CApruzzese

I don't do anything super special, I think some of it is just the rendering has improved over the years as you said. When preparing a pre-made star field, I do up the black values in Affinity Photo which takes away some of the one pixel only stars and some of the smaller ones so there is less chance of the problem with the software not knowing whether to show the white pixel of the black one next to it while anti-aliasing is going on. Adding the stars in post can help a lot as well. I have more problems with bricks shimmering and having to up the AA setting than I do with stars! It might just be plain old luck!

Fixed the moon size problem, 3D Pangel! Thanks also for the kind words. You got exactly what I going for when I made this. For the stars, I often just try different things until they work. I took some milkyway photos in Colorado a few years back and will use one of those , or something else I have lying around in a background object. I also used the starfeild generator and added a layer with a bluish gradient with lots of turbulence added and used a blending mode. I often separate the moving elements from the background, especially with stars and add the motion blur in post to avoid weirdness.

You found the same illustration I found in a couple places, what you show makes more sense - but who was i to question NASA's graphics? I am not sure if I can update my YouTube upload without losing all my 10 views but I would like to fix this! I can do it by coming in towards the moon until it fills most of the screen and reveal the other moons in better proportion. Thanks for pointing that out!

I started on this awhile back, collecting texture maps from NASA and wanting to add another educational project to my portfolio. I reloaded it with text instead of my lame narration. Sorry for those who had to hear that!

I had posted on the last update I was hoping explosion would get some love... I can't wait to try this out! Off topic somewhat: I am on the beta program and XP crashes Cinema since the last week or so on my iMac so I had to reinstall a back-up version. I am sure the final release will fix that but it's frustrating not to be able to play with some of the newer features!

I heard somewhere that the GPU acceleration is on next year's time table for improvements. I bet they have some other work to do getting ready for Apple's new processors as well.

Xparticles is one main reason to keep with C4D, it's just amazing what they come up with each release and how they keep improving. I hope the fire and smoke get some loving' as well as I still find that Turbulence FD gives faster easier results. I do mix the two when I need to though!

Those doors really look integrated, they could be real!

It took me awhile to do the subtitles and write up my blogpost. the Staircase is sort of a steal of the set from "Phantom of the Opera" on broadway which I thought was impressive in the 80s and it stuck with me. I sort of think I always need a "hook" to get people interested and the long "hand held" dolly shot was what I thought would fit the bill for this project. Thanks for all your advice and support !

Blogpost with more information http://behemothmedia.blogspot.com/2020/06/animation-cask-of-amontillado-2020-6.html Please like on youtube, feel free to share it as well and leave comments. I hope everyone likes it, it was a lot of work! Thanks for the feedback here that helped make it better than it could have been without feedback!

I'll double what Igor said, keep making these!

I lightened Montresor and darkened Fortunato in a new version since Montresor was a little too in the shadows but i like it too. Hopefully I'll upload the film today. I found I had used the RGB render sequence produced for the multipage and not the real render file in one of the comp layers and had to fix that. I thought those files were the same looking, but nope, the RGB ones had tons of pixilation in the shadows.

Every little plugin helps I find. My modelling has improved greatly using some of Nitro4D plugins and quad remesher recently. Almost done with the final cut of the animation. There was one particularly jarring sound problem that I somehow never heard and only had one take from the actor.

I have never heard of that plugin! Merci! This should be a huge help in my next projects! I also have done graphic design for decades with 100s of clients over that time so making the poster is like a vacation for me. I am working on a character oriented one - jut not finding the time these days to do everything I need to do! quick edit: I tried to install it on V19 and does not seem to work. I will look into it further and work harder on my holds. I also find character suff easier on a paid production, it take salt of brain work to do and on my own I am doing everything, but in production I can put all my energy into just animating and have some support for technical stuff and often get a rig prerigged so even walk cycles go easier.

poster

Hello everyone, just wanted to say I now have this plugin and it's pretty powerful. I have not been able to get too deep into it because of everything going on here but I was surprised at how deeply integrated it is into the existing material system. It's pretty convenient. Even just a short plying around produced results I could net have had otherwise and as many of my projects involve brickwork, stones and old building and places, this will really help me create texture without those annoying repeating patterns that look much more natural. The video above helped me to begin to understand its features. So thanks to Stefan at https://3dtools.info for the plugin and thence tutorial!

Thank you again! I have to today one of the reason I started making the gothic horror animations was because I wanted to see some and there were not too many out there. So I made a bunch. The stories themselves rely heavily on narration, especially the Lovecraft stuff as you mentioned but doing something that relies on the visual more heavily is a great idea. I'll have to think about how to go about that. Each time I make personal project or work on the animation for TV show or something, I get closer to pulling it off better. My best character animation (IMO) is on a TV show that aired here in Canada a couple years and my "Dramatic Readings" series with a thespian platypus which is very cartoonish over these horror stories. I did revisit several sequences to improve the motion as you suggested but only got so far. I am still pretty happy with he results despite my weak points, walks for example, I still can't get consistently right. After 2 years of this one Poe story I need to work on the sound effects and think about what, if any, music it will have and get it in the can so I can come up with something else to move me forward. I usually get shown in a festival or two and I'll need this ready before fall if I decide to try and enter in somewhere.

The sets are an elaborate underground crypt, sort of inspired by Phantom of the opera in some ways. I made it all myself. Some of it is a repeated asset I made using mograph. As for my tangents and moving holds, 100% agree. I have a way to go there still. Each project I get a little deeper into what I need to learn and I have had problems which tangents since I started using V19 for some reason. Sometimes I want a stop motion look, but not so much this time! Thank you for the feedback!

Getting towards the end of the story. So far I have to redo very few sequences so taking more time for each is paying off.

Me too, see of the features and interface choices were things I thought C4D would have come up with in some form years go. I really love the C4D interface and way of doing things over anyone else, but Blender is now a thing for me to learn and maybe not miss much in the end.

I have used bones in the past, I should have maybe tried that this time but didn't. Simulating cloth is frustrating!

Fully renders scene showing off the lower catacombs.

Character rigging is a bit of mess I've found. They are moving fast with its of changes so I think even in another 6 months it might be very different. As behind as C4D is with some rigging and character stuff, it's fairly easy to set up and with plugins even easier.

Software render of Fortunato. I think I made the right call using animal and not human characters this time around.

I am sure you are right. I don't have the cash to invest in these things anymore so I just try to get the most out of what I have and I honestly like the results in the standard renderer. Physical render has some nice features but it was slower. I think... not sure, that many of the third party renderers are faster and more accurate. I do motion blur and depth of field in post to save time. I think if my work was more photo real I would make the render engine a high priority.