Tribes 3: Tribes in Space

[grady1017]

Hey folks! Long time no see! Some of you may be familiar with the Tribes cartoons I have posted over the past few years. If you haven't seen them here are the original posts:

original: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24508

sequel: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26212&p=147866&hilit=tribes#p147866

Well, I am happy to post our third (and final) Tribes cartoon: Tribes in Space! (We will most likely do a Christmas special with these same characters, but it will be much simpler and shorter and not a 'full-fledged' Tribes cartoon!) This is probably my favorite of the three! Definitely not perfect - was working under a deadline - but I am very proud of it!

But here's the thing: I did use AS, but not much - this time around I made the cartoon in 3D using Blender! It was a lot of fun, and a good learning experience! I was a little nervous, but I am happy with the way it turned out! If you are just interested in how I used AS here it is:

1: At around 2:45 I used AS to animate images of some 'Z-drones' flying towards camera. Thought it would go faster with AS.

2: The character, 'Agent A7,' is still completely animated in AS. I had orginally planned on making him in 3D too, but ran out of time. So instead of being in the room with the Tribal leaders, he appears as a 2D hologram. (I had that character rig in AS already from last year's cartoon, so it saved me a lot of time!) He also appears on some tv screens a few times. It worked well. I think he still 'fits' in that world. His scenes begin around 3:27.

3: At 11:15 I used AS to animate a dead flower coming back to life. A lot easier for me in AS!

It was challenging to get the characters to look and 'feel' the same as their 2D counterparts. Their original design was, after all, fairly stylized. But I think they turned out pretty good! Similar to the first 2 cartoons, others added the majority of the music and sfx, and everything else is pretty much done by me! Haha! I did have some extra help this year though - a buddy of mine did the opening credits for me, and animated all of the plants growing (17:47) - a HUGE help!!

I know it's not much AS, but honestly, I have shared the first 2 with you guys, and did not want to not post this one! So I hope you get a chance to watch it!

Similar to last year's this cartoon was originally broken up in to 4 separate episodes, but I put them all together to make this one video. Hope you guys enjoy watching it! I had a blast making it! Let me know what you think!

Direct Vimeo page: https://vimeo.com/136767749

[JohnJackson]

wow...very professional and funny....my only concern is viewers have a low attention span and the titles at the beginning take too long to get through... As an anime studio user and blender beginner im fascinated with how you did this....which program did you use to drop in the anime studio stuff? Is it after effects? or did you just drop the blender movie into anime studio and animated onto it?
Looking at it I suppose the characters mouths could have been done in anime studio but then you would have had the pain of the mouths tracking with the heads
I don't suppose you plan to do a making of video do you?
John

[Greenlaw]

I'm only about 8 minutes in and I think it's fantastic! Very funny stuff. I didn't expect it to be so long though. I'll have to continue watching it tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Thanks for sharing.

G.

[djwaterman]

It's absolutely brilliant, the look has translated into 3D really well and you kept the cartoon look.

[Little Yamori]

Bravo, bravo, bravo.

I watched the whole 34 plus minutes, and it flows pretty quickly (though I agree with the opening credits taking a bit too long). So nicely done, with wonderful voice talent and music editing. If I remember correctly, weren't you doing these animations for a summer camp project?? Wow have you come a long way. I've downloaded Blender and was wondering if it could be used easily with AS. I'd love to know what the learning curve was like, and how long it took to produce this.

Congratulations on a job well done.

LY

[JohnJackson]

blender is a great programme but a lot of tutorials are for complicated realistic people...
once you get used to the interface try this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiIoWrO ... sVGhmM9Pse
...sorry if I shouldn't be talking blender here but like the original post i'd like to mix anime studio with blender to bet a result like "tribes"
John

[Greenlaw]

Thanks for posting that link.

I use Lightwave at my workplace and for my personal projects, and have been pretty happy with it but I've always been curious about adding Blender to my tool bag too. I dabble with it a bit every few years but never really took the time to learn it well enough for production work.

Maybe now I'll take a closer look at it.

G.

[JohnJackson]

Never tried lightwave...imagine its not easy...been playing with Blender on and off for six months or so...would love to be able to mix it with Anime Studio...do you think its done with after effects?
John

[grady1017]

Hey guys! Thanks for the positive comments!! Much appreciated!

If I remember correctly, weren't you doing these animations for a summer camp project??

Yep! The longer title sequence worked okay for the original summer camp purpose...kids were waiting in anticipation to see their tribe flash up on screen and they would cheer when it did - it was more exciting in that moment, but I agree with you and JohnJackson that outside of that, the opening titles probably run a bit long!

which program did you use to drop in the anime studio stuff? Is it after effects?

Yes, I used After Effects to mix the two. I'm gonna try to do a quick 'shot breakdown' kind of video showing the workflow for ya. Shouldn't take me very long, I still got all the files on my computer at work (I'm not there today). I'm also planning on doing a commentary with me and David Cypher (voice of the Cowboy). Probably will be just more interesting than informative, but I was wanting to do it...it makes me feel all big-time! Haha!!

I'd love to know what the learning curve was like, and how long it took to produce this.

Blender is a great program. It does have a learning curve I would say. Animation, I feel, is still very similar to AS and you would probably feel mostly at home there. But modeling, rigging, skinning, lighting, and texturing are pretty different than AS. However if you have any experience in 3D already, than a quick familiarizing with the Blender interface is all you really need to get up and running well enough....Google always helps too! CG Cookie has some great tutorials both free and for purchase (priced well, in my opinion).
After the characters were setup and ready for animation it took a (very intensive) 3 months to animate and finalize. Character setup took place over about 3 months prior to that, but I was working on other projects during that time as well...I pretty much lived at the office for those intensive 3 months!!

I have another project that I made after this one using Blender and AS together again. Much shorter (under a minute maybe?), but I liked the way it turned out - I'll try and share it soon.

It's absolutely brilliant, the look has translated into 3D really well and you kept the cartoon look.

Thank you so much! I tried hard to make sure the characters still felt the same as the originals!

Looking at it I suppose the characters mouths could have been done in anime studio

Yeah, like I said, I really wanted the characters to still 'feel' the same as the original 2D, so I decided to imitate the look of a switch layer for their lip sync so it would feel that much more familiar to the summer camp kids...that and it was going to animate faster that way, and I was trying to move quick!! Some of the character designs were challenging to move to 3D and still look like the same charcter - the Hero was one of the challenging ones!

At the beginning I was trying to keep up with a production blog, but then I got too busy and didn't keep up with it. All of the pre-production stuff (writing, storyboarding, voice recording, etc...) is the same for my AS projects, so for anyone who is interested:
https://tribesinspace.wordpress.com/
More Blender posts than anything really, but there is some storyboard stuff and a little video feature on there showing some BTS with some of the actors if you find that sort of thing interesting...

Bravo, bravo, bravo.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

[JohnJackson]

it really is a tv pilot...there can be no bigger praise than to say it looks like its off Saturday morning tv. It deserves its own tv series.
Looking forward to what you do next.

[grady1017]

I don't suppose you plan to do a making of video do you?

Well, I don't know if it will be informative for anyone, but if you are interested, I made a quick video showing how I used Blender and AS together. Very simple, but maybe someone will get something out of it...Also, this is the first time I've ever made a 'instructional' video like this, and, to be honest, it felt pretty awkward recording it! Haha! So don't judge my nervous sounding voice!! HAHA! Different than recording lines for a character, that's for sure!

Anyways:

it really is a tv pilot...there can be no bigger praise than to say it looks like its off Saturday morning tv. It deserves its own tv series.
Looking forward to what you do next.

Thank you very much, man! I really appreciate it!

[ruscular3d]

interesting stylize approach!
I been waiting to see if anyone is willing to do 3D character with 2D media in the mix. I think the 2D hologram worked well. It was clear that he was not actually in the room, and a projection.

I love the movie "Titan A.E." in how they use 2D character with 3D background, I have to see it again if the 3D background were render in toon? But have you experimented doing 3D character with 2D background?

[uddhava]

Good job!