fill for years. It is not perfect in every circumstance, of course, but it's really useful.