Hi, all --

Thanks for the compliments.  We're working on "promosode" 2 currently and I'll post it when it's done, probably in a few weeks.

JohnnyRoy, let's see..... 

Figures -- Unity and Identity are Michael 3 while the Celtic god is the Freak from DAZ.  We used the excellent morphs available for Michael to create the unique faces for the characters.  They're clothed with stock items available on DAZ.  I created their hair in Carrara 5 Pro, with an eye to making sure the hair would render well as a cartoon object.  Their cel-shaded look comes from the toon shader included in Digital Carvers' Guild's toon!pro plug-in.

We recorded dialogue using GarageBand.  Lip synch was done with DAZ's Mimic Pro.  We're working with Poser 6 because, while we bought P7, it's frustrating in that many of 7's features won't work with Carrara and Transposer. 

Once the pose-to-pose animation and lip synch were done in P6, we brought the characters into C5P to render using toon!pro.  We rendered each character as an independent element on an alpha channel and composited the elements together in AfterEffects 6.5.  We also added a heavier outline to the characters in AE to give them a bit more separation from the background and enhance the cartoon look.  Finally, we did some cleanup in AE on the animation where shadows looked strange or when geometry under the clothing would poke through.

The ultra-fast flight through the starfield was done in AfterEffects, using Particle Playground to create the stars and a 3D camera to whip through space.  The planets we whip past were just quickie paintings in Photoshop.  (We use Elements on the Mac.)

The sun is a number of elements.  A base image painted in Photoshop.  Particle effects from Apple Motion for the dancing corona.  Extra glows and such added in After Effects.  When the sun goes nova, it's some additional particle effects from Motion and some fractal noise with a vector blur from After Effects distorted to give a hint of spherical expansion to it.  All of these elements are layered together in AfterEffects using different transfer modes to get the luminous effect while still allowing for some detail to be seen in the expanding gaseous cloud.

The sequence was edited together in Final Cut Pro, which is also where I laid in all of the sound effects.  I composed the score using Apple Logic Express 7 and put that on the timeline in FCP. 

I intend to put together a behind-the-scenes thing on my website (www.dexfx.com) eventually showing some detail about how it comes together.  (Of course, to do that takes away from the time that I'm working on the actual project, so it's a strange balance of priorities!)  But if you have any specific questions, fire away; I'm happy to answer what I can!

 - Dex
www.dexfx.com