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Open Source On the Big Screen
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Jan 15, 2008 04:24 PM
from the ebb-and-flow dept.
from the ebb-and-flow dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Following the success of Elephants Dream, the Blender Foundation is developing a follow-on open movie called Peach, set for completion later this year. Computerworld has up an interesting interview with Matt Ebb, lead artist from Elephants Dream (the interview is split over 5 pages). Ebb talks about the making of the world's first open movie and offers some advice to others wanting to start such a project."
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Submission: Open source on the big screen: Matt Ebb tells all by Anonymous Coward
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Success (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Success (Score:5, Funny)
For example, in the land of open-source projects, having a premium "Mrskin.com" account would be the equivalent of "successfully" copping a feel off of Angelina Jolie.
Parent
Re:Success (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, in the open-source world, success is measured differently.
For example, in the land of open-source projects, having a premium "Mrskin.com" account would be the equivalent of "successfully" copping a feel off of Angelina Jolie.
Not only that, a fork would actually be copping a feel from Brad Pitt.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I couldn't make it through the whole thing when I last tried to watch it, quite, quite painful.
I applaud the concept of an Open Source creative work but the output was below par in many areas.
I hope future efforts put more thought into a script and voice talent.
Conceptual success (Score:2, Informative)
It was technical demonstration, so don't feel too surprised it had a crapy plot. As far as video quality goes, I found this video quite nice.
More about it here [wikipedia.org]
Re:Conceptual success (Score:4, Insightful)
producing quality content for films.: It really wasn't quality at all, I didn't find anything impressive at all in regards to the animation or texture/overall look. So even disregarding the plot I found it substandard.
and secondly, if it had been a story that was actually INTERESTING then maybe they would have helped their cause so, so much more. ("Man, did you see that crazy [funny/sad/emotional] cg film on the net... that was awesome" "I did, and did you know it was completely done with FREE software! Crazy... crazy") By ignoring a plot and any semblance of making it at all engaging they by and large wasted their efforts. A little bit of pre planning/script writing would have gone a LOOOOONG way.
Parent
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Youtube (Score:5, Informative)
Download size (Score:3, Funny)
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Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I wouldn't consider myself a "wizard", though at this point my main constraints on furthering my skills are a lack of proper art training and time. If you find the UI cumbersome now, keep at it, and the hotkeys will really aid you. The main proble
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it won't. For a given task in a given UI, there is a way to do so with the minimum number of keypresses / mouselicks / whatever. This minimum number varies from UI to UI; the UI with the smallest minimum will also be fastest, because no matter how well you learn a given UI, your speed is still limited by the physical limits of your body. You simply can't press the buttons infinitely fast no matter how much you practice, so the less of
Re:Youtube (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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How Blender compares (Score:3, Informative)
I used Blender for about 3 years back in high School.
How long ago did you use it - it sounds like 2 years ago or so? Back before Elephants Dream, it had a fair number of rough edges, especially in the animation and rendering department. And a few releases prior to that (ie when it sounds like you were using it) it didn't have undo for most things, so if the last release you used was quite a while back, then it isn't a reasonable basis to judge the productivity of Blender.
It is quite comparable in feature set and productivity to most high end 3D apps now (a
Re:Youtube (Score:5, Interesting)
3d modeling tools are seen as technical products for a technical audience.. as such the UI is given no serious consideration.
On the surface, you end up with a similar toolset. Both Maya and Lightwave have the split/slice polygon tools. However, the philosophies behind them really make that common toolset problematic. For example, Lightwave doesn't have a modifier based operation. It's like Photoshop in that respect. You mess with the vertices, blammo, you're done. This gives you tools like "Dragnet". That tool allows you to grab an area of verticies and pull, just like working with clay. Maya, however, can't do any operations on geometry without creating a modifier. So if you want to do a tool like I described, you have to create a 'dragnet' node, place its start point, then move it to the destination. That's a good deal slower than how Lightwave handles it.
This is an over-simplification of what's involved, but it more or less illustrates the problem with your statement. I'd liken it to watercolors vs. oil paints. They both require paint and a paint brush, but the techniques involved are nearly inverses of each other. With Lightwave, you model by cutting a lot of pieces away. With Maya, you model bending pieces into shape since its work flow lends itself to doing lots of deformations. To put it another over-simplified way: Lightwave would be better suited to modeling something vehicular with rigid pieces. Maya, however, would totally kick Lightwave's ass when modelling something with a lot of hoses and other bendable things, like the Sentinels from the Matrix. The difference is in the workflow philosophies of these apps, not their toolsets. It's a lot harder to cross-train modelers between apps than you'd expect.
Parent
Re:Youtube (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll admit that Elephants Dream is a bit strange, but its certainly not dull. In fact, unsurprisingly, it sort of exists as a tech demo of what Blender can do, which makes watching it on YouTube rather akin to brail pr0n.
Your other comments are both absurd, Blenders renderer is state of the art, and quite competitive with anything Max can produce as the gallery will contest, plus it has Yafray which kicks arse. As for the GUI, 3D graphics is complicated, and so are the GUI's. A professional learns multiple GUIs and accepts that each has its pluses and minuses. Lesser peons learn just one interface and bash the others when they turn out to be different.
Parent
Good things coming from the Blender crowd (Score:5, Informative)
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Apricot (Score:4, Interesting)
Other projects (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The only other thing I can recall people using the source files for is re-rendering it for technology tests, like an 8 megapixel display.
True open source coming to the Big Screen soon (Score:5, Informative)
LetterRip
Success? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Success? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think Hollywood and conventional wisdom have perverted the term "success" for their own power so that it implies "commercial success".
A more general definition is "an achievement of an objective or goal". To some extent, this is rather arbitrary but having created my own movies [metaphrast.com] (all videos licensed under Creative Commons), I would say that it would be a success for them to just finish it.
Now, to inject my own selfish opinion into the argument of the definition of what success might be for an "Open" project like this, I would list the following, "an work that makes a positive contribution to the culture of humanity". It doesn't have to be a large contribution, but as long as people can gain something from it (a lesson, some entertainment, faith and hope) then it would qualify in my mind as a "success".
This is what I aim for when I mark a publication with the Creative Commons license (which, in addition to the movies, includes this [metaphrast.com]).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They succeeded in their goals perhaps?
Advice (Score:5, Insightful)
Elephant's Dream was a huge technical achievement, but the final work was an abject failure as a film. A "movie" isn't just a series of pictures that appear to move when displayed in rapid succession. Tell me something. Move me. Give me a character I have a fighting chance of identifying with.
Do something to transcend mere moving-pictureness.
-Peter
The Pixar Shorts (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to understand the difference between a tech demo and a movie - and how the evolution of a story teaches you mastery of your craft - you need look no farther than this: Pixar Short Films Collection: Volume 1 [amazon.com] [Blu-Ray $20]
Open source is taking hollywood by storm! (Score:2)
Success of Elephants Dream? (Score:5, Insightful)
While it was cute to make an open-source film, it would also have been nice to have a decent plot and scripting. I've seen many better stories in flash on newsgrounds. Heck, I've seen better plots on ytmnd.com.
Sign of times to come... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares if it sucks? Fantasmagoria [youtube.com] wasn't exactly an amazing piece of work by today's standards, but as the world's first cartoon (1908) it was a good indicator of things to come.
Yes, including your beloved Family Guy...
This is a trend-setting movie, underscored by the woes of the MPAA and RIAA. Media is moving away from centralized cathedrals and moving inexorably towards individualized bazaars. Nothing that the **AA can do will change this fact, since it's really a consequence of technology getting forever cheaper.
The plot is weak, the voice acting is terrible. But like Fantasmagoria, it kicks off a trend of forever-improving material.
Parent
Anyone doing a less "artsy" project? (Score:4, Interesting)
Any movie is going to be judged by a combination of its technical achievements and its storytelling. A lot of the reviews I have read of Elephant's Dream are sort of "what was THAT about" and clearly that was an expected response. Fair enough. Now I'm curious to see if the ground breaking work can be used to create something with a bit more mainstream appeal, that the wider press could pick up and promote with the expectation that most viewers would be entertained. Are there free movie scripts being written anywhere? Maybe if there's a central forum with scripts being reviewed by a community a team could take one of the highly ranked ones and see what they can do with it.
Maybe we can make some "stars" in the Open Movie world - script writers, voice actors, what have you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
What they were alluding to was painfully clear. The entire purpose of the movie was to say how great and important the movie was.. on the other hand look at http://www.delivery.framebox.de/ [framebox.de] Delivery made with far less support, and a hell of a less horn tooting.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I'm curious to see if the ground breaking work can be used to create something with a bit more mainstream appeal, that the wider press could pick up and promote with the expectation that most viewers would be entertained.
Peach http://peach.blender.org/ [blender.org] , the second open movie being done by the Blender Foundation is targeted at mass market appeal - it will be cute, funny, and furry.
So I think it has a good chance of meeting your hopes and expectations.
LetterRip
From the last time Blender got flamed on Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
5 pages? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1111810628;fp;2;fpid;4;pf;1 [computerworld.com.au]
how about an open source animation (Score:2, Funny)
A Swarm of Angels (Score:2)
Here's an older Slashdot article about this project, "Creative Commons Filmmaking Remixes Modern Cinema" [slashdot.org], and the Wikipedia link [wikipedia.org].
Re:A Swarm of Angels (Score:4, Interesting)
Shares are being sold in the movie project but there is no chance to participate in profits, in the event that any profits are made. So while the project is on-going some people are being paid for their input and work (fair enough) while those "investing" have no hope of a return on investment over and above whatever entertainment they get from the forums and the opportunity to vote on what colour the poster will be (check it out if you don't believe me but last time I looked you needed to join to view the forums). To me this looks like an ideal investment plan for a potential film-maker - you get your money, you don't have to pay any of it back and individual investors are too small to have any control over you.
There was an initial flurry of activity on the forums then a bit of a gap in official communications while people on the forums talked a load of bull about scripts. Then we heard that a tentative initial script outline was going to be debuted at an upcoming convention, without any creative input from the swarm. At that point I realized it was smoke and mirrors and haven't been back since. If it's turned into some democratic creative Utopia since then my apologies to them.
Now I appreciate that a ship needs a captain and any project like this needs a creative vision but the implied promise was that that vision would be shaped by the members but I don't feel that was the case.
Parent
Nice idea, Emo. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
now that hurts.
if you are developing a open source tool for artists - particularly in a market where the proprietary alternatives are deeply entrenched - why aren't you working with artists from day one to get the UI right?
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Re:Blender (Score:5, Interesting)
That's partly because they try to combine modelling - with two or three different paradigms: polygons, NURBS and subdivision surfaces - texturing, rigging, animating, physics, particles, hair, etc. into a single program. Of course the end result is a horrible mess where it's impossible to find what you want. Which, I suppose, is a long-winded way to say that they're kitchen sinks ;).
Ultimately, the problem is that 2D modeling - drawing - has traditionally been the domain of artists, while 3D modeling has been the domain of engineers and architechts. Artists don't have to know or care about mathemathics, while engineers and architechts have to. Their tools reflect this: brushes vs. millimeter paper. This division has been carried to the computer realm. It is straightforward to paint with Gimp - point and click a place in the screen, and color is added there - but the very first thing any 3D program manual starts talking about is polygons, and then goes on to explain the mathemathical foundation of NURBS. The limits of 2D screens and pointing devices don't exactly help, either.
To top it all off, the popular OBJ format used to exchange 3D models completely fails to retain any of the all-important rigging or animation loop information. As a result, these models are fine if you want to do an image of Lot's wife but not otherwise. We desperately need a higher-level file format which captures rigging, animation cycles (such as walk cycle) and automatic things like blinking and breathing, as well as unconscious gestures, body language and such. In short, a file format to describe a digital actor. The current stuff is the equivalent of assembly, and about as efficient for large projects: good for the CPU, horrible to anyone who has to do anything with it.
And, of course, all this is completely ignoring all the stupid little things like polygons caving into the model like the empty shells they are, NURBS models breaking at seams, the utter masslessness of any model unless the animator specifically goes over each frame and figures out how inertia and gravity affect things, inverse kinetics chains flip-flopping in certain situations, etc.
I wonder when we'll get even the abstraction level equivalent of ANSI C for 3D; compared to the current stuff, it seems pure sci-fi.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We desperately need a higher-level file format which captures rigging, animation cycles (such as walk cycle) and automatic things like blinking and breathing, as well as unconscious gestures, body language and such. In short, a file format to describe a digital actor. The current stuff is the equivalent of assembly, and about as efficient for large projects: good for the CPU, horrible to anyone who has to do anything with it.
See the Collada and FBX formats which support all of that, Collada is an open exchange format, FBX is a closed exchange format.
LetterRip
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Maybe because, since you're not interested in selling copies, you don't have an incentive to involve them in the development process?
For extra points, does the "selling service" model generally give an incentive to produce better or worse UIs than "selling licenses"? Discuss.
The opposite actually hapenned (Score:3, Informative)
Blender [wikipedia.org] started it's life as an internal tool at a Dutch studio (NeoGeo). So in fact, it was designed with the target artists in the loop. :
And pretty much shows you why it's actually a bad idea
- When you let hardcore artists design an interface, they'll design what's most efficient for them : an obscur
Not this again!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
There's always one.
Blender was a fantastic UI which is very powerful if you haven't been polluted by other interfaces. But that's okay, you go back to using notepad, I'm happy with vi.
Moaning about the blender interface on /. is about as useful and interesting as me moaning about how slow and complicated Photoshop is to use because it's not like the GIMP. Seriously it took me a few minutes to figure out how to resize an image in Photoshop recently because I haven't used it in about seven years.
"Blender's
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They used Reaktor, which is a bit disappointing. Reaktor is more mature than OSS equivalents like om or its successor whose name eludes me now. I'm sure if they had chosen someone else to do sound, someone who knows Linux audio, they could have had fully open source production of the same technical quality. Of course artistic/creative quality can't be measured the same way.
The fact that they didn't use op