by: Brad Herring

If you are doing any kind of video project (or even in many cases live production) you should not be without a good storyboard. Storyboards, however, have always been something of a pain – they require some degree of artistic skill and are often very time consuming to create.

None-the-less, it is pretty much a law of the Universe – every time you skip the storyboarding step, you will live to regret the error.

Storyboard software is a relatively new concept, but recently, FrameForge 3D has taken the art of storyboarding software to a whole new level. A few months back, the kind people at FrameForge 3D sent me a copy of their software to run through the paces. At first glance, I noticed the software was less expensive than many of their competitors and FrameForge 3D seemed to have more features.

I was perplexed.

The software loaded easily, didn’t require any annoying hardware dongles to run, and within minutes it was sitting on my desktop ready to be used. It works on either a Mac or PC – I ran it on both and it performed wonderfully.

FrameForge 3D allows you to control your storyboard environment like never before. Until recently, most storyboard software allowed you to create 2 dimensional cartoon looking drawings. These tools were very rudimentary, but they did get across the basic idea.

FrameForge 3D is forging the way into new technology. Taking advantage of newer processors, this software allows you to work in the 3D world, and unlike many 3D software titles, it’s very easy to use. The general concepts behind FrameForge 3D is that you build your set, place your actors and props, and then position your cameras. You can then look through the lens of each camera and see what that camera will be seeing. You can even define your camera, lens, f-stop, and more for a very realistic image. The storyboard can be as detailed as you are willing to make it.

For instance, on an actor, you can move every joint in the body for almost perfect positioning! You can also save your favorite positions for easy recall in the future. The props are interactive as well – car doors open and shut, windows open and close – well, you get the idea. Another great feature is that many of your props (such as vehicles) often have interior detail as well – simply pan the camera, zoom in, and all the detail is right there! The best part is that the props and environment interact very well together – for instance, and actor can actually hold a can of soda – with other software, the can could be placed on top of the actor to show a relationship, but it didn’t HAVE a relationship.

One of the annoyances I found with this software is the object menu. It’s sometimes hard to keep track of where the objects are and it’s annoying that when you come out of a sub-directory it always resets to the top of the directory listing – often making you scroll back down to the next category. It’s not a show stopper, but it would make for a nice improvement. I have been told that this has been addressed in version 2 (their most recent release) but I’ve not had the opportunity to use it first hand at this time.

Every item can be edited, and by using building blocks you can build new objects as needed. There is also an excellent on-line community with many downloads available from other users.

FrameForge 3D gives you the ability to create very realistic storyboards without budget blowing expenses. I’ve heard of several churches using FrameForge 3D for Sunday morning stage setups – imagine spending an hour or less each week building your setup – drum locations, instrumentalists, vocalists, skit locations, etc – entire Sunday worship blocking diagrams – literally in minutes. The churches are taking these drawings on Sunday morning and handing them off to the audio, lighting, and video teams. Now everyone from the director to the sound guy knows where things are. This blocking diagram then gives them something to take notes on and reference key information. This is an out-of-the box use for this software, but a very effective use none-the-less.

If you are doing any type of video, drama, or other performance art, FrameForge 3D will help you visualize and communicate the idea clearly. I cannot recommend this product highly enough.

At the time of this writing, FrameForge is announcing their newest version (version 2 as mentioned earlier) that has even more actors, depth of field, more controls, and other refined areas of the program. At this date I have not been able to actually use the newer version, but everything I’ve read looks promising.

Visit www.FrameForge3d.com or call 877-322-7733 for more information.