A little earlier tonight I sat through a number of motion graphics examples.. I was expecting to get a lot of eye candy wow-ness.. and while I got a bit of that.. I was left with a feeling of.. being utterly unimpressed with much of what I saw, which probably relates to the problems and issues I’ve been talking about, in my last 2 posts, on the subject of digital story telling. That said.. I did come away rather inspired.

I feel like.. as far as creative possibilities are concerned, the medium of 3D and motion graphics.. is powerful as all hell… The trouble, at least as near as I can tell.. is nobody is really doing it right..  Wow, what an arrogant statement.. well forgive me.. if you’re one of the folks doing it right.. I know.. it’s a little bit of an over statement.

But.. I’m also talking as a fine artist.. I’m also talking about the potential of the medium.. at least as I see it.. and anyway, I wanted to start to talk about some of what has me inspired.. talk about what I’m dreaming in this moment.. that kinda thing.

Dreams

The cost of the dreams 

It strikes me that anything is possible. In this simple statement.. in this feeling that anything is possible.. in there.. the god’s sing.. the music of the spheres.. just waiting for an artist to hear.. and there tail to be retold. Can you hear it?

When we talk about film making.. when the conversation turns to special effects, 3D graphics, motion graphics.. we often talk about how expensive it is. That expense would, at least in large measure, seem to be an effect of what the designers in this area are able to command salary wise.. even with a lot of work being outsourced to India.

Of all the art forms I’m interested in, there is no doubt that 3D and motion graphics is the most expensive areas. Cinema 4D, which I’m using.. retails for between $3 and $4K… After Effects is now going for around $1K, Final Cut Studio is around $1.3K, last I checked.. and there are many other tools.. plus one needs a super fast and powerful computer.. and having many computers to form a render farm.. is a nice idea..  If one is shooting video as a part of it.. pro cameras are several grand.. lighting rigs probably start at around a grand.. MoCap is more then I even want to start thinking about.. the gear to pull keys is more money… 

So just to get the tools to start learning the stuff is like.. prohibitively expensive..  or at the very least, investing in them takes a major commitment.. and then you’ll be faced with a ridiculously steep learning curve! So all of this “might” have something to do with why it’s as expensive as it is…

But lets just say you’re crazy like Matt.. and you’re like “screw it, I’ll invest in it cause I have a big dream,” now the economics are a little different. Now the economics are.. well once you’ve bought the equipment, the only real expense is the time you have to put into the work.. and arguably the regular expense of upgrades.

Of course Matt is even madder then all that! Cause I mean.. I’m also doing the sound studio stuff! The web design stuff? Yeah.. I have issues!

Ok, so implications of these here economics

So.. much like the lizard king, you can do anything..

A bit latter:

Anything seems like a worthwhile topic for meditation.. though anything might not be real. The topic of technical limitations comes to mind… limitations of skills.. as well as limitations of time… and there are still some limitations to my studio… but.. there is still, given all that, many vectors of limitlessness… 

There are lots of little ideas.. many of which have been formed over the course of.. well many years really. I have all sorts of “strategic communications” ideas… relative to the question of how to relate to the market place.. well, lets explore these..

A few days latter:

Little ideas

I think what I really want to do is create “audio visual experiences.” I put it this way because putting it any other way seem to have a certain amount of bagged to it.. it suggests certain things… that “audio visual experience” does not. 

I, of course, am a sound artist.. I kind of think being a sound artist is a huge advantage for a digital film maker.. type.. because you’re able to think holistically.. sound could be central, visual aesthetics could be central, the “art-ness” could be central, dialog could be central, a plot could be central.. and what is central, at any given moment, could shift.. and you really only have the ability to work this way if you are fluent in all these parts..

So audio wise I want to create an experience. There’s a lot of ideas I have that are unlike anything I’ve ever heard before, as a part of some sort of film.. so all these things must be explored.. along with.. just creating an amazing sonic experience.

3D

The impression I’m getting about 3D is that It’s really more about design then production. Every element.. it pays to do research for.. and its all about paying a serious amount of attention to detail.. and it might even be that I can get great results.. nearly coming out of the gate.. if I’m willing to put in the work on the research and design front.. along with a little exploration here and there…

Planning

It’s all about planning! My way of thinking about it is.. you start out with an idea and you develop the hell out of it… work everything out.. from how the sound might work, to how the plot works, the story…. all this stuff, and really refine it.. take it to an extreme.. but then, at that point.. well at a certain point.. be willing to just improvise and explore.. 

 Day latter:

 I’m thinking I need to just post this so I can go on to the next post.. I’m thinking this should be called memoirs of a meditation on digital story telling.. for the simple reason that it seems more like a record of a meditation then anything… 

I’m in this strange mode of meditations on digital story telling… I am driving into this arena after all…

I’m a strange bird, for this there can be no doubt, and so it is that when I approach anything, seems to not matter what, I can’t seem to escape a certain contrarianism.. This is apparently my little cross to bare.. as it seems to have been an issue for me, at least.. since the age of 3… So it’s hard not to think “well, I guess this was God’s idea of a joke on the world” or at the very least it’s sorta a “vocational” thing, maybe.. You ever feel this way? Well… lets explore this as it pertains to story telling.

I have this strange belief that we are all in a constant process of having these little unconscious conversations with each other.. or that there is constant unconscious communication going on.. If you don’t quite believe me.. try taking LSD sometime.. err, I better explain that one, ha?

LSD has a way of giving everything a luminous, numinous, glow. As near as I can gather, from my limited knowledge of neuroscience, psychedelics like LSD essentially create a kind of state of “brain damage,” inside of which the.. lets call it cognitive process.. of attributing causation to stuff..  produces a kind of meta consciousness experience. This, of course, would seem to expose certain structural elements of the psyche to the conscious mind.. so that we have a kind of waking dream experience.. inside of which we can explore our subjective relationship to empirical reality. LOL, boy, doesn’t that sound technical?

Reality.. well it’s something we “experience.” In philosophy and science we often try to understand reality in a way that is like a god’s eye view.. it is a way of looking that is in search of objectivity.. of verifiability.. a way of looking that would seem to be emancipated from human experience.. at least in it’s goals.. The troubles with this are many fold.. not the least of which is that we never experience reality without our “experience” of it. Inside this experience.. is our own “subjective” view point. Here in lys the value of some understanding of psychology in.. well life. 

One idea I developed once upon the time was an idea I called “the order of revelation.” The idea is.. in a world of infinite facts.. infinite ways one could come to understand something.. we only experience a limited portion of that totality.. and the “order of revelation” has to do with the order in which this stuff dawns on the conscious mind. The “order” determines “the shape” of our understanding. The order of revelation is thus the expression of the subjective on our experience of objective reality.

What shapes this order of relations is a complex of factors.. we can influence the order by means of prayer, ritual, and “magick.” Archtypes, as we learn from Jungian psychology, are what makes up the structure of consciousness and the psyche… and so the meta consciousness experience of psychedelics.. the numinous nature of them.. is about this.. and thus the connection to the order of revelation.. and the reason why so many people associate psychedelics with notions of enlightenment.

Ok.. enough of this craziness, how does this relate to the subject of digital story telling?

As I was saying before.. there is this thing I’m terming “unconscious communication.” In my last post.. (which as of this writing I haven’t posted) I spoke of the notion of “ambient story telling” which.. essentially points to this concept. We could look at this simply on the level of “what are the unconscious cues” we get as we go about.. life, from our experience of… whatever. When we get “a feeling in our gut” or.. have a feeling about something that we are unable to quite articulate.. simply have a feeling about something.. or… perhaps an intuition.. this is what we are reacting to.

The lie detector test.. which measures biometrics in relationship to questions, is a means of detecting certain types of unconscious communications… The conscious mind is giving you one story, while the biometrics is giving you another. And so it is that the world of “non verbal communication” is an incredibly nuanced world. There are simple things about.. how you’re talking.. word choices, spaces between words.. tempo of words, pitch of words, varying amplitude and volume between words.. words, phrases, sentences.. the body language as this happens.. where the eyes move.. all sorts of little, itty bitty things… are expressing stuff.

Inside of this expression, interestingly enough.. we find the imprint, on everything, of the shape of that there order of revelation…

So, before.. in that last post.. talking about a painter versus design approach to media arts.. in talking about communications versus expression.. perhaps art versus design.. all of this kind of thing.. is about this sorta thing.

So.. that 3D graphics.. and motion graphics, is largely dominated by the design process.. as a pose to a painters process.. that what we are seeing is so much about conscious design.. means that the story telling of medium are more limited to the surface then.. might be.. ideal.

Next day sometime:

Hmm, perhaps I should post this.. and skip on to the next entry on this subject.

Few days latter:

Ok, I’m really going to post this 

I like the idea of trying to get into the habit of posting everyday.. so lets see if we can’t get back into that swing.

Today I was contacted by a PR women. I had mentioned After Effects in a tweet… which was enough for her to go to the trouble of getting my email from the background image.. and message me about a PR campaign she was doing for Intel, which looks to be an ongoing series of.. kinda like motion graphics contests… and she wanted to know if I was interested, or if I might pass it on to others.

If you’re a regular reader you no doubt know that right now I’m focused on trying to develop some proficiency with with Cinema 4D… which is to say fairly high end ish 3D graphics. While I have other projects to attend to.. in general.. it would seem to me that to participate in the Intel project would require a shift of focus… which is a bit like.. you get the ball rolling and then you leave it.. and now how long is it going to take you to get that back in motion?

That said.. what I’m really looking to develop is a whole set of skills.. you render stuff out of Cinema.. you bring it into After Effects or Motion.. where you perhaps have other assets.. eventually this probably ends up in Final Cut.. and eventually render out as a final project. Inside of this scheme you might shoot video.. you might do a lot of things.. So.. moving from a pure 3D focus to a motion graphics focus.. where 3D is but one element.. doesn’t really seem like that bad an idea.

In any event I was inspired enough to go visit my local book store and pick up a couple of magazines I’d been eyeing: A UK digital arts type magazine has a motion graphics special edition this month.. and this month we also see the first launch issue of a magazine called gomotion. I didn’t buy these magazines before on account of how pricy they are.. the total was $34, but.. with all this on my mind.. it seemed like the thing to do.

Gomotion

Gomotion costs $20.. which seems to me outrageously over priced..  but, at least superficially, I must say it’s a very impressive magazine. A lot of 3D magazines are over priced.. and there’s a general feeling of immaturity about them.. or.. there not quite big enough.. but Gomotion is, in fact, rather kick ass…

What I’m digging about Gomotion is as follows: I’m in the process of giving myself a basic 3D education.. at the moment this is via the DVD based video tutorials that came with Cinema 4D. These tutorials don’t really cover all the bases of the software.. they’re basically enough to get you going… I’m only about half way through the main general course.. I’ve learned about modeling, I’m on to pre texture mapping stuff..

Bouncing around in the back of my head is past information I’ve gathered on the subject of 3D.. at one point I read a mega huge book on 3D Studio Max.. from time to time I pick up copies of special effects trade magazines.. and who knows what.. Most of this information exists in my brain on an almost unconscious level, and reflects a state of technology that is.. old fashion compared to where stuff is at today… which I’m only now getting to appreciate.

Gomotion.. has a lot of articles that are.. actually probably not bad for someone as clueless as I am.. I just read an article on character creation.. and strangely enough it conformed perfectly to certain preconceptions I’m starting to evolve as I try and work out what I want to do.. and when you see what other 3D artists wrestle with.. hear what a more advanced person perceives as the challenges.. it gives you a lot of perspective on how to approach your forward movement..  

The Current State of Matt’s 3D Plans:

There is, of course, the basic business of getting up to speed on the basics… which is really nothing more then the 101 of the tools.. the projects will take us to the next level in the other areas..  

The real project is to come up with some ideas for animated shorts.. What kind of stories do I want to tell? What kind of a challenge is it going to be to develop really good craft when it comes to story telling? I’m not totally sure what my story telling process will look like.. as I have influences coming from strange directions.. But I suppose the first thing is simply to work out what I want to explore.. write something like a script.. and then work out story boards… and from there..

Well we need to embark on a project of designing characters, sets, objects, and what have you.. that make sense for the story we want to tell…

The trouble, as I see it.. are two fold.. or perhaps one fold: There are two viable approaches as I conceive of it… one is that of the painter, the other is that of the designer. The painter process is exploratory.. it’s an adventure.. we perhaps don’t even bother with starting with a script.. we’ll find the story as we go along.. The designer process is the one where we start with a script and move onto story boards….  and blah blah blah.

So there’s a tension between these two approaches.. and the question really is.. how do we integrate them… and I think the question becomes most significant when we look at questions like.. what might we do in a 3D graphics program versus what we might do in a program like After Effects.

Indeed After effects is an interesting problem.. in that it offers the possibility of very strange work flows.. where in 3D we are purely dealing with the 3D world.. in After Effects we can deal with anything.. from photographs, still images, the rendered 3D stuff, 2D computer graphics, video… various sorts of special effects.. compositing… etc. Stuff is fairly endless.

 A few latter, now over tired, resigned to the fact that this wont get posted tonight:

Thoughts on story telling

Story telling strikes me as an amazingly rich and complex subject.. one that.. is no easy art to master.

Lets take the actor. What is good acting, or how does one act well? That’s a complex subject that can take a lifetime to master… Acting is, after all, story telling.. a part of how we tell stories.

I was trying to get to this idea of the tension between a painter versus a designer’s approach to media making.. I stepped away from writing to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.. when I was struck by something..

3D Graphics is an amazingly formalist medium.. Everything in it.. was put there on purpose, consciously.. where as with film.. we are in the world of happy accidence… I’m reminded by something David Lynch said.. about how if you go in someone’s house.. say there bedroom.. you’re amazed at what you find.. because its nothing like anything any production designer could have ever thought of.. so here we see it again.. the difference between.. something like the conscious mind of design, versus the unconscious dialectics of painting.

And then I’m reminded of Tom Wolfe.. Mr Wolfe writes what he calls “new journalism” where in he goes out and makes fiction based off of a kind of journalistic process.. because.. how could you ever writet dialog like.. well like real people speak?

I keep thinking about this.. how does the way a real person speak.. what does this tell us about that person? What does the way a real bedroom looks.. what does that tell us about the person.. To some extent you might think of this as “ambient story telling” in the sense that we are talking about little nuances.. which somehow have something to do with something.. that could somehow be a part of how we might tell a story.. but they also contain a certain extraneous possibility… or at least in how we think of them.. how they might relate to our preconceptions.. which, of course, is the problem of formalism and communication type design. 

When I think of what I want to do.. a part of it is something formalistic.. always a synthesis of this with realism.. and always on the surrealistic side of things.. This idea that the unconscious is exactly what I’m after.. but not exactly as an end in it’s self.. which is perhaps what makes me interesting.. if contrasted with surrealism proper..

In my surrealist spirit.. I tend to think.. well what the hell.. do anything at anytime for any reason at all.. which is to take an anarchic approach, or attitude, towards traditional notions of structure.. and how might I weave such a thing into a story?

As you can no doubt gather.. I have some complex ideas about this subject.. which is perhaps atypical of someone in my beginner shoes..

A post ago I suggested that something like creative brilliance trumps what major studios have as there advantages.. and I suppose what it all comes down to is this.. and story telling.. and if I have brilliance in me.. I imagine it will come from an exploration of these kinds of ideas.. at least as it relates to story telling.. and this kind of animation motion graphics stuff. 

Day or two latter:

Ok, time to post. 

I write so much crap without posting.. recently I’ve written a number of posts on my 3D adventures.. even “finished” at least one, but haven’t yet posted.. I guess I reread it and didn’t like it so much..  so now, its time for a new swing at writing such a post..

High end 3D, which is what I’m calling working with Cinema 3D Studio… is many orders of magnitude more complex then low end 3D.. or.. 3D I’ve done and explored in the past. These orders of magnitude give an almost oceanic feeling to the challenge I must rise to should I wish to actually get so I can.. kinda sorta do anything with the software.

The best way I could describe it is.. you have lots of these.. worlds of technology.. By a world of technology I mean.. stuff to learn.. and to really do much of anything it feels like you need to grasp multiple worlds.. as they are interdependent.. but mostly it seems to be a matter of grasping all the ideas that are a part of basic 3D lingo.. well that and there implementations and…  well lots of stuff. 

At least for the moment.. my strategy for learning this stuff starts with the tutorials that ship with Cinema 4D.. found on DVDs… hours, and hours, and hours of videos. You go through the video, and step by step you do what they tell you to do.. and often at the end of the video I’m not really sure that I’ve REALLY learned the underlying concepts. Where they even trying to teach me the underlying concepts? 

Going through a tutorial means a lot of starting and stopping.. and I’ll often do a tutorial more then once.. slowly I’m getting so that I understand, at least in part, how to use a few tools.. starting to learn some of the basic concepts. But mostly it’s about being willing to bang your head against a wall until eventually you sorta dimly understand something.. and just keep at it.

(can you even believe Randy Rhoad’s started the band? Boy did they go to hell without him, ha?!!!) 

The tutorials, more or less, are like the step by step process by which you create an animated scene.. allow me to give you the overview..

Cinema 4D tutorials.. that ship in the box

Modeling 101 

The first thing you do is model a few objects that go in your scene.. this amounts to 1 park bench, 1 trash can, and 1 light post.. I did these a few months ago so I can’t really give you too many details on this…

Modeling 102 

The next set of tutorials are really the character tutorials.. we build 2 butter flies.. We start with the head, and then move onto the body.. That’s about as far as I’ve gotten in the last week.. and not even that far along in this.

After you’ve build the bodies.. actually one body that will get various added after.. we enter the wonderful world of texture mapping, which is the art by which we give a model color and texture, basically…

Bring in the Texture Maps 

Cinema 4D is a modular 3D program.. so that it’s sorta like having many integrated 3D programs in one.. you can buy them each separately.. and what not.. but I own “Cinema 4D Studio” which is a package that pretty much contains them all.. (read unrealistically complex) In any event.. one of the modules that’s a part of this package is called “Body Paint” which is a special tool for adding texture maps to models.

I’m used to having to do my texture maps the old fashion way.. You open some kind of a paint program, probably photoshop, but I’ve been known to use painter, and you go to town.. you then export.. lets say a jpeg, and attach it to your model inside your 3D program.. This creates a number of painful problems.. like how do you get the model to look like it was painted correctly..  getting things to line up.. and all that. There are ways to approach these sorts of problems.. but Body Paint lets us ignore these problems all together.

I haven’t done the body paint tutorial yet, but I have watched the video. Basically you load up the objects.. and paint / color / add texture maps to the objects. For the most part this is stuff that I feel pretty comfortable with.. but.. you can create multiple “maps” for multiple texture parameters.. like say.. how shinny something it is.. making a map allows you to have varying levels of gloss… as an example.. there’s also our friend the pump map.. which gives the surface a bit of a 3D textural feel to it.. and on and on we go…

Character Rig 

One you’re done hacking away at coloring your models.. we enter the wonderful world of character rigging. Besides the basic tutorial on this subject.. that’s a part of the exercise of building this scene.. Cinema 4D comes with an “expert rigging” type set of tutorials.. of which I’ve watched most. 

Essentially the process of rigging up a model is a process of turning your model into a virtual puppet. You basically build controls into it that allow you to animate the thing around.. so how about some typical stuff..

We build a “bone structure.” You have this kinda “IK” bone chain.. you move one bone.. and all the others move in reaction.. depending on what’s going on in your bone hierarchy.. These bones get attached to your model.. and done in such a way so that you define to what degree this or that bone effects what part of your models geometry.

Of course nothing can be quite that simple.. can it? You have things like “constraints” that effect in what way a bone can move.. or the model geometry can move.. you have these crazy things like… applying physics to your bones.. or.. I’m not even sure what.

My brain is flaking out on some of the terminology but.. there are things you apply to the geometry that are basically like.. if you made the leg move.. this way…  the leg muscle will react in a suitable sorta way.

Next we have things like “morphs” which have everything to do with facial expressions.. getting your model so it can talk, at the animation phase, is about manipulating multiple morphs.. and so it is that in the rigging stage its our job to set up those morphs.

So there’s lots of this sorta thing involved in rigging up a model.

After we’ve rigged up our model we move onto..

Setting up the scene..

So.. we load up a bunch of stuff we didn’t build in the tutorial.. that is just provided for us.. as well as our park bench, trash can, light poles.. and what have you.. and do a little bit of this that and the other thing…  lighting.. 

Seeing as this scene is taking place in a park, we need to concern our selves with the grass..  The grass is made via the magic of Hair Module.. again.. a part of Cinema 4D Studio.. So we learn a little bit about how to do this.. 

Thinking Particles? 

There’s a couple characters that it will be our job to animate running around… or perhaps we are now talking post setting up our scene stage.. and as they run around they kick up dirt… This involves what I guess we could call “nodal programming” while working with particle systems.. it’s fairly basic on that front.. but we do it.. and attach it to the characters feed.. program it so that if the feet go below the ground plane.. they particle system shoots.. and there we go..

Rendering

At the end of this rather long process.. which does include actually animating stuff around.. and blah blah blah.. its finally time to render.. and by rendering we output the product of our scene.. as video.. According to the tutorial.. the scene we’ve made could take as long as a day to render.. which is to say a day where you can’t use your computer. As near as I can tell.. my computer is faster the ones that take a day.. but by how much.. you’re guess is as good as mine.  

Sorta Conclusionary stuff

So its actually a lot more complicated then I’m making it out to seem. The main question is how much head banging is it really going to take.. and.. will I be able to remain focused on the head banging long enough to really get it going? Stay tuned to see…  

Since I got the new MacBook I’ve been obsessed with a new video blogging project. This seems to have come out of the blue.. not that I hadn’t been thinking about video a good deal prior.. but jumping into this like this.. The level of commitment I’m now feeling for it.. the excitement and passion I’m feeling for it.. The feeling of just being possessed by it… that is very surprising to me.

It’s as if God spoke to me and said “Matt, you must start video blogging, you must become a video blogger.” “Well God, that’s a little random, don’t you think?” Of course the trouble with God is.. there’s really no one to turn for for second opinions.. well I suppose there’s always Satan but…

It comes to me like a revelation.. like one day you wake up and you realize “this is what I’m supposed to do,” and though you had thought about it prior.. never did it command you.. . not like this.

What’s brought Matt to this new video blogging project? 

Ok, brace you’re self.. this could get long.

Somehow I always wanted to be a film maker.. since I was little kid… So it should be no surprise that I took some video and film making classes in college.. though.. the equipment at Mass Art, the only state art school in the US, was not capable of.. well I couldn’t do what I wanted to do with it.. so I never really got too into video or film making while there… really only dreamed about it.. though I did take a few film criticism type classes to kinda.. prepare I guess… 

But I can remember hanging out in the dorms.. getting high with some folks.. and telling them how in a few years anyone can own a video camera, the tools to edit it, and how we’d be distributing it via the internet.. imagining that world of possibilities.. and so.. I sorta went in that direction.. with my music, learning web design skills.. etc.

Somehow.. somewhere in there.. perhaps it was a result of my first “real job” as an interactive designer.. I was able to afford a video camera.. I also bought Premier and After Effects. I think I must have been on a G3 that could barely handle it.. it didn’t have a DVD burner, and the hard drive was tiny… so in practice I didn’t do much video.. just played around a bit.. shot video.

I started creating a kind of video library of.. just raw footage.. some of it dating back to the collage years.. with the idea that I’d eventually do something with it.

Sometime latter.. still on that old G4.. I started dating this girl whom.. I fondly refer to as Sue of Zen. Sue was hard of hearing.. needed subtitles to watch tv or films. When she was thinking about getting HBO I saw my opportunity..  ”No, you should get Net Flicks I said… I was thinking “if she needs subtitles to watch films.. she probably will be fine with foreign films.” So.. I conned her into letting me pick the films.. all the great film makers of film history.. for the year or so that we were involved.. I’d see up to 8 films a week.

The effect of Sue of Zen and I watching so many films was.. I became a horrible film snob.. I mean when you watch that many films.. that many of the greatest films ever made.. it’s hard to tolerate the crap!  I haven’t watched films like that since.. and I’ve grown a little more forgiving of Hollywood.. 

Well there was one other effect.. I became a lot more sophisticated about film.

When it came time to buy my Mac Pro.. I was thinking Video Making when I bought it. 8 Cores, a better then standard graphics card, 1.7 or something or other terabytes of space.. go for the 2 24″ HD screens..  etc.. I was even budgeting in professional video cameras and lighting rigs.. . 

But the thing was.. I wasn’t really jumping in head first into the video production stuff.. Hell, I wasn’t doing much of anything.. well, that might be over stating it. 

A few latter: 

Anyway.. so a long story, right? I can’t really get into everything about what I’m up to.. so lets go into what I’m up to at the moment..

Adventures in Apple’s Motion 3D

Motion is a motion graphics program.. that’s sorta 2.5D-ish, that’s a part of Final Cut Studio.  Motion graphics is basically animation with tittle graphics for film and TV.. My approach is basically painting plus the dimension of time… 

So I don’t know Apple’s Motion..  And Apple hasn’t done a real good job with thinking through the learning process… as the manuel is rather sucky. They have a few training videos, but they don’t really get you up to speed.. they just kinda give you a few things.. and from there you just kind of fumble around.

For the last couple days now.. I’ve been doing these little motion graphics projects.. which are perhaps more about learning the software then it is about making great work.. I’m aiming for great work, but who knows if I’ll actually get there.

Still.. I can see the potential…   

A couple days latter (I think):

I’m slowly getting to the point that I kind of understand what’s going on in Motion.. It’s not really that hard to pick up.. though there’s a depth to it that still seems a little out of reach, maybe? Or maybe there’s just a lot of things I figure I ought to be able to do, that it should be able to do.. but I can’t figure out how to do it or even if you can do it.. but then I’m new to the case….I’ve rendered out a number of motion animations.. and.. I have mixed feelings on them.. of course there not exactly meant to stand on there own.. In any event, that I now feel like I’m getting a feel for the program.. my expectations for what I ought to be able to achieve.. is now to start really going up.My latest sets of projects have been to take stuff that I’ve designed in photoshop.. or created in photoshop. In Photoshop these images are constructed with lots of layers.. In motion I take the images of the different layers, and set them up in 3D space.. so the layers now have spatial relationships between them.. and I’ve got a few lights going.. and I’m goofing around with the cameras.. and everything is sorta moving around a little..This really does feel like painting plus the dimension of time… Painting in motion, if you will. Though using this kind of language to talk about it seems to overstate it a little.What I’m doing is very much in keeping with the kinds of stuff I was doing with After Effects those few years back. The After Effects CS4 upgrade is now on my “to get list”.. and I may likely get it rather shortly.. assuming that I continue my video commitment.. 

Motion Graphics / Animation Goals

My plan of attack, technology wise, is to start with Motion.. of course. Eventually I’ll jump into After Effects… of course.. And then, assuming I can get Cinema 4D to run on this computer, well.. there’s that. The first objective, I guess, is to obtain some serious competency with Motion.. and then into After Effects. Cinema 4D I expect to be a giant learning project, and for that.. the goal is simply to get to a point where I’m able to start creating stuff to integrate into this sort of motion graphics / animation pipeline.. as a pose to going all out into 3D animation. What I mean is.. I get the ball rolling with this stuff.. and then just add pieces to it.. a process by which I hope to develop competency with the other stuff.. but real competency with that stuff.. only needs to be at a level determined by this stuff.. if that all makes sense.

Conclusions

I don’t know what will come of all this stuff, but it’s a fun adventure to go on.. and I have laid down the ground work in many ways.. to hopefully do something great.. We’ll see what happens………..

Cinema 4D actually seems approachable to learn… which is sorta amazing if you ask me. A 6 month learning curve? Really? Oh yeah.. I mean I can see that.. but it’s really not a “this is going to take 6 months to get so I can create some great work” sorta situation. Killer work will no doubt take a lot longer then 6 months to achieve.. but..

About Cinema 4D and 3D 

Ok.. maybe I should slow down here.. so as to speak to those who might not know what the hell I’m talking about. I’m talking about a program that goes by the name of Cinema 4D. If you’d like to check it out further.. you can find out more at the Maxon website. Cinema 4D is serious pro level 3D graphics.. It’s the kinda think they those 3D graphics type movies with.. The use it for special effects in TV and movies.. they use it in video games.. etc, etc.. 

Different programs of this class have different levels of penetration into different industries.. As I understand it, Cinema 4D is probably most penetrated into the world of Broadcast TV..

What I want to do… I don’t even know how realistic this really is.. But I want to create work where I’m integrating video and animated elements.. via chroma keying, and what not.. So I want to create 3D worlds.. and animations.. and do this whole sort of thing.

I’m interested in charting new territory in digital film making. Most of this is sorta too complex to go into in detail here.. But I will say that I have a number of ideas that have been gestating for well over 10 years here.

So taking on Cinema 4D….  Assuming I go the Cinema 4D route.. this will be my first serious 3D program. I’ve played with a number of 3D programs in the past, and I’ve gotten good with some of it.. but there’s a world of difference between what Cinema 4D is.. and my past experiences.. and yet, to a fairly significant degree, I feel as  though those past experiences do serve me as I try an orientate myself to this exciting new world.

The Larger Challenge of Learning 

Lately my fear has been that I’m simply taking on too much.. as far as all I’m trying to learn right now: Final Cut Studio, Digital Performer, Komplete 5, Kore 2, Adobe CS3 Web Premium, Ableton Live 7… and then to add to this a program like Cinema 4D which is supposed to take 6 months to learn.. and then you have stuff like… lets go learn photography.. lets go get a new high def video camera, lets learn compositing and lighting in video.. It’s just an intensely large world of stuff I’m trying to pack into my brain.. enough so that I’m going “Jesus, is this all really realistic?”

Flash 

It’s funny.. I’m doing a Flash project with a friend of mine, or for a friend of mine.. one where I will actually get paid.. so I’m now thinking “I should really bone up on Flash.” Flash is a part of that Adobe CS3 package.. I’ve been using Flash for years.. but haven’t jumped into the latest version too much yet.. and haven’t yet explored it’s integration into the total suite..  But Flash, as a platform and even if this project doesn’t require it, is a hugely complex platform.

I have a whole lot thought out as far as what I want my web presence to look like.. or Mattsearles.com anyway… and Flash figures into all that prominently.

Where I want to be with Flash requires digging in deeply into into the Flash Platform, and the developer side of things, even if only to facilitate the design side. Most of my work with Flash has involved using Flash as a tool for web based animation.. even if I haven’t put my stuff on the web.. and indeed.. my web based animation has largely been designed for 56K dial up internet.. as a pose to the current broadband universe. Where I want to go is to a more sophisticated sort of user interface design.. script based animation.. a certain amount of what we might call web 2.o mash ups.. a few web application development projects.. and stuff of this nature.

To these ends I’ve taking a route deep into the bowls of OOP or Object Orientated Programing.. and design patterns. My skills in this department are not yet ready for prime time.. but they are getting there..  

So this gives some indication of the challenge ahead… as far as all the stuff I’m trying wrap my head around.

Back to the Studio

As we speak it looks like my Kore issue is worked out.. I’ve installed Kore, and now Kore is examining my AU plugins… as a part of starting Digital Performer for the first time after installing Kore. This process seems to want to take in the vicinity of an hour to get through.. fun fun.

I’m still having trouble installing the Kontakt library.. it seems to have stalled after getting to second library disk… What a pain.

I’d really like to have Kontakt fully loaded for some of the sound projects I’m currently engaging myself with.. The most significant of which is scoring a video I’m working on. 

A little latter:

Kore seems to be in hell… It doesn’t seem to want to work at all. Its probably a Leopard thing.. where it simply doesn’t work with the current OS.  This is basically fine.. assuming we can get our free upgrade to Kore 2.. which ought to work with Leopard.. but still.. you’d like to have these things not be a hassle every time you try and move forward a step.

Back to Cinema 4D

It’s probably just the Pixel Corps that make it seem so approachable.. They have soo many tutorial videos on Cinema 4D, that take you from the basics into the advanced.. And as you watch these you get the feeling that the complexity of your adventure doesn’t have to overwhelm you in anyway. 

Next day:

Perhaps I should just post this? 

Yeah, so I joined the Pixel Corps. The pixel corps is.. well they describe it as a kind of guild.. for 3D graphics, animation, special effects, design.. all this sorta thing.. lets call it “media arts.” The biggest part of what they offer, at least for me, is training. I got in on a special deal for 3 months for $50.. which seems to me to be pretty amazing.

A part of being a member of the Pixel Corps is access to software.. which you are free to use in an educational capacity. This would be software that would otherwise costs thousands of dollars.

In my case, I’ve identified 3D graphics and animation as a core part of what I’m going after.. the trouble being that this is some expensive stuff.. (see this blog post for something of an overview.)  At this point I don’t even know where I left my budget considerations.. I only know that my budget could use some adjustments… I believe where I was left was thinking I’d go with Lightwave and Modo.

At any rate.. the Pixel Corps give you access to Cinema 4D for a period of 3 months.. and Modo for as long as you stay a member.. as well as other stuff like XSI Softimage (a high end 3D package on the PC) 

The trouble, from my perspective, is a few fold. For one, I want this software to work on my projects.. which is not exactly none commercial use. The next problem is that 3D graphics typically takes 6 months to get you’re head around.. and really up to speed. If you go and spend 6 months learning a program, and you don’t own that program, that’s kind of a problem.

So.. my deal is like.. use the resources for tools I expect to own. For 3D, my feeling has been.. that Lightwave probably has a lot to offer, but I’ve been a little concerned that it might be a bit of a back water, at this point, in the 3D graphics industry. I would like to learn a tool that would help my employability in the long term.. but mostly just what’s right for me. 

Well one of the things the Pixel Corps offers is special pricing on software. Basically.. they are this huge guild, and that gives them / us collective bargaining power.. I mean if we are going to buy your software in mass.. that can give you some incentive to give me a good price. I’m not sure how much I can tell you about this sort of thing.. only that now.. Cinema 4D.. we have a sale on… which looks very tasty indeed. 

The only question, for me, is which bundle.. and how might that fit into my budget.. or how might I adjust my budget. Seeing as I don’t exactly know my budget.. I’m not really sure.. My blog post, that I link to above, talks about the different tears to Cinema 4D. I think it, to some degree, goes without saying that I need the XL or Studio Bundle. The Studio Bundle would be optimal, but at a retail price of $3495… that’s a lot out of my price range.. and at the XL bundle, at $2195, is also a lot of money.

I think, module wise, I need serious character animation, serious rendering, serious particle systems.. Hair.. And so I’m seriously looking at the Studio Bundle.. which… in the special Pixel Corps sale… is probably not out of reach.. but it’s still something that might very well require a rethinking of my budget.

On the positive side it’s looking very much like I have a Flash Job on my horizon, which translates into income that might allow me to get a few things that might otherwise not be in my cards.. so more of a push to the full studio…  We’ll see what I do.. I have Pixel Corps training to go through.. the Flash Project.. this sale will be available for a little while..  

Well.. I figure I ought to try and post something before bed.. though I’m a little out of it.. I should be in bed now.

There’s events going on that bare speaking of..  On just how things are kind of progressing.

As I finally get around to sorta filling out this computer.. that is getting real software on it.. This here Mac Pro.. I can tell you this thing is bad ass as hell..  Mind you I’m still coming from a G4 perspective here.. but omg… I was goofing around with Photoshop open.. while at the same time I had Final Cut doing a batch capture… something I’m still not 100% on.. but basically you put a tape into your video camera.. you connect your camera up to your computer, and Final Cut controls your camera.. you go through the tape and select sections of the tape that you’d like to capture.. selecting in and out points.. and when you’re done, you tell it to do a batch capture.. and it brings that video onto your drives.

I’ve probably explained this, but just incase I haven’t.. My Mac Pro has 4 drives in it..  Two are set up as RAIDs.. basically you hook up two drives to work as one, and get about twice the performance out of those drives as you would from a single drive.. It has the unfortunate problem that if ether drive dies.. you loose all the data on that drive.. thus we call it a “scary raid.” I’m hoping that Blue Ray HD comes to the Mac soon.. primarily I think it’s an issue of the OS, so we’ll be waiting for the next OS to stop buy… and at that point… why Blue Rays will more then likely come to the Mac. You can currently buy Internal Blue Ray drives.. but I don’t know what the whole story is on this.. the problem would be that you wouldn’t be able to watch Blue Ray movies until this issue is worked out.. 

All of which is a bit of a side story.. I should go so far as to say that I’m waiting for Blue Ray HD burners.. because they would allow you to burn a huge amount of data to a Blue Ray disk.. which would give you a means of backing stuff up.. once my RAID fills up.. its close to one TB worth of storage on that drive.. I have another 500 GB drive where I intend to put stuff once it’s finished..

So we are digitizing via Final Cut, fooling around in Photoshop.. and then to make things even more fun.. playing a computer game.. all at the same time.. more or less.. and still I’m only using a small portion of the processor power.. which is a little on the mind blowing side for me. I mean you feel a little as if you’re using multiple computers at once..

I suppose this sorta opens the topic.. of just what is up now. As I think I’ve said else where.. I want to give myself about 6 months to play around with all this new technology.. before I start having high hopes of actually producing anything..  

I’m adding a huge amount of complexity to my world.. a huge amount to try and learn.. and hoping to learn it all in a ridiculously short period of time.. I mean.. what I’m talking about here is.. between Final Cut Studio, Adobe CS3 Web Premium… and then add to that Digital Performer.. Ableton Live.. Komplete 5 and Kore 2.. while I know my way around all this software, to some degree, as is.. the amount ahead of me to learn.. why that’s probably more then 6 months of learning… and then add to that After Effects, and some kind of serious 3D graphics tools.. 

Oh, well I’m too damn tired to try and get through this. So we’ll leave this as is.

It’s been a while, ha? Man, I’ve been suffering through a bit of a nightmare. My old computer died.. and with it all my passwords and user names.. and access to all my sites.. and so it’s taken me this long to get back in here.. I’ve been blogging, in the mean time, on my myspace.. if you’re into reading me and find  that nothings happening here.. that’s a place you could always go and look.

So lots has been happening since last I spoke here. I’m not even sure what I’ve said here and what I haven’t.. I don’t mean to repeat myself.. but um.. I don’t know, I think today’s blog post ought to be a random smattering of.. just whatever might be in my head and wanting to express its self.

I finally got Reason running on the new computer, and I’ve started my first project… Reason on a Mac Pro is very different then reason on a G4 Power Mac, or for that matter Reason on a budget PC laptop from a few years back. My suspicion is that Reason doesn’t have great multithreading.. which means it’s not great for taking advantage of multiple processor cores.. which is at the heart of what makes this new computer so powerful..   I’m only using, at the peak points of my current project, about 10% of my processing power, but Reason tells me I’m about half way through my processing power. I’m not sure exactly how this works but…

A big part of the difference, between working with Reason on the G4 versus Mac Pro, is how many effects and instruments you can use before your computer starts to choke. Normally I’m working under fairly strict restrictions.. but so far on the Mac Pro.. I have no sense of limitations.. or at least not of limitations that I in anyway feel.

The implication is… well I just keep throwing instruments and effects into the rack.. I’ll sorta be thinking “well, for the next section I want to sorta go in this direction” and I assemble a kind of sonic pallet for doing so.. but I feel as though I’m putting together a larger pallet then I’m actually using.. Or.. the project simply hasn’t grown into the pallet yet.

An implication of this is you’re projects can become a little unwieldy.. Suddenly you have to organize and manage about 10 or 20 times as much stuff.. You’re thinking along the lines “how can I take advantage of the power difference between the new system and the old one?” An obvious answer is that you’re now able to enter a world of sonic complexity that is many order of magnitudes beyond where you previously were at. All of which is great, but it also magnifies the labor in equal measure.

It’s been a little while since I’ve done much with Reason.. since I was doing serious sound work.. not since november really.. So a part of what I’m doing now is really just warming up.. really just sorta.. well trying to get to where I was at before.

You know.. my music production process is a little complicated. It’s the sorta thing where every breath you breath.. every bit of energy, you can put into it.. At that point there’s a richness, and a complexity.. that… well its as if your head can only hold so much at any given time.. and so to fully jump in these waters, you need to be willing to make a deep commitment..  and there’s a kind of transitional period between normal life, and the life of one who’s spending time in these waters.

Once I’m fully warmed up.. the challenge is to take this stuff to a whole new level. I suppose the trouble is that Reason is only a small fraction of the new software studio environment.. I’m also going from Live 6, to Live 7, going from Komplete 3 to Komplete 5, and going from a very old version of Digital Performer, that I never really mastered, to the new version. So as deeply as I might be trying to jump into Reason.. it’s really only a very small part of a larger world to jump into.

On my Zarmattathustra’s Deep Space Adventures project, I anticipated much of where I pan on going now. ZDPA was about trying to do the most I could with as little as I had.. that 867 G4…  So I explored creative possibilities that circumvented the limited processor resources.. which forced me to explore working in ways I hadn’t before. Well.. in many ways that’s where I’m going now.. accept add to that having a hell of a lot more power.. like maybe by a factor of 24 or so?

I’ve set before myself a notion of a project that would take 2 years to complete, but central in this notion is the idea of mystery. What this means is.. yeah, sure.. we have this 2 year guideline… but we don’t even know what the guideline really means!

Along time ago I was thinking.. If I could only get this set of tools together.. just imagine what I could do. Well, now its time to explore that for real. Will it be anywhere near my dreams? I don’t really know.

The guideline… lets just atomize it. Lets just talk about what we REALLY want to accomplish.. not what we think we should, or to worry about ways of rationalizing what we really want. I think there’s a sense of a timeline for skill development. Another words.. I’m interested in what I’ll be capable of at whatever period of time.. perhaps even more then I’m interested in producing finished, or great, product.

Another important thing is to actually produce finished project.. hopefully of some greatness.. and actually bring it to market, and try and make some money from it. Actually turn all this crazy art stuff into a business!

Do you spy a contradiction in here? Well I think what I’m saying is.. you could look at a 2 year span of time and think “what could I achieve in that time period?” I think what I’m saying is that my metric for success is not what I can achieve in that time period in a purely products sense.. I think product is a part of it.. is central to the journey and adventure.. but its needs to be balanced with other ends as well.. which must be given equal weight…. or weight equal to.. however important I want to make them.. Or I mean its an open question as to what the order of wills ought to be… this is a part of the mystery we must manage.

A few latter:

I think Reason is inspiring this thought.. along with the prospects of new sound software. In the mix of things I’m planning on taking on, sound is the part that I already have the strongest mastery of. Another words it doesn’t have a steep learning curve associated with it. I want to go nuts with music, but that doesn’t necessarily forward the cause of mastering steep learning curves, though it does further many things.

If sound were to be the center of what I’m doing.. Perhaps 3D and video.. perhaps I don’t need to bring these things to a super level of mastery.. I mean if these are projects that are more bout the sound then video.. I say this knowing full well that animation and motion graphics are important to me.. creating an aesthetic experience is important to me.. but maybe…

A few latter:

Well I guess the question could be like.. how complex a given thing is. Ok, we all know that high level 3D takes about 6 months to get so you can actually do it.. but lets say you carved out a kind of niche.. particular parts of the whole where you were to put your central focus on.

So lets say we want to start by creating some basic models… well maybe not all that basic but… If we are doing a space opera.. we probably want to build some space ships, some and some “sets.” If photography is playing a key roll in our adventures.. much of the sets could be.. almost like faux 3D.. like you take a photograph and cut it up, and use parts of it for different things.. instead of going to the trouble of modeling a forest.. you have pictures of clumps of forest.. maybe even video of forests… that get projected onto 3D Models that are.. well I don’t know what exactly.. but simple anyway. We’re not shooting for realism.. we are abstracting things, surreal-izing them if you will. And doing so in such a way that they require less mastery of the over all learning curve.

And we’d probably want to create some characters in here somewhere.. but the point is.. is it possible to get great results by limiting our scope in certain areas.. there by managing the learning demands? If I can create a visual language that only uses a part of the total tool set.. I can then bring that to mastery in a much shorter time period.  

Latter:

Ok, lets post this sucker. 

So I’ve been looking into 3D software. 3D software tends to be a little on the expensive side.. well for serious 3D.  The price range seems to be anywhere from $1K to $6K…. a lot of money. The result is people don’t usually buy this kind of software unless they are really serious about 3D. And not only is it expensive in terms of money, but its expensive in terms of the amount of time it takes to learn this stuff. Indeed, in some cases people don’t actually learn all the software.. they specialize in specific parts.

From my point of view, the question is “what’s right for me.” What do I want from a 3D package? This then gets weighed against price.. and my perception of my own price sensitivity.

Modo 

My quest started with a program that goes by Modo. You can read Franklin McMahon review of Modo here. I’ve been hearing lots of good things about Modo for a while now. From what I’ve been able to gather, Modo might be the best 3D modeler on the market today.

The trouble with Modo, though it got some more robust animation abilities as of it’s last update, it has no character animation abilities. It also has no abilities for particle systems or….

Shit, I really need to explain some of this techno mumbo jumbo, ha? Ok, 3D animation is made up of various constituent parts.. we could call them disciplines.. let me try and give you a broad brush stroke picture of this:

Modeling 

When you do modeling, you are create 3 dimensional objects. That’s about it, though depending on how you want to slice it, 3D modeling could include rigging…  by “rigging” I mean the process of turning a 3D model into a kind of virtual puppet. This involves a process by which you define how a model can be animated. 

Texture Mapping

Texture mapping would be the art of coloring your model.. make in shiny, transparent, this that or the other thing.

Animation

Animation would be the process by which we move stuff around / animate it. You know “breathing life into the model,” or perhaps.. you basically create the performance.

Digital Cinematography

Digital cinematography involves stuff like…  animating the camera.. figuring out them camera angles, the framing, etc. It also involves how you light your scene.

Special Effects

By special effects I’m talking about “particle systems,” and “physics engines.” We could roughly call these “algorithmic animation systems.” This is animation driven by number crunching.. where you basically manipulate parameters…  You use these to create smoke, water, fire, fog… all sorts of fun things.

Wether or not the industry use these terms as I’m using them… well that’s another question.. I really just want to give you a framework for conceptualizing what I’m talking about.. so… back to software: 

Back to Modo

So modo is super duper uber groovy on the modeling front..  but you can’t actually rig up your models for animation.. though that’s not to say you can’t do animation in Modo.. but if you want to do the sorts of animation that involves a lot of character rigging.. you’re going to have to export your models into a another program.. that has such abilities.

So.. I think I could be relatively happy with Modo.. but there’s a point where I might like the special effects tools and the character animation abilities..  so…  time to look for what else might be out there. Oh yes, and we should mention that Modo runs at $895.

Cinema 4D 

Here’s the best review of Cinema 4D I found. As product lines go, Cinema 4D is perhaps one of the more interesting: You have a basic core program, plus a number of add on modules. You can ether buy the core app, plus whatever module might look good to you.. or you can buy a higher end version of the core program.. which is basically the core program with a particular bundle of modules…. and you basically end up with 3 tears.  

Ok, lets run through the modules:

• Advanced Render: Judging from the stills on this page, Advanced Render is the bomb. Cinema 4D’s rendering engine, without Advanced Render, doesn’t impress me so much.. but with Advanced Render.. yeah, I’m impressed.
• MoGraph: MoGraph is your motion graphics tool.. it’s digable..  and I suppose, though I’m not sooo drawn to it, it’s something I’d want to get into.
• Mocca: What’s up with these names? Mocca is your hard core character animation stuff.
• Hair: I probably shouldn’t have to explain this but.. Hair is a set of tools for dealing…  mmhmm, you guessed it, hair!
• Thinking Particles: Yeah.. particle systems.. 
• Dynamics: My impression is we are talking about.. a sort of employment of physics engines on animation.. 

There’s other modules to the Cinema 4D system.. but these are really the ones that interest me… so now lets look at the bundles:

• Cinema 4D:  $895. This is just the core app.. so you got modeling, animation, texture mapping goodness.. but none of the above mentioned modules.. 
• Cinema 4D XL: $2195. We got the Advanced Render, Mocca, and the thinking particles (to say nothing of net render.. why do you have to pay extra for that?)
• Cinema 4D Studio: $3495. Studio has all the modules of XL, plus Dynamics and Hair.. to say nothing of a less limited net render (your seriously making me pay even more for this) sketch and toon.

Ok, so lets review this a little bit… Basically I have to go to XL if I want to do what I want to do.. and I can go up to Studio if I’m really serious.. But I mean.. if I’m going to drop $2K, why not go all the way to Maya? I mean its as if there are all these categories we are interested in.. and in order to actually have our bases covered… we gotta really invest..  *sigh*

Maya 

I have an irrational desire of Maya. Maya grew up on SGI machines. SGI machines were computers that would cost you $100,000 or more..  and then, even after that, you’d have to spend a whole lot of money for Maya.  But then one day they ported Maya to the personal computer.. and the Mac.. and dropped the price of the basic unit to $2,000. Something about all this.. has always given me a perception of value.. that somehow Maya is worth a whole lot more then that.  However.. the cost of upgrading Maya to a new version, a yearly tradition, tends to be about $1000.. which makes it.. well every time a new version of a tool in my library gets to the point where it needs an upgrade.. I have to choose which tool is going to get the upgrade. If you have one tool that’s costing you $1000… at a certain point, that tool is just not going to be getting upgraded.  So I mean.. that’s really the big problem with Maya.

So here’s a review of Maya.

Maya comes in two flavors: Complete and Unlimited.

Complete: As near as I can tell, complete offers all the basics you want really.. for modeling, animation, character animation…. soft and hard body dynamics, particle systems..  Unlimited: Adds Fluid Effects, cloth, hair, fur, “live” and the Nucleus Simulation Framework (as described in the above review). The above review used a test computer that is fairly equivalent to the Mac Pro I’ll be using… Nucleus is basically about having multiple physics / dynamic systems interacting with one another… or at least thats how I understand it.

You can see the full feature list here, along with how they break down between Complete and Unlimited. You can watch video demonstrations of features here.

Ok, so actual prices..  Complete: $2000 Unlimited: $7000

To evaluate what might be the right choice, we might like to look at what we plan to do with the software, what are budgets look like, and what our future plans might be, and general expectations.

Expectations 

Serious 3D graphics.. getting to a point of.. not mastery so much as proficiency.. you’re looking at about a 6 month learning curve. (this is some complex stuff) Now I’ve done a fair amount of 3D in past.. just not at this level, so I expect that my learning curve might not be quite so steep.. Indeed I imagine that I’ll be able to produce results in fairly short order.. though those results will in no way be representative of the full potential of this kind of software.

My plan is to start by “creating stuff.” Stuff, in this case, being: characters, worlds, objects, and.. well, just stuff. The idea being to create a library of stuff, which I can then draw from.. for creating work.

What type of work do I want to create? I suppose this would fall into a number of categories:

• Shorts, of a quality worthy of animation shows. 
• Elements.. from special effects, to characters, to worlds to composite stuff into… for video projects
• Elements to be a part of multi media projects.. wether we are talking Flash / web presence stuff, or if we are talking about print material.
• At some point, getting commercial work / a career in 3D might be nice.

Of budgets and realistic thinking

At the same time as I say all this.. we should be realistic and remember that 3D is likely to be but one part of a broader media mix. So if the learning curve takes 6 months.. and only half our time is dedicated to this software, it’s probably going to be a year before I get through it all.. and the chances are high that it won’t even get have my time and energy.  So on some level.. when you think about how this fits into a larger budget.. You have to ask: what are all the tools I need, across the full media mix, and how important is 3D in all of this, and then budget accordingly. 

With 3D, I think we are at least in part thinking long term. Another words.. it probably makes sense to start out in a small sandbox.. and then work out over time. This, of course.. brings us to the subject of upgrade paths. I suppose the trouble is.. I want to at least start with character animation as a part of the mix.. So we are really talking about spending at least $2000 to start with. Aww, but wait, there is still a software option we haven’t yet looked at! 

Lightwave  

My understanding is that Lightwave fits into the same league as this other software, and yet is the cheapest we’ve seen yet. As I say this.. the impression I get is that Lightwave might be a little in the dark ages at this point.. which is to say..  It may have many of the same features.. particularly as pertaining to what we want to do.. but perhaps these features aren’t as mature of well implemented.. If nothing else, Lightwave appears to be a bit of an underdog in the 3D arms race.  When you take a look at the Lightwave web site.. comparing it to the sites for Maya and Cinema 4D, it just looks junkie-er.

On the other hand.. take a look at this video, produced by Lightwave “enthusiasts.”  There’s some very impressive stuff in there.. that looks as serious as you’d likely want to get.

What’s more, there appears to be a special upgrade.. for those using particular programs.. of which After Effects is included.. which indeed is in my tool set. This upgrade costs under $500! The full version is just under $900.

So for much less then the cost of Maya or Cinema 4D XL, I could get both Lightwave and Modo!

Here’s a review of the latest version of Lightwave. 

A few latter:

What bothers me about the Lightwave site is.. mainly user interface design. Not that any of the sites are exactly ideal from this perspective but..  If you go to system requirements for a Mac you get “G4 or G5.” Umm..  Apple has been on Intel machines for something like a year and half or more. The power advantage the Intel’s have over G5s, never mind G4s, is crazy huge. When we are talking 3D graphics we are talking about some of the most demanding applications, in terms of power hunger. As a result, you expect 3D apps to take advantage of computer advances faster then any other sorta application.. So to have, what is supposidly a major 3D app, talk about these old system specs.. with no mention of Intels.. is… scary. Not that you wouldn’t like software that does well on old machines.. but without mention, you’re kinda going “can this even run on an intel?” What’s worse is I’m buying a computer with 8 processor cores.. which is something that most apps don’t take great advantage of.. but you expect 3D apps to take advantage of… so all this left a question mark.. let alone the question of if Lightwave would even run on the new Mac OS!

So there were lots of details that were important to my decision making process.. that the site didn’t address.. to address them I had to head over to the lightwave forums.. where I discovered that things were better then I feared. Still, this leaves questions in  your mind as far as how well they have there act together… over at New Tek.. Still.. after looking over much, I’m left with the impression that Lightwave is a very complete package. It clearly has many of the features you’d be spending $2K for elsewhere.. or in my case, 4 times what I’m likely to spend. Plus, of course, there is a plug in architecture that allows you to add to Lightwave… so there’s room for future growth.

Back to Evaluations: Pipelines

On of the items on my to do list was “get professional work.” So one of the questions you must ask is.. how does learning one program or another effect your marketability? As I understand it, this brings us to the question of “pipelines.”

Major studios, believe it or not, are notorious for not using “the latest greatest” tools. Why? Because they have bought into certain pipelines: You have lots and lots of people coordinated on a project.. For special effects.. there can be zillions of elements that need to be put together.. and to manage the coordination.. well that’s in large measure the job of the pipeline. New tools, it turns out, often break the pipes. Indeed even new tools that are simply upgrades of the old tools!

All of this adds to the advantages a guerrilla artist can have over big media… but what about when the guerrilla wants to in someway join big media? Well as clearly as I’ve been able to understand these things…. we basically have 3 industries in question: Video Games, Film, and Broadcast TV. Film and Video Games.. it would seem.. have Maya as the dominant app in there pipelines.. where as in Broadcast TV we see Cinema 4D.

Lightwave.. I seems to not be at the center of many of these pipelines..  Still, it should be said, many film makers take the view that it’s best to have artists working with the tools they know.. and try to make the pipeline accommodate this. 

What will Matt do?

I don’t know that I’m quite finished reading reviews or trying to get through my evaluation process.. But I have to tell you.. at least for the moment, it’s looking like Lightwave.