Warcraft 3, the series (WoW machinima)

[Heinvers]

I think you're right, he looks better with longer hair:

Screenshots

I think that it can be even lighter with some orange hair parts as Deo mentioned.

Looks more like himself with longer hair btw.

 

[Tauer]

Sweet, but now his hair looks too yellow. Should be a bit more towards the orange side, imo.

I think that it can be even lighter with some orange hair parts as Deo mentioned.

Looks more like himself with longer hair btw.

Yeah, you're right. I've made his hair more orange.

Also, footman rig is done!
Facial animation video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCspW3Z82qk

Not that much emotion in that scene, I was mostly testing out the lip syncing.

Only Arthas left. Getting closer

 

[Tauer]

Bump, time for another update.

Arthas is rigged:

https://youtu.be/NOsm9uTRZhM

Just a test render of course, but notice how there are wrinkles on his forehead when it moves. Pretty cool effect I think, it'll help alot in conveying the emotions of the characters.

The biggest hurdle of this project will without a doubt be the render times. The render engine I used for that render is quite fast, only took about 20 minutes for that video... but it's ugly af. It makes the texture on his face pixelated for some reason. I want to use a prettier render engine. I tried rendering that sequence on another engine. It looks waaay better, but is also much much slower. It takes 1 hour for that little sequence alone. That's 12 seconds. And it's only 720p. The final video will of course have to be full HD. So if I make episodes that are about 15 - 20 minutes in length, we're looking at days if not weeks of rendering alone. Then there's also the post production etc. So question is if it's worth it for the quality. I'll have to think about that.

 

[Deolrin]

I don't know if it's possible at this point, but up-ressing the face textures could be a good idea. The eyes look far too high-quality in comparison to that tiny face texture map.

EDIT: Haven't noticed the part about it being the render engine's fault. Hmm. Can't say I can help with that. Maybe try to work through someone with a computer built for rendering? Not sure how willing they'd be to help or how easy it would be to find someone though.

 

[BlinkBoy]

Why not try using Heroes of the Storm models?

 

[Tauer]

I don't know if it's possible at this point, but up-ressing the face textures could be a good idea. The eyes look far too high-quality in comparison to that tiny face texture map.

Well, that's not impossible although would consume a lot of time. Since simply upscaling the texture wont really do anything, I'd have to draw details on it myself. Basically retexture his whole face.. and the same for any other model that's low res (quite a lot of those despite the recent upgrade). I've considered it myself, but it just seems like too much effort for a machinima when you consider that the standards of this media is captured gameplay. Just the fact that this will be custom animated, lip synced, post processed etc is way beyond what normal machinima actually do. Making my own textures just seems a bit like overkill at this point, I'd also like to finish this (some time in the foreseeable future )

Why not try using Heroes of the Storm models?

I am actually using HotS models for some things. Arthas' shoulderpads and cape are from the HotS model. His face as well, although wrapped to the WoW texture. I tried using the HotS texture because the WoW texture is so low res, but the HotS one is actually even lower res, it just didn't look good enough for close ups (at least the model I've been able to get a hold of, I don't have HotS myself). Thrall also has some armour from HotS.

I might just live with the render times and use the good render engine... Problem is that it not only takes forever, it also takes up most (if not all) of my computer power which renders my system useless as long as it's rendering :/

I've been looking into alternatives but I just can't seem to find something appropriate. I tried looking at the Source Filmmaker, while a cool tool, it seems like it's a huge hassle to use custom maps and models which kinda makes the program useless in my opinion. Who wants to only make movies with TF2 assets :/ anyway, I'll continue looking into it. But if I do end up using this engine, I'll have to be absolutely sure that the scene is perfect before I render it, cause there's no way I'm doing that more than once

 

[Sclammerz]

Ooh! Sweet Stuffs! Goodluck!

 

[Deolrin]

Well, that's not impossible although would consume a lot of time. Since simply upscaling the texture wont really do anything, I'd have to draw details on it myself. Basically retexture his whole face.. and the same for any other model that's low res

Yeah, I was sort of insinuating that. Although I think you can get away with up-scaling it and just patching it up, fixing the blurriness etc and redrawing some details. I don't think re-drawing the texture from scratch is necessary here. But I understand your point here, it might not be the best idea.

 

[Tauer]

Ooh! Sweet Stuffs! Goodluck!

Thanks

Yeah, I was sort of insinuating that. Although I think you can get away with up-scaling it and just patching it up, fixing the blurriness etc and redrawing some details. I don't think re-drawing the texture from scratch is necessary here. But I understand your point here, it might not be the best idea.

Sure It's not a bad idea per se, I'm just afraid that it won't be worth the trouble. As I said I considered doing it myself, but came to the conclusion everything else will be work enough and if the texture works as is I'll just use this one

Finished walk cycle for Arthas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiLVKWxc0N0&feature=youtu.be

There's a little clipping issue with the book right now and it might look a little rough in some areas, but this is just the template that I will be using for the scenes. I'll be changing it up a bit in every scene to make it look more organic and get rid of the errors.
Note that the cape is not properly animated yet. I'll probably be using cloth simulation on that one.
Also added some jiggly effect to his hair, makes it look a lot better imo.

 

[Heinvers]

Finished walk cycle for Arthas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiLVKWxc0N0&feature=youtu.be

Also added some jiggly effect to his hair, makes it look a lot better imo.

That's good, the hair looks derped for me tbh.

Maybe you could swag it up a bit?
'like some wind blow effect.

 

[Tauer]

That's good, the hair looks derped for me tbh.

Maybe you could swag it up a bit?
'like some wind blow effect.

Yeah, I'll do stuff like that when the scene calls for it

Uther and footman animations:

https://youtu.be/gWNdm19_vw0

Footman might need a bit more tweaking, also loincloth is not animated. But I think I'm almost ready to begin animating the first scene for real

 

[Deolrin]

Uther and the Footman look great, but Arthas' hair looks a bit silly and unnatural. Not sure why.

Are you planning to use the original WC3 music for this, by the way?

 

[Tauer]

Uther and the Footman look great, but Arthas' hair looks a bit silly and unnatural. Not sure why.

Are you planning to use the original WC3 music for this, by the way?

The jiggle value is set quite high on that render so it looks a bit fake yeah. Mostly just for testing purposes. I'll have to play around with the parameters to get the effect I'm looking for. It's about finding that balance so it's not too jiggly and silly but you can still notice the effect. I'll work some more on that.

Yeah, I'll be using WC3 music for some of the scenes probably. I wanna make as cinematic as possible. More like a film/tv show than just remakes of the cutscenes. So I'll also be using music from several other sources. It's something I'll have to put a lot of thought into. The music has to reflect characters emotions etc etc. Any input on this would also be greatly appreciated.

 

[Deolrin]

Just using Warcraft and World of Warcraft would probably be good enough. There's a lot of variation there.

 

[PurgeandFire]

Ye the arthas hair jiggle is a bit funny. But great update! Looks way better than before!

I like both Uther and Arthas' walk animations. The footman has something off about it though. IMO the arms and knees are bent a bit too much, I would go with maybe a longer stride and a more relaxed/straightened out position. idk, it is hard to explain without fiddling with the rig, but hopefully you get what I mean.