Anima Technica's Scribblings

When I decided to do a review of iClone Beginner’s Guide I realized I have to look at it from a different perspective. I say that because I have been an iClone user since day 1 and in that context, am very familiar with iClone and its inner workings. However because I am a long time user, I know there are many tips, techniques, work arounds that exists that may be new to me. So I approached M. D. McCallum’s book from an experience user’s perspective as well as a newbie, trying to make his/her first movie. So in conjunction with this review, I decided to make a movie and put myself in the shoes of a newbie making his first movie

Starting off with the table of contents, one quickly realizes how thorough and comprehensive this book is – it has, since purchasing it, become my reference manual. Anytime I get stuck, the anwer is only a simple search of the table of contents. This makes it especially easy for an experienced user to go right to the section needed. For example, I needed a desert scene with dust blowing all over the place. A quick look at the table of contents and I found Chapter 2, ‘Creating your First Scene’, and followed the tutorial to create my first landscape. Jumping back to the table of contents I discovered texturing and how to use texturing, allowing me to change my landscape into a desert scene. So an experience user, knowing what he wants to do, can easily find the section to address his need.

Of course if I was a new user, I wouldn’t necessarily know that i can change the texture, but if I follow the sequence of chapters laid out before me, I can methodically build on what I learned – first the scene, then the props to decorate the scene, then the lighting…you get the picture (no pun intended). The book is structured in such a way that learning one thing opens the door to the next thing.

What I especially like is each section concludes with “What just happened?”  - if you look at many how-to books, one quickly realize that often times you end up following a process, yes you get to the end result but likely without necessarily understanding what you just did. To me this is the equivalent of rote memorization, you know you have to do step A but you don’t know why so you might not be able to put 2 and 2 together quite as easy. So back to the “What Just Happened?” section – this section provides an explanation of what you just did and why you did it – this made the learning much more effective and it drives in the point and also allowed me to easily combine a couple of concepts together.

The book covers a lot of movie making technquies and one I especially like is the use of cameras – iClone has a robust set of cameras and as a long time user, I basically use my eyeball to determine how to set it up and where to set the cameras up. The books provides the much needed primer on understanding the camera lens and how they can be used. For my movie, I needed a camera to zoom out from a rider on a hill, down to the valley to another character but my scene had certain error that I can take some time to fix or use the tricks described in the book to mask it – I opted for the masking. There are many more little gems in this book that as an experienced user, I find very enlightening often hit me the eureka moment of ‘why didn’t I think of that?’

In conclusion I highly recommend the book. While the title says iClone ver 4.1 many if not all of the techniques are applicable to iClone 5. There is plenty of meat for the experience user and is very methodically arranged for the beginner.

Incidentally i recently completed the movie i used for my review above,  and is currently in sound engineering...comnig soon to a virtual theater near you

[img]http://animatechnica.smugmug.com/Art/Digital-Characters/1422567_vnJPbF#!i=1678913550&k=9rNLSGK[/img]

Even as a long time iClone user, it never ceases to amaze me how many nuggets of features and capabilities exist undiscovered (by me) in iClone. When making movies, i typically use only those features i am most familiar and comfortable with and consequently don't get to dive in to discover the other features. Mike (MD McCallum's) new book - The iClone 4.31 3D Animation Beginners Guide turns out to be a treasure trove of great information for beginners and power users alike. Having briefly skimmed through the book, i can already see a multitude of tips and tricks to help make my workflow become more efficient. So in the next couple of weeks, i will be digging in and doing a full review of the book. Stay tuned to this space

Well after 17 months, the saga of The Nobbit comes full circle with the release of the 3rd and final part. Back in March 2010, the Nobbit started off as a serious interpretation of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit but then Mefune Akira's Trailer Competition happened and i ended up entering a totally skewed and raunchy trailer featuring demented dwarves and a foul mouthed wizard. This was in essence, the birth of The Nobbit.

Early on i had it in mind to make it a combination comedy and musical and engaged BiggsTrek and Killian, two prolific filmmakers and writers to help undertake the scriptwriting. 60 pages later, we had a movie with 27 speaking parts, spanning over 90 minutes. Auditions were sent out and roles casted. i also went about searching for the songs that would make it to the film. The result is the 90 minute (in 3 parts movie you see below)

The Nobbit Part 1
A foul mouthed wizard and a, uptight, metro-sexual dwarf recruits a reluctant Nobbit 

The Nobbit Part 2

Locked Up! - they party gets captured by Orcs, gets into a fight with Wargs, spiders then get locked up by the wood elves

The Nobbit Part 3

The encounter with Smug the Dragon, the Battle of Laketown and the Battle of Meage a Trois

A couple of months ago, i pointed to an artcile about a company - Righthaven - who was buying up rights to content in the internet and suing folks who either post excerpts or copies of the items into thier website. Well here's an update on that: 

A federal judge ruled Monday that publishing an entire article without the rights holder’s authorization was a fair use of the work, in yet another blow to newspaper copyright troll Righthaven.It’s not often that republishing an entire work without permission is deemed fair use. Fair use is an infringement defense when the defendant reproduced a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, commentary, teaching and research. The defense is analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

Monday’s ruling dismissed a lawsuit brought by Righthaven, a Las Vegas-based copyright litigation factory jointly owned with newspaper publisher Stephens Media. The venture’s litigation tactics and ethics are being questioned by several judges and attorneys, a factor that also weighed in on U.S. District Judge Philip Pro’s decision Monday. Righthaven has sued more than 200 websites, bloggers and commenters for copyright infringement. More than 100 have settled out of court.

The lawsuit decided Monday targeted Wayne Hoehn, a Vietnam veteran who posted all 19 paragraphs of November editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is owned by Stephens Media. Hoehn posted the article, and its headline, “Public Employee Pensions: We Can’t Afford Them” onmedjacksports.com to prompt discussion about the financial affairs of the nation’s states. Hoehn was a user of the site, not an employee.

Righthaven sought up to $150,000, the maximum in damages allowed under the Copyright Act. Righthaven argued that the November posting reduced the number of eyeballs that would have visited the Review-Journal site to read the editorial.

“Righthaven did not present any evidence that the market for the work was harmed by Hoehn’s noncommercial use for the 40 days it appeared on the website. Accordingly, there is no genuine issue of material fact that Hoehn’s use of the work was fair and summary judgment is appropriate,” Judge Pro ruled. Marc Randazza, one of Hoehn’s attorneys, said he would petition the judge for legal fees and costs. The judge also said he took into consideration that only five of the editorial’s paragraphs were “purely creative opinions” of the author.

“While the work does have some creative or editorial elements, these elements are not enough to consider the work a purely ‘creative work’ in the realm of fictional stories, song lyrics, or Barbie dolls,” he wrote. “Accordingly, the work is not within ‘the core of intended copyright protection.’” Judge Pro, in his fair-use analysis, also found that the posting was for noncommercial purposes, and was part of an “online discussion.”

That said, Pro did not need to decide the fair-use question. That’s because he also found that Righthaven did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit, a hot-button topic in the Righthaven litigation.

Pro’s decision came a week after a different Las Vegas federal judge threatened to sanction Righthaven, calling its litigation efforts “disingenuous, if not outright deceitful” when it came to standing. Standing is a legal concept that has enabled Righthaven to bring lawsuits on behalf of the copyrights owned by Stephens Media. That blistering decision by U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt, the chief judge in Nevada, places into doubt Righthaven’s year-old business model, which is also under a Colorado federal judge’s microscope.

Hunt gave Righthaven two weeks to explain why he should not sanction it for trying to “manufacture standing.” Judge Hunt suggested Righthaven never had standing in any of its cases because Righthaven and Stephens Media had agreed to share the proceeds of any damages awards or settlements, yet Stephens Media kept ownership of the copyright. Righthaven must own the copyright to sue on its behalf, Hunt ruled in a decision echoed by Judge Pro on Monday. What’s more, in each of the 200-plus cases Righthaven brought on behalf of Las Vegas Review-Journalarticles, Righthaven never disclosed, as required, that Stephens Media had a “pecuniary interest” in the outcome, Hunt wrote.

Source: Wired.com

Mamachinema 2011 is coming to both virtual and real life on June 17and 18 - simultaneous broadcast in Second life as well as a live event in Amsterdam. Last year a number of iClone movies were screened here. This year i expect a few more iclone movies to make the cut and be screened. Renowned director Peter Greenway makes a special appearance as well. A magazine in Amsterdam wrote an article about the upcoming event

Full text below:

Ma Machinima International Film Festival

Club Karlsson

Friday 17 & Saturday 18, 2011

If you’re tired of the same overpaid Botox victims trotting out all-too-familiar plot Lines, then prolific ‘machinimatographer’ Chantal Harvey may be your cinematic salvation. The Dutch director’s third Ma Machinima International Film Festival promises 60 original, fun, touching, sometimes plain weird and, occasionally, mindblowing short films that defy the usual rules of storytelling. Machinima, you see, is the art of making movies using 3D online virtual worlds and video games (such as Second Life, World of Warcraft or even Google Earth) where, unhampered by such pesky factors as reality, the laws of physics or an actor’s range, filmmakers can unleash their creativity with no bounds other than their own imaginations.

Harvey (after whose nickname in the community, ‘mama-chinima’, the festival is named) claims she refuses to limit herself to one genre of machinima ‘because the medium offers so much freedom to filmmakers’. Clearly, most of them got the memo – including Lainy Voom, whose bird-headed characters drink coffee with a spoonfull of eyeballs, and Tom Jantol, whose rendering of Pinocchio as a disolated doll with lipstick and nipples curiously takes nothing away from the film’s grace and sensitivity. Because it’s inherently inexpensive to produce but rich in possibilities, machinimatography appeals to experimental and emerging filmmakers in particular.

That said, some open-minded old-timers have also jumped on the machinima bandwagon, such as Peter Greenaway (‘The Pillow Book’) who is presenting his ‘Big Bang’ at the Festival. A poetic ode to all existence, parts of his film eschews human beings in favor of computer-generated avatars, some of whom boast such realistic facial expressions that Pixar’s best illustrators might want to watch their backs.

The event, which will happen in ‘real life’ at Club Karlsson, a private club and self-avowed ‘counter cultural’ space in the Western Canal Belt, will also be streamed live online and in Second Life, where hundreds more visitors and their avatars are expected at the lavish virtual theater ‘built’ especially for the occasion. Club Karlsson guests are welcome to bring their laptops to follow the online part of the event – WI FI and the requisite cables will be provided. Both real life and virtual virtual parties reflect the important social aspect of Machinima: ‘The festival is not a competition; there are no awards, no contests; it’s just about sharing’, says Harvey. In this spirit, newbies can try their hands at the ‘Machinima for Dummies’ workshop at Club Carlsson on June 17, creating a short film that will be screened at the opening of the festival. With twice as many filmmakers and twice as many real life guests as last year, the trend is clearly growing. ‘We ‘ll have drinks, food, a lot of socialising and maybe even sex,’ says producer Ze Moo. No wonder machinima is gaining speed.

17 & 18 June, 20.00 – 01.00 at Club Karlsson (Keizersgracht 264). FREE and online all night. See mmif.org for more information. Marie-Charlotte Pezé, for Time Out Magazine Amsterdam.

Ran across this test clip created by Janimation - does it creep you out?

Uncanny Valley is the theory that as robot or artificial representations of humans look and act almost act like humans, there develops an intense dislike/revulsion among human observers. The 'valley' comes from the data plotted on a graph that showed a dip when tracking positive impressions. Perhaps it is the eyes, or the the lack of a 'soul' behind the eyes. At any rate in 3D animation there are those who aim for most realistic representation their tool allow them to - this might work with objects, creatures and such but try to do a 'human' and the illusion immediately evaporates. In machinima the medium is easily recognized as artificial (albeit game based machinima might have more 'realistic' looking humans) and so this 'uncanny valley' is not as pronounced. In working with iClone, i've always tried to shoot for that 'realistic' look and futile though the quest might be, the unspoken desire by many real time engine machinimators (not game based) is to do the same. Recenty I've come to realize that this effort is not necessarily percieved as a positive in the machinima world - especially if you include game based machinima, our efforts pale in the 'realistic' category - and in truth we cannot compete with willion dollar budgets. So I've decided to take a different tack in my future projects - i want them to look artificial/stylized much as 2D cartoons are different from 3D animations

Jesus Christ Superstar will be my first test of this approach - here are a couple of examples what i mean

Here's a standard iClone render 

and now a stylized output

http://achanzar.smugmug.com/Art/Digital-Characters/i-mVSMs4x/0/L/pilate-L.jpg 

More on this later as work progresses

It was May 3rd, 2010 when i first posted at the TMU forums that i have decided to go ahead and do a spoof of The Hobbit. So as the 1 year anniversary of that announcement passed, and the third and final chapter of the movie is nearing completion, i thought it fitting that the costumes, the sets, the music, and most importantly the characters that were brought to life by the excellent voice actors and musicians deserved a place of thier own. Welcome to The Nobbit Home -   a website dedicated to this work. At the very least this site will serve as a repository for all the work that went in to get this project completed - excerpts of the scripts, musical numbers, scenes rendered but sadly fell to the cutting room floor, Gonedeaf's most colorful lines, concept designs for the characters, the complete soundtrack, some commentaries from the actors, a little bio on the musicians and a couple of freebies that some of you iCloners might find useful. But beyond just a repository, I consider this website my tribute to the magnificant cast and crew who helped brought this vision to life - a cast that included 25+ speaking parts, a half dozen costumers, prop and set designers - and of course my outstanding writing partners BiggsTrek and Killian (Phil and Andrew to you humans).  

Please stop by, say hello and leave a comment

Looks like a few Android programmers and fans of the strategy game Civilization hve been busy creating an Android version of the game for the Android smartphone or tablet. A pre-alpha version is available for testing / bug cheking if you are so inclined

Here's the update

As usual, send bug reports to hackcasual+freecivbugs@gmail.com.

For general feedback, feel free to reply to this post, or send it tohackcasual+freecivfeedback@gmail.com.

What's new:

• Added high resolution flags
• Save games overhauled
• Long press on a unit activates GOTO
• Large and extra large screens supported
• Zoomed in 2x by default on HDPI and higher density screens

Long press to activate and focus on the unit, then while still holding down move your finger to the destination. You will see a cursor along with estimated move count. Once you lift off your finger:

• Tap and release the same place you lifted off to move the unit to the location
• Tap and move to reposition the cursor
• Tap elsewhere to cancel the move

I've noticed people have had difficulty discovering how to popup the minimap. This feature has existed since the first release, but you pull it up by hitting search.

• Application file: Freeciv-AlphaR2-5b8acd5.apk
• Source: freeciv-android on github

source: Hack Casual

Talk about being a lowlife - 

The Campus Movie Fest is a national competition where film students have a week to make a 5-minute movie. The winning films from each campus then “go to Hollywood” and compete against other schools.

NYU’s winner for the drama prize at this year’s Campus Film Festival was a film called Synchronized. It starts with a sequence of a gas mask clad man sprinting down the street like his life depends on it. He enters a chamber and breathes heavily surrounded by a heavy orange glow until a light changes to green. The man brings home a video camera and has a short fight with his younger sister. They can’t leave the house often because of the dangers outside and the girl is frustrated with their situation. The next morning, the little girl’s bedroom is empty and the video camera is missing. So the man runs out of the house to find her but only finds the girl laying on the ground, completely out of air.

It’s a great plot, but there’s only one problem: Replay, another short film, has the same exact plot. 

Matias N Shimada, Tisch film class of 2013 and the director of Synchronized, started a Kickstarter page to raise money for his film. Kickstarter is a website where “creators” can raise funds from “backers” for creative projects they are conducting. Shimada set his goal at $1,700 and successfully raised $1,726 in under 90 days. One backer even gave a single donation of $400-$700.

Note: In their FAQ section, Kickstarter answers the question of “How do I know if a project creator is who they say they are?” with “At the end of the day, use your internet street smarts.”

Watching the two films side-by-side, it’s obvious that the films are nearly identical. The gender roles are flipped and Synchronized expands more on the tape recorder idea but the two films are essentially the same film. There’s no point to discussing if Synchronize is a copy of Replay — it just is. And that’s something that Shimada is well aware of.

In a public Facebook note that totaled over 1400 words, which has since been removed, Shimada said, “The BIGGEST mistake I made is not telling anyone where I got the idea, since it is not entirely original. I know people are going to be extremely furious towards me for this and they have every right to be. I have also decided to back out of the festival completely in addition to that, because going would be unfair.”

In the note he also apologizes to many others including Stephen Kaiser-Pendergrast, his producing partner for this film. To his Kickstarter donors, he says that “the apology should be extended to them.” He adds, “They supported this project financially all along and it had to come down to this.”

Shimada denied an interview request from NYU Local but issued a short statement:

"Everything I did, I did in complete innocence, and I did not do anything with the intent to harm anybody, but given everything that has happened, I think it is appropriate to seek independent legal advice, which I am doing now"

 
Read more: NYU Tisch Student Makes Plagiarized Film To Win Festival Prize After Raising $1,700 On Kickstarter · NYU Local http://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2011/05/09/nyu-tisch-student-makes-plagiarized-film-to-win-festival-prize-after-raising-1700-on-kickstarter/#ixzz1Lxew1cjL 
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