3D Animation

Another reason that have been very quiet on this blog is that have been messing around trying to come to grips with a rather amazing 3D Animation program.

Was initially poking around looking for a free (or cheapish) 3D Animation program to create a simple effect to use in one of my short films (been in production for 6 months or so .. mostly shot, sort of waiting for the animation bit - and NOW, of course, will have to "re-shoot" it HDV .. heh ).

Found a whole heap of "free" ones on the net .. but one of the things that stumped me was that I had not the slightest idea of how they worked. Even the "help" files were sadly lacking in detail, or used words that had never heard of.

Then, stumbled across DAZ 3D. OK, the "starter" program is free .. and I presume it gives some idea of how the program works, but I also decided to "purchase" the Starter Pack which was actually quite cheap. Have, at the moment, spent roughly $AU100.00 just to get something decent to "play" with, but is not really necessary when starting out. They've organised it into a "modular" system - can spend as much as you like, from zero upwards.

HOOO BOY! Welllll. It really is a beautiful system. Took me a while to figure out how it all worked, as there are hundreds of menus for tweaks, twitches and morphs BUT, it seems to have been very thoughtfully put together, and is full of what I would call UNDERSTANDABLE detail, even for a dill-brain like me - and one of the things that I love about it is that the "puppeteer" makes things just so easy. (Well, it's not all that easy, but a bloody sight easier than anything else that have found - AND, it does come with a 300 page, easy to read and understand PDF manual, as well as understandable tutorials on the site.).

Won't put much detail here, just go to the site (click the logo at the top - click "3D Software" at the top then, from the Left-hand list- "DAZ Studio", then "Downloads") - OR "take the tour" and see for yourself.

At some point will write up what have been up to and perhaps a pic and video, but my efforts so far aren't really suitable as a "demo". Not to worry, will keep beavering away at it .. heh.