CG vs. Digital vs Tradtional

[Luie]

Sure thing!

I cropped out a few shots and noticed most of the problem is in the spine and shoulders. A lot of characters will have a rigid back with the stomach exposed when the spine should be relaxed, like when sitting.

So for the first shot a resuscitated character is sitting up. The spine is pulled back and the chest points out and upwards, making the shoulders draw back. The spine should be curved in more of a C shape, with the chest pointing slightly downwards and the shoulders hunched to give the illusion that he's propping his body weight on them.

The second shot is the hands over the lip of the pool. Because they aren't level with the top of the lip, it makes his hands look dead =]

The third shot is mostly the back. It's very rigid, but the s shape should be much more subtle. This would cause his chest the point straight(instead of curved up) and soften his shoulders.

The fourth shot is extremely rigid. He's at nearly a 90 degree angle with his spine curved outward and his shoulders straight. Nobody sits in bed with their laptop like this. The upper half of his spine should be pulled toward the laptop (or else his neck is really gonna hurts)

The fifth is an example of something more subtle but more common in a lot of shots. Some parts of his body match different body language than others. so for this one, we have a character acting aggressive and moving towards another, pointing a finger. His arm is engaged towards the character, but his body is stretched away from him. He's gettin all up in someone's grill but the only thing on him that shows aggression is an arm and his face. There are other shots where when a character is in some type of action or movement pose, only part of the body is engaged in the action while the rest isn't.

I'm not a figure expert(whatever that means), but I've used model poses for references before so hopefully loosening the spine will correct the shoulders n stuff. If it was drawn, that'd be different, but because it's in 3d, the posing is way more noticeable.

As for artwork, it doesn't matter how messy it looks as long as you make in intentional. After all, that's what style is. My hand makes it nearly impossible to get clean linework, so I just embrace the messyness out of convenience and just roll with it. Visuals are just as important in a comic as the writing. Readers want to be shown stuff. The artwork doesn't have to be a masterpiece, it just has to be able to convey important visual information like gesture and expression. Having models seems to limit the amount, detail, and variation of expressions and gestures, making the models feel like robots.

I still think you should use the renders in some way because you have a lot of visually engaging shots. I've been using a program like this (I think?) to get better pose references and I'll probably be using this method for my comic in the future.

Okay I've tried to post this twice, hopefully it will success or someting I guess

[danacraig78]

Thank you. I will try to see if I can incorporate the feedback into the renders. I still have the files for these shots, so I can try.:) The other problem I found out when trying to smudge hair with my wacom. Sometimes, I will not get the result I want and my wrist ends up being sore. However, I am working on trying to get around this limitation.:)

[ToonDoctor]

The errors that used to see frequently in Poser by artists were those where the characters' articulations were stretched or bet beyond limits. The kind of error I'm talking about has more to do with line quality, like irregular straight lines. dust and spots. The structure and the figures are still shaped properly. Let me know if that makes sense.

[Luie]

I've been using a wacom for a few days and I noticed my wrist is really sore. I think it's because the screen is so small, so I can't pivot on my elbow and have to use my wrist instead. Before this I was using a mouse and never had a wrist problem because I'd move the mouse with my fingers. If you're just smudging small details like hair, a mouse might work with high stabilizers. Or maybe zooming in so that you can use a larger space to work with on the tablet and try using your elbow?

[danacraig78]

@Luie Will try that.

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Didn't post work it and ignore the eyeballs near the back of his head >.> I had forgotten I stopped saving eyeballs and clothes in separate files. The reason I save it in separate poser files is to create object masks, which I can apply a different filter in After Effects. Anyways, is this closer?

[danacraig78]

@ToonDoctor Hmm..I am not sure what you mean by irregular straight lines. I know what you mean about beyond limits..and I try to avoid that if I can.

[ToonDoctor]

Drawing lines! Clean or shaky

[Luie]

Yis a lot :3

and lol I never noticed how creepy those guys in the background were xD

[danacraig78]

Well umm ummm ummm...they are...ummm..:)

[danacraig78]

The one thing about the poses for leaping off the starting pose..I didn't have any presets for it. I did it based on what I remembered from swimming for four years in High School. We had to make sure our entry was exact because that end of the pool only had three feet of water. There is another dive where someone slingshots themselves..but..it makes my back cringe just trying to think about it, never mind posing it.;)

[allenthomas]

Having done both 2D and 3D art, I understand the struggles of both. That being said, I could not imagine the time I would need (especially with my computer) to model, light, and render a comic in 3D. I initially thought about creating a comic using Maya and After Effects, but the amount of time I would need turned me away from it.

As far as likes and dislikes go, I honestly don't have a preference between the two. If it looks nice and the story is good, I'm in. It's as simple as that. The notion of 3D art distracting me from a story wouldn't be a problem because I find myself quite often being easily distracted from a lot of 2D art as well.

[danacraig78]

As @Luie graciously pointed out, there were some flaws with what I was doing. However, I think this was more of me not thinking about the fluidity of the body than the medium. The benefit of 3D software is that it does take time away from worrying about redrawing sets exactly the same. When I get a set done and lit, I save it and make sure I remember where I put it.:) If I need to do a pool scene, I don't have to redo it. Don't get me started on the Wilde's mansion..that thing is huge.

However, both mediums do require learning and growing. I do use After Effects mainly because I have plugins there that I used to use for animation. I render a sequence of stills out. Do the composition stuff and render that out. I bring it into Photoshop for the final touchup.

It is only recently that I had a little difficulty having more time to do it. I am currently working on a 55 (or more) page proposal for a doctorate class. However, my plan when my time frees up a little more (maybe next class?) I plan on making sure that I get the pose looking more natural. When I get a lot more time, I might just do some re-renders to reduce the stiffness.:)

[eagle1]

I had mentioned that I was trying to get more of a comic book look out of my CGI. Here's a slightly older version of what I am talking about. This is with NO post work, these panels are just the straight renders, but I am still moving further towards the cel-shaded look in order to turn something out that has a comic book look to the CGI, but is still obviously CGI.
My hope is to remove the Uncanny Valley look, and produce something that will allow me to post a series in this style. This is just an experimental page, not a page from the story.

Eagle
(Not what I normally do, but I want to get the story out there)

[Kayke]

I've been thinking about this for a few days now, trying to figure out why exactly I'm not fond of CG art. I think it's because, for me, so much of a comic is told through the artwork. In all of the comics I like, the art style and coloring is really what defines the mood and tone of the comic.

I'm a visual person and the comics that I prefer are ones where the art style is unique, sensitive, and expressive. I've yet to see a CG comic that I've felt that way about. It's not that they feel "creepy" or "dead eyed"... but they don't feel subtle and they don't evoke emotion from me, which makes me less invested in the characters and plot. This is all just my personal opinion though and I'm fairly picky about the comics I read.

[danacraig78]

@Kaykedrawsthings I can get what you are saying. I think the next step in CG comics (outside of what has been mentioned about uncanny valley and deadeye ) is to find a way to have it assist in the creation. There are tools out there that make it possible to capture the CG rendered image and turn it into something that resembles some of the comics that are digitally drawn. Believe it or not, I am getting ideas how to progress with CG comics.

[NiccoloNiccolo]

I'm sort of interested in trying to make a 3D comic too, but it's tough -- actually harder, I think, than 2D methods to make the final image look good, so I admire you, @danacraig78, for the challenge you've taken on.

People have already mentioned the Uncanny Valley. I think another reason why 3D modelling in comics tends to look weird is the lettering. When the scene and characters have sufficiently realistic depth and lighting, it's strange to see floating text boxes or speech balloons in the image. The flatness of the text rectangles and ellipses contrasts strangely with the otherwise 3-dimensional imagery. This contrast in the lettering is also often true, I think, of many photo comics.

I think a good way to avoid this effect might be to try to style the text more like movie subtitles than like traditional comic text boxes. I'm thinking particularly of the way they did subtitles when characters spoke in a foreign language in the TV show Heroes. They made it visually very clear who was talking just by careful text placement, without using text balloon stems or arrows or whatever, but the lettering was otherwise very much like regular film/tv subtitles, so it looked natural in the scene.

I actually haven't seen very much of the show, but I'd actually recommend watching an episode or two just to see the subtitles, haha. I wish all video editors did their subtitles that way.

[danacraig78]

@NiccoloNiccolo That sounds like an interesting idea. It will be worth investigating.:)

[epiale]

As someone who's studied 3D extensively and at one point was majoring in modeling, I'm gonna make the argument that 3D is inherently a medium that does not work in comics. It's just too limited unless you're willing to spend an insane amount of time on modeling, texturing, etc. Honestly even when people do spend a ton of effort on it, it still tends to look stiff, lifeless, and pretty much always ends up floundering somewhere in the depths of the uncanny valley.

You see the same problems in comics where the art is just rendered too realistically. The human mind sees it and cringes because instead of art you see a picture of a real scene that's distorted into something mildly grotesque. Uncanny valley.

I'm probably gonna be unpopular for this, but I honestly think even using 3D as a base in character models is a bad idea. You can get away with using it as a reference for backgrounds, specifically it can help with perspective, but even characters only referenced from 3D models tend to look just as creepy as slapping the actual 3D model in with no editing what so ever.

Even beginners drawings tend to have more life and likability to them than 3D stuff. In the world of comics it's probably better to sit down with some good references, some drawing classes and books (I can recommend some fantastic stuff for beginners if anyone's interested) and learn to draw.

[danacraig78]

@epiale I am going to have to agree to disagree.:) I do see your points, but I still think there are ways to mitigate all the negative parts of 3D in comics.

[ToonDoctor]

This is not an unpopular idea. Animation with toonshaders has had to struggle with this too. Now 3D is mostly used for mechanical objects.

There is one cool scene in Princess Mononoke when the demon first attack the hero. in the forest in the beginning of the movie. The bushes and ground are all 3D but overtly textured and redrawn.