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Showing posts from March, 2016

Using CrazyTalk 8 and iClone 6 to bring Cartoon Characters to Life

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The Comedians - by TET.  Over 20 years ago I had the idea to create a comic strip that was based on the stand-up comedy of three fictional comedians. It was one of those bursts of inspiration that never got any further than headshot drawings of the aforementioned cast before being filed away. One of the reasons I bought the latest version of Reallusion's CrazyTalk 8 is that the promotional videos showed it being used to create 3D, talking head versions of cartoon characters. Something I thought might be an easy way to put my own characters into animation. I was reminded of that recently so I thought it was time to give it a try. Remembering my comedian characters I thought, that's the ideal place to start with talking head characters. Hat-wearing Comedian. Of the three character designs, the one I liked the most was the hat-wearing comedian. I knew I'd purchased just the right hat in one of the content packs for CrazyTalk 8 so I felt a good character likeness was possible.

Clip Studio Paint EX (formerly Manga Studio EX) Now Includes Digital Cell Animation

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Creating Animation with Clip Paint Studio EX. In a marvellous piece of serendipity, SmithMicro released a free update to Clip Studio Paint EX (formerly Manga Studio EX) that included Digital Cell Animation. Clip Paint Studio EX is my preferred illustration tool and, in my last blog post , literally a day before the update was released, I talked about figuring something out with Manga Studio in order to create digital cell animations of my own. Apparently the Japanese version of the software received the update earlier in February (I think) so this release was for the English version of CSP. Unfortunately the feature is so new there is no English video tutorials showing how to use it (and only one Japanese video that I could find). The release notes kind of explain the various features but that's it. The manual doesn't mention anything at all. (At the time of writing this there is an updated English  start-up pdf guide here  that runs through the basics). Fortunately the basics

Understanding my Absence and Updates on my Projects

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Lil' Peepz TET... I miss you. For some time now I've only been sporadically posting to this blog, which has been personally disappointing, as I've tried to make this and my Writing About blog something that I consistently update with new content on a weekly basis. Whilst I've been more prolific on my Writing About blog, I don't have the same broad scope to write about almost anything I choose here. This blog is devoted to documenting my personal animation projects and things that relate to my work, such as reviews of software I'm using, tutorials, animation tips and, occasionally I'll feature other animators work that I've discovered too. Typically, I post more often when I have an active project on the go. Unfortunately I haven't really had an active project on the go for months because of my commercial animation work . It's the same story of freelancers everywhere. When you get busy professionally, all personal projects fall to the wayside. I&