"Franticlaus: Son of Santa"

Santa Claus contends with a variety of challenges in this humorous Christmas animation by Daniel Kouts, accompanied with music by Nick Kouts:



related web site: http://www.danielkouts.com/ *

"Franticlaus: Son of Santa"

"In Sickness" animation

Here's a scary but touching animated short from "The Animation School" in South Africa entitled "In Sickness":



It won the gold medal in 2011 The New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards in the Short Animation File category. *

"In Sickness" animation

Experiment Using the Daz Transfer Utility

Recently I watched the following video about how to use the Daz Transfer Utility in Daz Studio to change static objects into clothing for Daz figures that move with the figure:



The foregoing caused me to wonder if this feature could also be used to allow modifying the figure itself in an external program such as Sculptris or Wings 3D and having it still move in Daz Studio (rather than just coming back as a static object).  Below is a simple experiment of this concept where I exported the Daz Genesis figure in obj format, imported it into Wings 3D, extruded some spikes from the head, re-exported it in obj format, imported it back into Daz, and finally used the Transfer Utility to export all of the Genesis figure default items onto the imported obj file so that it would move around just like the original Genesis figure.  Sure enough, it worked!

(I messed around with the surface settings in Daz to give it the appearance shown above).

I tried to do the same thing in Sculptris, but I ran into a problem in that when I ran the Transfer utility the imported object kept going out of vertical alignment with the Genesis figure (even after I aligned it correctly beforehand).  After some experimentation I realized this was a problem not specifically with Sculptris but with the fact that I had moved the object in Sculptris so as to be able to zoom in on the head.  Trying again with the added step in Sculptris of moving the figure back to the original position as close as I could get it resulted in the alignment in Daz being almost correct, the difference presumably being due to my being slightly off in my attempt in Sculptris to return the figure to where it was before i moved it. *

Experiment Using the Daz Transfer Utility

"Brain Divided" - Animation Short

Here's a humorous and well-animated short from Josiah Haworth, Joon Shik Song, and Joon Soo Song:



related web page: https://facebook.com/braindivided *

"Brain Divided" - Animation Short

Animation Experiment using Daz Studio Pro 4.5 and an imported object

I rendered a short animation in Daz Studio, testing it with an imported object (the creature).  I created the creature in Sculptris and exported it in wavefront/obj format before importing it into Daz. All of the other objects in the scene came from the "Genesis Starter Essentials", which were included with Daz Studio.

Beauty vs Beast


The animation for the woman came from the "punch" animation included with the Genesis Starter Essentials.  As the creature in this case was just a static object with no rigging, its animation possibilities were more limited - I rotated it and moved it for a rough approximation of falling down.

related web sites: http://www.daz3d.com/, http://pixologic.com/sculptris/

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Animation Experiment using Daz Studio Pro 4.5 and an imported object

Girl and Robot (short animation)

Here's a whimsically endearing and well animated video by Mads Dam Jakobsen, Kenneth Haunstrup, Nils Henric Wallmark, and Slaven Reese ("The Animated Workshop"):





related web site: http://www.animwork.dk/en/ *

Girl and Robot (short animation)

Sneak Peek: My Upcoming Humpty Dumpty Animation

I've been working on what I believe will be my most ambitious Humpty Dumpty video yet.  This time, our hero will be on a dungeon quest adventure.  Like all my preceding H.D. videos, the frames are being created primarily in POV-Ray, and the story will be told in an original rhyme.  Below is a very preliminary screen shot:

 

Currently I am estimating a completion date sometime in the first quarter of 2013, but I make no absolute promise - I'm trying to really take my time and raise the bar on quality.  One area in which I've been trying to improve is to give Humpty a better walk cycle than the rather jerky one he had in my previous Humpty Dumpty and the Candlestick video.  I found a couple of good online references here and here. I did take a few liberties with the advice offered, such as having Humpty keep his left arm rigid in "lantern holding" position, rather than swinging it, but basically I found the information very helpful.

Once I had his basic key frame positions down for walking (for which I stored the knee and foot position coordinates), I was happy to find that I could very easily average them together to get intermediate positions (and then average those to get even more intermediate positions, and so on). In other words, it's not too hard to compute a whole lot of frames and get as smooth a walk cycle as one wants with POV-Ray.

As I mentioned, the above screen shot is very preliminary. I'll probably add a number of additional objects to the dungeon, and outfit Humpty in some more appropriate adventurer garb.  How does it look to you so far?  Is it suitably dark for a dungeon, but not so dark that you can't make out most of the main details?  It looks about right on my monitor, but I know that can vary a lot, depending on what screen one is using.  Leave me a comment.

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Sneak Peek: My Upcoming Humpty Dumpty Animation

"A Scary Walk through the Woods"

Just in time for Halloween, it's a mildly scary music video I made with POV-Ray.

A Scary Walk through the Woods


Related Web Page: http://videos.viewmyart.com/video-scary-walk-through-the-woods.htm *

"A Scary Walk through the Woods"

S3 vs the Mad Scientist's Robot (Animation)

Well, it took a while to make, but here's my latest video, featuring a heroic little spherical robot battling a much larger opponent, set to synth/percussion music. I hope you like it:



Related web page: http://videos.viewmyart.com/video_S3vsTheMadScientistsRobot.htm *

S3 vs the Mad Scientist's Robot (Animation)

Humpty Dumpty Animations

Humpty Dumpty Danced on a Disk is my third and latest episode in the animated Humpty Dumpty series:



Here is the second most recent, Humpty Dumpty Climbs a Hill:



And here is the first episode, Humpty Dumpty and the Tramp:


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Humpty Dumpty Animations

A couple of raytraced music videos

Each features graphics created in POVRay. The first one, by FinHit is entitled Dawn of Ray:



And here's my latest, a sci-fi mood piece entitled Abandoned Outpost:



If you're interested, I have a little more information about it here *

A couple of raytraced music videos