Win a plastic Petunia!

[macouno]

What... a plastic Petunia, what's that?

Well yeah... you may remember the Petunia model from the 2007 Blender Conference Art Festival & Suzanne Awards. I have been working on a follow-up project because it was such great fun to make the original animation. Here's the page about the original project, if you haven't seen it yet: http://www.alienhelpdesk.com/suzanne_awards/festival_2007

So far i've kept the new project rather quiet, but it's time to get you all involved a little bit!

There is some information on the official project website already but it's early days: http://www.projectpetunia.org

In short we'll do an open source animation where you can all help out animating the robots, and I'm trying to make it all a lot easier, more open, and more interactive than last year.

But... here's the thing, I/we can use some help with the script... and I happen to have a really nice plastic prototyped Petunia.



So go read the page about the "competition": http://www.projectpetunia.org/08_jun_2008_win_a_plastic_petunia

Post your messages/ideas/concepts/stories/questions here at this thread!

Oh and on a side note... you may have seen that I have a mocap suit that I've borrowed... we got it to work last friday, and we're recording next saturday. I'll see about getting a video camera so we can show you all how it went!

[harkyman]

Here's your concept:

Two groups of petunias are working on separate projects in a field, perhaps building competing statues or monuments. Each group should be visually distinctive by way of materials (metallic gold vs. metallic silver, etc.). Due to one from one side bumping into one from another, they all start to fight. Then, a little third-colored dude (maybe blue metal or glass) runs into the clearing and pantomimes a warning that something is chasing him, but no one pays attention long enough to stop the battle. Then, a GIANT petunia clomps into the field, crushing several of both teams. They turn on the giant, trying to fight him off. Finally, through their combined efforts, they destroy him, but the last falling bits of the the giant smash the last of the original two teams. Only the fleeing petunia is left alive, and the camera fades out on him picking up pieces and starting to put the other petunias back to together. The fun bit is that the petunia he is putting back together uses both gold and silver parts.

fin.

[BlendRoid]

That plastic petunia is awesome! Blender Foundation should satrt a series of "Action figures" like that, starring Proog, Emo, and the rest of the open source gang.

@Harkyman: Wow; that sounds amazingly complex. As cool as it would be, I wonder how many people would volunteer.

[macouno]

Ha... that's a great start... go Harkyman!

A few things to keep in mind though.
1. The actual fight itself shouldn't be scripted too much. If people volunteer to help we don't want to direct it all to much...
2. If we don't want to direct much, it'd be hard to do two factions. Easier to just let rip.

Oh and on the site you can see that the new version of petunia has a banner... during the project people will be able to upload an image to put on a banner... so it can really become "your bot" so to speak.

[Rocketman]

A small, mysterious box falls from the sky. One petunia, followed by another, approach the box to investigate.

Before they can open it to see what's inside, it becomes clear that they cannot share.

They start fighting over the box. A third and fourth petunia join in the brawl.

The fight escalates in size and violence, as more and more petunias run in to join the fight.

The camera pans out slowly to reveal a multitude of petunias now engaged in epic battle; ripping eachother apart for possession of this box, the contents of which are still unknown.

One particularly vigorous petunia emerges from the battle victorious. Every other petunia lies in pieces.

Triumphantly, the last remaining petunia opens the box.

It contains one of the following:

A) A large, red button. Petunia presses it, and is crushed by a giant mallet.

B) A board game. Too bad nobody is left to play...

C) Nothing. What a tragically pointless war!

[macouno]

hehehe... I like it.

BTW guys... no need for an entire script, a simple idea such as: "There's a chocolate gopher in the middle of the expanse that they all want to lick" is enough to keep us going

[southpaw]

Also, dismemberment should be included in the fight scenes. for instance, one petunia rips off the arms of another petunia and uses it as a weapon to bludgeon other opposers. There is nothing cooler in a robot fight scene than dismemberment! lol.
2. i am very interested as in how will you will acheive mo-cap in blender. are there any links you can forward me?

[macouno]

We are recording next saturday actually! And doing final calibration tests this evening!

There's not really anything much about documentation anywhere specificly. Basicly we're recording .bvh files with the software supplied with the rig (it's a gypsy 3 by animazoo). Then we have an old old copy of kaydara (the software that became motionbuilder). I'm hoping that if we get the initial calibration right, we can create the base rig for Petunia in kaydara (exporting from blender may be possible), then apply the recorded bvh to that rig... export to bvh and import into blender for final cleaning.

But we'll take our time for all that... What is important for us now is recording the data cleanly to a properly calibrated armature. Then later we can worry about applying it to a rig with shorter legs

[pildanovak]

Hi macouno, sounds almost like the project has still the same number of brain-cells like durian! Hope it goes well. Did you also think about using Blenderpeople for the project? I think the only thing blenderpeople missed was actually good animation library. I am forced to do some demo character animation for a job now, so if the petuina is going to be updated in any way, don't hesistate to upload the rig, please!!! I promis I'll do the demo with her.

[macouno]

We had a nice little mocap test session last night: http://www.projectpetunia.org/news/1...st_mocap_tests

pildanovak: Heck no... no blenderpeople, but blender people! It may seem strange that we're recording mocap, and it says on the website that it'll be animated by "volunteers", but you'll see... we're trying something new!

[wolfram]

Let a FEMALE Petunia appear (stepping out of nowhere i.e. out of a haze object in flower form). The male & female Petunia(s) can be distinguished using the often used logo of an outline wearing an inverted heart between his legs (the male) and a "normal" heart in the breast (the female). The "male hearts" start pounding (showing through the skin) when the female appears. And the males clobber each other up to show their strength & to conquer the "princess" which is wounded (mentally and/or physically) during the fight, so that she dies/disappers living the victor alone.
If the males are in samurai fashion (showing their banners weaving in the wind) the female will wear a kimono-like outfit with stripes swirling around her.

[wolfram]

Let a FEMALE Petunia appear (stepping out of nowhere i.e. out of a haze object in flower form). The male & female Petunia(s) can be distinguished using the often used logo of an outline wearing an inverted heart between his legs (the male) and a "normal" heart in the breast (the female). The "male hearts" start pounding (showing through the skin) when the female appears. And the males clobber each other up to show their strength & to conquer the "princess" which is wounded (mentally and/or physically) during the fight, so that she dies/disappers leaving the victor alone.
If the males are in samurai fashion (showing their banners weaving in the wind) the female will wear a kimono-like outfit with stripes swirling around her.

[Domino]

As the first Petunia appears, it's possible to see a small paper clutched in her hand.

The battle starts as she is ambushed for this paper.

The paper acts as a focus for the fight, with robots trying to get it or get to it. It can float up to allow bamboo climbing, tree top fights etc. It can be held to allow little chases scenes, or can be ignored as robots who have lost sight of it decide the best way to get it is to eliminate the competition.

Eventually one battered Petunia stands alone and we get to see the paper properly for the first time.

** This entitles the holder to one "Good as New" polish and shine at Robbie's Robot Shack **

-- Small Print --
Note: Dent removal not included


Edit: Maybe the victor could be the original Petunia who had the voucher. Would need to do the punchline as a double take then as she notices the small print for the first time

[k3pp]

My idea is to show a group of rusty robots with jerky movements, with problems of locomotion. It would be interesting to show some close-ups of strange movements, until one of them stumbles into a box that opens and reveals a can of lubricating oil for robots!
Then they fight to try to get the can of oil, becouse they´re all rusty, the fight is very funny, with unexpected and funny movements.
That´s it! hope you like my idea!

[Enigmatic]

Please tell us a little bit about why you chose a forest as the location and how flexible that is. Does it have to be a flat "playing" field? Because if that's relaxed, that could help the location be an integral part of the concept.

When I hear this concept, the first thing that I think of is the game 'King of the Hill'. The setting that comes to mind is a structure somewhat like a Mayan pyramid with maybe four or five levels, each level being chest high to a Petunia. The pyramid could be surrounded by a field which was surrounded by a forest, which gives you that dramatic entrance of all the petunias appearing from among the trees, but the main focus would be the pyramid.

Adding a tiered structure gives awesome inspiration and potential for animation. Petunias clambering on top of each other to get up a level, Petunias pulling each other down and back, spinning jump kicks that knock Petunias all the way down to the bottom. Then at the end, defunct Petunias laying with body parts hanging over the edges, and your rotation around the winner at the end could use a high camera angle, looking really victorious but still capture all of the carnage.

[FootFungus]

My Idea.

A bunch of little petunias are walking around in a field. talking, playing and so on.
They all have drab, small, flags on their backs.
out of the woods walks a large, clumsy petunia with a huge magnificent flag.
All the jealous petunias scheme, and then beat the huge petunia down, taking his flag.
One little petunia tries to run off with it but the others grab him; they all fight.
In the end one battered petunia is standing with the huge flag. He sticks it in his flag holder, only to fall on his back from the weight.

[MrPerlishells]

Because of the Ampere tax there is only so much energy alloted to each petunia. Once each alloted energy is used up that petunia will cease to function and fall to the ground like a rag doll.

Because of excessive power consumption, the energy conversion causes the planet Thera to heat up causing system inefficiency and/or failure. To prevent this from happening an Ampere tax was put in place by the Theran Union. A one world government which once consisted of continental unions which also once consisted of individual countries.

This is the battle to survive for the prize is a permit for an unmetered energy consumption necessary for a bot to remain in motion. Who will have what it takes to have the rights to remain in motion? There can only be one.

[macouno]

wolfram: ooh fighting for the affection of the one female... but then... the smurfs kinda went downhill once a girl was written into it... We can definitely consider adding some bits to the model. The new banner is there for personalisation, but perhaps we can come up with more bits. I really do want to also unwrap/texture the model as well, make some scuffmarks. And perhaps we can use that to show battle damage as well.

Domino: I like that! a piece of paper that they all fight for, because it can appear/be picked up/ fought over/lost/have a life of it's own... it's really dynamic. Good idea!

K3pp: The downside to that is that it's quite scripted... so would need a lot of "directing". Bots fighting for a can of oil is nice though! Cause who doesn't like a little lubrication! The last can in the world?

Enigmatic: It doesn't have to be a forest at all, I happened to still have a bamboo model lying around, and I personally like the atmosphere (think 'house of flying daggers'). Flat is nice because it's less complicated for people who aren't very experienced at animating to work on... that's the only reason that that is maybe preferred. I really do like the visual idea of a pyramid as well!

Footfungus: I don't know about the script with 1 large petunia, but all fighting for a really magnificent large banner is a serious consideration... not a bad idea at all!

MrPerlishells: Yah... good idea as well. Energy failure could cause some really nice sudden ragdoll things, which I've been thinking about also (using ragdoll physics). I do so want to try and get that in there somehow. But how would you make it clear to the viewer that there's an energy shortage, and how show that the winner gets the energy? It'll have to be something purely visual... I don't like things that start with a voiceover explaining the situation...

Guys... I'm hyped! lots of good ideas... I'm already really glad I posted! Keep em coming.
Oh and we had a great afternoon doing motion capture, I'll post more about that tomorrow (perhaps a photo or two, sadly the video camera didn't show up).

This project is becoming cooler by the day!

[tischbein3]

from script / screenplay:

The petunia picks up the glittering object and looks at it

... its a battery.

[Lord of the Rings Junkie]

I think this thing should be huge, and I mean epic. One side should clearly be good and the other clearly evil, and perhaps each side can have one champion, a.k.a the protagonist and the antagonist. Evil petunias should be portrayed as more powerful somehow. The tide of battle seems to go in the good side's favor, but then the main antagonist petunia does something, the center of the field opens up and a massive tower-looking weapon rises from the ground. Good petunias look on in horror as the weapon slowly charges up and activates, painfully obliterating the majority of the good petunias in one shot. All hope seems lost, and the remaining good petunias are almost ready to run away, but the protagonist rallies them together and summons their courage. Suddenly the protagonist is killed, and this angers the good side into a frenzy. They end up killing the antagonist, and the leaderless evil army runs away. Good side rejoices.

Stop looking at me like that. My name isn't Lord of the Rings Junkie for no good reason.