Storyboarding with iClone – Reallusion Magazine

Storyboarding was one of the reasons I discovered iClone about twenty years ago as I was looking for an easier way to get the job done. Storyboarding, for those beginners not familiar with the concept, is a simple way to pre-visualize a script with static images for each scene that represent the flow of the story and give the director and principal photographer a chance to hash over their shot list and other items.

It is much easier and cost effective to storyboard a scene for animation or live action than to just start shooting it on location or start animating without a roadmap. When shooting a live scene there can be tremendous costs to redoing a shot because of a bad camera angle. Storyboarding allows the directors to visualize these shots before a crew is put on the clock.

More importantly, a storyboard adds structure and helps to maintain continuity between shots, and it works equally well in animation by providing a glimpse at what we are trying to animate or get on film versus what we “envision” in our minds. There are no downsides to using a storyboard and iClone is here to help.

Do not confuse a storyboard with an animated movie. Storyboards are usually concise and do not have to contain works of art. Some are nothing more than stick figures drawn on paper while others are almost complete productions of the movie in book form. While these do not have to be high quality, they do need to convey the direction the production takes and explain or show the aesthetics of certain scenes.

 A crude storyboard can at the very least help to get a coherent video that an audience can follow. It can also show problems before the production work beings. As mentioned earlier, this produces a cohesive video and can prevent straying from the main storyline. Even the smallest, seemingly unimportant video can benefit from storyboarding.

Posing Versus Animating

One of the best features of storyboarding is you do not have to be an animator to create storyboards. This only involves posing, not animating and iClone is packed with poses. And motions that can become poses. The new AccuPOSE makes iClone an even more formidable storyboarding app by providing a library of AI-assisted posing that can grow each month with the optional Infinity subscription that adds new pose libraries regularly

I mentioned motions because they are nothing more than a collection of poses and you can load a motion, scrub down the timeline until you find a pose you like then right click, select REMOVE ANIMATION and what is left is a pose.

Static Storyboards

Think of a static storyboard as a simple comic book. It needs to convey the emotion, looks and feel of a comic book panel. It must tell viewers at a glance what the director or cinematographer wants the audience to see and feel. It’s not always possible to convey enough emotion in a static image especially when you are new to all this. Sometimes it’s not necessary depending on the direction and instructions you are following. In any case just give it your best shot and you’ll see your storyboards and videos improve.

I’ve yet to work on a storyboard that didn’t discover problems and require some adjustment no matter how ironclad we may think we have fleshed out our original story.

Animated Storyboards

Animated storyboards are fantastic but require a lot more time and resources. Even just 10 to 30 seconds of animation can take several hours at a previz level and that I something you need to keep in mind.

By previz level I mean flat or very rudimentary lighting, low poly props to keep things moving along while using simple characters and props.

The animated panels need to convey the proper message but not recreate the entire. Do not reinvent the wheel, just get the ideas across. A hybrid storyboard combing elements of static and animated panels may be a better fit for some projects.

Practice with your Favorite Movie or Show

Thats right! Storyboard a scene from one of your favorite movies or television shows that conveys the story and style of the scene as you see it. Then step back and storyboard it from another viewpoint or a re-imagining of the storyline to practice your creative thinking and getting what you see in your head down on the screen.

It’s that last part that trips up a lot of creatives. It can be the most difficult part of the pre-viz process.  The powers-that-be tell you what they want to see and then you have to get on the same page and storyboard their vision for everyone else to work with.

Storyboard 1 – Airliner Cockpit

Panel 1: Cockpit Interior | Tight Shot | Full Flight Crew
Routine flight with the crew concentrating on tasks during a routine and uneventful flight.

Panel 2: Cockpit Interior | Closeup of Cockpit Door
Shot slightly Rotated for dramatic Effect. No characters in view. A sudden pounding on the cockpit door rips through the cockpit with a warning.

Panel 3: Cockpit Interior | Crew Closeup.
The startled pilots look at each other while the Engineer looks through the peep hole. only to find it blocked.

Panel 4: Cockpit Interior | Door Closeup. The Engineer turns to get the Crash Axe while the pounding intensifies on the door. There is no answer to the captain’s demand to identify themselves.

Panel 5: Cockpit Interior | Wide side shot of Engineer holding Crash Axe in front of cabin door.
Flight Engineer stands in front of cabin door with the Crash Axe in hand ready to defend the cockpit. The 1st Officer continues the Mayday call while squawking the 7500-hijack code. The captain is still demanding Identification.

Panel 6: Cockpit Interior | Closeup of Copilot
1^st Officer presses the transponder button for the 7500-hijack code.

Panel 7: Panoramic Shot | Jet Only
Side shot of Airbus jet over land.

Panel 8: Exterior Shot | Fighter Jets
Two F-16s take off from nearby airbase to intercept the airliner.

Storyboard 2: Simplified with Dummy Assets

We can create a storyboard with 3D primitives that come with iClone such as blocks, walls and floors to make the props in the in the scene. This works well in the early stages of a project when the exact location settings or interior types might not be set.

Like the first storyboard above it can also be used to create or adapt a shot list for the entire project. You can visualize camera angles at amazing speed and make adjustments before putting any crew on the clock.

Cafe Interaction – Taking an Order

Panel 1: Interior Wide shot | Café
Establishing shot to start the interaction between wait staff and customers

Panel2: Interior Wide Left to Right Angle with All Three Subjects
Waitress looks to customer 1 and waits for order.

Panel3: Interior | Right to Left Wide Angle
Customer 1 looks at waitress and gives order.

Panel4: Interior | Left to Right Wide Angle
Waitress switches to customer 2 and waits for order.

Panel 5: Interior | Left to Right Wide Angle with Customer 2
Customer 2 looks at and gives order to waitress.

Panel 6: Interior | Wide Left to Right Angle | All Three Subjects.
Waitress thanks the customers for their order and finishes up.

The above storyboard shows how even simple, everyday interactions like taking and giving an order in a café can not only be visualized but improved. It would be very easy for a director of photography to make changes to their shot list based on work from the storyboard phase and will usually have a large amount of input in the creation of the storyboard and its evolution.

Smart Search PlugIn

The AI-Assisted Smart Search plug-in utilizes AI-enhanced search techniques to quickly and easily locate assets for storyboards and other projects. Smart Search offers two methods of searching for and locating assets.

Keyword Search lets us locate assets by Name, Tag or Author similar to conventional search.

To top that off, Deep Search also provides Drag and Drop or Copy and Paste Image based searching for those just right assets you have in mind but can’t put a name to for conventional or keyword search.

We can even select a prop out of our scene, right click and use Deep Search Similar to find assets closely resembling the selected prop, usually in a matter of seconds. We can also filter by category and exclude unwanted results, cutting back on clutter than be so easily distracting and time consuming.

Remember what I said earlier about motions being a group of poses? With the newly released Motion Deep Search we can now find motions much faster, and each motion can carry thousands of poses to use in the storyboard by scrubbing down the time to a desired pose, right click and Remove Animation to keep the pose as mentioned earlier.

I could go on and on about Motion Deep Search, but you get the picture. When you combine existing motions with what is available in the Content Store and Marketplace you have the potential of thousands of poses extracted from those motions including free motions that come with iClone.

Usage Cases

Befores & Afters: The Art of Crafting War Scenes or Previs

Bringing Brands to Life with Real-time Mascots in just 2 Months

Create CableLab’s Visionary Video: Real Actors Meet with Virtual Humans

Cartoon Animator

We can storyboard with Cartoon Animator too. It shares a lot with iClone and can accomplish many of the same tasks. The latest update has improved it even more and it can be a more economical way to create storyboards. I’m not experienced with Cartoon Animator like I am with iClone, but I would be surprised it you ran into any problems using it for the same purpose.

Summary

In closing I would like to stress the importance of continuity when laying out a story and a simple storyboard will go a long way to making your story ironclad with no surprises during production and no plot holes or left turns to confuse the audience.

Even if you just sketch out an outline on napkins with stick figures it will often be superior to not having any storyboarding at all. In this business, continuity is extremely important.

Yes, it’s an extra step in the creative process but it’s those extra steps that make work stand out and be recognized.