Poser Tip: Bullet Physics and Cloth

Here is a GREAT video about using the Bullet Physics in Poser Pro.

It's about 20 minutes long and it is WELL worth watching all of it, as it shows how to set up a physics simulation. This has a lot of potential, especially because it has LIVE simulations.

CLIP STUDIO PAINT WEBINAR / Digital Inking Techniques with Brian Haberlin

This afternoon I had the distinct pleasure of attending another Webinar by comic artist Brian Haberlin. The time, he provided a free one-hour session discussing digital inking with Clip Studio Paint (the program I use under its previous name (but same features) as Manga Studio 5 EX).

This was an amazing demonstration. It moved very fast, but covered some fantastic tools and techniques that are already working their way into my practices (they are that simple and that good).

The presenters (the software company that makes Clip Studio Paint) did a fantastic job of putting the recording up on YouTube about 12 hours after the Webinar ended. Amazing turnaround. You can view it here:

On my second viewing, I made some time code notations so I (and you as well, dear readers) can quickly find what you're looking for:

• Color Flatting
• 6 min - Make transparency based on brightness
• 8 min - Make Reference layer
• 8:30 - Close and Fill (Bucket Tool / Close and fill
• 11:30 - More pen properties (do not exceed line in reference layer)
• 13:20 - More about gaps
• 14:05 - Lasso Fill tool
• 15:00 - Finding the Lasso fill (it's under Direct Draw)

• Inking Example
• 15:20 - Inking example (he said its Conan, but it's Tarzan)
• 15:45 - Importance of resolution (400 - 800 dpi)
• 19:55 - Importance of not doing too much detail
• 20:45 - Use Lasso fill tool to fill in lots of blacks

• Use ANY tool as an eraser
• 23:20 - Use your pen as an eraser
• 23:45 - Paint with "transparent" pixels (erase)
• 24:20 - Use x key to swap between black and white colors
• 24:45 - Inking Style: Puller vs Thrower

• Adding Tones
• 28:15 - Adding tones intro
• 28:28 - Create new layer, select areas with lasso tool
• 28:55 - Drag over the halftone
• 29:10 - Change resolution (density) of a halftone
• 31:00 - Ink with a halftone pattern

• Creating a custom brush Part 1 (cloud effect)
• 32:15 - Create a custom brush
• 32:27 - You can make brushes you cannot make in Photoshop
• 33:00 - Select region with marquee (rectangle)
• 33:15 - Register Material (settings: Use Brush as tip shape)
• 33:40 - Adding keywords for search
• 34:10 - Pattern Brush example (note the curves)
• 34:38 - Copy an existing brush and apply your new tip (art)
• 35:30 - Cloud brush in action
• 
  
• Creating a custom brush Part 2 (other shapes)
• 37:56 - Intro to other shapes
• 38:30 - Tricks to making new brushes
• 38:48 - Use "Convert Layer" (right-click clayer panel) to gray
• 38:58 - IMPORTANT tip about color vs gray layers
• 39:28 - Walk through the brush creation phase again
• 40:30 - Using the brush examples

• File Objects (aka Instancing)
• 41:05 - File Objects intro
• 41:38 - Create shape on its own layer
• 41:47 - Make selection, and convert to file object
• 42:12 - Duplicate layer, move and scale, etc.
• 42:55 - Refine and "propogate" (e.g. copy/replace)
• 43:20 - Change shape into a tree
• 44:12 - Back to original image, see all the trees

• Q&A Session
• 44:47 - Start the Q&A session
• 45:19 - Canvas Sizes
• 46:23 - My Question! Where to find Lasso Fill tool 
• 46:58 - Show again how to switch from white paper to transparency
  (Edit > Brightness to transparency)
• 47:44 - Advice on switching form traditional to digital inking
• 48:20 - Show some distortion/transforming tools
• 48:35 - Advice: Don't ink too much detail!
• 49:55 - Recommends the G-Pen or Cel pen
• 50:28 - Do you think of digital inks differently than traditional inks?
• 51:22 - School vs practice vs Social Media? 
• 52:55 - More difficult? Drawing or idea?
• 54:05 - Equipment you use?
• 54:57 - Wrap up
• 55:28 - Links to resources

BTW: I also provided these in the comments of the video, and they actually converted to links. So if you go to the video you can click on the time code and it will jump you to the appropriate topic.

Manga Studio (aka Clip Paint Studio): How to Save Custom Panel Layouts

I'm working on the Days Gone comic story, and am doing my first multi-page file in Manga Studio 5 EX (this is one of the few differences between the PRO version and the EX version: the ability to have multiple pages in the same file). The advantage to this is that it will maintain consistency between the tone frequency and panel border thickness -- all useful things in a story (as opposed to doing it manually page-by-page).

I have two layouts that repeat on two pages: two panels at the top and one big panel at the bottom. And this looks like a layout I might want to use in the future, so I went to YouTube to find a tutorial on it -- and found a great one.

The video is about 10 minutes long, and WORTH WATCHING in its entirety. However, if you just want to know how to save a design as a custom layout (i.e. material), then jump to the 9 min mark.

NEXT TIME: Character Designs (and maybe some stuff on dynamic clothing)
Update Oct. 08, 2017: Turns out, next time we're talking about workflow issues. I'll get back to character design shortly.

Tutorial Link: Poser 11 Live Comic Book Preview

One of the most useful tools for creating digital line art (i.e. comics!) is the geometric edge tool in Poser 11. It's called the Live Comic Book Preview, and it offers the most versatility of any of the commercial-grade 3D tools that I have tried so far.

Just so I don't lose track of it, here's a useful tutorial on how it works.

Generally, I don't agree with what he says about lighting, but that's just because he's working in limited color and I work in black & white.

http://www.jurn.org/dazposer/?p=5347

My Video: Sir Guy and the Beast

The topic of computer animation came up the other day, so I thought I would share my personal "epic" film... all 1-minute-7-seconds of it. I made this waaaaaay back in 2002, using Poser 4 (current version is 11). And it took me weeks to sort this out, creating each file separately and then stitching them together. 

That is, of course, my voice. And the armor clinking was made by tapping a fork on my desk and then syncing it to his footfalls. All in all, a bit of fun from the past.

Video: Import Multiple Brushes Into Manga Studio 5 (by Brian Allen)

I'm posting this video here so I won't lose track of it. I just purchased a cool set of 200+ brushes for Manga Studio 5 EX from artist Brian Allen. Total cost: $7. They look cool (I may review the set after using them), but now comes the hard part: Installing them.

Installing a lot of brushes is definitely one place where Photoshop is better than MS5, but Brian took the time to create a cool video on how to speed up the process.

BTW: This video is cross-posted without his permission (he seems like a nice guy, so I doubt he'll mind). If you do buy his brushes, please mention that you saw the video here. Thanks!

Video: Manga Studio 5 vs Photoshop

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that I'm a big fan of both Photoshop and Manga Studio 5 (aka Clip Studio 5 – same program, different names). As of late, though, I've been doing more of my final comics illustration in Manga Studio because it has tools that are better suited for creating comics. Now, don't get me wrong, I still love Photoshop (and it's an important part of my workflow), but I do my final work in Manga Studio 5 EX.

A few people have asked me why, but except for one or two artists who found the comic panels and text balloons to be exciting additions, they haven't been sold on learning a new tool. And I can't blame them.

But...

Here's a review by professional artist Brian Allen that I found interesting, and he explains a few cool things (like Reference Layers) that might help some artists decide to give this a try.

By the way, Brian has a collection of 200+ Manga Studio Brushes available on his site for only $7. I bought them and, depending on how useful I find them, I'll try to write up a review in the next few weeks.

How a 17-Year-Old CD saved me $20

I have many binders of old CDs and DVDs on my bookcase. Some of them include backups of personal files, but most are old software CDs that range from Windows 95 installations to 3D software that won't install on a modern system (like Deep Paint and Amorphium, both of which which I would really like to have a working version). More than one person has asked me why I keep them.

All those black binders hold many
a CD and DVD from years gone by!

The honest answer is two-fold:

1. It's really not worth the effort to go through and clean them out
2. And every now and then, they have something that comes in useful

The latter one definitely happened today.

Time to start editing video again

A client called me up and said he has some video he wants me to edit for him. He wants me to tighten up some training clips we created a few years ago (and, I think, update the titles and some text). Not a problem. I've done it before and I can do it again. 

But of course, when I did that for him, it was on my old i5 laptop, and it was a little slow processing the video and converting it from HD down to something that can stream on the Web. So, it's time to move this project over to my new laptop, which is an i7 powerhouse with 32 GB of RAM.

Over the years, I've used a few different video editors, and of course one of the very best is Adobe Premier. But... let's just be honest, it is expensive and has a lot of overhead in terms of space, requirements, and (mostly) cost. I definitely do not use it enough to justify subscribing it it. I mean, yeah, it's awesome, but it's a lot like paying for a Ferrari just so you can drive it to the store to pick up groceries. In other words, it's got more features than I need for the fairly straightforward video editing that I do. I mostly make talking head training videos and convert my father-in-law's VHS tapes to digital (they make FANTASTIC Christmas gifts!).

So, stepping down from the premier tool, I frequently choose Pinnacle Studio. It is a nifty little editor that does 99% of anything I want from it (in fact, there's really only one thing it doesn't do, and I'll cover that at another time with a workaround that can trick it into doing that, too). And it does one thing that Premier doesn't do out of the box (and again, I'll cover this another time).

The latest version is 20.5, and I've been using it since version 9. I recall selecting it because, at the time, it was the first (at least I'd ever heard of" to use a thumbnail/storyboard system for editing, as opposed to the standard timeline. I also recall that – waaaaaay back in the day – it won a technical Emmy award because it was the software of choice for editing America's Funniest Home Videos.

But I digress.

I compared the many versions of this software, and decided that I did want/need the full version with all the bells and whistles: Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 20.5.

I shopped around and found the slightly older version at amazon.com, but decided I'd rather deal directly with Pinnacle and be sure that I get the latest version, rather than something a half version old that requires an upgrade. So, this retails for $129. The sale price today was $99. And the upgrade from my ANCIENT copy of Pinnacle Studio DC 10 knocked off another $20 (yup, I had written the serial number on the product CD that I found in one of my binders -- I had dated it from June 2000).

A quick search online found me a coupon for 15% off that actually worked, making my instant download price only $68.97 (that includes tax, folks).

Not bad for a few minutes of shopping, searching for the old CD and finding the online coupon.

After I get into the project, I'll write talk about the workaround and the cool feature that hinted at today.

Lighting the Noir Look

Found another great video that discusses the art of lighting comics in Poser. Even though this is an older video (it uses Poser 9, and the old duplicate-figure-then-flip-normals" trick to get an outline), the lighting tips are VERY good.

This is definitely worth checking out!

Daz Studio: Noir Shaders

Below is a very interesting video tutorial on how to use shaders to achieve the high-contrast Sin City look used by Frank Miller. For those of you not really into 3D, shaders provide the texturing information that provide information about color, reflectiveness, transparency and stuff like that.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDLx0ER6aP8

This requires the use of the Visual Style Shaders by DraagonStorm and TheNathanParable. I will be experimenting with these shortly.