Searching for 3D Storyboard SW

N

newlearner

New member
Hello all,

I'm new here and am trying to evaluate what's available in 3D storyboard software, other than FrameForge and PowerProduction. Can anyone help?

Thanks

Newlearner! :huh:
 
There's a very cool looking one called "Pre-Viz" by Antics which does animatics. If anyone's using this I'd love to hear your impressions.
 
I downloaded the trial version and went through a couple of the tutorials. I can say that it's probably the most accessible 3D program I've ever used. By that I mean I could "get it" almost right off the bat, and wanted to keep experimenting.

The included quick start tutorials are very helpful and are set up so you work in the same file that the tutorial uses. There are additional video tutorials on their website that cover the more advanced techniques. I'm very impressed with the training resources they provide.

You can also download Film and Stage components that include objects like cameras, dolly tracks, lights and more. Simple character models allow for a wide variety of easily placed "actors" as you plan your scene. Lighting and shadows in Sketchup are really cool, too. You can set up your scene and dial in the lighting (shadow position) based on time of day and time of year.

I'd say it's definitely worth giving the trial a good look. It's 3D that makes sense and something I would consider purchasing (if I had a clear use for it).

Cheese, I know you want to do your storyboarding with this. Will it be as quick as sketching something out? No, of course not. But if you know the dimensions of a location or room, you can experiment with all kinds of angles, spark new ideas, and give your storyboards animation (which I didn't try but saw a cool demo). So yeah, I think you could totally do your storyboarding with this software.

Watch the features overview here:
http://download.sketchup.com/downloads/training/tutorials50/Sketchup Video Tutorials.html

Let us know how you like it!
 
Awesome frizzy! Yeah, I downloaded it the second I read you liked it, but i just installed it.

I was suprised to read it cost $500, phew, but there's an educational discount so I think as a college student I can get it for the oh to good price of $50!

I'm going to watch that overview you posted and then try it out, but after what uyou'ved said I must admit I'm really looking forward to trying this out! It might be just the thing I've been looking for. :D
 
$50? That's a no-brainer! Glad my impressions were helpful. Looking forward to hearing if it truly does fit the bill for you. Have fun!
 
ok, im watching the tutorial now and without having even opened the program I can tell everyone thats using frameforge to stop now!

And its for one reason... THE ORBITAL TOOL! This is exactly what I've been bitching about since i started looking for these programs. I wanted the orbital tool I couldnt figure out why none had it!

anyway, back to the tutorial :)
 
wow, you guy's, this is something special. I watched the first chapter of the video tutorials, went throught the 3 self paced tutorials and in I jumped. All that took almost an hour, but 2 hours after starting my new project, I not only built my set in digital form (to scale btw) but the grass outside, the street, 2 intersections, and every building in the surounding neighborhood (in which a lot of action take place)!

true I had an overhead drawn map of the area I had mad with me (without which I wouldn't know where to start), but I'm still rediculously impressed! This program is amazing!

the only thing is, I didn't actually do any boards.

I'll have to get at it again tomorrow and watch the rest of the tutorials, but I hope to learn how to better navigate the scene (the orbitor tool's way better than frameforge, but it could still be way better) and since I shoot 2.35, it's important for me to frame my boards that way to, so I hope there's an easy way to see that.

Anyway, yeah, I think I'll try to get that student discount tomorrow :)
 
Sketchup is gaining ground as a pre-viz tool with a number of people I work with here in LA - I've used it for previz on a couple projects, for promos and commercials.

I use it in conjuction with Vectorworks and Lightwave. It's an effective tool if you use it within its limits, which are pretty much constantly expanding.

But I still use Lightwave for virtually everything except producing contstruction documents, or 2d-only elements...
 
yeah, it does animations. check out the links posted above. the overview of features includes animations. simple animations, but adequate for most of us.
 
frizzle-muh-nizzle, do you know of a toturial that goes over the concepts specific to story boarding? Every time I have a question it seems answered 2 hours later, but I have more questions and only a cuple hours left on my demo copy.
 
Don't know if this is too late to help, but go to this page and download the stage and film plugin:

http://www.sketchup.com/?sid=37

You were asking about aspect ratios. Here's a list of cameras/ratios included in the film/stage plugin:
#---------------------------------
name = "Academy 35mm (1.37:1)"
description = "35mm-camera"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 1.37
image_width = 20.96
#---------------------------------
name = "35mm Widescreen (1.85:1)"
description = "35mm-camera"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 1.85
image_width = 24.0
#---------------------------------
name = "35mm Arriscope/Arrivision (2.35:1)"
description = "35mm-camera"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 2.35
image_width = 21.29
# [Arriscope aperture 0.864" x 0.732"]
#---------------------------------
name = "35mm Vistavision (1.50:1)"
description = "35mm-camera"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 1.50
image_width = 36.01
# [Vistavision aperture 1.485" x 0.991"]
#---------------------------------
name = "Super 16mm (1.66:1)"
description = "16mm-camera"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 1.66
image_width = 11.76
#---------------------------------
name = "Standard 16mm (1.33:1)"
description = "16mm-camera"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 1.33
image_width = 9.6
#---------------------------------
name = "65mm 5-perf (2.28:1)"
description = "60mm-camera"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 2.28
image_width = 48.59
# [aperture 2.066" x 0.906"]
#---------------------------------
name = "Photographic Still 35mm (1.33:1)"
description = "35mm-still"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 1.33
image_width =
# [32x24mm]
#---------------------------------
name = "Photographic 6x6 medium format (1:1)"
description = "35mm-still"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 1.0
image_width =
# [56x56mm]
#---------------------------------
name = "Photographic 4x5 large format (1.25:1)"
description = "35mm-still"
perspective = true
aspect_ratio = 1.25
image_width =
# [4x5 inch]
#---------------------------------
name = "Video"
description = "Video-camera"
aspect_ratio = 1.33
image_width = 6.4
#---------------------------------
name = "Video (D1)"
description = "Video-camera"
aspect_ratio = 1.33
image_width = 7.2
#---------------------------------
name = "Video HD 16:9"
description = "Video-camera"
aspect_ratio = 1.78
image_width = 19.2
#----------------------------------
name = "Screen"
description = "default_camera"
aspect_ratio = 0
 
I haven't tried them but it looks like you have plenty to choose from! I'm thinking you wanted to know that before you made your purchase, eh? ...so yeah, you're good to go, it's just a matter of learning the animation part.

Did you see the pages/tabs at the top of the work area when doing the self-paced tutorial? I think that's the basis for animation...so you can put all your boards on separate pages and extract one at a time or "animate" them for a bigger picture. You can animate camera movement, but I don't think you'll be able to animate objects/characters. Don't quote me on that, but expect limitations.

Sad Max, can you describe the animation in Sketchup? Can you also expound on some of its limitations? Thanks!

I can see how this would be a fantastic communication tool for a director to share his/her vision with a DP, etc.
 
thanks Fry, yep, I've downloaded the plugin and got my 2.35 camera.

i've decided to spend the lousy $50 regardless, but i'm still working out details. Like the virtual actors. They give you quite a few, but most arn't very useful. For example theres only 1 "standing" model, but you get a laying down model, a pulling model etc.

I need a way to differenciate characters if I have 5 standing models in a room and I'm switching between cameras.

Do you know a way to do that?
 
Yeah, you can modify those characters by right-clicking and choosing edit. You may want to change their colors and you could even create custom poses and right-clicking on the character and "save as..." with a unique name.

Did you check out the online tutorial video for placing a bitmap on an object? Perhaps you could even take a picture of your actor, crop it out in Photoshop, and place it on the character model! That would be sweet. You can do this with your locations, too. Be sure to view that tutorial. Very cool indeed.

Also, download components from the website. More stuff to choose from.
 
I didn't watch the whole thing because I wanted to get right into it, but yes I saw you could add photo textures.

but i DIDN'T know about about right clicking on the actor model. Gonna go try that right now!
 
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