The growth that I seeing of internet media and more accessible pipelines (digital) instead of film.
I am guessing that hollywood and Tv is in for big change in the next few years. And I think that blender could be apart of it. Movies are starting to be made with HD… Superman.
Youtube is growing as well as GoogleVideo. and other video sites. Mobile provider are starting to put those on phones.
Blender has new features that work great for special effects. Ok sure hollywood will still be making multimillion dollar movies that make three to four times their investment. And that is why hollywood can afford to hire ILM, Weta, and others that have 30,000+ in software.
This isnt Blenders area yet. Blender is flexible and changing and in the future maybe.
But for these other areas Blender is perfect. What do you think? Where is the industry going and how will Blender be apart of it? Or not?
I have a project that i’m secretly toiling away on that i hope to make known pretty soon, but the goals for me personally, for that project and what i’m aiming for overall, is to somehow shoehorn my way into that type of media. I really don’t see why blender couldn’t be used as a tool for high concept films and TV. The problem with doing a Pixar quality animation with Blender isn’t really a problem of the software, it’s one of the userbase being inexperienced to that sort of production and the skills needed to create really good animation. Some of it is really good, and some of the stuff coming down the road is looking like it will grab a bit of the CG animation spotlight for a while and maybe attract some more pro’s to give it a shot.
Another factor is the hardware end. Pixar used something like 5000 PC’s in a renderfarm for Cars. That’s about 4998 more PC’s than I have avaliable to me
But really something like that is more of a design challenge. How do you go about making something like Toy Story with one PC and Blender? You’d have to design the look and the technical aspects of the movie around the hardware / software. If pixar wanted to use Blender for one of their productions there’s no doubt in my mind that it would look a lot like their other films… maybe with fewer flashy technical perks, but it would still have the same gloss and polish their other stuff has. They would just apply that to areas where Blender is better suited for it.
If people REALLY want to push Blender forward as a production tool for animation… there really needs to be a strong focus on the animation / editing / cinematography skills of the userbase… the software is strong enough for that by far right now.
PS: sorry if i sound a little looney, i’m currently sufferning the worst flu/cold thing i’ve ever dealt with in my life and it may very well be damaging my sanity. That’s just the way i see it
EDIT: and i guess to answer your real question, I’d have to say that Blender will probably see the same growth in both the software and the userbase, and we’ll see more and more ambitious projects being made with it. There’s already one feature length film in production right now and there’s got to be some other features brewing in the heads of some of the userbase out there. So yeah, i just see a huge growth in Blender use in feature production… If you think about it, it’s the perfect Indy Film fodder… animated films, if you can do them with a small enough team, cost next to nothing compared to even a cheap live action film. The only difference is the time it takes to animate and render vs acting it out live and filming.
I agree… Here are some of the things that makes Over the Hedge/all big animation productions different.
The usually have tons of people work on them. Ever watch the credits at the end. And I would guess these guys were working on their part full time. Thats allot of man hours and expertise. And they hire people skilled in different areas(matte painters, modelers, animators, lighters, compositors, programmers) As well as having tons of computers to throw out at it. Its overwhelming. I want to make pixar quality here and now on my little laptop. I guess that is why I think simplify make it manageable and set short goals.
Yeah there is the render farms. But for a little money we can use things like respower(sp?) that is how I convinced myself I didnt need to build a super computer myself. I thought this dual core laptop for 750 was better than the 5000 quad core, if I could pay for render time when I needed.
I agree that knowledge of film making really is important. But there are resources out there for that. To me one of the best resources is right here this forum. The ablillity to post your work and get critism and encouragement.
I think that you’re concentrating on the wrong things. What makes animation really animation is that the audience believes that the things on screen are alive. This has infinitely more to do with good writing, talented animation, and exquisite editing than with any brute-force rendering stuff. Nemo wasn’'t a hit becaue people wanted to go see synthetic water, it was a hit for the affecting story line and the engaging characters. Engaging because they were labored over with love and care in the animation and voice-acting.
Blender might not be up there with Houdini and Renderman as far as massive dataset management and physics simulation, but it can do phenomenal animation if anyone cares to take the time. Most sole-proprietors or small animation houses will never need more than what Blender provides right now.
I agree that there is no subsitute for good story and acting(animating). I started writing about blender as a tool for the industry. I agree that what makes something good has allot to do with the artist. And I believe blender is a excellent tool in the right artists hands.
Maybe a great thread would be how can we as a blender community reach the next level of artistry?
For me I have bought some great books. Lighting & rendering by Jeremy Birn/[digital]Texturing & Painting by Owen Demers/ and 3d Short Film Production/as well the Complete Animation Course.
All four books are great… I feel like I am learning tons. And hope be post more and more as time permits.
There’s another book i’d recommend called “The Animator’s Survival Kit” by Richard Williams. It’s pretty much become the Bible for most animators I know. A ton of valuable information for every aspect of character animation. It’s geared towards 2D, but the same techniques are used mostly unchanged for 3D.
“CGI Filmmaking” by Timothy Albee is also a really good read. The way he wrote the book, i swear, i just wanted to hug him after i read it. Sometimes it comes off as almost an advertisement for his animated films, but the book is so happy and positive. He also goes into the 'CGI on a budget" problem, and the way he made the film (Ghost Warrior) which he talks about in that book shows some really clever ways he got around some of the technical limitations of making a detailed film with a couple of modest computers.
I have always found it weird that so many 3D books are geared towards specific software like Max or Maya or Lightwave. I mean… the names of some of the functions may be different, but you’d think that the people buying a book about advanced character rigging and animation techniques wouldn’t need their hand held when it came to ‘click the extrude button’ and all that crap…
