Heroes of Bronze & the future of the project

Heroes of Bronze & the future of the project

Hello friends!

after the release of the shortfilm, I finally enjoyed some rest. Also, I had some time to think about the future of the project. Already, I can tell you it will be an interesting year for Heroes of Bronze.

“The Memory” shortfilm is still going strong, with over 600 000 views and hundreds of comments. I am so glad that audience all over the world is enjoying the video! I’ll mention it again - SHARING and COMMENTING is the best way you can help the short film to spread. So thank you again for your help! 🤗 All the feedback just made me more eager to continue this project with more stories set in the Greco-Persian war period.

Heroes of Bronze shortfilm is coming in 14 days!

Heroes of Bronze shortfilm is coming in 14 days!

It has been a loong process to get to this stage. From the initial ideation and concepting, to creating assets and 3D pipeline, and finally animating, rendering and editing the shots - it took me about 4 years from start to finish. These past few months I’ve been able to work on it almost full-time, finally bringing the 6-minute short to a stage where I feel (somewhat) confident presenting it to the world.

Summer News! Entering the final stages

Summer News! Entering the final stages

Hello friends, long time no post, I know…

Though, as you may have surmised from my activity at Instagram, I have entered the final stages of postproduction for Heroes of Bronze. Everything from compositing to music and SFX is being done right now. I am preparing for the final stretch of the creation of this shortfilm project. And let me tell you, I’m growing more excited and anxious everyday 😁

There are too many updates to mention them all since I last posted a news entry. It is safe to say though that I’ve advanced A LOT over the months. Over 70 percent of the shots are now rendered and every day, I am progressing further and further towards the final result. A lot of tweaking and improvement is still needed, but I am on it, one shot at a time.

Christmas News! Rendering final shots + new tutorials and breakdowns

Christmas News! Rendering final shots + new tutorials and breakdowns

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.

November News! New video, tutorials and story pages...

November News! New video, tutorials and story pages...

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:

October News! Illustrated Storybook and Historical Reconstructions

October News! Illustrated Storybook and Historical Reconstructions

Hey there friends, Martin here.

I’ve been very busy with moving to a new flat, adjusting my computer setup, and a lot of other changes in my life. However, I found some time for Heroes. Let’s start with the biggest render. Architectural reconstructions are an important part of the project and only now I feel confident enough with Blender to really dive deep into this topic. And since I am planning to briefly show the Winter capital of Darius the Great, the magnificent city of Susa, I wanted to model it.

October News! Teaser #2 is coming, finished new tutorial series and more...

Hey there friends!

The Heroes of Bronze project is proceeding slower than I expected, mainly due to several new upcoming projects, some of which I will be releasing before the end of the year. Yep, there will be a new CGBoost course, so that is taking up most of my time now.

Still, every day for at least a bit, I am able to push new shots for HoB, so the new teaser is definitely coming, only later than expect :-)

In the meantime, I have finished up this series of tutorials focusing on Hair & Beard creation in Blender. Watch the whole playlist here:

Also, I made this piece just for fun, to test the Mixer Brush in Photoshop, painting over 3D render to make it look painterly :-) It is a a moment set around the events of Battle of Cunaxa (401 BC) from the March of Ten Thousand .

The idea behind it was: the phalanx just ran a good distance, trying to get from the reach of Persian arrows. After retaining order, they are forming up behind their commander who took the lead, encountering one of the group of Immortals in the process.I figured there would be chaos going on at that moment,before they formed a line again, giving space for an almost duel-like moment to ensue.

Much more info coming next month!

Chairé!

Martin

September News! Acropolis, Tutorials and Livestream Collection Discount :-)

Whoa, the summer has flown by already and already September is here. Fortunately, I used the last two months to work on Heroes of Bronze as much as possible. Mostly, I finished up my Character Creator - IClone - Blender pipeline, with animations, facial performance and better looking shaders. I took the opportunity to introduce an exciting tool that came out recently for Character Creator - the SkinGen plugin, making automated skin texturing a real joy!

Connected to that topic, I also made a free tutorial where I explored how you can create your own clothing simulation directly in Blender, without any external tools.

Finally, my work on the ancient Acropolis of Athens, ca 500 BC, is coming together.  It is a slightly different city than most of us probably know from the time of Pericles. At around 500 BC it lacked both Parthenon, the magnificent statue of Athena, Propylae and other famous structures. These would only be built after the wars with the Persians. Instead, the Acropolis offered a view of two older doric temples. Still, even then it must have been a magnificent sight...

This still a wip model I was able to put together from my architectural assets and a bit of KitBash 3D. I used Cycles for rendering, Megascans and Grasswald for vegetation and World Creator for some background terrain generation :)

hob_acropolis_test01.jpg

Last but not least, I was able to put together the first 10 livestreams, edit and polish them and put together into this Gumroad package. It is 10 hours of content, detailing my workflows, tips and tricks, Blender, Substance Painter, Photoshop and Character Creator pipeline. Just for you, followers of the blog, you can now get it 50% off with the coupon code: “hoblivestreams110” :-)

Also, as a small teaser, have a look at this image - and know that soon, I will do a tutorial on how I made the beard and hair for this character in Blender.

06.png

Enjoy the rest of the hot summer days, my friends!

Chairé,

Martin

June News - The Crew of Persephone, Zeus Horkios and the last stage of the process

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