i have what may be the best idea in blender history, people!
have you ever read the “Ringworld”. so ive looked it up, and theres been no movies made about it!
but, with the help of good ol’ trusty Blender, we, a team of the most experienced blenderheads, could actually make blenders first full-length film, that might even actually WIN AN OSCAR(or at least get nominated, but thats a start!)!
so who’ll join my team?(i’ll let the first person who joins be the captain)
*to join you need to have read, or to be planning to read the ringworld. no biggie, you can download it off kazaa. hehe.
I read Ringworld quite recently. I thought it was interesting. But it seems like something very, very hard to do as a movie - not least because most of the main characters are weird-looking aliens. Also although it was nicely written I wasn’t greatly impressed with the plot. That said if a movie of it was released I’d certainly go and see it.
I reckon a more interesting film - but probably even harder to do - would be Greg Bear’s EON. I found it a bit like Ringworld but with a more engaging, detailed world and better plot.
Your project wouldn’t be the first full length Blender film though, would it ? Methought that honour would go to X-Warrior’s Exodus…
Anyway, if I wasn’t so busy with my own short movie I’d certainly like to join but I lack the experience necessary for a massively-ambitious project like this. Best of luck though, if you can pull it off you’ll be a genius of the highest order !
(By the way, Rhysy 2, I think X-Warrior said that the exodus is going to end up being pretty short.)
To begin with, similar projects have been attempted at least 2 or 3 times before, and suggested a huge amount of times. As far as I know the exodus is the only one that ever got anywhere and like I said I think they ended up deciding to make it short.
Secondly, you’d have to get the permission of the person who wrote the book and I don’t think that’s very likely. You’d be better off thinking up your own story.
Thirdly you’re ridiculously optimistic and also have no idea how you’re going to do this. “The best idea in blender history”, “might even win an oscar”, “I’ll let the first person who joins be the captain”.
I have to remind anyone with ambitions of making big projects that blender has certain technical limitations. It tends to really bog down when your vertices count starts to rise, so you have to keep your limited number of characters low poly and low res. Blender wasn’t designed for this sort of thing, it was designed mainly as a tool for a small animation house to do visualisations. Correct me if I’m wrong.
let me the first to say: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I don’t want to discourage you…but that’s what I was thinking about when I started the exodus…I was like: it will be a 1h30 movie that will rock it will be awesome and all…we are gonna be a big team that make awesome thing etc… you get the picture…and after alot of “problems” as a big team and also coordination problem…at first it was goign well…very well…but then some member lost motivation for unknow reason…dropped out of the team…we needed to cut thing…untill we completly had to remake the script cause it had become something way to big for a team of 4-5persons…so we end up with a 4-5min movie…
trust me, making a long movie with blender isn’t a good idea… well except if you want to do it for a living…by that I mean that you’ll work on that for like 3years…each day…with your team doing the same…then when it’s finish you will hope to get some success with it and that would be cool…but it’s almost impossible…I didn,t read the ringworld so I don’t know…but leading a team at distance is fuc**** difficult man…as I said it will go well at the beginning but as time goes it will become more and more difficult…
Motivating people on hope is pretty hard. Motivating people with a multimillion dollar budget is easier. I did a music video for my friend’s song, it took me three months of long hours of work for a 1 minute and 50 second song. I was so sick and burnt out from 3d animation afterwards that I had to take a long break. Now, I’m working on another music video and I’ve been working on it since June and nowhere near 1/4 done. So, like X said “turn it down a notch and do a short story instead”. Good luck just the same.
I don’t want to toatally crush any hopes here, dreaming is where george lucas got Star Wars.
But at 25 frames a second time 1 is 25 frames. 25 frames time 60 seconds is 1500 frames. 1500 frames times 60 minutes is 90,000 frames.
That was the number the exodus started out with. It dwindeled down to in just under 14 monthes (and an arse-load of unused models later), a whopping 6000 frames. That goal is still going down right now, we’ve got another 1500 frames or so to go.
But more power to you if you feel like walt disney, change the world.
But don’t do it by encouragin people to pirate a book off kazaa, and use that manuscript to make a movie (I assume) without permission.
I like Weirdhat. Very direct and honest.
Slow down for a second, though. I read the book,well…part of it, until I threw it into the pile that I donate to the used book store.
Did you ever think of asking the author for permission ?
Speaking of that the Quay Brothers did a film without waiting for the author’s clearance and couldn’t release a finished movie because they couldn’t get copyright clearance.
the man had a big idea, so what? why do you have to be so cruel? so it’s kindda impossible idea, but even so, great and once impossible things, were made possible only because they were first been thought of in the minds of people, who were many times called creazy, but they were the last to laugh!
Nothing wrong at all with big ideas…even if you never make more than a tenth of the thing it’s bound to be a good learning project for a blender user of any level.
But if you actually want it finished then yes, you’ll have to spend years on it, even with a team.
I’ve never seen any of your stuff…have you tried a 1ish minute short ? If not then you are foolish indeed to jump straight into a movie. If you have, and it was good, then in principle there’s nothing stopping you…all depends on your patience and determination.
From a blending point of view I suppose Ringworld’s quite a good choice because there are lots of different things to make and animate, which might help keep modeller’s interest up. But you’d still need a group of incredibly patient people - unless you can afford to pay them.
If the movie is commerical then you’ll definately need copyright permission, but what if it’s non-commercial ? Or I suppose you could just “base” it on Ringworld and make it different enough that you don’t violate copyright…“Loopworld”…“Mobius loopworld”…whatever. How you’d ever get it in the cinemas I don’t know.
Anyway if you really want to try it then best of luck to you, but don’t bother unless you know exactly what you’re getting yourself in for.
Making a feature length movie on Blender has one major drawback, the fact that Blender is updated so often and you want to include the latest shaders/lamp upgrades etc…
This usually means a lot of reworking of scenes.
I am currently single handedly working on a movie project of my own design, and was forced to decide that I would not create any scenes that could not render in under (or around) 1 minute per frame. This limits the detail and impact that the movie can have, but makes finishing it possible.
That is until I upgrade my computer again and discover that those 1 min frames now render in 30 s or so, and decide to make them better.
So now I have content for approx half the movie and scenes rendered for 14 mins.
Then I decide to make the movie widescreen, and retexture most of my models.
So finally at present I have 5mins widescreen renders, with intermediate scenes missing, a rough outline of story and direction, and 2gig of blends.
So far I have been working on this for about a year and a half on and off and have been blending since 1.80 whenever that came out.
My main redeming feature is tenacity, but beware, don’t go into this project without drive, which is why it is better to have your own idea rather than someone elses: it gives you the drive to continue with your vision regardless.
If this is something you want to do then go ahead, Blender won’t limit you if you have different blend files for different scenes, nad I have found nothing that would prevent the production of a feature length movie, as long as it was assembled in sections.
<quote=“QWERT”>Did you ever think of asking the author for permission ?</quote>
Yes, I did. But whats the point of asking him now, when I dont even have a team? It does appear most of you are unaware that this is a…ahem…team project, so therefore I will need a…team.
Now I know there must be someone else out there with less life than I have.
You all seem to forget that making a movie is not only a blender issue. A movie is made of a lot of separate jobs.
1)You have to know how to write a sctript. hum… I can hear you say:“well we just need to follow the book” No, you don’t just need to follow the book.
2)You have to find actors (good and free).
3)You have to know a little about the rules in movie making (as a director)
4)You have to know about editing.
5)You have to find someone to do the score…
Well there are loads of more… And all of those have to know what they are doing.
I’m talking from what I’ve experienced. It took me 2 years to direct my first live action movie(and it’s not finished yet… far from it). And… Hell! We were very few people to work on it: Three actors, one bodypainter and a jack of al trades. I had to do everything else on my own.
One last thing. my movie is 5 minutes long.
So forget about a long feature film. Doing a (good) short is incredibly hard. There is a huge gap between an animation with very few purpose and a good short feature film.
Regards.
I.S.
PS: I’m not trying to kill a dream. I’m just pulling the part of utopy away from the dream that is hidden underneath.
Making 3d movies requires VERY nice computers, say 2 gigs of ram and REALLY REALLY big hard drives. Seeing as the average blender user probably has 256 megs of ram and maybe 40 gig hard drives, it would be REALLY hard to make a movie with some good looking effects and characters.
Yes, I did. But whats the point of asking him now, when I dont even have a team? It does appear most of you are unaware that this is a…ahem…team project, so therefore I will need a…team.
That makes no sense. If you get people together to work on something and have some of it done, that wil most likely go to waste because the writer/publisher will probably not want to release any prerogitive for you to make the movie.
It lets everyone down, and all the work you’ve done goes to complete waste.
Try something small, maybe a couple of minutes, something that’s of your own imagination.
