I have planeed, i have asked tons of questions that can help me in my Movie, I have created many Environments and saved them, i wrote the script. BUT i have not even started. the movie. 

1. The question is how , how do i tackle this beast when I feel like it won't even be good since I'm not a good animator?. The last movie i made was semi good thanks to the fact all myfamily ( parents , sister, sisteres baby, sister husband, etc) participated in making the voices. So the movie had voices which kind of made up . Well no more, i don't have voice acting now, everybody is gone.

And the fact that it's hard to make good animation just makes me wanna give up.

1. My computer is slow Mac G5 1.8Gzha, 2GB RAM and it keeps crashsing. I can't even have 2 DAZ characters in a scene cause it gets really slow and i can't animate in peace. Then it crashes and i can't even save.

2. i'm not a good writer thus my script sucks. NObody will want to watch it. which is fine, i can watch it but...well you know.

3. I'm unemployed , do i even deserve to be making stuff and wasting electricity .

Well that's what i'm thining abouut these days.
I want to do something though. these creative juices are in me, i cna't help it 

I cannot help you with a script or with lending my voice to your movie (unless you need someone with a heavy german accent), but try to work with low-poly figures for a movie - they render faster, and won't choke down your system. Try to work with maps instead of real geometry wherever possible, avoid ray tracing for more speed and a lighter load for your system.

Okay then... couple o' things right off the bat.

First, creating anything is never, ever, a waste of anything. Make something new that never existed before from your own imagination, and use all the electricity you can scrape together to do it, and you'll be doing a good thing. Promise.

Second, realize that there are (at last count) over six billion people on this little blue marble floating around the sun, and some of them are not going to like your work. This is true for all of us, and you can't let it affect you. Conversely, some of us are going to love your work, some will like it and want to critique and help make it better, and some of us will be jealous that you got the thing finished (I never seem to finish any of my animations...)

Now that that's out of the way, let me also say that you need to believe in yourself. Doing an animation by yourself means that you have many, many different jobs to do, from writing the script to rendering the scenes to compositing the final product. You may not be good at every separate aspect, but that doesn't mean you suck. Don't be hard on yourself, there's plenty of other people who'll try to do that to you in your life. Think positive, and know that there's people (especially 'round here) who will support you.

Also allow yourself to ask for help; you never know who's interested. FWIW, I do my own voice work for my animations (the ones that never get finished... sigh). I do acting as a hobby, and I've done a couple of radio and television commercials. I've got voice changing software that I can use to do a whole bunch of different voices. If you're interested, I'd be happy to help with the audio for your project; just let me know.

 StoryBoard

"1. The question is how , how do i tackle this beast when I feel like it won't even be good since I'm not a good animator?. "

So become A better animator before Embarking on your animation project
Have you learned your Graph Editor & Dope Sheet??
if not you will never become even a Fairly Decent  Animator much less a Good one

***"The last movie i made was semi good thanks to the fact all myfamily ( parents , sister, sisteres baby, sister husband, etc) participated in making the voices. So the movie had voices which kind of made up . Well no more, i don't have voice acting now, everybody is gone."

---

Yes Voice Work is the Biggest Impediment for the single artist

---

"And the fact that it's hard to make good animation just makes me wanna give up".***

It  is hard if you REFUSE  to bother to learn the powerful animation tool of poser First

***"2. My computer is slow Mac G5 1.8Gzha, 2GB RAM and it keeps crashsing. I can't even have 2 DAZ characters in a scene cause it gets really slow and i can't animate in peace. Then it crashes and i can't even save."

---

Hmmm Are you trying to load&animate full clothed DAZ figures or are you using Low res/nude figures for animation
saving the animation as  Animated PZ3's to apply to your Hi res clothed figure at render time.....as you should be???
 

---

"4. I'm unemployed , do i even deserve to be making stuff and wasting electricity ."***

Being Unemployed does not Disqualify you from using what you already have  if you and Macs pull Far less wattage
than any TV that may be running in the house.

Learn your  Program

Cheers

No one was born good at anything (except perhaps crying). True that some people have a natural aptitude for some things, but most of us get there by a hard slog, and learning from our mistakes. To get really good at anything takes a lot of practice. And probably the best asset you can have is an interest in the subject.

Keep trying, and most importantly ask yourself what is good about your work, and what is bad, and why. That way you will build on your knowledge and improve over time. And don't be too hard on yourself. I bet Stanley Kubrick's first home movie was absolute crap.

And remember, nothing you enjoy doing is a waste of time.

 Are there any tutorials on creating realistic animation in poser?.. By that i mean, i know there are tutorials that teach you How animation works in poser . I've even seen tutorials by philc.

BUT are there poser specific tutorials that teach you about creating realistic breathing and subtle non repetitive motions , about how to animate a punch, about how to animate a character pushing a big heavy box, about how to animate a character caring something heavy, etc. 

And also are there any general tutorials in the web about Animation?

Quote -  Are there any tutorials on creating realistic animation in poser?.. By that i mean, i know there are tutorials that teach you How animation works in poser . I've even seen tutorials by philc.

BUT are there poser specific tutorials that teach you about creating realistic breathing and subtle non repetitive motions , about how to animate a punch, about how to animate a character pushing a big heavy box, about how to animate a character caring something heavy, etc. 

And also are there any general tutorials in the web about Animation?

You Can Do ALL of these Tasks EASILY once you LEARN your Graph Editor and Dope Sheet and the effective use of poser  IK

Check the Link to my free Video Tutorials under my post.

Cheers

There's a nice intro to computer animation at the SIGGRAPH web site http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/anim0.htm that covers a lot of good general, elementary animation concepts. I troll used bookstores for animation books, too, and sometimes you find a real gem for not much money. Look for tutorials on 2D animation, too; there's some great techniques that have been around for decades in the cel animation field that are totally applicable to 3D animation.

For the kind of examples cited, I think the most important element is timing... you want to make sure that things move at a speed that looks natural, and that objects in contact react at a speed that makes them look as though they have the proper weight.

For example, when animating a punch, the arm throwing the punch is going to react to the transfer of momentum, not just the body it's contacting, and the energy of the punch will be transferred back into the body of the person throwing the punch.

I find it really helpful to go to YouTube and watch videos of people doing what I want to animate ('cause whatever you can think of, somebody's tried it and somebody else was on hand with a video camera). That gives a great feel for how many seconds it takes to do something.

If you're using Poser 7 or up, make sure to take advantage of the non-linear animation (animation layers), too; it'll save you some real hassle when combining moves. You can animate a character blinking on one layer and breathing on another, then add in your other moves on top of that.

Attached Link: Star Trek Aurora

I can't really add much to what's already been said except a little more encouragement. I would say just go ahead and start, you can learn along the way, and at worst you might have to go back and redo some earlier scenes (like I've done) as you get better, but I've always found that you learn a lot more with a real project with a clear goal than with abstract training. My first animation was just a Poser guy walking in a straight Walk Designer line across an imported background I had made, but that was enough to convince me that it was possible to make a movie, since a movie is really just a bunch of 10-second clips strung together, so you can approach it in pieces and chip away--you don't need to move the entire mountain at once.

For voice talent, you might check online sites that have free audio dramas, like Darker Projects:

http://www.darkerprojects.com/index.php

Their site has a place to request voice work for outside projects. I also engaged work from a fellow Poser user who also does acting for fanfilms, so poke around sites where people are already doing "free" acting for online productions--these people are obviously already interested in doing this kind of work, and already have access to recording equipment.

Good luck!--Tim

Ultimately, you have to sit down and get started. And along the way, you refine, learn, tweak, and learn some more. Making an animated film is one of the fastest ways to learn the software and animation process.

As far as the voices go, you can do what nodelete did with Archon Defender, and start off using computer voice synthesizers and then go back and dub in live voice actors after your film is completed. He's put together an hour long animated film that looks great and has a good storyline.

Wolf thanks alot!

But, There is no tutorials on your videos about the Graph editor: Well there is one "INTRODUCTION TO GRAPH EDITOR" But you just go really quick and you do alot of stuff without fully explaining all there is about the graph editor. 

Do you have another one more detailed or a text version that explains the graph editor?

Hi
For a text Explaination of the Graph editor please refer to your poser6 Manual
Every one who has Given me feedback on my video Tutorial  have found them helpfu l& comprehensive

My tutes are designed for people who have never bother to ever try to use the Graph editor( LIke you)

How about you try out a few of the Basic excercises in the tutorials to show us here that you really are serious about even trying to use the graph editor.
then as you move to the other tutes you get more detail on the various advanced function of the graph editor.

Cheers

And don't forget your local library.  Despite the fact that this is an electronic age of computers and internet, there is still something to be said about the printed page.  It will always be there if the light goes out.

Celtx is a free script/storyboard making software, has its own forum for screen writers, tons of support and you can collaborate with other ppl.

Buy a PC, you can get an 8GB memory desktop in less than $1,000. (To get the best, you have to invest. That rhymes huh?)

Render separately the figures from the background and props to prevent the slowdown. You can replace props with simple primitives while you are animating.

Animating is easy. The only problem is that voice in your head.

tebop, if yer computer is crash-prone, then ask in mac forum how to fix it or trouble-shoot it.  these animation experts may be better able to help ya if ya post 6 rough animatics of yer movie, each one about 1 - 2 min. so far I ain't seen ya post any animations, but it don't matter how bad they look - they might inspire others to participate somehow.  it sounds like ya need a large staff for the voice-work, for doing renders, checkers and that.

tebop
Best of luck, your on your way to completing your project. I know very little about animation. But you have the important ingrediants to being a great artist. You know what you want, you can visualize what you want. and you have an intense drive to figure out how to get it. Not many people have that required passion. And, your not afraid to ask for help.  You are blessed. Another blessing is, that without a job, you can afford lots of time to focus on your project. And your computer will force you to learn to be creative and make the best of the resources you have. Also you have thousands of people on here to point you in the right direction when you get lost. Like any great photographer, Look at your situation from a diffrent perspective than others lol sorry for the pep talk.
Good Luck

 Actually tebop, you -have- started your movie. You have the script, correct? That's process step one. All the ideas in the world mean nothing if you don't have them arranged cohesively and coherently. I hope you have storyboards as well; that will save you a =lot= of time in actually planning and setting up scenes to animate. You have environments made and saved; that comes under the heading of set creation or location creation. It can help a lot at times to give what you have done their proper, professional names. Admittedly, what you have mentioned is pre-production, but without that, actual production would be an unmitigated disaster that would take orders of magnitude longer than it should have.....assuming you don't simply burn out.

Wolf's stuff on the dopesheet and graph editor are must know areas; One good way to train yourself in their use is to just load a low res figure with little or no texturing, load a bvh file, and then simple examine how things work. The graph editor is vital for keyframing; it shows all the changes in the single selected value for the entire length of the animation. You can adjust motion ranges in the graph, place keyframes in the dopesheet through it (technically, the dopesheet is really the animation pallette; dopesheet is a term from 2D animation, and refers to the usually hand written page that lists all the changes the animator plans to make in a figure. The term translated over into the various keyframe editors assorted apps have, and provided a bit of continuity to the past). You can repair a motion that's gotten damaged in the graph far easier than you can spinning dials.

Probably the one thing you want to avoid is biting into something too complex to begin with. Start with simple, short scenes. Oh, like a closeup on a character where they turn the head slightly to one side, and the eyes look in that direction, as if someone had called their name (just remember that natural human reflex is toblink the eyes closed to lubricate them -before- they move....and that the motion usually occurs when the eyes are actually closed for that fraction of a second (or, assuming 24fps, about 4-6 frames, depending on the speed wanted). It might not sound like much, but when the scene moves to the timing you want, you can save it out for actual rendering later with the actual figure, and hey, you have a couple of seconds in the can! That is the hardest thing of all to keep in sight; progress is measured in seconds and fractions of seconds in CG animation.

If you need motion references, they youtube is one source. A camcorder and a friend is another. You can find many of the Muybridge motion studies online, and they are some of the basics for timing motion.

However, there is really no tutorial that can come close to teaching as much as good, old fashioned jumping in and making things move to you whim. No tutorial can tell you how to make a character 'look' realistic; what looks perfectly natural for lets say the default M4 looks like utter trash on Don; not because the work itself is flawed, but because of the difference in boning, morphs, and the actual mesh's physique. Micheal is a slab of beef compared to Don, so the body mass differences will affect how each move. And getting that right is just a matter of watching a real person of similar mass and size move, and practicing applying the motions until your inner eye is satisfied.

Any specific questions you have, just ask. Edison's inspiration/perspiration formula truly applies to CG, and many of those who have done are more than willing to pass on their knowledge...at least as much as possible..... ;)

 thanks alot guys

Hey, insanity loves company.....and animators are the quaziest people.........!

Oh, and don't hesitate to get creative when doing the watching or recording of that friend. In a lot of ways, CG animation is far more cut and paste friendly than traditional animation is. The thing you really need for your subject is tactile feedback; real world objects present resistance. For example, say you have a scene where a character is manipulating controls. If they are pushbuttons, then just hand the actor an unplugged ascii keyboard, let them do a one hand dance on the keys, and record that in close up. You not only get footage to examine to pick the best looking hand poses, but you get footage of how the fingers react to the resistance of the keys, and timing footage as to just how fast a human can manipulate those fingers. And that goes for any action thats needed. So long as a prop provides the approximate action and resistance, it doesn't matter if its something utterly silly looking.....it's the action for you to study and rotoscope that truly matters.

Attached Link: Walking test

May I throw in one more suggestion?

If acquiring voice work is an issue, make a silent movie.

Now, before you start laughing maniacally, consider that in a silent (and I mean a true silent, not one with dialogue cards inserted) forces you to communicate everything through body language and action. It can be a real lesson in how to make a character move and tell a story at the same time, not just move for the sake of movement.

Before you tackle that Hollywood feature film, do a little exercise. Using just one character mesh, see what you can accomplish in three minutes without having your character say a single gosh-darn thing. Dont make it part of your larger project: this is something akin to an animator's sketchbook. If you do a simple walk test, for example, make the act of walking tell a story, no matter how brief, with a beginning and an end. If you work up a character throwing a punch, give it more than just accurate arm movement: make us understand a bit of why the character is doing it.

For example, this walk test I built is an exercise and noting more. It has some issues in the knees, but more importantly, notice how the facial expressions give you a sense of who this guy is. Granted, not much; I mean, hey, it's only 14 seconds long. But I wasnt going for depth of character, just a brief sense of someone you might pass on the street and think, "Hmm. Who's that?" With enough training, anyone can learn to animate. That's just mechanics: we're mechanical beings, after all. But once you set your characters in motion, they become real personalities, so let us see them.

The other advantage of this kind of project is that it's short, easily done, and yet very, very rewarding. You've accomplished something. It's right there in front of you, walking and skipping and punching and doing whatever it was you wanted it to do. Yeah, maybe it's awful. Maybe the knees are all screwy, but it's an accomplished goal. That, my friend, is the important thing. And then you can either file the mini-project away or delete it altogther: after all, it's just a sketch. The bottom line is: you started it and you finished it.

Think of it this way: a marathon runner doesnt start his career goal by getting up, put on his running shoes, and leave the house for a daily 28-mile run. He builds up to it: maybe first jst a half mile. Then a mile. Then he adds a few more here and a few more there. But he had to start with that half mile.

Finally, as a technical note: I have never liked using the DAZ figures for animation purposes. I've tried — my current animation project is just some brief exercises: sit ups, bench presses, and the like. I ran tests using Michael 4, Michael 3, Hiro 3, David, the G2 male, the P4 male, and Him from the Human Project, and I ran with the G2s. If I use the DAZ characters, the file sizes become small monsters: H3 in particular, as much as I love that mesh, was close to impossible. If I use the G2 characters, they start to become a lot more manageable. Maybe not as pretty to look at, but that's more a question of character modification than anything else: a few morphs and a decent texture wrap, and they clean up just fine. But Vicky and Michael, as lovely as they may be, are just too freaking big for long term animation unless you have some serious computer horsepower behind you: it's like shoving oil around on a watercolour painting.Someone once noted that Jar-Jar from Star Wars, as annoying a character as there ever might be, has half the polygons of V3, and yet it's far more expressive. Think about it.

I did it, can't tell you how lol

Seriously, once I got the scene created it looked jerky but I'm working on it, and its looking better...

On your poser tool bar there should be a drop down menu called Animation and then just look for the make movie file, it's really simple.

Hey Sean Martin that is too neat - excellent even :)  And a terrific suggestion for practice.

When u mention G2 are u referring to the Poser7 G2 characters?   And what character is that in the youtube animation?
Thanks :)

yes, I liked the walk anim, sean.  the knee jerk is a characteristic of the walk designer, which IIRC has been discussed here a few times.  but that's the way to do it.  don't worry if it will be the next pixar masterpiece.  don't allow ideation about doing a feature-length animation prevent one from doing as many basic clips as possible, as fast as possible.

Attached Link: Second motion test

LOL -- and thanks, guys. No, these arent part of the next Pixar masterpiece. Something else entirely, actually - *much* smaller in aspiration.

Each of these clips is designed to work out a tiny detail or two, no more; my fifteen minute sprints, as it were, in anticipation of the marathon. :) This one, like the walk test, just allows me to interject a bit of humour into something pretty straightforward.

And Masha? No, this isnt the G2 figure. It's Ichiro 1, heavily morphed. It's pretty much my signature mesh.