[Finished] Priceless - An Animated Short from WoK

[Omnicrola he/him]

Edit: It's finished! Here's the final version, scroll down further for some WIP notes and videos.

Spoiler

So I've wanted to share this with the community for many months, and now I think it's in a place where it's close enough to done that I'm comfortable sharing it even though it still lacks some polish.

For years I've wanted to make some animated Stormlight material, and just couldn't find the time, the right narrative, didn't have the right tools, etc etc. I have started a handful of Stormlight-themed projects, but fizzled on completing them for various reasons. Then earlier this year I ran across this great animatic of "that" scene from WoK and it gripped me and refused to let go.

I'm hoping to release the final version in time for Dragonsteel (I'll be there!). Meanwhile, if you fine folks have any thoughts on it so far, I'd welcome any feedback you have. A lot of elements are set in crem at this point, but I there's still a little bit of time in the next week or two.

Some things that still need done:

• fix faces intersecting with the Shardplate collar
• fix armor intersecting with itself
• Syl is completely an-animated
• Poor Kaladin has no clothes
• Soldiers are missing from the background of a few shots
• That Blade isn't actually Oathbringer
• Many other tiny things

Enjoy!

 

For those curious, here's the list of tools used to create this:

• Unreal 5
• Quixel Megascans
• Mocopi (via Android)
• Metahuman Creator
• Metahuman Animator (iPhone X)
• Daz Studio
• Maya
• Cascadeur
• Photoshop
• Davinci Resolve

I hired some other artists to do the music and the modeling of the Shardplate, but everything else has been done by me in my spare time. Though some of my experiments go back as far as 2 years, this specific piece I started in July. If you'd like to see how the project started and evolved, you can take a look at this unlisted playlist : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22bfEEjlx5UngdrxoICddvMo-xxSo0gr

Looking forward to people's thoughts!

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by Omnicrola
Adding final version

[Wittles he/him]

YO THIS IS SO COOL!!!

You've got some serious skill, this is so cool even though it's not fully done, I can't wait to see the finished product!

[Trusk'our he/him]

DUDE. THIS IS SO GOOD!

I loved the way Sadeas says "what!?" when Dalinar offers Oathbringer in exchange for the bridgemen. The expression alone was as priceless as the sword 

I also really liked the emotion and gestures made by Dalinar when explaining to Kaladin why he gave up the sword. Good detail there.

And I just have to say, Kaladin be rocking those boxers 

[Lord Gregorio he/him]

A few parts were cracking me up, but I can see how dope this would be finished. Syl floating around in a near t-pose was killing me.

Also ya, Kaladin in boxers was a little unsettling lol. 

Super excited to see where this goes. Please don't give up on it.

[Guest Ψιτιsτηε Βεsτ]

8 hours ago, Omnicrola said:

So I've wanted to share this with the community for many months, and now I think it's in a place where it's close enough to done that I'm comfortable sharing it even though it still lacks some polish.

For years I've wanted to make some animated Stormlight material, and just couldn't find the time, the right narrative, didn't have the right tools, etc etc. I have started a handful of Stormlight-themed projects, but fizzled on completing them for various reasons. Then earlier this year I ran across this great animatic of "that" scene from WoK and it gripped me and refused to let go.

I'm hoping to release the final version in time for Dragonsteel (I'll be there!). Meanwhile, if you fine folks have any thoughts on it so far, I'd welcome any feedback you have. A lot of elements are set in crem at this point, but I there's still a little bit of time in the next week or two.

Some things that still need done:

• fix faces intersecting with the Shardplate collar
• fix armor intersecting with itself
• Syl is completely an-animated
• Poor Kaladin has no clothes
• Soldiers are missing from the background of a few shots
• That Blade isn't actually Oathbringer
• Many other tiny things

Enjoy!

 

For those curious, here's the list of tools used to create this:

• Unreal 5
• Quixel Megascans
• Mocopi (via Android)
• Metahuman Creator
• Metahuman Animator (iPhone X)
• Daz Studio
• Maya
• Cascadeur
• Photoshop
• Davinci Resolve

I hired some other artists to do the music and the modeling of the Shardplate, but everything else has been done by me in my spare time. Though some of my experiments go back as far as 2 years, this specific piece I started in July. If you'd like to see how the project started and evolved, you can take a look at this unlisted playlist : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22bfEEjlx5UngdrxoICddvMo-xxSo0gr

Looking forward to people's thoughts!

 

For some reason I can’t see the vid, but I am sure it is great.

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

I love it.

It isn't perfect, but that's the point, I guess.

I have some, hopefully, constructive criticisms, though, that can hopefully help. I won't address what you've already put up there, but I'll be putting a few good things.

• The movements are unnatural and all of them go back into a certain pose every now and then.
• The shot where the camera goes up needs to be a bit smoother when it goes back down, instead of nothing to ease the transition.
• E X P R E S S I O N S. I mean this in the best way possible, they just need to have a little more emotion in their face in my opinion.
• This is more a nitpick than anything, but I think that Dalinar needs to smile more when he talks to Kaladin.
• Dalinar isn't as tall as I and a bunch of people, I know, have pictured.
• Their voices need a little work to sound more human.
• The lighting, especially on their faces, needs a little work.

This is not to say this isn't actually really good. I loved how Dalinar looks as a whole. I like the shard plate. The shattered plains looks great. Kaladin is just phenomenal, his voice is a wonderful part of this clip. It just, like any good artistic work, needs some work to reach it's full potential!

I wish you luck in continuing this project!!

[Omnicrola he/him]

Thank you everyone for your kind comments!

8 hours ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

• The movements are unnatural and all of them go back into a certain pose every now and then.
• The shot where the camera goes up needs to be a bit smoother when it goes back down, instead of nothing to ease the transition.
• E X P R E S S I O N S. I mean this in the best way possible, they just need to have a little more emotion in their face in my opinion.
• This is more a nitpick than anything, but I think that Dalinar needs to smile more when he talks to Kaladin.
• Dalinar isn't as tall as I and a bunch of people, I know, have pictured.
• Their voices need a little work to sound more human.
• The lighting, especially on their faces, needs a little work.

This is excellent feedback, TYVM!

There's definitely a lot of unnatural movement. This is my first project with this mocap system and I'm still learning it's limitations and how to smooth out the data. I don't think I'll be able to get it to where it feels 100% correct on this project, but its definitely something I want to improve.

The expressions are I think more an artifact of me than the tech. I had to do many attempts at performing after I realized that my face isn't nearly as expressive as I think it is! Still, I will take your note and see if I can push some more life into the faces. This scene is all about the dialog and the characters interacting with one another, which is one of the reasons I wanted to do it. As opposed to an action or fight scene, this is way harder and I wanted to push myself.

I've played with the way I've framed Dalinar a few times, trying to achieve some specific angles while also not making him feel too small/diminished. I think this last render he inadvertently shrunk due to the new Plate model, I need to give him a booster seat in a few places!

If you're thinking the voices sound artificial, I agree. It's pretty good for an AI morpher, but it's only like 90% good. There's a few places where it's really apparent to me that it's an AI and it really bothers me. Next project hopefully, real voice actors.

For lighting, do you have any specific suggestions? I recently had to completely re-work the lighting because the Plate is so insanely reflective, all of the soft fill lights I had set up threw off a battalion of specular highlights. It looked pretty cool actually, but in a very "car showcase" way not a "sunset on a battlefield" way.

 

[Omnicrola he/him]

Made a lot of progress over the weekend, I think I'm still on track to get this done before Dragonsteel!

Here's a test render I did last night, checking the motion and density of the Stormlight leaking out of Dalinar's armor. It's way too dense in this render, but I'm otherwise pretty happy with it. I've been trying to get Niagara to produce good looking Stormlight FX for almost 2 years at this point.   Thankfully they finally introduced sparse volume textures and fluid simulations.

 

[Omnicrola he/him]

Made a quick edit to the top with the final version!

[Lord Gregorio he/him]

That's much better! Super cool. Well done Omnicrola.

[Ookla she/her]

Wow. Just... wow.

Not to put any stress on you or anything, but... how would you feel about making the whole movie?

It's okay. I'm kidding.

...Mostly.