I had a lot of fun playing around with motion blurring (post work, not in Poser), but I am not really sure if I am totally happy with the results.

The first thing that sticks out to me is the fact that I cheated making the costume. It's only a painted texture map. But I started working with Blender a couple days ago. Hopefully, I will have something figured out soon.

Anyway, here is the link, if you want to check it out and offer some advice on what to change.

I am not really sure why the hiccup in the middle of the animation occured. Poser did that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEgt3KnhN6Y

wow, that looks good.  did you use macfilters for the motion blurring?

Love esther

PS I thought the tails of the MB could have been a bit longer.

Quote - wow, that looks good.  did you use macfilters for the motion blurring?

Love esther

PS I thought the tails of the MB could have been a bit longer.

Actually, I used GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), an open source image editor. It's pretty versatile. I render the animation as a PNG image file, so I can do the visual effects a frame at a time. I thought the tails could be longer too, and I was going to see about maybe speeding the animation up a bit, to give it a look similar to Smallville, or the short-lived Flash tv series. But that will be after I figure out Blender and can make a decent costume.

and then are you going to make a flash story?

Love esther

Oh, and by the way: the specifics...

That's Poser 7 Simon as Barry West, aka The Flash. The background is just a pic I found on the internet. I've used it before as a background for Sydney when I was learning how to do dynamic clothing. As stated, the costume is just a painted texture map. I used Simon's body tex to do that with. The logo on his chest was downloaded from google, resized and added in. I used GIMP to match the color of the logo to make his costume so it would blend seamlessly.

I just did Walk Designer, tweaked it to mimic the comic book Flash, then rendered it to image files. I discovered that PNG files only contain what you render into the scene, so in effect, there is no background unless you add one in. Makes doing chroma key type stuff really easy, and things like strand based hair blends into the scene without artifacts and such. So I do most of my work post render with GIMP. If anyone wants it, I will post a tutorial on my workflow, since it's a bit unorthadox.

Quote - and then are you going to make a flash story?

Love esther

I am not leaning toward it. I would rather do my own character. The idea for doing the Flash was just so I could figure out how to do the motion blur. I wouldn't know where to take a Flash story that hasn't been done.

I am impressed!  I too feel the same way - that it it far better to make one's own story up with one's oiwn characters (not saying I wouldn't use a poser daz bought character but that is a different meaning to a story character)

I would use the Poser characters simply because it's going to be quite awhile before I can make my own characters. But I would want to make my own clothing/props/what-not in order to tell the story. I do have a couple superhero type characters that I made up as a teen. I just need to sit down and write a really good story to tell with them.

Did you, by chance take a look at any of the other animations that I did on YouTube? They are all geared toward telling a superhero type story...

Hi, no I didn't look but I will.

You must have had the same sort of teenage fantasy world that I did.

Love esther

Pretty sure I did. I had two guys that I mostly worked with. Green Lightning was a teenager with super powers. I never did flesh out his origin, but he lived in a floating fortress and had a lot of really cool vehicles. He could fly and of course his other powers were based off his name...

The other is Red Devil. Seems I am into color based heros. Don't know what that means... But the devil was a scientist who was created in a lab explosion. I may change his origin because it's kind of cliche'd now. He was living fire. I created him from a drawing I did based on some old 20's and 30's Sci Fi paintings and book covers.

One of them will come to life one day. Just a matter of when.

good work.

This is going to take you a very long time, unless you do what I do and just make stills in comic format.

Was that miki in the force etc?  I never knew she could look so good.  the hair looks great!

By the way have you tried the BB envirsphere with a spherical HDRI map to make a nice background that your character can run around doing things in?

Love esther

PS the guy making fists at the guy with the laser wasn't acting very rationally.

My first character I invented when Iw as about 5 yrs old and she was a pirate girl.

then when I started reading superman and batman I invented others.

Love esther

That was actually Poser 7 Sydney in the force. In fact, she is in almost all of those animations.

I haven't tried the BB envirsphere because I can't purchase anything for this beyond the program. Spouse made me promise not to.

And yeah, that guy had a death wish obviously. I just used that animation because it had the sudden fall at the end. I guess I could have deleted the first 80 frames, but I got lazy...

well the BB envirsphere is in free stuff here.

But you would need to get hold of HDRIs or take some pics.  there are lots of free hdris on the net I would think.

Also I have vue and I can actually make HDRIs in vue, so if you want one to play with of an outdoor scene I can make one for you.

I have a deal with my spouse.  I do extra shifts and keep a small percentage of the extrashift money for poser stuff.

Love esther

Quote - My first character I invented when Iw as about 5 yrs old and she was a pirate girl.

then when I started reading superman and batman I invented others.

Love esther

I am going to check out your online comic a bit later. My connection is acting up. It's a usb broadband, but the weather here is really bad, so my connection suffers.  

well my artwork isn't all that good at first.

But I am improving now (unposted bit to follow)

Love esther

Quote - well the BB envirsphere is in free stuff here.

But you would need to get hold of HDRIs or take some pics.  there are lots of free hdris on the net I would think.

Also I have vue and I can actually make HDRIs in vue, so if you want one to play with of an outdoor scene I can make one for you.

I have a deal with my spouse.  I do extra shifts and keep a small percentage of the extrashift money for poser stuff.

Love esther

I may take you up on that offer. I'll check out the BB envirsphere thing when I can download at a speed that won't time out on me...

Why no posted examples to show us your work?

His work is on utube as they are animations...

Quote - His work is on utube as they are animations...

All of it can be accessed from the link I provided in the first post.

Esther, I started on your online comic. Pretty good stuff. I could only read a few pages because of this stupid so called broadband connection, but it's intriguing. And the art isn't to bad at all in the beginning.

Thanks, but it  wasn't the look I wanted though.

I am close to that look now thank goodness.

My broadband also gets knocked out by wind and storms.

Love esther

I am still struggling with the look I want when I start my movie. I thought I was going for "photo realistici", but apparently, that term starts an avalanche of bad vibes. I am pretty close to the look I see in my head with the "Use The Force" animation. The lighting, composition, the feel are all there. It's a rendering nightmare though. That short little piece took the better part of 5 hours to render. And then there was the post work... But it's something I want to do, and until I can figure out how to do it more efficiently, I will plug at it like this.

the hope is we will get faster.  well perhaps I can talk you into making comics (which is also very slow and painful but probably not as slow and painful as animations).

Love esther

Quote - the hope is we will get faster.  well perhaps I can talk you into making comics (which is also very slow and painful but probably not as slow and painful as animations).

Love esther

I dunno, I have a bunch of friends who are all struggling actors who also happen to be into home recording who are chomping at the bit to get me to let them do the voice overs for all of this. I am still trying to figure out which story I am going to tell. I was lingering on a Star Wars thing for awhile, but that seems like way too much research, and anything I could come up with would violate about 2000 copyrights, so I am back to my 2 superheroes. I am leaning toward Green Lightning, with perhaps a name change and a good back story to tell his origin (which I am still without after nearly 30 years).

I have to design his costume first on paper, then try to create it in Blender. I will probably use the Poser characters for now. I have enough face morphs to be able to tell a decent story without using any outside stuff (like M4/V4, who, for some reason, I don't really like).

So that's where I am. Still a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go until I can get started on this thing. But the basics are there. Now I have to make it happen.

well obviously his costume would have to have a lightening streak down the front but that sounds kind of familiar.

Tell me his powers again and I might be able to think of a name for him.

Love esther

Quote - well obviously his costume would have to have a lightening streak down the front but that sounds kind of familiar.

Tell me his powers again and I might be able to think of a name for him.

Love esther

I have design in mind for the costume, but let's see about the name. His powers are the standard flying, superhuman strength, and of course the lightning. That has evolved over the years. It used to be just green laser-like beams, then it was something green lantern-ish, to now it's literally green lightning that shoots from his fingers. But it's not just that, he can call it out of the air if you have his hands trapped or otherwise engaged. But he can only do this once and for a short burst as a last resort because it saps him of his strength momentarily. He also has his sky fortress, which is hidden in a bank of clouds it generates. It is constantly in a fixed orbit around the earth, out of reach of any satellite we might have up there (we meaning any country on earth), and there used to be a whole host of really cool vehicles that he would use, but I 've done away with them since he doesn't really need transportation. That's pretty much him in a nutshell. There were other powers that came and went as the years have come and gone, but I don't think I am going to give them back to him. Can't make him too powerful or too intelligent or too good, because then he would be boring. Although at one time, I gave him the power to read your emotions briefly if he touched you. I don't know why I did that, or why it went away. I'll have to explore that some more and see where it goes.

One more tidbit, the green part is also a moot point because I plan on making his costume mostly midnight blue with just a bit of green in it.

Hmm - maybe you could call him Generator or Gen1.  But then most of his powers aren't about the lightening so much.  But perhaps they all stem from electricity in some way.

That's why the word superman suited him because he has a bunch of powers.

Static Stan.

Electric Blue?

Quote - Hmm - maybe you could call him Generator or Gen1.  But then most of his powers aren't about the lightening so much.  But perhaps they all stem from electricity in some way.

That's why the word superman suited him because he has a bunch of powers.

 

Static Stan.

 

Electric Blue?

Actually, I came up with the name Green Lightning about 5 years before he even got that power.

He's had a lot of different powers over the years depending on my real life dilemas. He could read your emotions, teleport at will, shrink down to 1 inch, divide himself into as many as 3 people; there are a whole host of things he could do.

I was reading a lot of Justice League when he was created. Green Lantern, Green Arrow... so Green Lightning seemed right. At his creation, he was just like Batman, in a way. Rich S.O.B with expensive toys, hence the sky fortress and all the vehicles.

The super powers gradually made their way in.

So his current set of powers may also include some of his past ones. I will have to choose.

Just to address the animation glitch, it looks to me like an issue with walk designer not creating "perfect" loops, in the animation palette, try deleting the glitch keyframe and the frames either side of it Poser will re-tween the gap.

Quote - Just to address the animation glitch, it looks to me like an issue with walk designer not creating "perfect" loops, in the animation palette, try deleting the glitch keyframe and the frames either side of it Poser will re-tween the gap.

Thank you for that. When I start doing the animation for this project that keeps getting bigger every damn day, I will keep that in mind. Not just for walk designer, but in any animation that I do.

for the "glitch" go into the graph editor to smooth it

also look at knocking down the frame rate (if you haven't) poser default is 30 fps if you can get away with 20fps it will save you 30 mins + on every second of animation

Blenders great init just getting into that myself!! now I have never tried it but I think blender could make hdr images for backgrounds, Carrara can and its been on the 3d mags as a freebie (older ones) so partner can relax lol. I'm on a budget for this stuff too but since I started doing my own modeling I spend very little on content and its so much fun making it yourself

nice work on the ani's by the way

Quote - for the "glitch" go into the graph editor to smooth it

also look at knocking down the frame rate (if you haven't) poser default is 30 fps if you can get away with 20fps it will save you 30 mins + on every second of animation

Blenders great init just getting into that myself!! now I have never tried it but I think blender could make hdr images for backgrounds, Carrara can and its been on the 3d mags as a freebie (older ones) so partner can relax lol. I'm on a budget for this stuff too but since I started doing my own modeling I spend very little on content and its so much fun making it yourself

 

nice work on the ani's by the way

Thanks. I just started with Blender, and it's a little overwhelming right now. I've never done anything like this before, so I had to download the manual (a wiki) and start reading. The manual is over 1500 pages long! This animation is actually set at 15 fps, to give it a slow motion feel,  I use Virtual Dub, and its default setting is 10 fps, but that was too slow.

Thank you for looking!