My vote is for a wall-mounted bin/ashtray.
Still working on that. I’ve approached a few people, but also I’m doing some tests of my own. A current approach I’m trying is basing it on the rigify rig, with which everyone is quite familiar, and now has some toon controls. This is still undecided, however.
One way it will differ from the CGCookie flex rig is that it will be bake-able, so that once you’ve got the basic shape/proportions/colours you can bake it and further modify it. This should make for more customisable characters and a more lightweight rig. The down side of this is that the initial setup will be slightly more complicated, but I think the benefits will make that worthwhile.
BTW, regarding the ending of the story, I wont be posting spoilers here. (sorry! 
) You guys have already guessed that there will be a sting in the tail any way, but hopefully it will still be a surprise.
quolism: I like the wall mounted bin/ashtray idea, but that isn’t it
My brain has coughed up a whole little mini-scene around that ashtray. The reveal that it’s an ashtray comes when a woman stops by and puts out her cigarette in it. The argument suddenly peters out. She glances at both of the art critics then saunters off with a coy smile. Both men are quietly awestruck at her beauty and they stop arguing, fixated on her. And then another argument starts between them about which of her attractive body parts is nicer. Or arguing over whether parts of her are lop-sided.
The really nice thing about this being an Open Movie is that I can actually try making this scene once all the assets are out there. 
Are they going to be speaking any particular language or are they going to speak gibberish?
My thoughts exactly, and indeed I will consider the project a success if I see someone actually using the assets to make their own version (or even their own movie entirely!).
Nice one, You’re pre-empting a lot of the discussions we’re having right now. Gibberish is indeed the favoured approach for now, but another idea is to use different musical instruments for speech. I’m still deciding, and budget will have an effect on this.
One thing is certain: there will be no discernible words in the dialogue. Not only will this make the movie more accessible to non english speakers, but will also force us to do really clear physical acting in the animation.
Not to mention finding one or two people who can speak coherent-sounding gibberish in character, so e.g. the two critics use some of the same word-noises at one another for extra veracity while delivering that all-important performance.
I am very happy to see another very short open movie that will not need any big new features but rather help polishing Blender as a whole, with bugfixes and small improvements.
And I want another Caminandes!
Me too! (and that may also happen sometime soon)
Is it time for the token romantic episode where Koro falls in love?
Since you’re looking at NPR rendering, are you also considering techniques like replacement animation? (e.g. switching objects to get say different hand shapes like the Blue Sky guys are doing on the Peanuts movie)
Sounds interesting. I wonder if rigging / animation tools will be improved with this project. Blender would definitely benefit from some parametric tool for walk/run/etc. cycles as seen in CAT or Nukeygara.
…or like we did on the Lego movie?
Yes, I’m more than considering it, it’s part of the plan. The approach will definitely lean towards the graphical; impact over realism.
No, there wont be any parametric animation. The style will be closer to hand drawn stuff. We wont be using animation cycles, but instead going for extreme posing and pantomime acting which requires a more hand made, tailored approach to the animation.
This sounds like a lot of fun! Very excited to follow the progress and see a unique style of animation develop!
Indeed. (Also congrats, awesome movie, sick of that bloody song my nephew keeps singing it, etc.)
Awesomesauce. [EDIT: Removed baseless noob slander about view/render visibility not being drivable.] Look forward to seeing how you put it together.
How’s that? It works for me.
…turns out the driver option disappears from RMB menu if there’s keys on the channel. Today I learnt. (Edited original post.)
In the CGCookie flex rig we also achieved it with the mask modifier, as in some cases we were hiding parts of the mesh rather than whole objects.
For Glass Half, we’re still figuring out the techniques to be used. At the moment I’m working on the animatic, doing a bunch of grease pencil drawings to make sure the story is solid (and funny) before we do anything else.
All the modelling/rigging/shading/ etc questions will be answered by September when production starts. (We haven’t even decided on the renderer yet)
Fair enough!
As the director, what desirable/undesirable things are you looking for at this stage of the film’s development?
Also can you talk about the development workflow you’re using for this? You say you’re at boards now - what other stages has development been through to get to where it is now? (Script, thumbnails, etc)
Sorry for the barrage of questions but useful first-hand information about short film story development can be tricky to find.
Wow, very cool project!
That will be very interesting to see how it is being developed. I hope we will see some cool tutorial or tips on how to create the rig! 
Mathias.
Desirable: a satisfying (and funny) story, a strong visual style and a realistic schedule.
Undesirable: an overcomplicated story with too many elements, a watered down or cliched visual style, and a vague plan with no schedule or deadlines.
I’ll be covering this stuff in more detail in the accompanying tutorials, but in general…
I’ve been getting together with Hjalti fairly regularly for the last year or so to toss around short film ideas. Over the course of this time I developed 3 or 4 very rough ideas for scenarios (and Hjaliti has also been developing some of his own). During Gooseberry, we decided to make it more formal; a few of us started holding weekly story meetings outside of work hours, just for fun. We would do improv exercises to get the wheels turning and then we would all pitch and discuss our own ideas for stories.
Through this process I chose Glass Half as the most achievable of my ideas and was able to flesh out the basic concept into a more complete story.
Then I put pencil to paper and started drawing some very basic story boards. The frames were very small (8 to an A4 page) and the characters little more than stick figures. This is a good way of seeing if you can clearly communicate the story in a simple form. No need for character designs or extra detail (yet).
Then with my rough storyboard (which still had holes in it) I pitched the idea to Ton, who saw potential and gave me the green light. (yay!)
We then continued discussing the idea in the story group and throwing more details in. This is actually the danger zone, because…
At the start of July I started writing the script, adding the new details and extra characters. After a few days of writing and rewriting, I pitched the script to the Gooseberry crew. They all stared at their shoes and shuffled in their seats.
EPIC FAIL
I realised that we had gone too far with the story development, and the whole thing had lost its soul, it’s original purpose. It had become overcomplicated, unfunny and on a practical level, unachievable.
So…
I went back to the original bare bones of the story and started sketching again. This time I used in Blender’s grease pencil. It took me a few days of sketching, resketching, timing and retiming before I came up with a first draft animatic. I played it again to various people in the crew, and this time got a much more positive response, and even several laughs.
Right now I’m just completing the second draft, where I’m adjusting the timing of the existing elements and carefully re-adding some details, being careful not to overcomplicate it again.
So basically I’ve learned first hand a couple of important lessons:
- Don’t overcomplicate the story. Remember the original idea, be true to it and only add as much detail as you need (and no more!) By all means add gags, but not so many that they distract from the story.
- This sort of cartoon is best planned visually. Writing a script is (almost) a complete waste of time. Storyboards and animatics are really the way to go. Once you have your idea, start drawing it. (I seem to recall reading this in a Chuck Jones interview, or was it John K’s blog? I can’t remember, but it turns out to be true.)
No worries at all.
This is my first go at directing. I’ve had some production experience in shorts and features, have read a lot about storytelling and direction and gone to a few workshops and so on, but I’m almost a newbie and certainly expect to make mistakes. However, I plan to learn from those mistakes and share what I’ve learned.
Indeed! Of course we’re still working that out right now, but that will definitely be part of the cloud content for this project.
A flexirig for making your own cartoons in this style, and a tutorial on how to make your own flexirig in your own style.
Thanks for recounting the story of how your project has come together so far.
Definitely concur about the power of planning with pictures as well as keyboard work. Speaking of which, I’m finding John K’s story development workflow is pretty rock solid advice for the project I’m doing right now. Especially doing the premise/story and the gags in their own specific writing passes before organising the story into a beat-by-beat outline.
Very pleased to hear it! It can be incredibly educational when a creator is frank and open about what they get wrong on the way to getting it right, so when someone shares these kinds of experiences I’m very grateful.
As always, good luck!