Indiana Jones meets Minecraft

[Martin_Schurig]

Hey there and welcome to my work in progress thread for my new short film. As you might have guest it is an short Minecraft animation. I am going to recreate the famous scene from the Raiders of the Lost Ark, let´s call it the Golden Idol and Boulder Scene, where Indy runs from a giant boulder. But as you know everything in Minecraft is a cube so that could get interesting.

This is the original clip straight out of the movie:

Edit: If you want a more final version of the script, to get an overview of the project and where it is heading, just go down a few posts.

So first of all here is my first version of my script:

Indiana Jones meets Minecraft

Comment for you:

First of all a huge thank you for downloading this script and showing interest in my project.
Every feedback is more than welcome especially critic! Before I wish you fun reading my
short story let me give you a word of warning. I’m not a screen writer, meaning I didn’t
follow any of their rules for the format of the script and so one. So if you are one please
don’t be offended by this. This was purely written to outline the story for myself. Secondly I
not a native speaking English person so you might find a few mistakes. Now with no more
distracting words by me have fun reading.

Fade in

Everything is set in the wonderful cubic world of Minecraft.
The scene is set in a dark, old Maya temple. It is clear that no one has stepped inside this
place for decades. Even looking back a few 100 years no one has seen these stones. Slowly,
very slowly Indiana Jones starts moving away from the door he entered, carefully choosing,
where every of his steps meat the ground.
Suddenly he freezes in the middle of his movement. His left foot just inches over a tripwire.
His eyes follow the wire to the left, then to the right. On both sides there are dispenser
hooked up to them. Now he knows for sure. His next step could be his last.
Carefully but quickly he moves through this field of death. Always keeping one eye on his
target, a gold figure in the center of the room.
Reaching his destination he takes a close look at this priceless treasure. But what caches his
attention is not the bright, sparkling gold or the amazing craftsmanship that went into
manufacturing this magnificent peace of art. It is the contraption it is sitting on top of.
He slowly reaches into his pockets pulling out some cubes of sand. He takes a look at them,
dropping a few to the ground. Satisfied with the weight he carries on swapping them for
the idol. The look on his face shows the pressure he is under. After a moment of not knowing
if his plan has worked or not, a big smile appears on his face. Satisfied with his work he
turns around.

While turning his arm comes dangerously close to the sand. Then there is the typical sound
of picking up items in Minecraft (that even happens if you do not thouch them). The
satisfaction on his face changes to pure fear.

or

After this second of happiness the cubes of sand slowly, than faster and faster start
to sink into the ground, triggering the traps. All of them. (this is closer to the original
scene, can be used if the accidental pic up of the items is to confusing, not
understood by the audience)

[the following chase scene starts with some mid to wide angel shoot and gets more closer to
Indi as it continues]Now that the traps are triggered there is no need to be careful. After a
second of standing frozen in the room Indi starts running towards the exit as fast as humanly
possible, dogging one deadly projectile after the other.
In slow motion we see how an arrow flies in front of him. Indi follows it with his eyes while
leaning backwards. After this there is a short while of Indi running in close up, now one wide
angel shoot, showing the whole row of traps. And we see Indi jumping up and down while
running forward (as it is done in the game to move faster).
Now that he reaches the door he quickly squeezes through the closing door.

In the next room there is a big gap. Indi uses his wipe to get over it. He wraps it around a big
piece of wood at the top of the ceiling, than he uses it to swing to the other side. He lands
right on the edge of the cliff. Behind him everything is falling apart. Now he slowly starts to
think the worst is behind him and walks through an archway. Missing one final tripwire.
Behind him a loud rumbling noise is getting closer. He starts running. A big bolder appears
behind him. Indi tries to jump to the side, covering his head. Hiding behind some rocks, he
is waiting for the impact of the boulder. This bolder is, as everything in Minecraft, square.
Meaning it tumbles once, slides a few feet, than quickly comes to a complete stop.
First opening one eye, than the other one Indi looks around and is very surprised to see the
result of this final trap. Then he just shrugs his shoulders and turns around walking into a
bright light, his way out. In one hand casually throwing the artifact up and down while he
whistles the Indiana Jones them song.

Fade out.

written by Martin Schurig

But for my first post I want to give you more than just a long text so here are two pictures, but this are far from done so don’t judge them too hard, but obviously I am very interested in your opinions so bring them on, especially if you don´t like something.

and I know that the hat is missing. I am working on it

[Martin_Schurig]

But I don´t only want to give still images to you, especially because I am working on an animation. So here is my first walking cycle test.

And I know it isn’t great. But I can outline one point with it, I am not an animator my strength are modeling and lighting, so there is some hard work in front of me but I really enjoy the animation process and it is always great fun trying new things.

[Martin_Schurig]

I continued playing around with the rig. Here are some facial animations I done. Some did not turn out the way I planned them but I thought I share all of them.

[Martin_Schurig]

Here comes an updated version of the script. I made a few decisions, divided it into scenes and completely rewrote scene 2.

Indiana Jones meets Minecraft

This short film recreates the famous chase scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark (Golden Idol
and Boulder Scene) in the wonderful cubic world of Minecraft.

Fade in

Scene 1:

The scene is set in a dark, old Maya temple. It is clear that no one has stepped inside this
place for decades. Even looking back a few 100 years no one has seen these stones. Slowly,
very slowly Indiana Jones starts moving away from the door he entered, carefully choosing,
where every of his steps meat the ground.
Suddenly he freezes in the middle of his movement. His left foot just inches over a tripwir.
His eyes follow the wire to the left, then to the right. On both sides there are dispenser
hooked up to them. Now he knows for sure. His next step could be his last.
Carefully but quickly he moves through this field of death. Always keeping one eye on his
target, a gold figure in the center of the room.
Reaching his destination he takes a close look at this priceless treasure. But what caches his
attention is not the bright, sparkling gold or the amazing craftsmanship that went into
manufacturing this magnificent peace of art. It is the contraption it is sitting on top of.
He slowly reaches into his pockets pulling out some cubes of sand. He takes a look at them,
dropping a few to the ground. Satisfied with the weight he carries on swapping them for
the idol. The look on his face shows the pressure he is under. After a moment of not knowing
if his plan has worked or not, a big smile appears on his face. Satisfied with his work he
turns around.
After this second of happiness the cubes of sand slowly, than faster and faster start
to sink into the ground, triggering the traps. All of them.
[the following chase scene starts with some mid to wide angel shoot and gets more closer to
Indy as it continues]
Now that the traps are triggered there is no need to be careful. After a second of standing
frozen in the room Indy starts running towards the exit as fast as humanly possible, dogging
one deadly projectile after the other.
In slow motion we see how an arrow flies in front of him. Indi follows it with his eyes while
leaning backwards. After this there is a short while of Indi running in close up, now one wide
angel shoot, showing the whole row of traps. And we see Indi jumping up and down while
running forward (as it is done in the game to move faster).
Now that he reaches the door he quickly squeezes through before it closes.

Scene 2:

We see Indy running down a long narrow hallway. Behind him the sealing starts to come
down. Suddenly he stops. In front of him there is a big gape in the middle of the ground. He
quickly realizes it is too far to jump it. Only having seconds to decide what to do, he takes his
whip and raps it around a wooden beam near the sealing. Now he uses it to swing across.
Landing close to the edge but still safely on the other side. We see everything collapsing
behind him. But he has no time to catch his breath, because in front of him a door is quickly
closing. Step by step it is lowered from the sealing. The sound of the pistons pushing it are
very clear to hear. He rushes to the door but instead of squeezing through he uses two
blocks of obsidian to stop the piston powered contraption and without any time pressure he
walks through the door. Missing one final tripwire.

Scene 3:

Behind him a loud rumbling noise is getting closer. He starts running. A big bolder appears
behind him. Indy tries to jump to the side, covering his head. Hiding behind some rocks, he
is waiting for the impact of the boulder. This bolder is, as everything in Minecraft, square.
Meaning it tumbles once, slides a few feet, than quickly comes to a complete stop.
First opening one eye, than the other one Indi looks around and is very surprised to see the
result of this final trap. Then he just shrugs his shoulders and turns around walking into a
bright light, his way out. In one hand casually throwing the artifact up and down while he
whistles the Indiana Jones them song.

Fade out.

written by Martin Schurig

[JavaLodge]

This is looking really good. You’ve really captured the Minecraft look. This is just my opinion, but the hole in the character’s hands seems pretty out of place. It’s not there in Minecract, so why here? I do really like how you’ve added the suggestion of a thumb on the hands. Maybe instead of just a hole where the hand is you can have it opened totally on one side, sort of like a Lego minifigure.

That being said, I think this is your chance to branch out from the aesthetic of Minecraft. You mentioned it being difficult to make a spherical boulder since everything will be cubes. Make it an approximation of a sphere using only cubes. Try to get creative in how you make your scenes, since you’re not limited by what Minecraft actually displays. You’ve already done so with the walkcycle, where Steve’s knees and elbows bend, even though they don’t in the game. Just my two cents. Good luck!

[Martin_Schurig]

@JavaLodge
First of thanks for your input. The thing with his hand can be changed I have a version with his “normal” arm, as in game and this one where every finger can be individually moved. In this picture he is making a fist with his hand creating the hole. But you are right in this pose his hands seem kinda weird.

normal hand (as ingame):

individual fingers:

And yes creating a sphere using only cubs is kinda hard, so I am not doing that. I think it is more fun to make the boulder totally square making the chase scene less dangerous but way more funny (at least that’s what I am hoping)

Edit: I am not quite sure why this last attachment showed up. I thought I deleted it but apparently not and I have no idea how to get ride of it so enjoy one more picture of Steve´s hand

Attachments

[Martin_Schurig]

Here is my next update. This time it is more progress in the modelling section I finish modeling the set for scene 1 and by the way the image you saw in the first post was scene 2 (not completed yet). So one and a half senses to go, at least modeling wise, and than “only” a big part of the animation has to be done and finish

And by the way I am going to replace the gold cube with a model of the idol, so not quite done jet.

[Martin_Schurig]

A quick update: Finished modeling of scene 2

[Martin_Schurig]

A little look behind the scenes:

[Martin_Schurig]

Finished modeling scene 3:

[JavaLodge]

This is looking quite good. You have really captured the feel of the game.

[Martin_Schurig]

@JavaLodge
Thanks man Glad you like it.

[Martin_Schurig]

Everything is almost done! At least modelling wise. The only big thing that is missing is the golden idol itself. I would love to show you the finished model, but I can’t. Because I have run into some trouble with it. I have a “normal” 3d model of the idol and working right now to turn it into something, that looks like it belongs into Minecraft. That is harder than I thought. Does anyone know if there is a way to automatically replace a 3d mesh with other 3d objects ? (In this case the idol with a lots of small golden cubs). Haven’t found anything online about it.

The golden idol… Or, you know, gray idol in this case

And one of my not so successful attempts on replacing it with cubs

[JavaLodge]

It’s been a long time since I’ve tried something like this, but look into using the base mesh for the ‘real’ model as a particle system which uses cubes as particles. You should be able to get something that gets the point across, but the cubes probably wouldn’t fit together exactly like they would in Minecraft.

[rubenseek]

Uhm the easiest way would be to use the “remesh - modifier”.
turn Mode to “blocks” and then tweak the octree depth and scale.

Cool project btw.

[Martin_Schurig]

@JavaLodge and rubenseek

Thanks for the quick help. I am going to try both ways and let´s see which one gives the better end result.

[Martin_Schurig]

hey there I made some progress modeling the idol. I ended up using the remesh-modifier, because as JavaLodge said the arrangement of the cubes wasn’t quite perfect using the particle system(or at least I didn’t managed to get it there). I made some different model with different resolutions. Let me know which one you prefer higher or lower resolution

[Martin_Schurig]

While I was thinking about witch model I wanted to choose it all came down to this. How close do I want to stay to the in game graphics, when creating a new object? That made me think, in which other parts I am also not completely true to the game and why.
I started with referencing the real world, or you know not so real in this chase, to get a feel for it and how it should look. Then I moved on to Pop culture, to know what other people done with Mincraft animations and to know what people are expecting and one what I can build my one style. So that’s led to a few changes.
As far as I see it there are 3 big areas that I changed up compared to Minecraft: character (model+animation), 3D object (that are only 2d in game) and lighting.

1.Character(model+animation)

Why did I change this?
That is easily explained. I wanted to have more control, especially for facial animations. So the character can express feelings and have better movements and overall give me something better to work with.
This is the area that is most different to the game and so most obvious, that why I emphasis it in the end of scene 1, to show how fare it is from the actual game.

2.3D objects

Why did I change this?
Before you say it, yes these can be implemented into the game, buy using resource packs, but they are not in the vanilla game. It is really done, because of the rendering problems in real time. But cycles is far from real time as we know so the few extra seconds I don´t really mind. But I think these really nicely lift the visuals of this short.

3. Lighting

Why did I change this?
The in game lighting is pretty flat and too bright, meaning you can see everything really nicely, which is great for a game where you want to see every book you place. But I opted for a more higher contrast lighting, because I find it more interesting and I can use it so direct the attention of the viewers, where I want it to.

As comparison, scene 1 in Minecraft

Edit:
And by the way I am pretty sure I am going to choose the left model.