Project Decision

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

Choices, choices, choices.

I want to do something in Blender, but I have no idea of what I should do first. I want to start off with something cool and a little challenging. (Before you say anything, yes, actually starting & FINSIHING a project is challenging in itself, so that’s done already.)

So, what do you think I should do?

The choices are:

Mystery Project: A project I haven’t announced here in interest of keeping it a secret until it gets released
ODDpar: An audience-participation series
AP1538: An online anthology series
InfiniGame (working title): A game that you can play multiple times and not see the same exact things every time
War Game (working title): An RTS that changes to adapt to what the player would like to do
Twilight Zone The Game: A game in the spirit of “The Twilight Zone”
Amensiac Game (working title): A game that changes, but the story stays the same pretty much
Plotless Film: A self-explanatory feature film
BlendScript: A scripting language that reduces time spent on making movies and games (if I learn C well enough to do it)
Or, just “Choose It Yourself!”

Choose quickly, because you really only have 5 days to do it.

2

Just what exactly do you mean by that blend script option? It sure sounds intriguing, if it’s possible. How about some more details on the first couple of projects. Those are the one’s I’d go with. I’m not a big fan of the game portion of Blender.

Goo

3

I vote “Learn C++ First”

4

I’ll second that juste for the fun, and I’ll add “post in the right forum” as a useful hobby.

Martin

5

Have you finished (or even started) the project ‘Take a girl out and have some fun’?

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6

Nope… I’m not sociable enough. Heh. I always think of this one girl, but I’m never thinking of asking her out. (No, her name’s not “April.” She’s not that girl, either. :stuck_out_tongue: ) Also, I might be a paranoid pervert, but do I sense innuendo in the last three words? :stuck_out_tongue: I’m only 13, you know!

As to Goo:

The Mystery Project: It’s a highly experimental little short, and maybe (if I’m not too lazy) a longer film.
ODDpar: Robots invade an unnamed country. The audience e-mails me about what they’d want to see happen, replies to polls that show me what plot will occur, and I keep in bizarre (REALLY bizarre, BTW) twist endings.
AP1538: Being a huge anthology fan, I came up with this idea in 2001. It’s an online anthology series with topics ranging from time travel to immortatlity to fear.
Plotless Film: The title says it all.
BlendScript: You write the script, position the models, and they do things for the short.

BTW: InfiniGame & possibly the RTS game wouldn’t be in the Game Engine. They’d be too hard. TZ and possibly the Amnesiac game would be GE projects… and hopefully they’d push the limits of the GE’s story-telling abilities.

PS: Theeth & VK, I’d try but do you have any names of books that teach graphical C to newbies? I’d need it.

7

No offence Cube, but what exactly is the extent of your work so far? I’m sure you’ve done stills, maybe a few few-second animations, but I’m not really sure.

Anyhow… first off, don’t start any of the ones where you need to learn to program first. Programming is an incredible skill to have, but there are two problems. First, If you learn to program just so you can do a specific project, you’re not likely to learn correctly. Perhaps you may really be trying to learn to program, and not just for that project, but you’re going to have problems. You’ll likely skip over important things you don’t think you’ll need for that task, and likely try to skip to far ahead to thinks you think you’ll need. Basically, make “learning to program” a completely seperate project on it’s own, and throw all your proposed programming projects aside. If you do this, you’ll be much more likely to have fun writing all the little programs as you learn (just like “Hello World” is usually the first). The other problem is that you’ll get frustrated along the way, because you’re never working on that programming project you had decided on. So basically, pick a different project for Blender, but learn to program as well, at the same time.

Not back to what I said before… exactly how broad is your Blendering experience? You are talking about massive projects. Feature films and multi-hour series.

If you have never done this, then this is my suggestion for what you should do… 5-10 minute animated shorts. You’d be amazed how much you can get across and how much enjoyment a viewer can have from such a short film. Consider the BMW films. Have you seen them? Those things are awesome and riveting. Perhaps you can do something like this. Pick a topic (like the BMW series uses the car), and write 1-3 scripts, then pick one and do it. If you liked doing it and it came out well, or you liked doing it and think you can do better, then do another one. Perhaps you can get a couple done for next years Siggraph.

You can’t go from bottom to top overnight. If you’ve never done any large project, you shouldn’t start with the biggest most impressive thing you can think of. You have to work yourself up. I imagine a 5-10 minute short in Blender is a lot of work, so it’s not something that should make you think “yeah… that’ll take about a week, what next?” It’s also something that would be easier to tackle. Finally, it will give you some of the experience you’ll need before tackling some of the massive projects you’ve mentioned. Another think you should consider doing is helping some of the projects going on now. Texturing, modeling, rigging, whatever… it will definitely help you grasp the scope of these large projects (and if you don’t think you have the skill yet to help out, then you definitely should focus on smaller more manageable projects).

Good luck either way.
Imp

8

I like plotless films… made a few myself… so that’s got my vote…

plotless films are easier to do - just slap a lot of random stuff together and call it a complete project… :wink:

9

Hrm… didn’t know there was a special “graphical C/C++”. Basically… START AT THE BEGINNING!!! You need to learn C++ before you learn to manipulate graphics with C++. If it were really so seperated, how goofy would you feal realizing you just build a graphics engine for your game, but now you can’t even program the simple physics, hehe.

Imp

10

Dang cube, you have more projects going than I do!, That list is a little overwhelming, even to me and I’m more than twice your age. I’d suggest writing all those ideas down on paper, putting it in a drawer and doing something smaller and less intimidating. Try making some characters, goof around with making them move. You have plenty of time to do huge things in blender, you don’t have to do it all at once.

(yet more profound advice from the forum mommy :smiley: )

11

I’d like to throw in the following…

learn the programming first

when thats done, all will become clear

it has been said that learning c++ is like eating an elephant, there’s alot to eat, so take small bites

cheers %|

lilo

12

I’d like to throw in the following…

learn the programming first

when thats done, all will become clear

it has been said that learning c++ is like eating an elephant, there’s alot to eat, so take small bites

cheers %|

lilo

13

Dude, take it from me, you’ve just got to pick something and start working on it. I’m in the same boat with you, so I’m coming from experience. You will never finish anything if you can’t even decide for yourself where to start.

I have all kinds of projects I’ve begun and abandoned, but you have to remember, you need to get something done. One not so good finished project is better than a hundred imagined great, but unfinished, projects.

14

Cube, you must have patience. There’s no such thing as graphics programming in C++ for beginners.

15

Hrm… IMProvisar, you’re right, I should do something small first… but it’s not like I’d work on everything in the project at once. After all, I don’t have that many hands. :stuck_out_tongue: I’d start with something (i.e. the most complex scene I can think of, or in the serials the first episode), then if it works well, I move on to part 2 (something a little simpler, or the 2nd episode).

I have heard about “The Hire” shorts for BMW. I haven’t seen them, but I know some things about them: They were executive-produced by David Fincher (I think), big-name directors made them, and they all star this mysterious Driver guy. I know that one of them was directed by John Woo (Face/Off, Broken Arrow, Windtalkers). I know another was directed by Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch., Swept Away which won a few “Razzies” this year) and starred his wife Madonna as basically herself (an egotistical rock star).

I have these three small shorts I want to work on called “The Timothy Trilogy,” so called because the main characters are named Timothy (after one of my alter-egos). They basically deal with identity and duplication. The first is mostly dialogue, but I don’t know about the other two; I think they’re a mix of dialogue and a little action. (Yes, they’re kind of strange and thinky, but not overly, like most films I like. I’ll save that kind of thing for later in my life.) They might be a good place to start, but it seems kind of pretentious, especially since there’s very little obvious linking between the shorts (first it deals with the subconscious, then Internet duplication, and finally robots–all with characters named Timothy) and I’m assuming that people would download all three shorts. Most of my ideas are pretentious, though, so I don’t think it seems too far-off from myself.

I think I’ll go with the Mystery Project. Trust me, it’s not as pretentious (it’s kind of experimental, but not way too experimental–it borrows some from “Rope,” an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and adds a little bit onto that), and I think it would kind of display how strange I am (it’s kind of a comedy, which I’m not too too good at, but it’s mostly just weird humor, i.e. a picture from an old ultrasound, a car exploding from being on too long despite that it really wasn’t, etc., etc.). First, though, I should probably live life and watch a movie. Does anybody here know how good “A Hard Day’s Night” is? I got it yesterday from the library on DVD. (Let me guess: Theeth will tell me how good it is. Come on, he quotes some of the Beatles in his sigs!)

Speaking of which,

That’s the SECOND time I’ve heard that on this forum, and both were directed at ME! Where would be a good place?

16

It’s a nice movie, but don’t hope for a chef d’oeuvre either.
It’s also good if you dig english humor :smiley:

I liked Yellow Submarine better though, but that’s very arguable.

That’s the SECOND time I’ve heard that on this forum, and both were directed at ME! Where would be a good place?[/quote]
How does “in the Off Topic” suits you?
not that it’s not related to Blender, but by the number of times you ask us about your projects, it’s really bordering on the off topic chattering.
Anyway, it always turns off topic after a while, so it would save us the trouble of moving the thread :stuck_out_tongue:

Martin

17

Cube, how many other forums do you post on?

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