ShadowNinja5764

Domestic abuse is not tolerated. 

The combination of the words 'fun' and 'time are cursed around these parts. Have you heard the tale of the funtime that toby never had?

Greetings everyone! In this dev update, I'll be covering a handful of new features I've been working on for Mine-imator 1.3.0.
However, before we dive into the following eye candy, I want to mention that due to the sheer size of this update, its official release is not in the near future-- and doesn't have an ETA. Unlike the past two updates, 1.1.0 and 1.2.0, this update includes a variety of goals. This includes an effort to improve rendering, animation workflow, and the interface along with adding new features that may come with them. Though during development, I'll be posting dev updates more often to give insight on how development is going. With that being said, this post will highlight a couple of the first big improvements to come to the update. Renders used in this dev update were made by @Hozq.
 
Lighting improvements
The way lighting is applied to objects has changed in 1.3.0. Before, ambiance only affected dark areas, but now, ambiance is applied more accurately to the scene by being applied additively to pre-existing lighting in the scene. This allows for brighter scenes and improves the appearance of dark areas such as areas with AO.
 
Changes to shadows
Shadows are getting a significant upgrade in 1.3.0. Previously, shadows used a method that would blur all shadows in the scene. Now, shadows are rendered multiple times determined by a new samples setting that scatters the shadow maps of lights around, allowing for shadows to be harder near its caster, and softer the further away it is. (Also to clear up a misconception, this is not PCSS. )
An improvement was also made to the way sun shadows are cast, allowing the sun to act as a proper directional light in the scene.
 
Volumetric rays
This feature has been requested many times over the past few years, and is finally being added to 1.3.0. However due to (technical) restrictions, the rays are only available for the sun. These rays are not rendered in screen-space and will appear even if the sun is not in-frame.
 
As mentioned before, rendering isn't the only aspect of Mine-imator that will be getting improvements though however, that's the first part of this update I'll be tackling so it may be a while till other features are shown off. Until next time!

It's here!
With improved bends and 3D second layers.
All bugs have been fixed.

This rig only works for MI 1.2.6 and above because of the new bending system.
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If you find any bugs, be sure to tell me about it in the comments below.

Please be sure to credit me if you use it as it took a very long time to make, thanks.



DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE MY WORK WITHOUT PROPER PERMISSION FROM ME.

I don't know how many people have asked for this now but it's well over due.
 
Heavily recommended that you watch the entire showcase video, it has some important stuff that you might otherwise miss.
 
 
No chainmail sadly, it would require an entire model dedicated just for it alone.
But the model is scalable ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
 
UPDATE, 2019-07-19: Fixed the buggy bending on the arms by just simply removing it, also made them 3D.
 
UPDATE, 2019-08-11: Fixed the diamond and other versions of the arms not being compatible with the same model.
 


 

Divided is most definetely my most successful animation I've ever made. It consists of 4 episodes, the fourth one premiering on April 17th - in 5 days as of writing this post. It's a story about depression based on real life. It's shown in a graphical way, where the protagonist has manifested his depression into a physical being and fights it in his head. The story has also got a lot to do with the events taking place in real life, abandoning friends, and so on and it includes a lot of psychological metaphores. It shows really deeply the effects of depression, how it can "devour" an individual from the inside and what an absolutely crucial role is being played by the pacient's friends and family.

 
Divided itself is a project that has took me 3 years and a month to finish: from the episode 1, where my skill was not nearly on the level it currently is, till the final episode, premiering in a few days, while throughout the story I've prograssed and learned, becoming better and better as it went. Each episode took 3-6 months to being finished, with a 2 months break in between, except episode four (the one premiering). Episode 4 took a year and a half, with the first planning started in December, 2017. It started with the script, upgrading the rigs, building the worlds, later on the storyboard, contacting people and auditioning for voice actors and over the course, up till now, the lovely piece of art was growing.

It took more than 4000 hours of work, 10 acts, 7 voice actors (recycling voices for several roles), over 2600 blocks being animated by hand, a lot of nerves and a lot of emotional support from other people (who I'd like to thank). It was made to wrap up the story in a spectacle and a meaningful emotional twist.
 
A lot of credit goes to my YouTube partner, Freedom!, for providing me the access to licenced music, which has made the overall experience better on a whole another level - despite the fact that I still had to compose the soundtrack myself, using all the available material and properly crediting them in the end credits.

Preproduction and production
Animation was most definetely not everything there was needed to be done, of course:

- First I needed a script (which I had written in the school cafeteria on a sheet of paper, ripped out of my notebook, and was later on written in the proper script format)
- Afterwards, I required all the skins, rigs, voice actors, worlds, and assets that I would use in my animation
- The storyboard, with individual shot lengths
- A customly made soundtrack, based off which I would sync my animation (the first version including only the voices, and urgently timed events and adding the rest - such as footsteps, cloth sound effects and music - later in post-production)
- Then I've tackled the animating part, which took most of the time, going at a rate of 1 second of animation being made every 2 hours or so; exporting the animation in bits of 20 seconds to prevent lagg and improove organization - going through the animation several times to add lighting, camera effects, fix minorities, animate statists, etc.
Postproduction
After the animation was exported, my work was FAR from done! I had to:

- Open the animation in After Effects and create VFX, correct colors, etc. and render it (extra 10h of work per 20s of animated sequence)
- Compress the file with professional software
- Throw bits of the animation in my Premiere Pro project, arrange them and add every single possible occuring sound effect, going through several times to further correct colors, make sure the sound levels are plausible
- Export individual acts as video files
Post-postproduction
At the end, I had to:

- Merge all the uncompressed Premiere Pro project files into one super large one, to prevent quality loss
- Do a double-check on sound, replace some sound effects, make sure the volume is right for individual sound effects (over 500 sound effects)
- Manually color correct every single camera shot in the entire animation (over 1000 shots)
- Run through the entire library of used sources, such as music, rigs, assets and even induvidual skins appearing in the background of the animation
- Alphabetically organise the sources and form them into groups
- Make the end credits
- Export Divided 4 entirely

 
I am currently at the final stage, where I'm raising awareness of the animation to put the year and a half worth of work into use - also known as advertising
 
It's been a long journey and I'm proud of where the animation, that started as a small project and emerged into an enormous story, has gotten. Thanks again for everyone who has helped me with the work, all the statists, all the people from who I just took some of the rigs without them knowing (they are credited in the end credits though), and to all my viewers who were patient enough and understanding.

Now i keep blubbering about some "premiere", but never show anything, so here is the link to the final Divided 4 finished animation - and you're all more than welcome to come join us at the premiere on April 17th, 5PM CET time.
Thank you all for standing by my side and
Stay Sharp!

What's new in this update:
- UV-mapping bug fixes for the Alex model.
- A 3D hat option-
- Wrists for both models.
 
Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vadsx6brvzkkdzh/Advanced Animations v3.zip?dl=1
 
 

is this star wars episode nine 

This is 100% Mi, the only thing i did in post was to blend the rendered images together, and to add the motion blur effect on the falling cookies.
Everything else is made in Mi. Everything from the cookies to the lighting. No extra effects.

lmao this picture was originally 4K but imgur couldn't handle it so i had to downscale it lol.

Dropping Nemo

I love everything in this... the lighting, the posing, just wow!

We all know how this is gonna end.

Armor rig by @AnxiousCynic
Didn't edit this at all except when i was adding the watermark.

steve will defeat thanos

I made a trovian shadow hunter from the glorious game TROVE
IMAGES



 
I'm throwing this random download button at you... hopefully, it's the correct one
https://www.dropbox.com/s/edcn3pizpv510w5/trovian.zip?dl=1

gud

i spent way to long on this
it was originally supposed to go with another soundtrack but the animation was a bit too fast so i downed the tempo,
therefore making the soundtrack not line up with the animation, so i had to ditch it and go for another one..
i have no idea what this is supposed to be
also @Daffa_the_One made the gun
and yes oops i may or may not have rendered the animation with the night color set a lil bit too dark...
not gonna re render it

howdy yes im back from the dead
i been making some render recently and i want to show you guys it
[my english is bad so yeah, bear with me]
First Render: "Childhood"
Second Render: "Subway Train"
Third Render: "Tired"
Fourth Render: "All nighter"
Yeah that about it
Critcism are very much welcome
If you like my render, remember to HiT THat LiKe AnD sUbSCriBE BuTTOn For MOre OrigINAL ContENT
i mean
hit upvotes and share them to your friend [with credits ofcourse]
ily you all no homo
< 3
 
 

h a h a

Hecc

errrrr weird name but yeah,
tried out the new features.

I know that the resolution is shit, its supposed to resemble the camera of a phone.

bones on toast

Yeah i dont know..
 
http://imgur.com/a/DA8Ud1u
I'm on my phone so i cant embed links so this'll have to do.
 

I hope you can still hold your own against the forces of pressure.