animagic (7/25/2017)

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[quote]There was also the Halloween project we did together, where you had the idea, and I made something out of it, resulting in The End with you voicing Pinhead.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun too.  You did a great job of taking the story idea and turning it into an actual script.  I remember exchanging a few ideas back-and-forth too, as you shared WIP videos with me.  I really enjoyed working on it with you (you did the vast majority of the actual work) and just now watched it again.  You did a great job.

For those that might not know, there were serious rumors that we had reached our last Pinhead project, but all his fans campaigned for another one.  That's the backstory for the death of "The Committee" and the hope for more in the future.





I have a Pinhead story for that, too.  We once had a "One-minute Challenge" and what a challenge it was!  It is stunning how quickly one minute passes when you are trying to tell even a simple story.  It made me truly appreciate a well-written TV commercial, and I marveled at how a good one tells a story in 60 (or even 30) seconds while attempting to sell you a product.

So not only is a 1-minute project a good writing challenge, it is a great way to work through the challenges of a collaborative project.  Then we do a 5-minute one.  And after that, we conquer the film industry.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

Agree with Kelleytoons to keep it under a minute. Think of it more like making a commercial than a film. You want to capture your audience quick, wow them and not let things drag on so they get bored. 

Pretty much flesh out the script yourself, it is your baby, then recruit volunteers around the script. 

To get around DRM you will pretty much need to make a lot of your own assets. You can collaborate using Nimble Collectiive's cloud pipeline so the team is sharing similar workflow. I have also used regular cloud sharing as well, even for professional work. My last company was cloud based and I did hire some iClone users. It worked very well collaborating on a cloud platform. 

Lots of artists do this in the VFX industry so it happens quite often. You will need to be very flexible because when people get busy they will disappear on you. 

If it is something with some market appeal your can crowdfund it and then that gives some monetary incentive for people to stay on.

If people drop out on your then finish it yourself, if anything it will be a good learning process especially since you will have a well defined goal.

Free Range
My IMDB

There was also the Halloween project we did together, where you had the idea, and I made something out of it, resulting in The End with you voicing Pinhead.

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I would love to see a group project succeed, but here are some major obstacles I see (some already mentioned)...


TEAM ASSEMBLY:

Most of want to be the one making the movie.  Call it writer, producer, or director, we like "making the movie" so it will be difficult to assemble a team on this forum.  Who here wants to do just the music, just the lighting, just the body animation, just the lip sync, just the facial expressions, just the physics, just the clothing, just the set, just the props, and on and on?

I'm not saying nobody would contribute, but most of us here, I think, are quite used to making the entire movie ourselves.  You have to let go a lot of control, and /or you have to be willing to take direction and play a supporting role.


SCHEDULING AND AVAILABILITY:

Will Mr. X really spend 20 hours on the musical soundtrack next week?  Will Ms. Z really get the lip sync refined by Thursday?  Many of us work on a project between other activities (work and family) and don't always work under a schedule.  By joining a team, you are making a commitment to others.  Does the fun hobby start to feel like a second job rather than relaxation and entertainment?


:exclamation:  COLLABORATIVE AND TECHNICAL WORKFLOW:  :exclamation:

I see this as the greatest obstacle.  How do we work on an iClone project in parallel?

Two or three people might be able to take turns checking-out a shared copy, working on it, and uploading a new version to a shared drop-box site.  But iClone doesn't really let us (effectively) export and import portions of a project.  It's close in many ways, but I think that would be a significant challenge.

A real production house as a technical team dedicated to making the collaborative workflow function.

We have Alembic export, and we have the ability to save motions, and we can export cameras, but how do we export lighting?  And import all those parts into the master project?

I did one large (solo) project, and the bookkeeping became quite a challenge even for myself, trying to keep straight all the different files for all the different scenes.  Dialogue, music, iClone output, NLE files, and so on.  I tried not to let my naming conventions evolve too much, because I knew consistency was important.  I eventually created an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of what was the latest version of everything, and keep notes of what needed to be updated.  Was my latest animation change rendered, and was that rendering reflected in the NLE file yet?  We'd need to have very solid configuration management.


BUT IT CONTINUES TO BE ALLURING:

I have written a short script and had someone else animate it.  (It was like a movie trailer, but for a book.  Any my son did the "trailer voice" narration for it.)  That was a very interesting and enjoyable experience.  Some parts were exactly as I imagined it, and some others were a surprise in how it was interpreted and realized on the screen.  I have also done voice-over work (for the tolerant and gracious Animagic).  That, too, was fun and I was pleased to be able to lend a hand.

I am always willing to consider a community project, but it would definitely have to start out as a very short project while we work out the logistic and prove that it's possible.

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

To also add something to the original question, unless the movie is very short, and I have already a clear idea, I'll write a screenplay. I also keep a Word document with notes. While working on an idea, I may change direction, as has happened with the film I'm currently working on.

To keep inspired, I may already develop some characters and create some primarily sets and even animate some scenes. The advantage of working on your own is that you can do things the way that suits you.

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I have to disagree with the statement that iClone was first and foremost software for pre-viz. When I bought iClone for the first time in 2006 (this was version 1.52), it was definitely marketed as a "movie-making machine" or something like that. If it had been marketed just for pre-viz, I would not have been interested. Pre-viz came later, as that seems to be another use for iClone.

I found version 1.x was hard to use, because animation had to be done in a separate tool, but with version 2.x everything was fully integrated. It may have been clumsy, but you could make movies with it. It took me a while to get used to the program, but after that I have created a number of movies (all narrative) and so have others. I think there are more than a handful creators, but not everyone posts on this forum. It's regrettable that discussions are mostly technical, but that's the way it is.

As has been pointed out, productions take a long time. In addition, with iClone 7 there is a lot of new stuff to learn, and old assets need to be converted to fully benefit from PBR.

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LOL -- yeah, I'm not about to read a 17 page thread, but just from glancing at the first page it seems to me the real issue is it wasn't well defined.  And, again, a time limit should have been applied.  Perhaps everyone do a 60 second story (the reason for shortness is twofold -- not only can it be readily accomplished, but it forces you to have a laser focus on what you want to say AND you need to keep it simple).

When pitching a movie you can end up with a dozen different ideas and as many (or many more) characters.  With 60 seconds you are lucky to have more than two (two is ideal, though).  

I've been through this on our own forum (for 2D animation, which I run) and it worked for a while, but in reality any such idea will run out of steam. That isn't to say it's not a bad thing to try it, only that you need to be aware it won't live long.  This is another reason I love those animation contests (and length is almost always 60 seconds or less) that give you a week or two and then end ("Make an animation 60 seconds long about a new superhero origin story").  Those are fun because the very constraints make it liberating (it's why such things as iambic pentameter were so popular a form of poetry -- constrain brings out the true creativity).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

https://forum.reallusion.com/283225/so-how-about-a-community-story-line-?PageIndex=1

i7-3770 3.4GHz CPU 16 GB Ram   
GeForce GTX1080 TI 11GB
Windows 10 Pro 64bit

It's always just been about the story -- you can use even single images, cross-faded, and tell a great story.  Conversely, the best software in the world won't make a bad story worth watching.

I always tell beginners to try and put together a short (60 seconds but no more then 2 minutes) story and animate it.  FAR too often I see failure when their grandiose plans don't see fruition because the will leaves halfway through the project.  I have no idea what the collaborative project was here, but I will guess it was far longer than that.  A short project, using limited resources, should be able to produce a really nice animation.

(You need to crawl before you can walk, but too often animators want to fly before they can even crawl).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

It is so so sad, I must say. I have been using Iclone for the past 5 years and I look back, since then I can't see a decent movie that was made with Iclone.
As a CG Artist I started with Blender and every now and then the community there create a short animated movie and the movies are always inspirational. It encourages people to see the possibilities in Blender.
A friend told me last week that ICLONE has made its users lazy to the extent that they want Reallusion to develop Iclone to the point of just talking on the mic and the characters will do whatever is been said.
Maya is also a decent software, difficult to learn, but the quality of the animation is always superb, that's because Maya users undergoes the nitty gritty of animation.
Iclone users can do the same if we stop been waiting to be food-fed by daddy Reallusion, and stop concentrating on PBR, Material, Substance.
I just want good animated STORY