It was suggested that I put up my" work in progress "animation Sin City Yarn for your comments.
This will be my version of the Frank Miller comic novel Family Values,that is of course ,when I get it finished..hehe.....as this part of it has taken almost two years.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en_Z8aGIxww

I used mainly poser6/7 and poserpro...now that should tell you how long it's been....I should get a life.

Feel free to pass on any comments and advice.......I hope you enjoy it even though the actual story will not be clear as it all comes together in the final scenes.

Dave

Some very nice and stylish work davlin! I think that you managed to capture a lot of the look and feel of the Sin City movie in your work.

What did you use for the VW exhaust? 

Excellent work davlin! I love the black and white comic book with motion look. Very cool!

D@mn nice work, is this just a little bit of your work for I would love to see the whole flic.

what other programs did you use???

that's right...get us hooked, then....;)
great stuff. Keep it up. Now if I can just find that Star Trek episode with the all-woman crew...;)

Please show me more of your work,
did you edit it on mac or pc.

Well done

Hi Peeps.....A great big thank you for all your kind words.......WOW!

"Posermocap"...Thanks for finding the time to watch and comment on SCY..I really appreciate this.

The exhaust smoke effect was done with Particle Illusion.

"210x2"....I'm sooooo pleased you liked the style of SCY ...this was an important part of the project.

"David J Harmon".....Thanks for great comment.....yeah I'm still working on this project.
 The other apps I used are Photoshop......Premiere (editing and most fx).....afterfx for 3d pages in title sequence.....Particle Illusion and FXhomePro.

"pakled"....Thanks for your time and great comments........Yeah I've been discussing "Star Trek Aurora" with Tim.......a shiining example of how Poser animations can be and something for all budding poser story tellers to aspire to.

"b4ask30male"......Thank you for commenting and viewing SCY.
I'm still working on my site (well my daughter is...hehe) but there is a youtube collection of various bits and pieces...

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu3DADI4glU

Once again many thanks to you all.

Dave

dav, I liked it.  hadn't seen the "breakaway comic book panel" idea before.

Thanks Nancy...I'm really pleased you liked it.
The comic book page sequence was in fact an idea from the film  " Sin City " which had some eye watering cgi concerning pages from his book........I think mostly on the DVD......sigh.

Thanks again
Dav

Very cool.

I hope this doesn't mean another two years for the next installment?

Hi Kalon
Thank you.....I hope to finish in a much shorter time.....hehe.
The sequence I'm working on as we talk is one of my main weaknesses with Poser.."facial animation"....the most difficult part is trying to create realistic emotions while lip syncing using Mimic.
The scene consists of 3 guys sitting inside a vehicle having a three way conversation and all in cu's.

Thanks again

Dav

Attached Link: http://www.auroratrek.com

Davlin, what in particular are you having trouble with regarding Mimic facial animation & emotions?

--Tim

Hi Tim

I apologise for not putting your "Aurora" link up for Pakled but it completely slipped my mind.....you did say once that Poser work can drive you around the bend.

As far as Mimic is concerned I'm sorting my way through best methods of having 3guys in car ,all with their own animations, ,which tend to cause havoc with lip-sync ,until I realised I should  keep head animations for Mimic and body movements separate using animation timeline to cancel overiding keyframes.
Sadly in the past I've only used Mimic in all its default settings,so if the lips move and there is sound....that's me happy........but along comes some guy with initials T.V,and his "Aurora" film
demonstrating how it all should be done.......do I have to say more......hehe

I would love your opinion on Poser layer system...I personally find it extremely flawed.....up to now that is.......I also have not really put much much time in on this part of Poser so I'm sure a lot of probs are pilot error.

Thanks for helping and inspiring me Tim,I know your busy working on next section of "Aurora"
so I'll try not to plague too much with questions...hehe.

Best
Dave

I am totally impressed with your timing on your body movements, like the walks and interaction between people. outstanding animation style and atmosphere.
cheerio  lululee

Thanks "lululee" I'm extemely happy with your fantastic comments.I could'nt have wished for more.

Best

Dave

 No problem, Davlin

Davlin, does each speaker have a separate sound track, or are they all speaking in the file you're importing into Mimic? They should all be separate. What I would do with three speakers is to edit the voices first as a full conversation with proper timing, then separate out each speaker into three separate files, but with the timing intact, so if one guy doesn't talk until 30 seconds into the conversation, there should be those 30 seconds of silence in the file before he speaks--that way when you apply the Mimic animation to each figure, they will speak in proper turn and timing.

If the head movements you want are very specific, you can turn off the head movements button in Mimic (it's a radio button in the input screen) tho you can usually leave them on and just adjust to what you need in the graph editor. (I think you can put in body movements in Mimic, but I've never done that--not sure it's a good idea.) I always start an animation by applying the Mimic animation to the character first, and then add the body movements, since you want to match their moves to what they're saying, unless you're using mocap or something, then you have to do it the other way around or it can overwrite the Mimic file.

I've never used the Poser layer system, so I can't comment on it--I create my animation all on the base layer--I don't know if that's better or not, but it's what I'm used to.

--Tim

Thanks Tim
Yep my three guys have their own audio track which have been edited to suit conversation with no video display in premiere.
I then use the "cut speech" in mimic and apply to one of guys.
What I'm finding  , when I do this , Poser slows down so much that further (body) animation to same guy is most difficult,there must be an error somewhere  and I'm looking into at the mo.
If the layer system worked like it's supposed to this could be brilliant in mixing all animations
together...body...mimic....mocap etc. but like you I've not used before so I'm investigating and if
I find it works as described (hoho) I shall let you know.
Just to keep a smile on your face and others I've attached a small clip of what can happen in Poser after 6hours of hard animating and without any reason....it does this.......
Enjoy at my expense...lol

Animate each character as separately as possible, render each separately, and then combine all the separate passes in After Effects. A bit more work, but it helps to catch and correct errors like the one you encountered in your "disaster2.wmv".

Hi Posermocap

Thanks for good advice.....I would normally do as you suggest but I wanted to give the Poser Layer system a good go .As you say on your site the layer system should be a great asset for working with mocap files etc and now that i've got your undivided ..have you had much success with the layer system yourself.
I've signed up and recieved my freebie  bvh file hehe and talking my wife into inreasing my pocket money to buy your assorted BVH files. A great lot to have in ones libary.
A great site.

Dave

Thanks for the kind words Davlin.

To answer your question, the layer system is indeed very useful and very powerful for working with Poser animation. The key strength of the layer system is that it is excellent for modifying animation on the base layer. For example, if you have a mocapped animation that calls for high heels, adding an adjustment layer to keyframe the character's feet into a high-heeled pose at the start and end of the animation can be done very easily. It's also easy to reposition and re-orient characters using layers by setting an adjustment layer to reposition the "Body" node.

However, the main issue I've found is that it likes to load animations in on the base layer, and not on higher layers--at least that's the case in the tests that I've run. I'm still pushing the limits of the layer system in my own animations.

As far as using it to build an animation so that one body part is animated on an individual layer, or so that different characters are on different layers, I don't think I'd use that approach. I'd build the main animation on the base layer, and then any modifications to the base layer (such as repositioning) can be done on the layers.

I totally agree with your common sense approach Posermocap but I'll try to push the system a little to see what happens......I will keep you all informed on my failure/success.

Thanks again for your help.

Great animation! Enjoyed every second!

Many thanks for commenting  "restif" and I'm soooo glad you liked it.
I've just finished another small part if the link will work........

Dave

Here's a link  you can try for having a peep at my next small piece of Sin City W.I.P.  "Family Values"..........I hope you like it.......there are some small adjustments needed i think.
Hope you like it .....

Right click and save as

 http://www.davlin-studio.co.uk/sc7chat1.wmv

Enjoy peeps

Dave

That is fantastic!  I don't mean just in execution, which it is but fantastically inspiring to show everyone that poser may be a bit older but you can do great work on it and done need the altest DAZ animate plugin thingie to do really awesome work!

Hi Dynamo...
Thank you so much for your comments .
I'm rather overwhelmed by your kind words and it would be real bonus if my little movie  helps other budding movie makers to use Poser as their main creator.
Thanks again

Dave