This episode is Ricky’s December film pick, Artists of Second Life by Teal Aurelia, released 3 October 2022. We discuss the emerging trend of photography in virtual worlds and reflect on the significance of the compositing used by the creator of this film, which has a surprising backdrop to the runway style presentation of ‘inspiring’ characters. Plus, we reflect on the state of TV advertising today!
YouTube Version of this Episode
Links & Show Notes
Film –
and this is Teal’s editing and compositing process video we discuss in our review –
Create Studio Pro – a low cost tool for editing short form content such as adverts
This week, we share updates that will add to your repertoire of tools, tuts and libraries along with a bit of fighting inspriation for creating machinima and virtual production.
Just the Job!
Unreal Engine has released a FREE animation course. Their ‘starter’ course includes contributions from Disney and Reel FX and is an excellent introduction to some of the basics in UE. Thoroughly recommended, even as a refresher for those of you that already have some of the basics.
Alongside the release of UE5.1, a new KitBash3D Cyber District kit has also been released, created by David Baylis. It looks pretty impressive – read about it on their blog here.
Kitbash3D Cyber District kit
Cineshare has released a tutorial on how to create a scene that comprises a pedestrian environment, using Reallusion’s ActorCore, iClone and Nvidia Omniverse. The tutorial has also been featured on Reallusion Magazine’s site here.
Nvidia Omniverse has released Create 2022.3.0 in beta. Check out the updates on its developer forum here and watch the highlights on this video –
Libraries
We came across this amazing 3D scan library, unimaginatively called ScansLibrary, but includes a wide range of 3D and texture assets. It’s not free but relatively low cost. For example, many assets a single credit, with a 60 package of credits being $29 per month. Make sure you check out the terms!
example of a flower, ScansLibrary
We also found a fantastic sound library, Freesound.org. The library includes 10s of thousands of audio clips, samples, recording and bleeps, all released under CC licenses, free to use for non-commercial purposes. Sounds can be browsed by key words, a ‘sounds like’ question and other methods. The database has running since 2005 and is supported by its community of users and maintained by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.
Freesound.org
Not really a library as such, but Altered AI is a tool that lets you change voices on your recordings, including those you directly make into the platform. Its a cloud-based service and its not free but it has a reasonably accessible pricing strategy. This is perfect if you’re an indie creator and want a bunch of voices but can’t find the actor you want! (Ricky, please close your ears to this.) The video link is a nice review by Jae Solina, JSFilmz – check it out –
Fighting Inspiration
Sifu is updating it’s fighting action game to allow for recording and playback. You can essentially create your own martial arts movies. If you’re interested in creating fight scenes then this might be something to check out.
In this ep, Phil leads the discussion about one of the most *disturbing films we’ve ever seen, called 917 by Krad Productions, released 30 Oct (spoiler alert: Phil designed the soundscape for it). It is disturbing that there’s a true back story to the film, which is explained – and having watched the film, we couldn’t really think of another adjective that summed it up better. Yep, its disturbing… and we are definitely none the wiser about the truth of 917, that maddening frequency that sends you off into a twirling spiral of err…… All theories welcome!
*Disturbing=anxiety inducing, worrying, upsetting; mental illness such as depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, addictive behaviors.
Youtube Version of this Episode
Film Link
Film has been made in Reallusion’s iClone 7.
Top Shorts Film Festival hosts a monthly contest for films such as machinima and virtual production, website here.
If you are trying to help someone with mental health issues such as schizophrenia, we recommend this website for advice, Mind.org (UK based) or any other local organization that specialises in appropriate support.
Credits Speakers: Phil Rice, Ricky Grove, Tracy Harwood, Damien Valentine Producer: Phil Rice Editor: Ricky Grove Edited in CreateStudio Pro. Music is from their licensed collection.
This week covers a reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s classic poem Alone, read by Shane Morris (audio used is from the BEKNOWN channel) with visuals by Playard Studios. The film uses Unreal Engine’s metahuman and NVIDIA Omniverse ‘s Audio-to-Face and there are some impressive introspective looks achieved with the process… among a few other things we comment on, not least being Ricky’s experience of reading poetry.
YouTube Version of this Episode
Show Notes & Links
ALONE film, released on 26 October 2022
Beknown channel reading by Shane Morris on YouTube.
There are a growing number of ‘challenges’ that we’ve been finding over the last few months – many are opportunities to learn new tools or use assets created by studios such as MacInnes Studio. They are also incentivised with some great prizes, generally involving something offered by the contest organizer, such as that by Kitbash3D we link to in this post. This week, we were however light on actual live contests to call out, but have found someone who is always in the know, Winbush!
Mission to Minerva (deadline 2 Dec 2022)
Kitbash3D’s challenge is for you to contribute to the development of a new galaxy! On their website, they state: ‘Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to build a settlement on a planet within the galaxy. What will yours look like?’ Their ultimate aim is to outsource all the creatie work to their community, combining artworks contests participants submit. There are online tutorials to assist, where they show you how to use Kitbash3D in Blender and Unreal Engine 5, and your work can be either concept are or animation. Entry into the contest couldn’t be simpler: you just need to share on social media (Twitter, FB, IG, Artstation) and use the hashtag #KB3Dchallenge. Winners will be announced on 20 December and there are some great prizes, sponsored by the likes off Unreal, Nvidia, CG Spectrum, WACOM, The Gnoman Workshop, The Rookies and ArtStation (platforms). Entry details and more info here.
Pug Forest Challenge
This contest has already wrapped – but there are now a few of this type of thing emerging – challenges which give you an asset to play with for a period of time, a submission guideline process, and some fabulous prizes – all geared towards incentivising you to learn a new toolset, this one being UE5! So if you need the incentivisation to motivate you – its definitely worth looking out for these. Jonathan Winbush is also one of those folks whose tutorials are legendary in the UE5 community, so even if you don’t want to enter, this is someone to follow.
McInnes Studios’ Mood Scene Challenge
John McInnes recently announced the winners of his Mood Scene challenge contest that we reported on back in August – we must say, the winners have certainly delivered some amazing moods. Check the show reel out here –
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