I am trying to create a comic series using 3D VRoid characters. So far it has been more learning than creating content. I have slowly been fleshing out my cast of characters in VRoid Studio and creating locations in Unity leveraging purchased assets. I have explored blend shapes using AR Kit for facial expressions. I […]
Author: alankent
Great advice for writing a good story, by some old guy
There are probably some great books on how to write good drama scripts, but I came across a reference to ‘The Poetics’ written by Aristotle in 330 BCE. I was curious how much story telling has changed over the years. I found it a surprisingly interesting read with concrete actionable advice. I might not have […]
Web Stories and Comic Speech Bubbles
I am planning to reboot my “Extra Ordinary” animation series using web stories. The animated version was fun, but I found it too hard for a hobby project to work with friends as voice actors, and full animation with speech bubbles (no audio) feels weird to me. It feels like poor man’s animation. (I tried […]
Tiling for Expressions with VRoid Characters
If you have watched Suvidriel’s YouTube channel you will know you can have multiple textures for your VRoid character face, clothes, etc using tiling. This allows you to add a blush to the cheeks, tears around the eyes, etc. This blog describes some quick tips for doing this more efficiently in Adobe Photoshop. Here is […]
Example Expressions from Blendshapes with VRoid Studio, HANA_Tool, and Unity
This post includes an update on my plans to do expressions with VRoid characters for the purpose of creating short animated video clips using Unity and VRoid Studio characters. Note: The main value of this post may be the summary list of blendshapes and how they move parts of the face below. The tables can […]
Creating your own animation teaches greater appreciation for the experts!
I am having a go at a 3D animated comic series. I am getting closer, getting the ground work out of the way (e.g. https://twitter.com/xordinary99/status/1344592878509572096?s=21). But wow, how hard it is to create a good result! Since this is a hobby, I take lots of short cuts to save time and use free tools as […]
First Experiences with Low End Motion Capture Tools
Yesterday I wrote a blog post on a list of low end motion capture tools. Today I thought I would share my opinions and (limited) experiences of the different options. My goal is to create short animated cartoon sequences, not be a VTuber, so my requirements may different from what most people are after. To […]
Low End Motion Capture Tools
One of my personal challenges is how to create 3D animated content with relatively low effort and decent quality. I have been building up a library of animation clips in Unity (a game creation platform) which I stitch into a sequence to make up a scene, but it is proving time consuming. Another approach is […]
Plot and Story Structure
If you search online for how to structure Manga, Anime, a Webtoon comic, or more you will find various discussions on what terminology to use to describe the structure of content. In this post I describe the terminology that I think makes the most sense for web stories, the format I am planning to use […]
3D Anime Approaches (and thoughts for myself)
My personal goal is to create an semi-animated comic. In particular, create a “web story” per episode of a series. I do not plan to create fully animated episodes, but instead create pages with short animation clips – more like a comic book where the pictures move a bit (the eyes widen, a punch in […]
