RWBY Season 2 – Poser Powered Animation

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Jim Willey

The butt-kicking warrior students from Beacon Academy are back! RWBY season 2 is just around the corner (online premiere 24^th July). Just yesterday the trailer for the 3D, beat ‘em up and RPG inspired anime premiered at Rooster Teeth’s very own convention (RTX). Obviously, as posted above, the trailer is now available online. The second seasons boasts better visuals – gone are the black silhouettes that constituted character extras. This in itself will please many, but visuals have been improved in many other areas including shadows and greater utilisation of Poser’s physics engine for hair and cloth (perhaps other stuff too – not sure).

RWBY Production Diaries – Interesting Tidbits

During development a number of “Production Diaries” were filmed and offer some interesting insights into how the anime is put together. Areas covered (albeit far too briefly) include: modelling, uv mapping, texturing, motion capture and animation, voice acting and sound effects. Though us 3D nerds would have sunk our teeth into deeper production diaries, there were some areas clarified from earlier technical discussion that took place at the previous RTX and elsewhere online.

I found the section on animation particularly interesting. It has been known that the RWBY team use a mix of motion capture and keyframing, but it was never clear how much of either was used. As it turns out much of the fight sequences are animated with traditional methods. Motion capture, on the other hand, seems to be heavily used for scenes that are heavy on character interaction, where emotion and subtle nuances are more important. Given Monty Oum’s previous projects this approach is not so surprising. This guy has built a cult following with his rapid paced hand-animated fight scenes.

RWBY: Inspiring and Guilty Pleasure

The work Rooster Teeth do with Poser on RWBY and Red Vs Blue continues to be inspirational, and I have to admit I have become a little intrigued with the plot. What are The White Fan up to, and is going to what about them? Any bets the young women with their male sidekicks (makes for an interesting change of pace, doesn’t it?) won’t be pushed to the fore of the coming conflict? No, I thought not. Of course a bunch of children with insane weaponry and magic will once again save the world. And why not? Adults are far too busy playing Politics and Tycoons™ to get involved with such noble endeavours.

Catch up

If you haven’t yet seen RWBY season 1 you can catch up at Rooster Teeth’s website and on their YouTube channel. You can also pick up RWBY season 1 on DVD/Blue-ray at Amazon.

Rooster Teeth/RWBY Animation Pannel

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Jim Willey

Just a quick post here. I came across this Rooster Teeth animation panel filmed in Melbourne Australia. There is a lot of RT waffle and banter, but for those interested in 3D animation from about 35 mins in to about 55 mins there is some really good stuff about the animation process of RWBY. Monty talks about working with Poser, time saving trickery, using 2D assets, quick and cheap particle effects, and demonstrates some technique in Maya. Monty also demonstrates how Poser 2014’s bullet physics will be implemented in future episodes of the show for elements such as hair, clothes, and of course, the all important bouncing of breasts.

All-in-all there is a lot more meat on the bones of this panel in terms of Poser related stuff than the RTX panel, but again most of the audience were happy to ask questions about weapons and characters, so other than that 20 min window there are only a few little sound bites here and there for the 3D crowd.

RWBY Series 1 Wraps Up

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Jim Willey

The first series of Rooster Teeth’s Poser Pro powered anime, RWBY. wrapped up on the 5th of this month (November 2014). Production continues on the project, but there is little official word on what comes next and when. The series has been released on DVD and Blu-ray, and the soundtrack is also out.

It has to be said that Monty Oum is one stylish devil and I must further admit to having become something of a fan of his work since a press release from Smith Micro popped up in my inbox. To be 100% honest I’d never heard the name Monty Oum till I started digging into just who was behind RWBY. I’d seen a snippet of the Haloid (Halo/Metroid) fan animation, so I had at least had a run-in with his work. I’d also seen a couple of episodes of Red VS Blue but hadn’t relised that seasons 8+ of the show were made with Poser. It was only after hunting down all Monty’s low-fi but incredibly produced and choreographed action animations (Dead Fantasy, Haloid), that I developed an appreciation of the mad skillz (as the kids say) this guy has as a director, editor and animator. This work also gave me a deeper respect for the animation potential of Poser.

It’s hard to write about RWBY without being all Oum be a god. It’s his baby. He’s responsible for the concept, directing, and large parts of writing, animation, and character design – basically all the stuff that us 3D people are interested in. But let’s not forget the awesome talent of Shane Newille too. For a look at what he can do just check out his awesome Megaman X Fanimation, for which he also did the soundtrack. It is great to see what creative, ambitious people can accomplish with a budget (though apparently with no official figures out there who knows what the budget really looks like), and basic tools.

RWBY certainly isn’t to the tastes of everyone. First and foremost anime is one of those things you either love or “can’t get”. Some are weary or outright snobish about westernised anime, and then there are the clipping and other minor animation flaws. For the most part animation shortcomings didn’t bother me, but every now and then there were instances where hair would phase through apparel and weapons sheathed on the back, or feet would slide. …but I’m not really writing a review here.

So, lets just cut to the chase. Watching RWBY has been entertaining, with some of Oum’s signature intricately choreographed fight sequences, and for me it has all been about the seeing Poser in action for a relatively high profile project. Oum’s work with Poser is inspiring, and his message of working with the tools you know and have at hand (not worrying about the tools and wiz-bang you want or think you should have) is refreshing.

RWBY is now part of Poser history. It is a rallying call to all of us that use inexpensive “hobbyist” software. The success of Rooster Teeth Productions should be equally inspiring – a production house that has its roots in no/low budget, but innovative Machinima. It really is a whole new world here on the internet. If you’re smart and you are driven you can accomplish anything with virtually whatever comes to hand.

I am looking forward to getting a copy of the RWBY DVD, watching all the episodes back to back without the distraction of ads. Most of all, I’m looking forward to Oum’s commentary. You can watch all the episodes for free at Rooster Teeth’s website and on their YouTube channel.

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Poser Pro Used In Popular Web Media Red VS Blue and RWBY

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Jim Willey

It is often part of the marketing pitch that we hear programs like Poser and DAZ Studio are used in professional applications. Most of the apparent professional usage of these programs is well hidden, so we are usually left to take the word of testimonials with a slice of scepticism. The Poser page on Wikipedia offers us some insight into some uses, though they are largely unreferenced and don’t make for hugely inspiring reading if you’re looking for solid professional and creative examples.

Enter Rooster Teeth Productions

At least one addition that can be made to the list here is the extensive use Rooster Teeth Productions (RT) has made of Poser over a number of years for their popular Red VS Blue (RVB) series, and now the hugely popular RWBY (Ruby) anime styled series. While Red VS Blue began its life as a short collection of Machinima Halo parodies made with the Halo game engines, it has since moved to using Smith Micro’s Poser.

Nailing down exactly when RT moved RVB to Poser is tricky if you aren’t a constant fan (which I’m not), but it would likely be at least since Monty Oum joined the production company in 2010, bringing his serious animation and Poser skills with him.

This hilarious fight scene clearly shows that by season 8 (2010) RVB had moved out of the Halo game engine. Is this Poser? [Confirmed via correspondence with RT that RVB season 8 was Poser powered]

Oum The Mighty Poser Champion at RT?

Oum obviously bought a lot to Rooster Teeth, because in 2012 he was given the chance to give his own concept life, as creator and lead animator. Perhaps bringing more than talent, Oum bought fans. His deviantART profile has over 30000 watchers and his Hailoid (Halo fan animation) and Dead Fantasy videos have grossed millions of views at YouTube and Game Trailers.com.

Whatever the reason, the first RWBY episode has already accumulated 62K Facebook likes recorded on Rooster Teeth’s website and 1.3 million views on YouTube since upload on 25 July (2013). This makes RWBY many more times popular than Red Vs Blue Season 11.

So, what’s RWBY all about?

RWBY has an obvious anime, and JRPG inspiration to its visual style, characters and plot.The cast is composed primarily of female warrior students embarking on a new stage of their life, Studying at the prestigious warrior school, Beacon Academy. The world these characters inhabit is a dangers post mass monster invasion world where only a handful of powerful cities offer a relatively secure life. Undoubtedly this will lead through to self sacrifice and world saving heroics thrust upon a band of warriors still in the grasp of puberty.

I admit that when I first watched the initial episodes I was fairly indifferent. The show has a decidedly cutesy air about it, something I tend to steer clear of in my own content consumption (anime or otherwise), but I found the show growing on me and it’s comic style and characters endearing. Also as a 3D enthusiast and user of Poser and DAZ Studio there is a certain amount of technical curiosity. So, for all it’s stock-standard plot devices and clichéd characters, there is something about this cute, fluffy show that will appeal to many, if given half a chance.

How Much Poser?

Watching an episode of RWBY is an interesting experience for Poser users, many of which would never have dreamed such a production was possible. The question soon arises, how much of RWBY is actually Poser? According to Steve “Think” Cooper and Shane Newville (artist working on RWBY) in this thread at RDNA, quite a bit. As in almost all. Steve Cooper (who apparently had a detailed outline of the workflow) says:

“RWBY, it turns out, uses very little outside Poser to generate the final video. They are modeling their characters in an OBJ friendly tool [Blender and Maya I think – Jim], then rigging, animating, and rendering inside Poser. All the sword trails, the explosions, the fabric and hair movement, even the final line work of the characters is being handled in PP 2012. They have engineered some really clever methods, with minimal material nodes and combined some tricks from one of Poser’s old timers for the trails and particle sprites.”

But what about the animation? Surely that’s all motion capture? Shane Newville says: “Maybe 1/3rd of it is mocap. For a lot of the scenes we did start with mocap, but there was so much cleanup, retiming and editing it might as well be handkeyed. There were also a lot of scenes where we just didn’t feeling like suiting up and started going to town on it. But one of the coolest parts was getting to make good use of Poser’s pose library. A lot of our older animations have been added to the pose library to be repurposed later.”

RWBY Tech Panel at RTX 2013

Here are a few extra details I picked up from watching a recording of a RWBY technical panel at the RTX convention (which was sadly less detailed than one might hope).

Working with Poser and Blender was much quicker than a pure Blender workflow.
The production used lots of “cards”. 2D images with trans maps for many props like trees and “flip book” card animations for particle effects – made with particleIllusions.
Some physics simulation but hair etc but mostly hand animated for sake of control
Focus on art and getting the job done instead of focusing on incorporating the latest tools and gizmos.

Niche Audiences and Indie Budgets No Issue in Social Media Age

While Roost Teeth may have grown a lot since its humble Machinima origins, RT and RWBY are still very much niche names, but a fantastic example of how a small content house can utilise media channels like YouTube, and inexpensive software, like Poser Pro 2014 to create and disseminate appealing content and carve out an impressive claim. Perhaps it is a measure of RT’s success that it now releases all its content on its own site and simulcast on Crunchyroll, before releasing to YouTube a week later.

Whatever you think of the RWBY or Red VS Blue, you have to admit that these are impressive uses of Poser, and demonstrates a level of mastery that is inspiring. In the age of social media, and viable niches it is programs like Poser that can bring the creative dreams of individual artists and small studios to life and hopefully find fame and fortune in that niche without having to play a find the publisher game.

Limited time special on Poser 9

If you have yet to give Poser a whirl you can pick up a copy of Poser 9 for a mere 30 bucks (offer ends 30/09/2013). Considering Poser 10 is currently $299, that’s a pretty damn fantastic score. If you like the software you can then upgrade to Poser 10 or Poser Pro 2014, and make a nice saving.