Cartoon making using sketchup
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Ok, let me give you a little presentation on what im doing, i have being working on an animation for the last 3yrs or so, most of my time has being spend building models around the concept of my cartoon idea called "Dawn Of Heroes" in a nutshell its a modern war cartoon with a funny side, all my characters are created with a cartoon style to them but unfortunately rigging is an issue in sketchup which doesnt seem to be happening anytime soon, but i have being using keyframe animation to create movements but can be time consuming, all my other models, aircraft, tanks, jeeps, trucks are all animated using both su animate and SP, and i have perfected this, even models with buildings, streets and landscapes have being created and have also a cartoon style to them, this part of my project has taking most of the time to create, also most of the buildings i have created have being designed so in SP the buildings can be destroyed in a realistic fashion, for example dropping bombs from aircraft, artillery etc...
When i creat a sceen with animated movements i render the animation using Shaderlight for photorealistic visuals, and once i have created enough clips my animations are inported into pinacle studio for editing, ie sound is added, music etc...
For character facial animation i use Crazytalk 6, an outside program created by reallusion, heres the link http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/
it animates all pictures very realisticly with very little effort, works great, check out some examples here on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lHzLMZg8kc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfQJkm74jX4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNBCVXDCcz4
No douth you agree its a fantastic way to animate facial animation and script for character animation, and gives a PIXAR like animation,This is my cocktal of programs so far to create a feature cartoon which already resemble PIXAR ANIMATION at very low costs, so in summery this is the cocktail of programs i use--
1: Sketchup + sketchyphysics + Keyframe animation + SU animate + Proper animation
2: Shaderlight Render
3: CrazyTalk 6 pro
4: Pinacle Studio 4Ok that sums up my Cocktail programs so far, only thing im missing really is an after effects software, havent decided what to use yet, and have little experiance in so far but to date my animations are not far off looking like PIXAR ANIMATIONS, getting there and having great results
So what im about to ask is there anyone else out there trying to do something simular to crateing Pixar Animation using sketchup and what cocktails of programs do you use, must bare in mind sketchup being 1 of the main programs, so that sums up everything, hope to hear some of your results soon
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Just learn blender and you won't need such a potent cocktail. It can do this..
[flash=800,600:jv2lej61]http://www.youtube.com/v/eRsGyueVLvQ[/flash:jv2lej61]
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Ah yes Rich, i taught this would be mentioned, but what im trying to highlight we can produce animations close to this using sketchup with a few outside programs, sketchup being the main program for modelling im interested in what other programs are used in conjunction with sketchup to make simular animations, i have tried blender in the past and found it quite difficult to use, on the other hand sketchup is so easy to use and very fast to pick up, so i have read many forums asking about animation in sketchup so im sharing my ideas and programs cocktails i use to produce some fine animations, and i would like to hear others have to offer, many out there like myself dont have time to be starting over and learning how to use programs such as blender... etc...
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You mentioned Pixar like quality. Do you have any animation that we could see?
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Sure Sepo, Dont want to be giving too much away about the cartoon i but these Character clips together in the last Hr, now bare in mind they were rushed and due to my incredibly slow internet connection they took quite some time to upload, let me know what you think...
Ok first clip is of a character walkcycle, created in sketchup and using layers to create each movement, altogether 16 pics where stiched together foe the animation, rendered in shaderlight
Next clip is again same Character animated to demonstrate facial movement and script testing, this was also rendered with shaderlight and crazytalk 6 pro was used for facial animation, again this was quickly put together, face can be animated better and the outline around the head can be removed for better animation
ooops second clip didnt upload so ill have to post that in the morning, sorry -
Here are 3 pics once stitched together demos a firing animation, the clip can be repeated for automatic fire, also have other animations for example reloading, stoppages, firing in the kneeling,standing, lying and moving positions
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Second pic
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And third, let me know what ye all think
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Lol, everyone asks that about the legs, well i have tried animating legs and it just didnt work out so well, taught id go for the Rayman look where he had no legs, i designed the animations for both cartoon animation and game design, to be honest i taught i could create a game at first but learning c++ was more difficult than i taught so i gave up on it and proceeded to do a cartoon, not aiming for a feature length just yet, im more on the lines of developing episodes, also working on a kids cartoon baesed around Myths and Legends, not much has being done with it so far but its a concept, Dawn Of Heroes is more of an adult army humour cartoon, but with a childish look, kinda like southpark if ya know what i mean, what exactly do you mean about some SU output in walk cycle???
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Well, you do not have to know C++ to make game. You could for instance use UDK or Unity game engine and make your game...
Yes I thought you would struggle with joints in SU...that is really why you need Maya... or Blender if you want free non industry standard software.
I just would like to see couple of scenes from SU, hence request of SU images. -
Looks unteresting.. I would like to see some SU output in walk cycle. BTW what is the reason for missing legs....simplicity of joint/muscle movement?
I understand you do not want to talk about catoon ...but are you working on feature animation or are these animations for some game development? -
Its funny you mentioned that, i downloaded UDK and Unity game engine, couldnt make tails end of it, lol, do you know if Characters and game maps can be imported into these game engines from sketchup????
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for Unity you should check some of these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8YGKQvEz1Y&feature=related
http://www.unity3dstudent.com/for UDK check this
http://www.autobodyshoptoronto.com/importing-a-complex-static-mesh-udk-tutorials-by-javahawk/
scroll down and you will see several other links.I do not think you can import directly SU files as such though.
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heres a demo of my character which i rigged last nite, just a simple test..
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Heres a test clip i put together to demo cartoon animation in sketchup
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