Hey there friends, Martin here!
Today, I’d like to tell you a little bit about what I’m currently working on. Apart from Heroes of Bronze, the majority of my time is currently devoted to a new, comprehensive course that I’m once again working on for CGBoost.com. And while my last course was a bit more technical, focusing on all sorts of ways to make environments in Blender, this time I am going to teach something different.
Hey there everybody, Martin here,
back with the latest news from the world of Heroes of Bronze. I am pleased to say that - besides the regular 3D grind - I’ve been able to make progress in some other, vital parts of the project. First music tests, which I will hopefully be able to reveal in the near future, are being made by my composer Richard Albert and I’ve been able to record some first voiceovers with the actress I’ve picked for the short film. More info in the following months.
Anyway, by far the biggest part of the current process is rendering and animating characters, compositing and generally putting everything together. And while this is the very final stage of video creation, I don’t dare give you any specific release date just yet. I want to make this really great, and if need be, I will take some extra time for polishing.
Hey there friends, Martin here,
many of you are probably wondering when is the Heroes of Bronze shortfilm finally going to come out. Well, the thing is, while the basic idea for the film remains the same, its actual look has changed quite dramatically recently. The reason for that is the fact that some time ago I’ve finally received my Rokoko motion capture suit and after a few months of tinkering, I learned how to use it to create shots… well, like this:
Phew, the time flies when you’re having fun! And I certainly had fun these last few weeks, not only with the new tool I am using - the Character Creator-IClone pipeline - but also with Blender procedural landscapes. I was able to learn a lot about landscape creation and you can be sure I will be sharing my knowledge in the near future.
Firstly, I was able to finish up upgrading my hero models for my film, so now, the main crew of Persephone is more or less done and ready for the battle of Marathon!
The Crew of the trireme Persephone, from the left:
Nikephoros - the main hero of the story, an aristocrat and landowner from Attica, also, the Trierarch of Persephone, the blue trireme on the right. He is husband to Penelope and father to Alkaios, through whose eyes we will view the short film. He is one of the (fictional) heroes of Marathon.
Aegeus - Taciturn Spartan exile. He left Lacedaemon after his family fell into disgrace, leaving for the open seas to find a new life. Instead, Egyptian slavers found him. He was saved by Nikephoros and his crew and now serves as a captain of marines.
Chalcon - Carefree and merry Kretan archer who joined the crew mostly because he was terribly bored of his life in his hometown of Phaistos.
Bias - Nikephoros' childhood friend, son of a freed slave serving on his estate. Due to his tough upbringing, where he and his father had to flee Aetolia when their hometown was sacked and survive on their own for many months, he learned many outdoor skills. Now he servers as a scout for the crew.
Hermogenes - a mercenary from Boeotia, likes women and drink and often wears the archaic bell armor of his father to battle. When it comes to fighting, he likes to plough through the enemy lines as directly as possible.
Also, I started updating some of the older shots, so I’ve completely redone the intro shot of the original teaser, to have it make more sense. In this version, I added Nikephoros and he is now actually kneeling before the statue of Zeus Horkios, swearing he will uphold the rules of upcoming athletic competitions. This something each athlete needed to do before competing in the Olympics.
Finally, I continued playing around with lots of environmental stuff in Blender, using nodes to generate procedural landscapes. Putting together various tutorials from Youtube, I was able to finalize my ocean shader and desert shader. I’ve shared setups for both of these on my Patreon, and broke them down in my livestreams, available there as well. Hope you like!
With that, I am pleased to say I am finally entering the final stage of making this short film. Now, it will be all about shot assembly and animation. Lots of work ahead of me, but I am positively brimming with excitement. I was looking forward to this stage for so long it’s now almost surreal to get to it :-)
Let’s finish up this thing!
Chairé!
Martin
