The War of the Worlds 1934

Kaptive said:
I can relate on all points. I've spent my spare time creating old buildings because I realised I don't really have all the things I need. It can really throw off the pace. But once they're done they're done. Dinos are such funny animals that rigging is a bit more work than normal too.
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Definitely. The build-up of all the stuff you need before you can animate is the most tedious (and unenjoyable) part of the process for me. I really like the animation/lighting/compositing phase the most.

I wish I could find a LW person to rig the models for me. But this is just a side project that I’m tinkering with.
 
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I'd offer to help, but I'm not sure I'd be all that useful. I've had to lean in to rhiggit over the years for the best animation rigs, and even that takes time to set up. But LWs internal tools have got (did get) a lot better. Thankfully there are a lot of vids out there that help. I tend to download them when I find good ones these days, because you never know when they might vanish... and the number of people who can help these days is shrinking.

If I can do anything to help of course, I certainly will... just don't expect too much lol. I find the whole process a living nightmare, that I'm always relieved is over once done.

That said, there is nothing like a well rigged model. Animation becomes so much more fun, and less of a wrestling match!
 
Kaptive said:
I'd offer to help, but I'm not sure I'd be all that useful. I've had to lean in to rhiggit over the years for the best animation rigs, and even that takes time to set up. But LWs internal tools have got (did get) a lot better. Thankfully there are a lot of vids out there that help. I tend to download them when I find good ones these days, because you never know when they might vanish... and the number of people who can help these days is shrinking.

If I can do anything to help of course, I certainly will... just don't expect too much lol. I find the whole process a living nightmare, that I'm always relieved is over once done.

That said, there is nothing like a well rigged model. Animation becomes so much more fun, and less of a wrestling match!
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Haha. Thanks, I appreciate it. Like I said, this is just a little side project that I like to tinker with once in a while between the paying stuff. And it sounds like you have your hands full with the passion you have for your project as well.
 
I miss Rebel Hill, (Craig Monins) as well as SplineGod, (Larry Shultz), and is a bit ironic that you mention Rhiggit, and Larry's name shows up in a new, recent thread. Years ago Larry was trying to develop a bridge of sorts between Poser and Lightwave. I was an early (and one of the few) takers-on. I think he saw the proverbial "writing on the wall" certainly with the utter lack of readily available content for Lightwave. But the product never took flight.

I'm not quite sure when, only a few years back certainly, but a number of things suddenly clicked and a workflow existed to export Daz figures, animals ,etc. out of Daz and into Lightwave via FBX. They of course semi-recently with an "update", broke one of the key 3rd party products (Hmmm, sound familiar), for making furred animals, but I made conversions of most of those before that happened fortunately.

I just can't trust that things will be the same tomorrow, or even available next week, ya know?

The exports are rigged but only work for FK really. You can re-work for a Rhiggit rig if your so inclined (and I've done), but for 90%+ of what I doing its unnecessary, as I'm just doing stills. Perfect for motion graphics work though and the like though. You can still animate in LW, just not with IK. The plus side is that there are hundreds of poses you can also export & build up a library. Make use of the Animation Toolbox that Rebel Hill gave out as a free resource. posted somewhere on this site.

The point I'm trying to make is that there's quite a library of assets (not just Daz), that are quite affordable. Truth be told, I detest Daz, but they've some great artists enslaved, uh, I mean working or them. Might require some patience for an item to go on sale, but still when you consider how much time it would take you to make from scratch (textures, surfacing, UV'ing, rigging, creating morphs, weight maps,...), they really become a bargain. I'm talking it the $6 h to < $20 range.

Hell, my favorite coffee is $18/ Lb on sale!
 

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Here's the latest, and probably the most fun so far :D


You also might find the prior video interesting. Not Lightwave, but i gave a bit of AI a spin. I'm really not over keen on A.I. for all the reasons that many understand, but as a tool for this use, it was pretty good. I couldn't have done this any other way without many many hours of work. I'd have not made this video if I hadn't used it for it. It seemed like a good oportunity to see what could be done... and I could have done it better given more time. but it was good enough for the purposes.

Note: This uses "Thin-Plate-Spline-Motion-Model.ipynb" at Google Colab Link



...and tutorial that explains how to use it concisely here Animate ANY Face From A SINGLE IMAGE (Thin Plate Spline Motion Model)

That's all I've got for today, all the best y'all!
 
Your work on this for a theatre group is inspirational.

Since you're in the UK, I'd recommend a trip to London and the immersive WOW experience it's a lot of fun and the closest I'll ever come to space travel. Highly recommended.
 
pauland said:
Your work on this for a theatre group is inspirational.
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Inspirational?

More like Saint-like. This work is truly above and WAY beyond the call of duty.

Amazing, amazing work.

pauland said:
Since you're in the UK, I'd recommend a trip to London and the immersive WOW experience it's a lot of fun and the closest I'll ever come to space travel. Highly recommended.
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I'm based in London and have never heard about this. (I really need to get a life.)
 
pauland said:
Your work on this for a theatre group is inspirational.

Since you're in the UK, I'd recommend a trip to London and the immersive WOW experience it's a lot of fun and the closest I'll ever come to space travel. Highly recommended.
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Thanks Pauland! Funny, I was literally just talking to someone about that. They said it was pretty amazing! I'll certainly try to see it next time I'm down there. But I don't go that far south very often. Maybe worth the special journey for it.
 
Kaptive said:
Here's the latest, and probably the most fun so far :D

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Really Great work there, not much to give critics on, maybe some of the destruction in terms of speed of debris, lack of smoke trails on them, and some explosive fluids could move at a different pace perhaps, but other than that, well done.
(y)
 
Shabazzy said:
Inspirational?

More like Saint-like. This work is truly above and WAY beyond the call of duty.

Amazing, amazing work.



I'm based in London and have never heard about this. (I really need to get a life.)
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You're way too kind Shabazzy, but it is appreciated, thank you! Having fun with something I love is a gift to me, and it's great that others are enjoying it! I'd never have started it if my sister hadn't dragged me into her acting endevours. Regarding getting a life... us 3d/animator types are real shut ins for the most part (reminds me of the funny meme of the animators tan... as in, we don't have one!). So if I hadn't been dragged into it, I wouldn't be doing it... so I have a lot to thank her and the theatre group for really.

On a side note, I actually did another piece for them. Nothing major, but it was fun! It was a pantomime (which I normally don't like) called Pirates. So I wrote a piece of music and animated to it. It worked really well! I've got some videos of it, I'll post them below. It isn't much to look at in it's original form, but projected, it really looked great... the cameras don't do it justice. (Don't mention the floating bit of bone I forgot to weight map on the knee! You never noticed it on stage ...so got away with that one ! :D


And here is what it looked like on stage...

Actualy, this was a fun project on a lot of fronts... I ended up making all the pirates sword props, as well as painting the backdrop (also designed in Lightwave in an evening which I then projected on to the canvas). Me and the missus painted it over a couple of very long nights! Fun stuff.

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Oh, and we did go in and paint the ship deck... we ran out of time while doing it at home to transport it there. It was about 8-10 foot tall and double that wide. That was a serious amount of painting! Can't believe me managed it to be honest. Never done that before, but it came out great... the missus is a talented painter though, so that helped a lot.

For the actual performance, I ended up on curtain opening/closing duty, and i'll tell you that this was the most stressful part of the whole thing! It's quite a responsibility to get right. But I only messed up slightly once, so not bad for a first time.
Anyways, there you go... stuff and adventures lol.
 
prometheus said:
Really Great work there, not much to give critics on, maybe some of the destruction in terms of speed of debris, lack of smoke trails on them, and some explosive fluids could move at a different pace perhaps, but other than that, well done.
(y)
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Cheers Prom. Honestly, it's amazing it came out as well as it did. I'm trying to turn videos around really quickly, so using every trick in the book I can.. Bangs for bucks.
I've stopped worrying about making it perfect. I find that the combination of visuals and strong sound are enough to make it watchable. If I ever get around to compiling the whole thing into a bigger movie, then I can go back and fix things then (is the way I'm seeing it).

Someone pointed out the other day that the power station isn't putting out any smoke (pre-explosion), and I think of all the things, that bothers me the most. Also, in one of the mid way shots, the Tripod doesn't have the danglies below the body, because it was an old render. But i thought, everyone will be so focused upon the action, that it will go unnoticed, which so far it has. They could just be swinging behind the leg so far as the viewer is concerned.
I'm thankful that the format allows for lower quality renderings, otherwise I'd never get anything out! In fact, often, the low quality rendering noise actually helps oddly. Small blessings :D

Anyways, cheers!
 
Oh one last note.. just so you know, as Im not sure it's clear... the theatre production has been and gone. But I liked the results so much, I'm now expanding on it for Youtube etc.. getting a chance to write my own version of the tale. I've got some video of the theatre production somewhere. I'll post a bit when I come across it again!
 
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