I agree. I get that people want an enjoyable movie to watch and so do I. But to me the most important part is the development of the tools and proofing out what a workflow might look like for a full length film.
It never ceases to amaze me how people equate a good script with good software. If this movie is bad, then half the people on this forum will lament how much of a failure it was in proving how “professional” blender is, completely disregarding the huge amount of improvements the film production made to blender.
The new Smurfs movie sucks. It sucks bad. So I guess Maya and Arnold and SPI as a whole weren’t professional enough?
Seriously, the blender community needs to get over it’s inferiority complex. Some parts of blender are awesome. Some parts suck. Just like every software package out there. The important thing is that the devs KNOW what parts of blender suck BECAUSE of their experience with the open moves, and they are working to improve those sucky areas as a result.
People on this forum get so worked up about the final quality every time a new open movie project is announced… Not to mention that expectations are always so high, it’s impossible to have a satisfying result. I have no doubt the visual quality will be up to par, as for the storyline it’s still too early to tell since there’s no script yet.
At some point you have to say ok Blender can be used to make a decent movie. We have something that is technically competant. So far with these projects the artists have managed to produce something artistic despite the difficulties and restrictions. That has been down to intense labours rather than anything. What hasnt worked out well is that the projects have really been too demanding for the resources available, in the timeframe, and considering the simultaneous coding, and this only attempting 10 min projects. Do I want to watch 90 mins of similar slightly half assed results and say well yeah but we got this and that feature out of it? No sorry I dont. Rather than Blenderheads having an inferiority complex they have been noted as being fanboys who overrate their own work and gloss over the actual standard achieved at least to the outside world. Lets get real and do something honestly decent this time. No excuses.
Many who make films in the industry would argue with you saying Blender is lacking some important tools and workflows to “make a decent movie”. Hence, the reason for Project Gooseberry. To flesh out Blender’s toolset and workflows to enable artists to make a decent movie.
You don’t want to have to sit through a “half-assed” 90 minute movie to get good new features? Well… then don’t. DON’T watch the movie. Just enjoy your new features that came as a result of it.
I really like his work - especially the Mathilda music video (I’m a big fan of alt-J, and the animation is just great). I think he is the right choice for an open movie project.
But I’m not sure why the director needs to be familiar with blender - in my opinion it would be a huge benefit if the director just focusses on storytelling, the mood, etc.
I’m not worried in Mathieus case, his work shows that he is visionary, creative and experienced with blender, but in most cases I’d recommend to let someone direct who is somehow unbiased. As well as it’s always better to have an external cutter who judges the footage iteslf, and doesn’t know about the amount of work behind a specific scene.
I tend to agree with you, Payne. But I also don’t fault Ton for looking within the blender community first. And Mathieus does seem like a competent director, so I remain optimistic.
Fahr; I think in one sense, Cycles has revolutionized the ability of render-specific features from open movies to be very useful to the average user.
I think back to Big Buck Bunny for instance, some of the new features that came out of that were great, but almost none of the render-specific features with hair, grass, and fur worked with raytracing and thus limited the ways it could be used in rendering if there was heavy use of reflecting and/or refracting objects.
The Tears of Steel features in contrast practically worked for all scenes out of the box and are being widely used by almost everyone currently using Cycles, I think if Gooseberry makes even less use of BI than Tears of Steel did (ie. rendering volumetrics in Cycles this time), then there could be a lot more useful rendering features that will benefit everyone.
Well maybe beyond cycles, animation, video modes, we now get a director mode too :))
I hope the film will learn us need for tool i think we need simpler human/animal animation tools.
Maybe scripted walking (based upon muscle estimations and weight distribution)
I’ve always wondered if a good 3D tool like blender, and some of those AI programs
[video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNL5-0_T1D0[/video]
Would make films like walking with dinosaurs or human walks more realistic
I think it would be nice if one could set a track and the AI resolves a walking path
Then other options like reach for something while keeping balance etc will become in reach. (after AI training).
But this might be a bit to much, to ask for, lets hope for improved animation.
I think many are forgetting that:
- an experienced director (doesnt have to be an A lister, just someone familiar experience with those kinds of projects) and someone who is familiar with the feature length pipeline is far more important when it comes to knowing whats needed in the area of development. The pipeline will be far different than doing small in house projects for music videos or shorts. You need to have studios or groups doing just compositing and vfx in one location, sending the files over to them to assemble before sending it to another. There is so much that goes into one of these productions.
2: A bad film, whether its a short one or a feature length one, is still marketing… but not in the good way. Some here are saying it doesnt matter if it sucks, or looks dumb, as long as it helps the development… well the problem with that line of thought is that it does impact the development and future interest in the application. Seeing a bad film leaves a bad impression, especially if most will see it as “lets see what blender can do”. So its not really in the best interest to keep pumping out really bad quality projects if the same development can be learned from internal tech demos and testing or third party feedback.
On that note, doing longer films isnt necessarily a good thing either. It not only raises expectations of quality, but what happens is you begin focusing only on one line of work. Where blender is excelling at right now with smaller studios or individuals, an in visualization, asset creation, game development, level design…ect You can still get valuable development resources and direction from going with more universal types of projects. Whether its trying to emulate a Blizzard style cinematic or something Blurr studios gets hired to do, or creating real time visualization for previz, games, architecture, interactive tech demos (like the pizza maker seen at blendercon).
When autodesk came out with the Maya LT line of their popular 3d software, they were trying to grab a market they dont really hold at the moment. Blender, modo, even C4d hold this market. Indie game developers, freelancers, smaller studios…ect I would hope future projects would seek first to hold and build upon the current market they already hold instead of lose by trying to do feature length films. I think the last thing Blender should strive to be is a movie making tool because not only is that a far more specialized field, but its the one hardest to break into due to established applications having the absolute most solid grip on it. Additionally, its a field that doesnt bring in the most revenue or line of work, so its a bit odd. I cant help but think maybe some over at the BF just are not familiar with anything else or are just too interested in movie making.
Short but focused tech demos which aim to achieve the same if not better results than some of other tech demos seem far more important in my opinion, shorter more focused demos based around technology and smaller scale projects which use and perfect an established pipeline. The best example I can point out is the stuff you see Nvidia pump out.
Some examples to help formulate both quality and technical goals, and if you can make it look good and work in real time, you can achieve even better results in rendered sequences, not necessarily the other way around.
nvidia demos:
(aliens vs triangles)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c_PVtMIz-A
(keynote with digital ira)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvaGd4KqlvQ
(just ira) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq1Nq2Zvv0Y
Blizzard cinematic behind the scenes:
Dark Sorcerer Tech Demo (combines real time rendering, short narrative, highly focused goals)
Blender is in effect an In House Software that is being constantly updated, and its roots lie at the BF but extend outward across all the devs and artists of the community.
This project is going to be awesome, and it will be a great thing because of the fact that people are going to work together and improve Blender along the way, as well as improve their own personal skills. It is a mistake to draw the lines of where it cannot go, because this community is not bound by normal constraints endured by other communities.
And one other thing: pumping a blenderartists thread with all kinds of negative criticism does nothing to help the project along - the ones involved won’t be looking here for advice from people that are compulsive naysayers, they will be looking within to find the inspiration to make the effort, and they need positive words more than they need a set up for an “I told you so” later.
You know, people that don’t do something are usually the ones that talk most about it, and this is a waste of energy - I would rather we find a way to support them with encouraging words, and maybe contributing something along the way if they need it. Threads like this give an otherwise good community a bad reputation.
Craig you are over reacting. No one said the Gooseberry director was going to bomb and that project artists suck. Why should any different opinions be viewed as naysaying criticism that shouldn’t be heard for fear they will sink the whole thing or tarnish the community reputation?
Every new movie comes along I voice the same concerns about overly ambitious undertakings to offset Ton’s benevolent bullishness. I am as interested as anyone to see BF movies do well however these projects always seem to run into issues and IMO unnecessarily. All I am saying is keep the extent of the movie realistic and do it very well. Actually I think Ton will do what he always does to the same effect regardless but…
Having a 90 minute version of Elephants Dream would be an achievement but not something outsiders would warm to. I think it does matter how these movies are received by the public. Ton will say yeah but ‘Blender is for artists!’ so by default anything that happens is beneficial, but what good is art without an audience? Give everyone a better chance to produce something noteworthy without putting them in a corner from the start I say… 
Art doesn’t need an audience, just an artist
What’s the point of that??? We could animate a cube spinning around and do it very well but this does no good for Blender as SOFTWARE does it.
The idea is to test Blender and push it’s capabilities. A good movie or a bad movie is a by product of this testing. Meanwhile the artists involved will do the best they can to make the movie decent,. This is not necessarily what Blender Foundation making a feature film is about.
They want to push Blender capabilities and selling movie + assets + possibly a bunch or tutorials is a good fundraiser to bring many devs and experienced Blender users together in the same place at the same time working on a common project.
No, I am not - read the whole thread, and every UI thread, and every announcement thread of every Project back to Orange… and you will see that this is wasted effort. You want to go help Ton and get his attention? Then go talk to him like a big boy on communication channels directly, not stepping in to chime in on a blenderartist thread that is little more than puppies yapping. You have real concerns? Get on the team and make a difference - but spouting them here does absolutely nothing but give everyone the opportunity to look back at a non constructive bitch session, period.
Don’t put words in Ton or anyone else’s mouth, writing the future of a project that is not done - worry is the little killer of the person to be, and doesn’t need any extra fuel. We know nothing more than “this is the director” and this whole thread goes off the rails needlessly.
Seriously, they need our support, nothing more.
Craig,
Really I have already said what I wanted to about it, good luck , keep it doable etc. I don’t need to force Ton to hear that on IRC as well. He isn’t going to do anything different anyway, I know this. From time to time he gets tackled about things by people but its kind of futile… I was contributing my thoughts about upcoming ‘Project Gooseberry’. No law against that. Why do I need to be dictated to by you about what I should think and do anyway?
OK so I’ll write it to appease you. Ton has a God given arse. There hopefully one day the famed Blender community can move beyond this navel gazing fanboyism and the hostility toward anyone who has the gumption to think for themselves/differently and post to the forum…jes… yapping puppies is right.
Big Fan, not telling you what to think - I just think your passion could be better used to help the project, same as anyone else that has such strong opinions.
About the Fanboy thing - if I said that Blender was already completely capable of this endeavor, that would make me a fan boy - but if I say that Blender has to be improved to complete this task, and updated along the way, that just makes me an optimistic community member.
Could be that the only progress on the next Open Movie is file handling and project management. I would think that constant Blender updates could be trouble on such a distributed project.
@Big Fan I posted along similar lines that schedule of these movies is too punishing especially for a crew with limited resources hence the quality always suffers regardless of the skill of the crews which I always think is of a good standard
but judging by the follow on response nobody cares whether movie is good or not people want features and the movie is actually a
feature length tech demo.
