"Ebon" lipsync test

[luckbat]

Hey folks. Just wanted to pop by, in case anyone was wondering where I'd gone, or heard I'd switched to another app, or something.

 

Rest assured I'm still plugging away, spending my nights and weekends in A:M, bringing "Ebon" to life. Here's a new lipsync test, for example:

 

 

Six-second clip (1.6MB): http://ebon.org/images/forForums/lipsync_shot11-1.mov

 

There are a number of reasons why I haven't been around much lately--one of them is simply that I've been posting my work-in-progress details on my own production blog instead of here. Nothing personal, honest! It's all part of the publicity-building machinery, laying the groundwork for even more ambitious animation projects to come. In the future. If I ever finish this short.

 

Anyway, I hope you're all well, and do let me know if you have any questions...

[martin]

Looking good, Mike.

[Rodney]

Mike (assuming that's you and not a close lookalike/impersonator with supreme toon talent).

 

It's great to see you posting Ebon updates again. Too cool!

 

Nice blog too.

[robcat2075]

Looks good.

 

I still think rendering at 12 fps rather than 24 would give you a more authentic toon look.

 

Are those bandage lines decaled?

[entity]

Wow! Exciting, intense scene! Keep it up! I looked in on some of your blog and things are really looking progressive. Once you get this scene completed, I doubt it will take you long to finish the rest. The begining is the hard part.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Excellent lip sync... can't see the lips, but the motion I see works VERY well.

 

Great blog... I really enjoyed reading up on what techniques you've been using.

 

Cheers!

[Paul Forwood]

It is good to see you posting again, Mike! And good to see that you are continuing to make progress with Ebon.

 

This update looks excellent but I feel that Ebon could be more expressive if she blinked just before she says, "don't", as she lowers her head, and maybe when the foreground figure turns away from her. Blinks help to convey something going on inside, an emotional struggle. But what do I know? Perhaps vampires don't need to blink. Also this is just my personal opinion and may have already tried using blinks and found that it doesn't work as you would like in this shot.

 

Very nice render and lip sync. The blog is very good too.

[luckbat]

I still think rendering at 12 fps rather than 24 would give you a more authentic toon look.

That wouldn't surprise me. But with keyframes already built for 24 fps, re-optimizing the animation for 12 would be no small undertaking. I promise to do some tests, though, and if 12fps ends up looking better, I'll consider making it my standard on subsequent shorts.

 

Are those bandage lines decaled?

Yes, they are.

 

This update looks excellent but I feel that Ebon could be more expressive if she blinked just before she says, "don't", as she lowers her head, and maybe when the foreground figure turns away from her.

Agreed. I was supposed to do a blink pass, but I forgot!

[3DArtZ]

Mike! Great to see your stuff back on the scene!

the lip synch looks good to me and better then what I've seen pass on animations I've seen on tv.

 

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[dborruso]

Looking great mike. Can't wait to see more ebon. It's awesome!

[pdaley]

Nice to see you're still in the game, Mike. Great work!

[kattkieru]

I think the comment by 3DArtz says it all. I've seen some stuff that makes it on TV with lipsync that doesn't touch what you've got going in this clip. Not to mention the new Ninja Turtles movie (which you know I loved, and which was totally awesome) -- the lipsync in that shouldn't have made it to rendering.

 

As always, I'm whipping a team of cheerleaders into a rooting frenzy for ya.

[dre4mer]

Great Mikes back! Was wondering after ya man. Thought maybe the stress had finally gotten to ya and you'd jumped off the ol' bridge or something Welcome back!! Glad to hear you've still been making progress!

 

-Ethan

[KenH]

or heard I'd switched to another app

 

Where ever would we get that idea!?

 

Looking good. Though personally, I would change the camera angle at the end where her hand comes across her face.

[the_black_mage]

you know i've been around here all this time and still see new people poping up thats been her longer than i have! any way sweet work, is that from that video you had posted a while ago?

[luckbat]

any way sweet work, is that from that video you had posted a while ago?

That's correct--you may be thinking of this thread:

http://migrate.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15373

 

That was a couple of server migrations ago though, so some of those older movie clips are lost to the sands of time...

[Vance]

Very nice work! I particularly like her mouth opening slightly when the other character turns around. It sells the idea that something is going on in her head.

 

-Vance

[luckbat]

Here is the full 16-second version of the shot. I still have a few tweaks left to make, but this is pretty much it. Three lines of dialog down, eight left to go.

 

http://ebon.org/images/forForums/lipsync_shot11-2.mov

[MMZ_TimeLord]

That is wonderful work... now I have to know the rest of the story... AAAAAAARRRHHHHH!!!!

[ruscular]

Dayum! thats looks fantastic! I agree, now I want to see the rest of the story!

 

what is your toon setting look like?

[Vong]

Mike already knows my opinions on this clip. Glad to see him posting it here for you all to take a look at. I think "Ebon" is coming along nicely.

[luckbat]

what is your toon setting look like?

 

The line thickness is 0.7, and the bias varies from group to group. I render lines separately at 720p for these test renders, and downscale them in post. The final short will likely be done at 720p, so I'll render the lines at 1080p for that—they'll look a little thicker than they do in this test.

 

No settings for the toon shader; I use regular lighting.

[ruscular]

what is your toon setting look like?

 

The line thickness is 0.7, and the bias varies from group to group. I render lines separately at 720p for these test renders, and downscale them in post. The final short will likely be done at 720p, so I'll render the lines at 1080p for that—they'll look a little thicker than they do in this test.

 

No settings for the toon shader; I use regular lighting.

 

interesting using realistic background and toon character. kind of remind me of Titan AE:

 

very nice bathroom!

[luckbat]

Just for "fun," I decided to render out shots 4 and 5 at 1280x720, the final resolution that this project will be mastered at. It was a demanding test of my entire production workflow, and it forced me to refine many of the techniques I've been using to put this animation together. It also brought my computer to its knees--the 25-second sequence you see here represents many, many overnight renders composited together.

 

Just how big is a 720p animation?

 

 

Oh, it's pretty big.

 

(I took the liberty of generating a 720x400 version for those of you without the latest hardware--at least you'll be able see what these two shots would look like on DVD...)

 

Download: FULL-RES 1280x720 version (h.264)

 

Download: DVD-RES 720x400 version (divx)

 

NOTE: These clips are out of date--There's a newer one at the bottom of this page...

[robcat2075]

It also brought my computer to its knees--the 25-second sequence you see here represents many, many overnight renders composited together.

 

Is it the set and its lighting that takes most of the time? The characters alone ought to be rather fast rendering.

 

Are you doing the depth of field effect in A:M or in post?

[oakchas]

Whoa!

 

Man, this looks great. and I really like how well the bathroom scene combines reality and toon... FANTASTIC... Glad to see you back!

[luckbat]

Is it the set and its lighting that takes most of the time? The characters alone ought to be rather fast rendering.

 

Oh, they are, but fast is relative when the shot is 25 seconds long, and you're rendering at 1280x720. The toon lines take a little over one minute per frame to render, which is good, but that's still 600 minutes, which definitely makes it an overnight render.

 

The set is rarely a problem to render, because for most shots, it's only a still frame. That, plus the fact that I made sure that all the lights in the set are either Z-buffered or non-shadow-casting.

 

The real time-killer is the raytraced sunlight. I gave up when I started seeing 30-minute-per-frame render times. In the end I went with ambient-light maps on the walls, and a separate volumetrics layer rendered out at quarter-res, scaled up and blurred. Even at quarter-res, the five-second volumetric layer in shot 5 took 36 hours.

 

 

Are you doing the depth of field effect in A:M or in post?

The set uses true DOF, since I don't have a depth map. The characters are rack-focused in post.

[robcat2075]

It sounds like you're doing all the time-saving work-arounds already.

 

One anomaly i notice after several viewings is that it's pretty much in clear focus from front to back at the beginning but then the front goes out of focus while the back can't get any more in focus than it was. Also the details in the forground wall get more blurred than the foreground character.

 

But those aren't shot killers.

[Mr. Jaqe]

Who-ho-ho! Luckbat's back! ...or I'm back and Luckbat's here with new stuff! And it looks great. I really enjoyed every clip in this thread, it's a very good example of great things one can acomplish with tonn rendering.

 

Cheers,

J

[luckbat]

New (and hopefully final) 720p version of shots 4 and 5:

 

http://ebon.org/images/forForums/Shots4-5_...-2_1280x720.mov

 

Changes in this edition:

• DOF rack-focus now more visually accurate
  
• Slight remodeling of Ebon's lower lip; new "mouth-corners" pose added
  
• Laborious keyframe revisions so minor as to be imperceptible to everyone but Robcat
  
• Room tone, some SFX added; all dialog replaced with alternate takes for some reason
  

[martin]

It looks great, Mike... But it looked great a couple revs ago - I'm afraid you've exceeded my ability to make sophisticated distinctions. Now, my appetite is whetted to see the rest of the story. What happened to his "people" already?

[luckbat]

They were slain (offscreen) by an unknown assailant. Ebon lost over 20 of her "people" during the same incident. It's all in the script: http://ebon.org/about/

[martin]

They were slain (offscreen) by an unknown assailant. Ebon lost over 20 of her "people" during the same incident. It's all in the script: http://ebon.org/about/

Off to read script... Yeah, I love a good story.

[Zaryin]

That is looking fantastic. The voice work and recording is also excellent.

[luckbat]

 

Okay, this is going to be a little weird, animating backwards in chunks like this, but you work with what you have.

 

So, remember shots 4 and 5, posted way back in August? Well, to that pile I add the newly completed shots 1 and 2. Not only is there no lipsync in these shots, making the title of this thread increasingly inaccurate, but since there's no sound in this new clip, I couldn't really cut it together with shots 4-5. So you'll have to do the editing in your head.

 

Watch: Shots 1-2

(1280x720, 10.2MB)

 

You'll notice a bit of shot 4 at the end, there. Shot 3 was removed during the storyboarding stage long ago, so with these last two clips, you now have the first four shots of the scene.

[Rodney]

I seem to be blocked from your download. I'll attempt it again later.

At any rate its good see see your update... backdate... you know what I mean.

Its great to see you posting new Ebon shots!

[luckbat]

Man, you think I'd at least test my own links before posting them. Sheesh.

 

Fixed. Thanks Rodney.

[Gerry]

Hey Mike, this is all looking great and it's nice to see you posting here again! I look forward to seeing more.

[Rodney]

Fixed.

 

Yes indeed. That worked.

 

Upping the rez makes quite a difference.Very nice.

 

Did you change the toon line from your original pass at this?

It looks cleaner/crisper. (perhaps the resolution?)

 

 

Edit: I went back a few posts and found this. For those interested:

The line thickness is 0.7, and the bias varies from group to group. I render lines separately at 720p for these test renders, and downscale them in post. The final short will likely be done at 720p, so I'll render the lines at 1080p for that—they'll look a little thicker than they do in this test.

 

No settings for the toon shader; I use regular lighting.

[3DArtZ]

The dripping faucet looks good the first and 2nd drip.. but then even though it is

blurred out, gets distracting....

 

But again, these are just nitpicks.

Overall the scene looks really good.

I like the blood from the scrapes after he clenches his fist.

 

Mike Fitz

www.3dartz.com

[dre4mer]

Does anyone know what became of Mike and his ebon project?

[Paul Forwood]

I don't know the fate of Ebon but...check out Mike's current project:

The Ottoman

If you look at the team credits you may notice quite a few old A:M users in there.

[luckbat]

Hi dre4mer, thanks for remembering me!

 

The "Ebon" project was put on hold due to lack of resources. The test scene I had been working on remains 80% complete or so, but getting that last 20% done proved beyond the limits of the technology I was working with at the time.

 

Although I've moved on to a new celshaded project since then, I'm still strongly considering finishing the "Ebon" scene when I have some more free time, and posting it publicly. At this point, it would probably only require a couple more months' work.

 

Just wanted you to know that I'm still out there, still doing toon-style animation.

[Gerry]

Hi Mike! As I said up above, nice to see you posting here again!

[Dpendleton77]

I know I am real late to this but wow. I am sad the guy stopped working on this. I love how it has the cell shaded look.

[John Bigboote]

Yeah- this thread serves as a time-capsule from a bygone era... see how supportive Martin could be? It made you feel real good. Lots of former forum-mates here too, the late-great Paul Forewood, dre4mer(who I think is now in the medical profession), Ruscular, Paul Daley, Dennis Borruso, Mike Fitz... *snurf*

[Dpendleton77]

Yeah- this thread serves as a time-capsule from a bygone era... see how supportive Martin could be? It made you feel real good. Lots of former forum-mates here too, the late-great Paul Forewood, dre4mer(who I think is now in the medical profession), Ruscular, Paul Daley, Dennis Borruso, Mike Fitz... *snurf*

I talked to Mike on twitter and he said Ebon might come back. Sadly he will be using another tool.

[zandoriastudios]

the Ottoman project looks pretty cool!--looks like Mike, Jim, Dhar, and a few other A:M alumni involved. And based on their blog--looks like the online collaborators were able to meet-up for a "hash-bash" type of get together.

I really miss that community that we had back in that era when the first hash-bash happened and we all stayed at Martin's house and everything was possible....

[Dpendleton77]

Wow I knew I should have picked up this program back then.

[robcat2075]

I was disappointed to find out Mike was running an anti-A:M forum and creating a lot of negative word-of-mouth. That was very damaging.