Posted in Comics, Companion software, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News
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Clip Studio Paint (formerly much better known as Manga Studio) has just been released for the iPad.
Lumion 8 has just been released. Mostly intended for architects working with CAD models of buildings for construction clients. Which makes it very very costly, but as a result, also very fast and streamlined — if you have the ninja workstation needed to run it. In terms of the tools that readers of this blog are likely to have access to, it only interfaces nicely with SketchUp and (apparently) Cinema 4D. As such it’s probably not for most people who read this blog, but it’s interesting to at least see what the architects have at their disposal these days.
Here are all the new features in Lumion 8. I like the look of the “softening of hard edges” filter, which smooths some of the razor-sharp edges that 3D renders often have…
Movie trade magazine Deadline reports that…
“the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien is currently shopping around rights to a TV series based on The Lord of the Rings with a hefty sticker price. The Tolkien estate has put a price tag of $200-250 million dollars on the rights and is currently taking meetings with Netflix and Amazon”
Ugh. I do hope it’s not going to be “Games of Thrones-ified” and “global-reach”-ified once they get the rights. But it probably is. Because a $200-250m price, plus the $750m making-of costs, will demand as wide an audience as possible, with only a few scraps thrown to the fan-base for Tolkien’s writing. Jeff Bezos just sold $1.1 billion in Amazon stock, so they have that sort of cash. They’ll have to get that back.
There are more back-stories to be told in The Lord of the Rings, it’s true.
For instance, one could have an alternately charming / creepy Shire Stories series of self-contained episodes: Bilbo’s visit to the Michel Delving mathomhouse; Ted’s “cousin Hal” encounters the “walking trees” “beyond the North Moors” (last of the Ent-wives?); Gandalf’s arrangements with the dwarves for the making and delivery of the Party toys, his design and making of the Party fireworks; the building of The Hedge, the attack of the trees of the Old Forest, the burning of the bonfire glade; and Farmer Maggot’s encounters with Tom Bombadil. Etc. There are also plenty of pre-Bilbo places for more epic back-stories, such as the life-story of Aragorn.
But as Phil Dragash has so ably shown, full-cast / full-symphonic audio-only seems the best way forward. Which, interestingly, puts such back-story ventures well within the reach of fan-work makers, and for a lot less cost than $1bn. All you have to do is find someone who can write like Tolkien, and with the same pre-modern concerns. Which may, admittedly, be rather tricksy.
Update. Amazon got the TV rights to The Lord of the Rings…
“Set in Middle-Earth, the television adaptation [“a multi-season commitment”] will explore new storylines preceding J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The deal includes a potential additional spin-off series.” Telling… “previously unexplored stories based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s original writings”.
Interesting, so it’s a Second Age prequel series. New Line Cinema are lined up. I’ll bet Apple won’t be able to resist making it politically-correct, despite the risk that entails to getting back their $1.2 billion.
The Blender Institute has started working on their 12th open movie, to be made as a showcase for Blender 2.8. The new one is to be called Spring, in which a mountain spirit and her wise little dog bring springtime to a mountain valley after a long and dark winter. Concept artist David Revoy is once again onboard, and the pre-production assets are being released under Creative Commons Attribution — though sadly it seems hi-res downloads are only for subscribers to the Blender Cloud.
Pre-production concept paintings by David Revoy for the Blender Institute.
DAZ Studio 4.10 is out. The eye-catching bits, in terms of what’s new…
* a new cloth physics engine called dForce, which does realistic dynamic cloth draping. The FAQ talks of… “dForce compliant clothing items, that customers will be able to purchase from the DAZ store, will be both rigged and dynamic at the same time”. Presumably those browsing the store in the near future will start to see clothing packs with “dForce enabled” swooshes on them.
* An NVIDIA iRay upgrade, which… “Increases hardware requirement to Fermi class or newer generation GPUs; recent driver recommended”.
* Better BVH animation import.
* Better FBX export.
* A YouTube 360 fix: “The stereo 360 horizontal shift has been fixed. Iray stereo 360 output now directly conforms to the YouTube 360 stereo format.”
I haven’t heard that any especially vital plugins need 4.10 to run, as was the case when Scene Optimizer required a version higher than 4.9.3.29 to run.
If you’re a first-time DAZ Studio user and don’t have a fast videogamer’s graphics-card in your PC, then you need the absolutely vital Scene Optimizer, and you might as well also pick up the vital Eye Clock add-on at the same time. Scene Optimizer actually makes DAZ Studio + iRay usable on a normal PC. It’s amazing. Not only usable, but “you can do other things on your PC, while DAZ renders” useful.
Poser 11’s service release patch is out, the eighth such. To get it, launch your Smith Micro Download Manager, switch to the Updates tab. There you’ll see 11.0.8…
There appears to be no accompanying Content update pack this time, as there has been in the past.
If you run a 64-bit instead of a 32-bit install of Poser, then you need to make sure to uncheck the 32-bit check-box when the installer runs. Otherwise it may look for both 64-bit and 32-bit installs of Poser, and may then get confused when it can’t find the 32-bit.
Changes with the new patch:
* Queue Manager Installer now works on Windows 32-bit.
* Sketch Render no longer crashes or hangs when using Make Movie.
* Master Control light burning issues were solved.
* Graph Editor opens with last window size. [meaning: the Graph Editor no longer opens at a tiny size].
* Area Render fixes.
* Direct Manipulation Tool is now being rendered as intended.
* PNGs with alpha are now supported. The alpha is discarded, and the PNG is looked as a 24 bit image. [Poser can already output alpha-masked PNGs, so presumably this has to do with input of PNGs].
Oooh, a Blade Runner 2049 mini-prequel, from the Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe. In plot terms, the 15 minute Blade Runner: Black Out 2022 sit between the original and the new Blade Runner. As do the follow-on shorts 2036: Nexus Dawn and 2048: Nowhere to Run. All are now on YouTube for free, courtesy of Warner Bros.
Graphic Medicine : the interaction of comics & healthcare. A very vigorous and dedicated website complete with: an occasional podcast; a blog; a long-running “This Week in Graphic Medicine” news/link digest; reviews of strips and graphic novels; and even a long-running annual conference (2018: Vermont, east coast of the USA / 2019: Brighton UK).
The new relatively-affordable 10-inch tablets with 1920px screens are going to provide an excellent platform for such comics. Add to that Poser’s speedy comic-book rendering abilities and vast royalty-free content library, and there seems to be a huge open opportunity here for talent to get into creating healthcare comics, and then to teach others to make them. That would have to be about teaching people to make them in a non-naff way, a way which meets the high 2D standards which both kids and regular adult comics-readers now expect. Ugly grainy 3D textures with a few toon lines over the top, and “wanna-be-3D-really” shadows, are not going to be acceptable in a therapeutic context.
Now that the new Blade Runner movie has so expertly turned the corner of the year 2017, it seems timely for me to do a new survey of the forthcoming 2018 science-fiction and fantasy films.
There are of course still a few more films to come in 2017. Before Christmas we get Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok; DC’s Justice League; Guillermo del Toro’s acclaimed ‘beauty and the beast’ movie The Shape of Water; and of course the big-big release which is Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
But below I focus is on what’s coming in 2018. I should note that I’m not someone who watches trailers, due to the generally spoiler-ific nature of trailers. So these comments are not informed by any trailers there might be out there.
* Extinction: Extinction leads a whole pack of gloomy movies, with its January 2018 release. It sounds like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the grim family-breakdown bits) meets any number of imminent-apocalypse movies. I’m not expecting much from this one.
* The God Particle: The heavily delayed space-station horror movie God Particle is now set for release in early February 2018. Despite the intellectual-sounding title it appears to be just a basic ‘dangerous aliens on a space station’ story. It’s also apparently now part of the Cloverfield franchise. Perhaps that’s how the makers rescued what was, by all accounts, a turkey.
* Annihilation: A Natalie Portman vehicle due at the end of February 2018. It features a small-team scientific expedition to an “environmental disaster zone”. Could be just another “monsters and guns on the jungle” action-eer with a veneers of sci-fi. But the fact that the makers had hoped to get Tilda Swinton suggests it may have a little more intellectual substance to it. One suspects that piranha-like flesh eating nano-swarms may be involved, rather than a giant crocodile. However, with that sort of thing I’m always haunted by the huge pile of pretentious nano-crud that was Johnny Depp’s awful Transcendence (2014).
* A Wrinkle in Time: Once we get past the dead zone of the January/February releases, things become a little more upbeat with a Disney movie. This is an adaptation of a children’s Christian science-fiction novel that was well-known in the 1960s and 70s, but which somewhat faded from public awareness in the 1980s and 90s. It’s a big Disney live-action movie, so should be fairly enjoyable. Though it may work best for those aged 11-14. It’s due in early March 2018, and will possibly be the most cheerful fantasy of what appears to be a very gloomy year of movies.
* Black Panther: Yet more jungle adventure — is the Dominican Republic offering vast subsidies to movie-makers, to film in its lush jungles? I must stay I enjoyed the Black Panther’s first brief appearance on the big screen in Captain America: Civil War. But it sounds to me like this may be a re-hash of Avatar, with military outsiders invading the hidden jungle trying to steal the Panther’s vibranium metal. Yawn. Still, it’s from Marvel, so it should have some extra sci-fi zip to it, if the makers faithfully visualise Jack Kirby’s ground-breaking take on Afrofuturism. Presumably it also somewhat sets the scene for the big Avengers: Infinity War blockbuster later in the year.
* Tomb Raider: A big Warner Bros. release in mid March 2018. Judging by the grim movie poster it’s not going to be bouncy and camp Raiders of the Lost Ark-style fun, and will instead go for a gritty “I’m a survivor, taste my bloody ice-pick!” angle.
* Pacific Rim: Uprising: A sequel to the big brash but forgettable Pacific Rim. This time there’s no Guillermo del Toro in sight. Sounds like a big dumb sequel, full of monsters vs. giant machines, but hey… that can be enjoyable too.
* Rampage. Yet another ‘bio-engineered monsters in the jungle’ movie, this time based on an old 1980s videogame. And of course the monsters escape and go on the rampage. Sounds like an over-the-top formula popcorn movie, basically Jurassic Park crossed with Godzilla. Expect laughs, if not outright parody.
* Ready Player One. Steven Spielberg as director of a post-apocalyptic / cyberpunk movie, set in a future where most people prefer to ‘live’ in the virtual reality world of the OASIS. Sounds like Blade Runner meets Tron. Hopefully it will have an interesting Snow Crash-like edge in terms of the visuals, although it’s apparently based on a dire young adults novel that was anything but the great Snow Crash.
* The New Mutants. At first glance I thought this was proper X-Men movie, but from the description it seems to be a grim psychological teens-in-a-maze horror videogame dressed up in X-Men clothing. Nope, that just sounds awful to me — even when I learn that the great Maisie Williams is starring.
* Avengers: Infinity War: Which releases in early May and opens the summer season. One of the year’s big “must see” movies, of course.
* “Untitled Han Solo film”, in May 2018. A Lucasfilm space-western telling the backstory of Han Solo, and directed by Ron Howard. Yup, I’ll definitely see that.
* The Incredibles 2: Pixar’s big summer movie from… the great Brad Bird. Interesting. Yup, that sounds like another must-see movie.
* Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom: Yet more jungles and escaped monsters, and yet more forgettable popcorn and people-munching action.
* Ant-Man and the Wasp: Presumably this will be Marvel’s lighter offshoot movie, serving as a palette-cleanser after the heavier Avengers: Infinity War. The first Ant Man movie was enjoyable, and presumably this will be more of the same.
* Hotel Transylvania 3: Hotel Transylvania 2 was a thoroughly enjoyable entertainment, even with its (thankfully quite short) musical interludes. So I have hopes for more fun from this.
* Alita: Battle Angel: Hollywood takes another crack at doing Japanese manga/anime as a big summer blockbuster movie. Maybe this time it’ll finally work, with James Cameron at the helm. In the far future a girl cyborg is rescued from a scrapheap. It should be Valerian-style treat visually, if nothing else.
* Hellboy: Apparently Hellboy reboots into an R-rated Deadpool style, but… he travels to an ancient England, must defeat Merlin the wizard etc. Hmmm… Well, I guess an early medieval fantasy setting would allow for lots of gratuitous violence and gore. I’ve only ever seen the Hellboy movies, and I disliked the Deadpool movie, so while the setting excites me the style may not.
* Bumblebee: Apparently a Transformers spin-off movie telling the 1980s backstory of Bumblebee. I suspect a viewer will have to be younger than 11 to enjoy this one.
* The Man Who Killed Don Quixote: Terry Gilliam’s new project, in which a time-travelling ad-man meets the famous tragic hero Don Quixote. Any whacky and surreal Gilliam movie is always welcome.
* Mission: Impossible 6: Always a treat, with cool future-gadgets and snappy patter.
* First Man: a bio-pic on the life and work of the Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong. Hopefully a respectful one.
* The Predator: apparently an attempt to revive the Predator brand, as a sequel to the 1987 movie. Judging by the timing of the release it’ll just be a big dumb summer action movie.
* The Titan: Seems to be a low-budget action/horror movie in which an Air Force pilot is genetically re-engineered to survive on Saturn’s moon Titan. Might be interesting, though it seems he just turns into the usual movie-monster.
* Venom: In early October we get the big screen version of Marvel’s Venom character, introduced in the late 1980s as a new arch-enemy of Spider-Man. He’s from a time when I had stopped reading Marvel comics, so there’s no “oh wow, Venom!” reaction from me. But he sounds like an interesting character. I’m hoping this won’t be skewed into Deadpool territory, but I guess it will be.
* X-Men: Dark Phoenix: the big and long-awaited X-Men movie lands in early November. It is, of course, the movie version of the famous Dark Phoenix story. Just as long as they do it right…
* Batman: Gotham by Gaslight: an animated Batman feature, in which the Batman inhabits an alternate-world steampunk Victorian Gotham, is on the trail of Jack the Ripper. Based on the graphic novel, though that’s not always a recommendation. For instance, I was disappointed by the recent feature-animation of Justice League: The New Frontier, which was risibly simplistic compared to the graphic novel.
* Fantastic Beasts and Where Not to Find Them: A Fantastic Beasts sequel. The first one was entertaining, in a Doctor Who-ish sort of way, and looked great. Yes, more of the same would be welcome.
* Mortal Engines. An adaptation of the novel set in a steampunk-ish version of London, on an alternate-history desolated earth. Set for a 14th December release, so it must be really good if it’s going to do well in the Christmas slot.
That’s it. It’s interesting to see how steampunk comes through strongly at the end of the year, albeit with a gloomy edge to it. Can 2019 be a bit more cheerful and optimistic please, Hollywood?
Posted in Companion software, Freebies, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
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A new free ‘open source’ software, Storyboarder. Lets you sketch storyboards, with lots of helper widgets and do-dahs. Nice clean user-interface, too.
Sadly it also has one of those “give us your email and we’ll send you a download link” things. Meh. So I haven’t downloaded, installed and tested. But it looks good, and you can’t argue with free.
According to a third-party blurb it apparently…
“allows the user to type a description in the sidebar and instantly get properly positioned 3D models, over which details can be added.”
Interesting, but there’s no info about things like 3D model import on the website? I couldn’t find anything there about 3D, importing .OBJs or their being some sort of 3D posing dolls inside the software. You can however change cameras to different shot types, and doing so forces your scene into a sort-of tilt to match the camera shot. Perhaps that was what was misunderstood to be “3D”?
For those less inclined to sketch by hand just to get rough storyboards, also look at DesignDoll 4.0, which definitely does work with 3D. Imagine a streamlined ‘Poser for comics artists’, dedicated to making the rough pencils for each frame.
So far as I recall Manga Studio also handles 3D well.
Of course there’s also Poser and DAZ Studio, and their real-time OpenGL previews, and Poser 11’s real-time Comic Book mode.
3D World magazine is increasingly skippable, due to its high-end industry/student focus. But this month at least there’s a good review of iClone 7. Though it has a misleading bit which says that “iClone 7 has a very short learning curve”. That seems erm, well… let’s just say it seems over-eager to hype the software. To be charitable to the reviewer, that line occurs over in the sidebar and perhaps was added later by the sub-editor.
Posted in Companion software, Real-time animation, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry
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The Reallusion blog has all the details on their just-released $1000 Faceware Realtime system, for accurate real-time markerless facial animation in iClone…
The new Cinema 4D is out, Cinema 4D 19.
* A new viewport with… “Results so close to final render” that they can (apparently) be show to clients.
* 360° Virtual Reality output.
* “New Polygon Reduction” functionality, while preserving details.
* BodyPaint 3D. “Now uses an OpenGL painting engine, giving R19 artists a real-time display of reflections, alpha, bump or normal, and even displacement”.
* LOD. “Level of Detail (LOD) Object – Define and manage settings to maximize viewport and render speed, or prepare optimized assets for game workflows. Exports FBX for use in popular game engines.”
I wonder how automated that last one is? Auto LOD loading for distant objects? To speed up render time?
There’s also support for AMD’s various innovative new graphics power-ups, recently introduced.
Poser Pro 11 users should be able to send their Poser scenes to Cinema 4D, via the plugins that ship with Poser Pro. Though I’m guessing there will be the usual short hiatus before Poser supports the latest Cinema 4D 19. Although Vue is probably your better option there, unless perhaps Cinema 4D’s new “Results so close to final render” viewport is real-time.
Posted in Companion software, Freebies, Real-time animation, Spotted in the News
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The Muvizu website is back again, the Glasgow company having been acquired by Hong Kong’s Meshmellow. Sales also appear to be back, with the £25 Muvizu:Play+ and various add-on packs, though the site appears to be little sluggish from the UK (presumably it’s now hosted in the Far East?). Muvizu is a real-time toon animation animation software based on the Unreal videogame engine, and pitched at a market segment that needs things to be easy-to-use.
Posted in DAZ Studio, Poser, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News, Vue
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The newly revamped Content Paradise store now has a “Sale” page linked, from the top of the front page. 40 pages of sale items, headed by a Poser 11 sale. Upgrade from Poser 6 or above, to Poser 11 Standard, for just $60…
There’s not a lot to get excited about on the sale items, as the reductions are quite modest. But right at the end of the pages there’s a Vue freebie, a cat-lady trailer ‘Granny’s Trailer – Mobile Park’, and it also has a furnished interior. It’s from Meshbox, but a glance inside the .zip shows it has multiple textures rather than a single texture map. Which means you can easily re-texture it…
I also spotted a good amount of NearMe discounted outfits and morphs and even a pose pack, which will interest those using NearMe + Poser to make comics…
The DAZ Store also has a big sale on now, mostly 40% discounts and a few 66%. Most of my Wishlist is discounted, though lacking the 70% discounts that would be really tempting.
As well as looking at your Wishlist, also sort-the-store by price, and then skip to about page 5 in. From there onward in you’ll find pages and pages of older RuntimeDNA items for $3 to $4 each, and lots of toons suitable for use with Poser’s Comic Book mode…
