I'm interested in doing something like Pasha Egorov did in the
music video gallery for the short called Parabellum. The link to
the author's website is dead so I can't ask him/her directly.
I'm guessing they shot all the people with a locked off camera and
did all the moves in post, but I'm not sure it it was video that they
dropped out a bunch of frames or if it was a ton of still photos.
Has anyone on the board here done something similar to this? I would
like to get some advice and check that I'm heading down the right path?
Thanks
How was Parabellum done?
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Here are a couple posts about it, although they don't answer your specific questions:
http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1788
http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2323
Pasha, the animator, has a few posts on the forum, but I don't believe he's here very often.
http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1788
http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2323
Pasha, the animator, has a few posts on the forum, but I don't believe he's here very often.
Since I did similar stuff (but on a much smaller scale), I think I can guess how it was done:
1. Storyboard. A project like this can only be done with lots of planning. One has to know how many actors in which clothing and mask appear in which scene. Also the poses for the actors must be known before shooting.
2. Take lots of pictures. From the small video file I can't decide wether they were taken with a video camera (it's possible, but the resolution is low) or with a digital still camera (preferred because the higher resolution gives you more freedom in zooming in etc).
3. Prepare the pics (in Photoshop). Normalise the brightness and colours, cut out what you need to animate, separate limps and bodies and all stuff you need to move separately. Save them in an organised way as PNGs with alpha. Take care that their dimensions in pixels somewhat fit to the scenes they are used in.
4. Rig up your characters in Moho. Build good bone structures, import images, attach them to the bones via layer binding. Don't start animation before you have created all characters you need.
5. Animate in Moho, scene by scene, sometimes level by level separately. I think it is a good idea to animate the bikers separately, then render them to individual video files with alpha, then compose them in Moho or somewhere else (I'd choose After FX, perhaps). This way it also is easier to reuse certain movements in different scenes. (Have you already tried to animate a character's bones only, save a copy of that file, then erase all layers but the bone layer, and attach completely different shapes or images to the same bones at frame 0? - then you'll get the exact same movement with a different character.)
(Pasha was very clever in choosing bikers - it's a simple movement to do in Moho, easy to do convincingly. I like his overall style, and the crude jerkiness of all movements - it's like glue holding all the elements together. A perfect example of how to pick movements fitting the tools helps you to create a great result.)
6. Somewhere inbetween the lipsync has to be done.
7. Somewhere inbetween the backgrounds have to be done, especially the 3D-effects. (Again: clever use of lightning and much darkness in the graveyard scene, so that the repeating crosses don't get boring.)
8. Finally, after all scenes are rendered and all compositing is done, edit the whole video and sync it up to the music. Send it out, get it broadcasted, get awarded and be surrounded by beautiful girls. (The last part isn't Moho-specific, but i thought I give you an incentive.)
1. Storyboard. A project like this can only be done with lots of planning. One has to know how many actors in which clothing and mask appear in which scene. Also the poses for the actors must be known before shooting.
2. Take lots of pictures. From the small video file I can't decide wether they were taken with a video camera (it's possible, but the resolution is low) or with a digital still camera (preferred because the higher resolution gives you more freedom in zooming in etc).
3. Prepare the pics (in Photoshop). Normalise the brightness and colours, cut out what you need to animate, separate limps and bodies and all stuff you need to move separately. Save them in an organised way as PNGs with alpha. Take care that their dimensions in pixels somewhat fit to the scenes they are used in.
4. Rig up your characters in Moho. Build good bone structures, import images, attach them to the bones via layer binding. Don't start animation before you have created all characters you need.
5. Animate in Moho, scene by scene, sometimes level by level separately. I think it is a good idea to animate the bikers separately, then render them to individual video files with alpha, then compose them in Moho or somewhere else (I'd choose After FX, perhaps). This way it also is easier to reuse certain movements in different scenes. (Have you already tried to animate a character's bones only, save a copy of that file, then erase all layers but the bone layer, and attach completely different shapes or images to the same bones at frame 0? - then you'll get the exact same movement with a different character.)
(Pasha was very clever in choosing bikers - it's a simple movement to do in Moho, easy to do convincingly. I like his overall style, and the crude jerkiness of all movements - it's like glue holding all the elements together. A perfect example of how to pick movements fitting the tools helps you to create a great result.)
6. Somewhere inbetween the lipsync has to be done.
7. Somewhere inbetween the backgrounds have to be done, especially the 3D-effects. (Again: clever use of lightning and much darkness in the graveyard scene, so that the repeating crosses don't get boring.)
8. Finally, after all scenes are rendered and all compositing is done, edit the whole video and sync it up to the music. Send it out, get it broadcasted, get awarded and be surrounded by beautiful girls. (The last part isn't Moho-specific, but i thought I give you an incentive.)
